- Classic
Quotations
-
- The following collection features
famous quotations from prominent writers,
artists, politicians, scientists and philosophers (sorted alphabetically
by
author's name).
"Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
Lord Acton
"Change in all things is sweet."
Aristotle
"Man is by nature a political animal."
Aristotle
"Education is the best provision for old age."
Aristotle
"There was never a genius without a tincture of madness."
Aristotle
"Without friends no one would choose to live, though he
had all other goods."
Aristotle
"Anyone can become ANGRY. That is easy. But to be angry
with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time,
for the right purpose and in the right way - that is not easy."
Aristotle
"Resolve to find thyself; and to know that he who finds
himself, loses his misery."
- Matthew Arnold
"Appearances often are deceiving."
Aesop
"A thing is not necessarily true because badly uttered,
nor false because spoken magnificently."
St. Augustine
"There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do
is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays
itself."
Johann Sebastian Bach
"Silence is the virtue of fools."
Francis Bacon
"The remedy is worse than the disease."
Francis Bacon
"We cannot command nature except by obeying her."
Francis Bacon
"A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds."
Francis Bacon
"Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what
he is not;
a sense of humor to console him for what he is."
Francis Bacon
"There's a sucker born every minute."
Phineas Taylor Barnum
"I have my faults, but changing my tune is not one of them."
Samuel Beckett
"When one door closes another door opens; but we so often
look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we
do not see the ones which open for us."
Alexander Graham Bell
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for
good men to do nothing."
Edmund Burke
"The more I study religions the more I am convinced that
man never worshipped anything but himself."
Sir Richard Burton
"The end justifies the means."
Hermann Busenbaum
"Life is not an exact science, it is an art."
Samuel Butler
"Veni, vidi, vici."
(I came, I saw, I conquered.)
Julius Caesar
"Nothing that was worthy in the past departs; no truth or
goodness
realized by man ever dies, or can die."
Thomas Carlyle
"Love not what you are, but what you may become."
Miguel de Cervantes
"Too much sanity may be madness. And maddest of all, to
see life as it is and not as it should be!"
Miguel de Cervantes
"Learning is acquired by reading books; but the much more
necessary learning, the knowledge of the world, is only to be
acquired by reading man, and studying all the various editions
of them."
Lord Chesterfield
"The empires of the future are the empires of the mind."
Winston Churchill
"I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat."
Winston Churchill
"Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by
so many to so few."
Winston Churchill
"Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty, and so bear
ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth lasts
for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest
hour.' "
Winston Churchill
"We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We
shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and the oceans,
we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in
the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be.
We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing
grounds,
we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight
in the hills; we shall never surrender."
Winston Churchill
Vivere est cogitare.
(To think is to live)
Marcus Tullius Cicero
"A room without books is like a body without a soul."
Marcus Tullius Cicero
"In nothing do men approach so nearly to the gods as in
doing good to men."
Marcus Tullius Cicero
"If we don't know life, how can we know death?"
Confucius
"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance."
Confucius
"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising
every time we fall."
Confucius
"Without knowing the force of words, it is impossible to
know men."
Confucius
"I've never been hurt by anything I didn't say."
Calvin Coolidge
"The mind of man is capable of anything - because everything
is in
it, all the past as well as all the future."
Joseph Conrad
"The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary;
men alone are quite capable of every wickedness."
Joseph Conrad
"He who stops being better stops being good."
Oliver Cromwell
"What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night.
It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little
shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset."
Crowfoot (Sahpo Muxika, c.1836-1890)
"Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate."
(Abandon all hope, you who enter)
Alighieri Dante
"Animals, whom we have made our slaves, we do not like to
consider our equal."
Charles Darwin
"I have called this principle, by which each slight variation,
if useful, is preserved, by the term of Natural Selection."
Charles Darwin
"The best of men cannot suspend their fate: The good die
early, and the bad die late."
Daniel Defoe
"Cogito, ergo, sum."
(I think; therefore I am.)
Rene Descartes
"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever
done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever
known."
Charles Dickens
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it
was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was
the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was
the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the
spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything
before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct
to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way."
Charles Dickens - (A Tale of Two Cities)
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
Benjamin Disraeli
"What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expected
generally happens."
Benjamin Disraeli
"Man is not the creature of circumstances. Circumstances
are the creatures of men."
Benjamin Disraeli
"No man is an Island, entire of it self; every man is a
piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed
away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory
were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were;
any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind;
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It
tolls for thee."
John Donne
"The secret of man's being is not only to live but to have
something to live for."
Fedor Dostoevsky
"Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence
and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great
sadness on Earth."
Feodor Dostoevsky
"It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data."
Arthur Conan Doyle
"Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent
instantly recognizes genius."
Arthur Conan Doyle
"... when you have eliminated the impossible, that which
remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
"We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything."
Thomas Alva Edison
"To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk."
Thomas Alva Edison
"Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to
do doesn't mean it's useless."
Thomas Alva Edison
"Many of life's failures are people who did not realize
how close they were to success when they gave up."
Thomas Alva Edison
"Results! Why man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know
several thousand things that won't work"
Thomas Alva Edison
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed
in overalls and looks like work."
Thomas Alva Edison
"I am convinced that He (God) does not play dice."
Albert Einstein
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent
one."
Albert Einstein
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not
simpler."
Albert Einstein
"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything
new."
Albert Einstein
"Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition
from weak minds."
Albert Einstein
"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity
has its own reason for existing."
Albert Einstein
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity;
and I'm not sure about the the universe."
Albert Einstein
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom
this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder
and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed."
Albert Einstein
"Be and not seem."
Ralph Waldo Emerson
"A man is related to all nature."
Ralph Waldo Emerson
"The less government we have the better."
Ralph Waldo Emerson
"What is the hardest thing in the world? To think."
Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm"
Ralph Waldo Emerson
"This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but
know what to do with it."
Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible;
and suddenly you are doing the impossible."
St. Francis of Assisi
"Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot
change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom
to know the difference."
St. Francis of Assisi
"Remember that time is money"
Benjamin Franklin
"No nation was ever ruined by trade."
Benjamin Franklin
"Energy and persistence conquer all thing."
Benjamin Franklin
"In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except
death and taxes."
Benjamin Franklin
"There never was a good war, or a bad peace."
Benjamin Franklin
"Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain, and most
fools do."
Benjamin Franklin
"Be civil to all; sociable to many; familiar with few; friend
to one; enemy to none."
Benjamin Franklin
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin
"Think of these things, whence you came, where you are going,
and to whom you must account."
Benjamin Franklin
"What does a woman want."
Sigmund Freud
"Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise."
Sigmund Freud
"What a distressing contrast there is between the radiant
intelligence of the child and the feeble mentality of the average
adult."
Sigmund Freud
"Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from
its readiness to fit in with our instinctual wishful impulses."
Sigmund Freud
"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who
has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended
us to forgo their use."
Galileo Galilei
"It has always seemed to me extreme presumptuousness on
the part of those who want to make human ability the measure
of what nature can and knows how to do, since, when one comes
down to it, there is not one effect in nature, no matter how
small, that even the most speculative minds can fully understand."
Galileo Galilei
"The wind and the waves are always on the side of the ablest
navigators."
Edward Gibbon
"You cannot fight against the future, time is on our side."
William Gladstone
"When ideas fail, words come in very handy."
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
"What government is the best? That which teaches us to govern
ourselves."
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
"It is not enough to have knowledge, one must also apply
it. It is not enough to have wishes, one must also accomplish."
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
"We will either find a way or make one."
Hannibal
"The more we do, the more we can do."
William Hazlitt
"Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is
the only animal that is struck with the difference between what
things are and what they ought to be."
William Hazlitt
"What experience and history teach is this - that nations
and governments have never learned anything from history, or
acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it."
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
"I know not what course others may take, but as for me,
give me liberty, or give me death."
Patrick Henry
"In peace, sons bury their fathers; in war, fathers bury
their sons."
Herodotus
"The half is greater than the whole."
Hesiod
"Life is action and passion; therefore, it is required of
a man that he should share the passion and action of the time,
at peril of being judged not to have lived."
Oliver Wendell Holmes
"People can be divided into two classes: those who go ahead
and do something, and those who sit still and inquire, 'Why wasn't
it done the other way?'"
0liver Wendell Holmes
"Est modus in rebus."
(There is moderation in everything)
Horace
"Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero!"
(Seize the day, put no trust in the morrow!)
Horace
"Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call today his own;
He who secure within can say:
Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today."
Horace
"Forty is the old age of youth; fifty is the youth of old
age."
Victor Hugo
"There is one thing stronger than all the armies of the
world, and that is an idea whose time has come."
Victor Hugo
"The strongest man on earth is he who stands most alone."
Henrik Ibsen.
"The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper."
Thomas Jefferson
"When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry,
an hundred."
Thomas Jefferson
"It is neither wealth nor splendor, but tranquility and
occupation, which give happiness."
Thomas Jefferson
"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."
Samuel Johnson
"The road to Hell is paved with good intentions."
Samuel Johnson
"I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages
are the pedigrees of nations."
Samuel Johnson
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves,
or we know where we can find information on it."
Samuel Johnson
"It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier
to be sometimes cheated than not to trust."
Samuel Johnson
"Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought; our brightest
blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks."
Samuel Johnson
"Few things are impossible to diligence and skill ... Great
works are performed, not by strength, but perseverence."
Samuel Johnson
"It is a most mortifying reflection for a man to consider
what he has done, compared to what he might have done."
Samuel Johnson
"I have not yet begun to fight."
John Paul Jones
"Two things only the people actually desire--bread and circuses."
Juvenal
"Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life."
Immanuel Kant
"The more things change, the more they are the same."
Alphonse Karr
"Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived
forward."
Siren Kierkegaard
"There is nothing with which every man is so afraid as getting
to know how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming."
Siren Kierkegaard
"Words are the most powerful drug used by mankind."
Rudyard Kipling
"The female of the species is more deadly than the male."
Rudyard Kipling
"We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single
excuse."
Rudyard Kipling
"Help yourself, and heaven will help you."
Jean de la Fontaine
"Noblesse oblige."
(Nobility has its obligations)
Duc de Levis
"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to
test a man's character, give him power."
Abraham Lincoln
"I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned
to know what his grandson will be."
Abraham Lincoln
"The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought
not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be
just."
Abraham Lincoln
"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak
out and remove all doubt."
Abraham Lincoln
"If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens,
you can never regain their respect and esteem. You may fool all
of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the
people all the time; but you
can't fool all of the people all of the time."
Abraham Lincoln
"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth
upon this continenta new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated
to the proposition that all men are created equal...We here highly
resolve that the dead shall not have died in vain, that this
nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that
government of the people, by the people, and for the people,
shall not perish from the earth."
Abraham Lincoln
"We fear things in proportion to our ignorance of them."
Titus Livius
"The scab is a traitor to his God, his mother, and his class."
Jack London
"Men are so simple and yield so readily to the desires of
the moment that he who will trick will always find another who
will suffer to be tricked."
Niccolo Machiavelli
"There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous
to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the
lead in the introduction of a new order to things."
Niccolo Machiavelli
"Religion...is the opium of the people."
Karl Marx
"From each according to his abilities, to each according
to his needs."
Karl Marx
"The class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship
of the proletariat."
Karl Marx
"It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in
imitation."
Herman Melville
"Lord, grant that I may always desire more than I accomplish."
Michelangelo
"Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be
so."
John Stuart Mill
"The worth of the state, in the long run, is the worth of
the individuals composing it."
John Stuart Mill
"The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised
over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is
to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral,
is not a sufficient warrant."
John Stuart Mill
"Better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven."
John Milton
"One should eat to live, and not live to eat."
Moliere
"The greatest thing in the world is to know how to be oneself."
Montaigne
"I prefer the company of peasants because they have not
been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly."
Montaigne
"When I play with my cat, who knows whether she isn't amusing
herself with me more than I am with her?"
Montaigne
"Let us permit nature to have her way. She understands her
business better than we do."
Montaigne
"This is adding insult to injuries."
Edward Moore
"An army marches on its stomach."
Napoleon
"There is only one step from the sublime to the ridiculous."
Napoleon
"If you wish to be a sucess in the world, promise everything,
deliver nothing."
Napoleon
"Kiss me, Hardy."
Horatio, Lord Nelson
"England expects that every man will do his duty."
Horatio, Lord Nelson
"No great discovery was ever made without a bold guess."
Sir Isaac Newton
"To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction."
Sir Isaac Newton
"If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was
standing on the shoulders of giants."
Sir Isaac Newton
"I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself
I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore,
and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or
a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth
lay all undiscovered before me."
Sir Isaac Newton
"Woman was God's second mistake."
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
"The last Christian died on the cross."
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
"Which is it, is man one of God's blunders or is God one
of man's?"
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
"There is not enough religion in the world to destroy the
world's religions."
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
"In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into
contact with reality at any point."
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
"The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad
has made the world ugly and bad."
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
"The best government is that which governs least."
John L O'Sullivan
"Chance favors only the prepared mind."
Louis Pasteur
"There are no such things as applied sciences, only applications
of science."
Louis Pasteur
"Things are not always what they seem."
Phaedrus
"...And yet the true creator is necessity, which is the
mother of invention."
Plato
"The life which is unexamined is not worth living."
Plato
"The beginning is the most important part of the work."
Plato
"As empty vessels make the loudest sound, so they that have
the least wit are the greatest blabbers."
Plato
"Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished
by being governed by those who are dumber."
Plato
"So as this only point among the rest remaineth sure and
certain, namely, that nothing is certain...."
Pliny The Elder
"To find fault is easy; to do better may be difficult."
Plutarch
"The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be
kindled."
Plutarch
"All that you see or seem, is but a dream within a dream."
Edgar Allen Poe
"They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which
escape those who dream only by night."
Edgar Allan Poe
"All the resources we need are in the mind."
Theodore Roosevelt
"No man is above the law and no man below it."
Theodore Roosevelt
"Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far."
Theodore Roosevelt
"No man is justified in doing evil on the ground of expedience."
Theodore Roosevelt
"In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is
the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing."
Theodore Roosevelt
"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious
triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank
with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer too much,
because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory
nor defeat."
Theodore Roosevelt
"To endure is the first thing that a child ought to learn,
and that which he will have the most need to know."
Jean Jacques Rousseau
"War does not determine who is right -- only who is left."
Bertrand Russell
"Most people would rather die than think; in fact, they
do so."
Bertrand Russell
"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge"
Bertrand Russell
"So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the
Gospels in praise of intelligence."
Bertrand Russell
"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure
and the intelligent are full of doubt."
Bertrand Russell
"Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion
now accepted was once eccentric."
Bertrand Russell
"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything
else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly."
Bertrand Russell
"'Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have
governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge,
and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind."
Bertrand Russell
"My country, right or wrong, to be kept right; and if wrong,
to be set right!"
Carl Schurz
"O what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to
deceive."
Sir Walter Scott
"It is the quality rather than the quantity that matters."
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
"All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely
players..."
William Shakespeare (As You Like It)
"Neither a borrower, nor a lender be."
William Shakespeare (Hamlet)
"This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man."
William Shakespeare (Hamlet)
"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark."
William Shakespeare (Hamlet)
"Murder most foul, as in the best it it;
But this most foul, strange, and unnatural."
William Shakespeare (Hamlet)
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
William Shakespeare (Hamlet)
"Brevity is the soul of wit."
William Shakespeare (Hamlet)
"Though this be madness, yet there is method in't."
William Shakespeare (Hamlet)
"What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! how infinite
in faculty!
- in form, in moving, how express and admirable!
in action, how like an angel!
in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the
paragon of
animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? man
delights not me;
no, nor woman neither, though, by your smiling, you seem to say
so."
William Shakespeare (Hamlet)
"To be, or not to be: That is the question:
Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and, by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause."
William Shakespeare (Hamlet)
"Get thee to a nunnery."
William Shakespeare (Hamlet)
"I must be cruel only to be kind."
William Shakespeare (Hamlet)
"Alas poor Yorick. I knew him Horatio..."
William Shakespeare (Hamlet)
"Now cracks a noble heart. Good-night sweet prince,
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest."
William Shakespeare (Hamlet)
"Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown."
William Shakespeare (Henry IV)
"Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead!"
William Shakespeare (Henry V)
"Beware the ides of March."
William Shakespeare (Julius Caesar)
"Et tu, Brute?"
William Shakespeare (Julius Caesar)
"Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones."
William Shakespeare (Julius Caesar)
"This was the most unkindest cut of all."
William Shakespeare (Julius Caesar)
"There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries."
William Shakespeare (Julius Caesar)
"Who is it that can tell me who I am?
William Shakespeare (King Lear)
"The wheel is come full circle."
William Shakespeare (King Lear)
"Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble."
William Shakespeare (Macbeth)
"By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes."
William Shakespeare (Macbeth)
"Out, damned spot!"
William Shakespeare (Macbeth)
"It is a wise father that knows his own child."
William Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice)
"Why, then the world's mine oyster,
Which I with sword will open."
William Shakespeare (The Merry Wives of Windsor)
"The course of true love never did run smooth."
William Shakespeare (A Midsummer Night's Dream)
"Now is the winter of our discontent
made glorious summer by this sun of York."
William Shakespeare (Richard III)
"A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!"
William Shakespeare (Richard III)
"O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?"
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
"What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
"Good-night, good-night! parting is such sweet sorrow
That I shall say good-night till it be morrow."
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
"A plague o' both your houses!"
William Shakespeare (Romeo and Juliet)
"If music be the food of love, play on..."
William Shakespeare (Twelfth Night)
"But be not afraid of greatness; some men are born great,
some achieve
greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them."
William Shakespeare (Twelfth Night)
"A fool and his words are soon parted."
William Shenstone
"By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you'll be happy.
If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher."
Socrates
"Time alone can prove a just man just, though you can know
a bad man in a day."
Sophocles
"Dr Livingstone, I presume?"
Sir Henry Morton Stanley
"A friend is a present you give yourself."
Robert Louis Stevenson
"Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with
others."
Robert Louis Stevenson
"To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of
becoming, is the only end of life"
- Robert Louis Stevenson
"May you live all the days of your life."
Jonathan Swift
"When a true genius appears in this world, you may know
him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against
him."
Jonathan Swift
"Fortis fortuna adiuvat."
(Fortune assists the brave)
Terence
"While there's life, there's hope."
Terence
"To reget deeply is to live afresh."
Henry David Thoreau
"The world is but a canvas to the imagination."
Henry David Thoreau
"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."
Henry David Thoreau
"Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around."
Henry David Thoreau
"I do not wish to kill nor to be killed, but I can foresee
circumstances in which these things would be by me unavoidable."
Henry David Thoreau
"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not
be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under
them."
Henry David Thoreau
"It takes two to speak truth - One to speak, and another
to hear."
Henry David Thoreau
"I have learned this at least by my experiment: that if
one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and
endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet
with a success unexpected in common hours."
Henry David Thoreau
"The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity."
Leo Tolstoy
"...the bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision
of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding
go out to meet it."
Thucydides
"Those who really deserve praise are the people who, while
human enough to enjoy power, nevertheless pay more attention
to justice than they are compelled to do by their situation."
Thucydides
"I have never let schooling interfere with my education."
Mark Twain
"Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after
tomorrow."
Mark Twain
"A classic is something that everybody wants to have read
and nobody wants to read."
Mark Twain
"The man who does not read good books is at no advantage
over the man who can't read them."
Mark Twain
"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions.
Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel
that you, too, can become great."
Mark Twain
"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous,
he will not bite you. It is the principal difference between
a dog and a man."
Mark Twain
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the
pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments
are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the
consent of the governed."
US Declaration of Independence
"How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is
something inside me, what can it be?"
Vincent Van Gogh
"Whatever one man is capable of conceiving, other men will
be able to achieve."
Jules Verne
"Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes
do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases,
it will have no power to hurt you. So in like manner you must
grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs, and they will
be powerless to vex your mind."
Leonardo da Vinci
"Audentis Fortuna iuvat."
(Fortune assists the bold)
Virgil
"Latet anguis in herba."
(There's a snake hidden in the grass)
Virgil
"To hold a pen is to be at war."
Voltaire
"All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds."
Voltaire
"If God didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent him."
Voltaire
"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd."
Voltaire
"Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers."
Voltaire
"God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to
laugh."
Voltaire
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the
death your right to say it."
Voltaire
"It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established
authorities are wrong."
Voltaire
"This world is a comedy for those who think but a tragedy
for those who feel."
Horace Walpole
"Publish and be damned."
Duke of Wellington
"Human history becomes more and more a race between education
and catastrophe."
H.G. Wells
"I have nothing to declare but my genius."
Oscar Wilde
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes."
Oscar Wilde
"Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught."
Oscar Wilde
"Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing."
Oscar Wilde
"Religion is the fashionable substitute for belief."
Oscar Wilde
"A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for
it."
Oscar Wilde
"Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes."
Oscar Wilde
"Truth, in the matters of religion, is simply the opinion
that has survived."
Oscar Wilde
"One should always be in love. That is the reason one should
never marry."
Oscar Wilde
"All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy.
No man does. That's his."
Oscar Wilde
"J'accuse."
(I accuse)
Emile Zola
Copyright: Kevin Harris
1995 (may be freely distributed with this acknowledgement)
