Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
There is no one who does not exaggerate. In conversation, men are encumbered with personality, and talk too much.
The peace of the man who has forsworn the use of the bullet seems to me not quite peace, but a canting impotence.
Performing on a stool, we've got a sight to make you drool, seven virgins and a mule, keep it cool, keep it cool.
America is a poem in our eyes; its ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for metres.
No man will ever unfold the capacities of his own intellect who does not at least checker his life with solitude.
It is psychologically very hard to go through life without the justification, and the hope, provided by religion.
The avant-garde poet or artist tries in effect to imitate God by creating something valid solely on its own terms.
How many thorns of human nature are bristling conceits, buds of promise grown sharp for want of congenial climate.
I never really understood the idea that nonfiction ought to be this dispensary of data that we have at the moment.
What an absurd thing it is to pass over all the valuable parts of a man, and fix our attention on his infirmities.
I have often thought, says Sir Roger, it happens very well that Christmas should fall out in the middle of Winter.
The great number of the Jews furnishes us with a sufficient cloud of witnesses that attest the truth of the Bible.
Thy steady temper, Portius, Can look on guilt, rebellion, fraud, and Cæsar, In the calm lights of mild philosophy.
Flying would give such occasions for intrigues as people cannot meet with who have nothing but legs to carry them.
A gift that cannot be given away ceases to be a gift. The spirit of a gift is kept alive by its constant donation.
True dandyism is the result of an artistic temperament working upon a fine body within the wide limits of fashion.
My husband and I don't have sons, so we never had to ask ourselves how we'd have felt about them playing football.
As soon as I'm on the road, I see, often palpably, that I know nothing at all, which is always a great liberation.
It so often happens that somebody says 'change your life' and you repaint your car rather than re-wire the engine.
So travel for me is an act of discovery and of responsibility as well a grand adventure and a constant liberation.
Like teenagers, we appear to have gone from knowing nothing about the world to knowing too much all but overnight.
Almost everybody I know has this sense of overdosing on information and getting dizzy living at post-human speeds.
Things are pretty, graceful, rich, elegant, handsome, but, until they speak to the imagination, not yet beautiful.
There is one other reason for dressing well, namely that dogs respect it, and will not attack you in good clothes.
There is always a certain meanness in the argument of conservatism, joined with a certain superiority in its fact.
Money is the representative of a certain quantity of corn or other commodity. It is so much warmth, so much bread.
But genius looks forward: the eyes of men are set in his forehead, not in his hindhead: man hopes: genius creates.
A man of genius is privileged only as far as he is genius. His dullness is as insupportable as any other dullness.
A ruddy drop of manly blood The surging sea outweighs; The world uncertain comes and goes, The lover rooted stays.
Art and power will go on as they have done,--will make day out of night, time out of space, and space out of time.
You must treat the days respectfully, you must be a day yourself, and not interrogate it like a college professor.
A farm is a good thing, when it begins and ends with itself, and does not need a salary, or a shop, to eke it out.
The April winds are magical, And thrill our tuneful frames; The garden-walks are passional To bachelors and dames.
He is a dull observer whose experience has not taught him the reality and force of magic, as well as of chemistry.
Tis the privilege of Art Thus to play its cheerful part, Man on earth to acclimate And bend the exile to his fate.
But I shall hear without pain, that I play the courtier very ill, and talk of that which I do not well understand.
Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories and criticism.
No man has a right perception of any truth, who has not been reacted on by it, so as to be ready to be its martyr.
It is necessary to meditate early, and often, on the art of dying to succeed later in doing it properly just once.
Our most noted satirists are true columnists and their opinions can be worth more than any well-documented exposé.
Once you reach your fifties, you have to stop being interested in the present and write only on Elizabethan poets.
The least practical of us have some petty thrift dear to our hearts, some one direction in which we love to scrimp.
In activity we must find our joy as well as glory; and labor, like everything else that is good, is its own reward.
I think rain is as necessary to the mind as to vegetation. My very thoughts become thirsty, and crave the moisture.
Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.
The moral perfections of the Deity, the more attentively, we consider, the more perfectly still shall we know them.
On a normal day, we value heroism because it is uncommon. On Sept. 11, we valued heroism because it was everywhere.
All good trips are, like love, about being carried out of yourself and deposited in the midst of terror and wonder.
That's the great advantage of being a foreigner: you're not paying your dues, but you are getting all the benefits.
Travel, for me, is a little bit like being in love, because suddenly all your senses are at the setting marked “on.