Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Power dements even more than it corrupts, lowering the guard of foresight and raising the haste of action.
It came to me that reform should begin at home, and since that day I have not had time to remake the world.
One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say.
Most of us spend too much time on the last twenty-four hours and too little on the last six thousand years.
Civilizations come and go; they conquer the earth and crumble into dust; but faith survives every desolation.
Every vice was once a virtue, and may become respectable again, just as hatred becomes respectable in wartime.
It is one of the most culpable oversights of nature that virtue and beauty so often come in separate packages.
by and large the poor have the same impulses as the rich, with only less opportunity or skill to implement them
Tired mothers find that spanking takes less time than reasoning and penetrates sooner to the seat of the memory.
Sixty years ago I knew everything. Now I know nothing. Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes rather than with their minds.
Sixty years ago I knew everything; now I know nothing; education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
Man is an emotional animal, occasionally rational; and through his feelings he can be deceived to his heart's content.
Forget mistakes. Forget failure. Forget everything except what you're going to do now and do it. Today is your lucky day
It may be true that you can't fool all the people all the time, but you can fool enough of them to rule a large country.
The time when you need to do something is when no one else is willing to do it, when people are saying it can't be done.
History is so indifferently rich, that a case for almost any conclusion from it can be made by a selection of instances.
Progress is the domination of chaos by mind and purpose, of matter by form and will. It need not be continuous to be real.
Philosophy begins when one learns to doubt -- particularly to doubt one's cherished beliefs, one's dogmas and one's axioms.
I came to think of myself, not as a dance and chaos of molecules, but as a brief and minute portion of that majestic process
History seldom destroys that which does not deserve to die; and the burning of the tares makes for the next sowing a richer soil.
If a man is fortunate he will, before he dies, gather up as much as he can of his civilized heritage and transmit it to his children.
In my youth I stressed freedom, and in my old age I stress order. I have made the great discovery that liberty is a product of order.
History reports that the men who can manage men manage the men who can manage only things, and the men who can manage money manage all.
If you wish to be loved, be modest; if you wish to be admired, be proud; if you wish both, combine external modesty with internal pride.
India was the motherland of our race and Samskrit the mother of Europe 's languages...Mother India is in many ways the mother of us all.
To speak ill of others is a dishonest way of praising ourselves. Nothing is often a good thing to say, and always a clever thing to say.
Time sanctifies everything; even the most arrant theft in the hands of the robber's grandchildren becomes sacred and inviolable property.
Perhaps it is one secret of their power that, having studied the fluctuations of prices, the [bankers] know that history is inflationary.
India will teach us the tolerance and gentleness of mature mind, understanding spirit and a unifying, pacifying love for all human beings.
The South creates the civilizations, the North conquers them, ruins them, borrows from them, spreads them: this is one summary of history.
There is no significant example in history, before our time, of a society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion.
I have tried to be impartial, though I know that a man's past always colors his views, and that nothing else is so irritating as impartiality.
Men decided that it was better to pay taxes than to fight among themselves; better to pay tribute to one magnificent robber than to bribe them all.
In Constantinople, more Christians were slaughtered by Christians in the years 342-343 than by all the persecutions by pagans in the history of Rome.
The Institutional Church (ecclesia) has killed only two kinds of people: Those who do not believe in the teachings of Jesus Christ, and those who do.
Music and religion are as intimately related as poetry and love; the deepest emotions require for their civilized expression the most emotional of arts.
Human progress having reached a high level through respect for the liberty and dignity of men, it has become desirable to re-affirm these evident truths
Cultivate your garden. Do not depend upon teachers to educate you... follow your own bent, pursue your curiosity bravely, express yourself, make your own harmony.
Drunkenness was in good repute in England till "Bloody Mary" frowned upon it; it remained popular in Germany. The French drank more stably, not being quite so cold.
Nature smiles at the union of freedom and equality in our utopias. For freedom and equality are sworn and everlasting enemies, and when one prevails the other dies.
Continue to express your dissent and your needs, but remember to remain civilized, for you will sorely miss civilization if it is sacrified in the turbulence of change.
The victors called the revolution a triumph of liberty; but now and then liberty in the slogans of the strong means freedom from restraint in the exploitation of the weak.
The greatest question of our time is not communism vs. individualism, not Europe vs. America, not even the East vs. the West; it is whether men can bear to live without God.
We Americans are the best informed people on earth as to the events of the last twenty-four hours; we are the not the best informed as the events of the last sixty centuries.
Philosophy is harmonized knowledge making a harmonious life; it is the self-discipline which lifts us to serenity and freedom. Knowledge is power, but only wisdom is liberty.
Rome remained great as long as she had enemies who forced her to unity, vision, and heroism. When she had overcome them all she flourished for a moment and then began to die.
Science without philosophy, facts without perspective and valuation, cannot save us from havoc and despair. Science gives us knowledge, but only philosophy can give us wisdom.
If man asks for many laws it is only because he is sure that his neighbor needs them; privately he is an unphilosophical anarchist, and thinks laws in his own case superfluous.
If our economy of freedom fails to distribute wealth as ably as it has created it, the road to dictatorship will be open to any man who can persuasively promise security to all.