Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Christianity got over the difficulty of combining furious opposites, by keeping them both, and keeping them both furious.
There is a corollary to the conception of being too proud to fight. It is that the humble have to do most of the fighting.
Jesus promised his disciples three things—that they would be completely fearless, absurdly happy, and in constant trouble.
For the only courage worth calling courage must necessarily mean that the soul passes a breaking point and does not break.
Journalism is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one world, and life seen in the newspapers is another.
Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all.
Imagination does not breed insanity. Exactly what does breed insanity is reason. Poets do not go mad, but chess players do.
I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.
One must somehow find a way of loving the world without trusting it; somehow one must love the world without being worldly.
You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution.
Democracy is reproached with saying that the majority is always right. But progress says that the minority is always right.
The home is not the one tame place in the world of adventure. It is the one wild place in the world of rules and set tasks.
It is often a mistake to combine two pleasures, because pleasures, like pains, can act as counter-irri-tants to each other.
The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.
I believe in preaching to the converted; for I have generally found that the converted do not understand their own religion.
What life and death may be to a turkey is not my business; but the soul of Scrooge and the body of Cratchit are my business.
Cleanliness is not next to godliness nowadays, for cleanliness is made an essential and godliness is regarded as an offence.
The truth is that it is our attitude towards children that is right, and our attitude towards grown-up people that is wrong.
The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people.
What people call impartiality may simply mean indifference, and what people call partiality may simply mean mental activity.
Science in the modern world has many uses; its chief use, however, is to provide long words to cover the errors of the rich.
I did try to found a little heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy.
As regards moral courage, then, it is not so much that the public schools support it feebly, as that they suppress it firmly.
Every work of art has one indispensable mark ... the center of it is simple, however much the fulfillment may be complicated.
I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.
I tell you naught for your comfort, Yea, naught for your desire, Save that the sky grows darker yet And the sea rises higher.
One of the chief uses of religion is that it makes us remember our coming from darkness, the simple fact that we are created.
Ten thousand women marched through the streets shouting, 'We will not be dictated to,' and went off and became stenographers.
Large organization is loose organization. Nay, it would be almost as true to say that organization is always disorganization.
Where does a wise man hide a leaf? In the forest. But what does he do if there is no forest? He grows a forest to hide it in.
There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and the tired man who wants a book to read.
Truth must necessarily be stranger than fiction, for fiction is the creation of the human mind and therefore congenial to it.
It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong.
No man must be superior to the things that are common to men.... Not only are we all in the same boat, but we are all seasick.
There are no wise few. Every aristocracy that has ever existed has behaved, in all essential points, exactly like a small mob.
It is very good for a man to talk about what he does not understand; as long as he understands that he does not understand it.
He wondered why the pelican was the symbol of charity, except it was that it wanted a good deal of charity to admire a pelican.
Christmas is built upon a beautiful and intentional paradox; that the birth of the homeless should be celebrated in every home.
The rolling stone rolls echoing from rock to rock; but the rolling stone is dead. The moss is silent because the moss is alive.
All architecture is great architecture after sunset; perhaps architecture is really a nocturnal art, like the art of fireworks.
Every true artist feels that he is touching transcendental truths; that his images are shadows of things seen through the veil.
In truth, there are only two kinds of people; those who accept dogma and know it, and those who accept dogma and don't know it.
In the struggle for existence, it is only on those who hang on for ten minutes after all is hopeless, that hope begins to dawn.
If you attempt an actual argument with a modern paper of opposite politics, you will have no answer except slanging or silence.
With all that we hear of American hustle and hurry, it is rather strange that Americans seem to like to linger on longer words.
Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable.
None of the modern machines, none of the modern paraphernalia. . . have any power except over the people who choose to use them.
How much happier you would be, how much more of you there would be, if the hammer of a higher God could smash your small cosmos.
It was not the house that grew dull, but I that grew dull in it. My wife was better than all women, and yet I could not feel it.
The man who kills a man kills a man. The man who kills himself kills all men. As far as he is concerned, he wipes out the world.