Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Only one accomplishment is beyond both the power and the mercy of the Gods. They cannot make the past as though it had never been.
Old men, what are they? Fast fading the leaf, Three-footed they walk, yet frail as a child, As a dream set afloat in the daylight.
The most disagreeable thing that your worst enemy says to your face does not approach what your best friends say behind your back.
O this itch of the ear, that breaks out at the tongue! Were not curiosity so over-busy, detraction would soon be starved to death.
Envy, like the worm, never runs but to the fairest fruit; like a cunning bloodhound, it singles out the fattest deer in the flock.
Love is not a fire to be shut up in a soul. Everything betrays us: voice, silence, eyes; half-covered fires burn all the brighter.
They must know but little of mankind who can imagine that, after they have been once seduced by luxury, they can ever renounce it.
The chiefest action for a man of great spirit is never to be out of action... the soul was never put into the body to stand still.
What are prophecies? Don't we hear them every day of the week? And if one comes true there may be seven blind and come to nothing.
In this treacherous world Nothing is the truth nor a lie. Everything depends on the color Of the crystal through which one sees it
When you give, therefore, take to yourself no credit for generosity, unless you deny yourself something in order that you may give.
We poison our lives with fear of burglary and shipwreck, and, ask anyone, the house is never burgled, and the ship never goes down.
Tis the only discipline we are born for; all studies else are but as circular lines, and death the center where they all must meet.
You may boldly say, you did not plough Or trust the barren and ungrateful sands With the fruitful grain of your religious counsels.
People endure what they endure and they deal with it. It may corrupt them. It may lead them into all sorts of compensatory excesses.
He who gives only what he would as readily throw away, gives without generosity; for the essence of generosity is in self-sacrifice.
I know the disposition of women: when you will, they won't; when you won't, they set their hearts upon you of their own inclination.
Vain the ambition of kings Who seek by trophies and dead things To leave a living name behind, And weave but nets to catch the wind.
Fortune is no real thing. But men who cannot bear what comes to them In Nature's way, give their own characters The name of Fortune.
I tell everyone very plainly that I take bribes, but what kind of bribes? Why, greyhound puppies. That's a totally different matter.
And, to all married men, be this a caution, Which they should duly tender as their life, Neither to doat too much, nor doubt a wife.
Thousands of animals (now billions) are butchered every day without a shadow of remorse. It cries vengeance upon all the human race.
No flattery, boy! an honest man cannot live by it; it is a little, sneaking art, which knaves use to cajole and soften fools withal.
I have managed to conceal my madness fairly effectively, and as far as I know it hasn't hurt anybody badly, for which I am grateful.
There's a pretty woman for ever lucky man in the world: every man in the world is a lucky man if he only knew it, so why waste time?
This life has been a test. If it had been an actual life, you would have received actual instructions on where to go and what to do.
Each State can have for enemies only other States, and not men; for between things disparate in nature there can be no real relation.
He's a fool that marries, but he's a greater that does not marry a fool; what is wit in a wife good for, but to make a man a cuckold?
The nowness of everything is absolutely wondrous. [...] If you see the present tense, boy do you see it! And boy can you celebrate it.
He was so benevolent, so merciful a man that, in his mistaken passion, he would have held an umbrella over a duck in a shower of rain.
My merry, merry, merry roundelay Concludes with Cupid's curse, They that do change old love for new, Pray gods, they change for worse!
Men know so little about us women. We've a weakness, it is true, for those who charm us, but we always come back to those who love us.
A tragedy need not have blood and death; it's enough that it all be filled with that majestic sadness that is the pleasure of tragedy.
You too must not count too much on your reality as you feel it today, since like yesterday, it may prove an illusion for you tomorrow.
The strictly logical mind is usually if not always at fault in its valuations of that defiantly illogical thing known as human nature.
0 summer friendship, whose flat-tering leaves shadowed us in our prosperity, With the least gust, drop off in the autumn of adversity.
Cowards are scared with threatenings; boys are whipped into confession; but a steady mind acts of itself, ne'er asks the body counsel.
The happiest hour a sailor sees Is when he's down At an inland town, With his Nancy on his knees, yo ho! And his arm around her waist!
The moving light, rejoicing in its strength, Sped from the pyre of pine, and urged its way, In golden glory, like some strange new sun.
Till swollen with cunning, of a self-conceit, His waxen wings did mount above his reach, And, melting, Heavens conspir'd his overthrow.
Affliction is the wholesome soil of virtue, where patience, honor, sweet humility, and calm fortitude, take root and strongly flourish.
The incompetent quickly throws himself into another impressive enterprise in order to escape his responsibility from previous disaster.
So our lives In acts exemplary, not only win Ourselves good names, but doth to others give Matter for virtuous deeds, by which we live.
Life is a child playing round your feet, a tool you hold firmly in your grip, a bench you sit down upon in the evening, in your garden.
From the king To the beggar, by gradation, all are servants; And you must grant, the slavery is less To study to please one, than many.
But methings wit is more necessary than beauty; and I think no young woman ugly that has it, and no handsome woman agreeable without it
No bribes. Nothing that passes under the roof of a temple Or under the roof of the mouth, can appease heaven's anger Or deflect its aim.
A bad act done will fester and create in its own way. It's not only goodness that creates. Bad things create. They have their own yeast.
If he could only see how small a vacancy his death would leave, the proud man would think less of the place he occupies in his lifetime.
A good play is a play which when acted upon the boards make an audience interested and pleased. A play that fails in this is a bad play.