Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Evil is like water, it abounds, is cheap, soon fouls, but runs itself clear of taint.
The youth of an art is, like the youth of anything else, its most interesting period.
Sensible people get the greater part of their own dying done during their own lifetime
The Ancient Mariner would not have taken so well if it had been called The Old Sailor.
Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.
There is nothing so unthinkable as thought, unless it be the entire absence of thought.
Man, unlike the animals, has never learned that the sole purpose of life is to enjoy it.
Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
Books are like imprisoned souls till someone takes them down from a shelf and frees them.
From a worldly point of view, there is no mistake so great as that of being always right.
Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.
The only living works are those which have drained much of the author's own life into them.
If you follow reason far enough it always leads to conclusions that are contrary to reason.
The healthy stomach is nothing if it is not conservative. Few radicals have good digestions.
The history of the world is the record of the weakness, frailty and death of public opinion.
If a man knows not life which he hath seen, how shall he know death, which he hath not seen?
Young people have a marvelous faculty of either dying or adapting themselves to circumstances.
Men should not try to overstrain their goodness more than any other faculty, bodily or mental.
If I die prematurely at any rate I shall be saved from being bored to death by my own success.
Arguments are like fire-arms which a man may keep at home but should not carry about with him.
Justice is my being allowed to do whatever I like. Injustice is whatever prevents my doing so.
The one serious conviction that a man should have is that nothing is to be taken too seriously.
Since God himself cannot change the past, He is obliged to tolerate the existence of historians.
How often do we not see children ruined through the virtues, real or supposed, of their parents?
When you have told anyone you have left him a legacy, the only decent thing to do is die at once.
All philosophies, if you ride them home, are nonsense, but some are greater nonsense than others.
[P]oetry resembles metaphysics: one does not mind one's own, but one does not like anyone else's.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but a little want of knowledge is also a dangerous thing.
There are more fools than knaves in the world, else the knaves would not have enough to live upon.
A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner, but more durable alloy.
There is a photographer in every bush, going about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.
Genius might be described as a supreme capacity for getting its possessors into trouble of all kinds
When you've told someone that you've left them a legacy the only decent thing to do is to die at once.
We all love best not those who offend us least, but those who make it most easy for us to forgive them.
I never knew a writer yet who took the smallest pains with his style and was at the same time readable.
It has been said that the love of money is the root of all evil. The want of money is so quite as truly.
The dons of Oxford and Cambridge are too busy educating the young men to be able to teach them anything.
My main wish is to get my books into other people's rooms, and to keep other people's books out of mine.
I believe that he was really sorry that people would not believe he was sorry that he was not more sorry.
What is faith but a kind of betting or speculation after all? It should be, I bet that my Redeemer liveth.
The dead should be judged like criminals, impartially, but they should be allowed the benefit of the doubt.
People care more about being thought to have taste than about being thought either good, clever or amiable.
To die completely, a person must not only forget but be forgotten, and he who is not forgotten is not dead.
To himself everyone is immortal; he may know that he is going to die, but he can never know that he is dead.
Academic and aristocratic people live in such an uncommon atmosphere that common sense can rarely reach them.
All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income.
They say the test of literary power is whether a man can write an inscription. I say, "Can he name a kitten?"
They say the test of literary power is whether a man can write an inscription. I say, 'Can he name a kitten?'
One of the first businesses of a sensible man is to know when he is beaten, and to leave off fighting at once.
No mistake is more common and more fatuous than appealing to logic in cases which are beyond her jurisdiction.