Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
A man of letters is often a man with two natures,--one a book nature, the other a human nature. These often clash sadly.
The most powerful men were those who most effectively used the power of adult competence to enforce childish agreements.
I am for 100 per cent Americanism, 100 per cent efficiency, and 100 per cent life. I expect to live to be 100 years old.
Nothing that isn't a real crime makes a man appear so contemptible and little in the eyes of the world as inconsistency.
Yet then from all my grief, O Lord, Thy mercy set me free, Whilst in the confidence of pray'r My soul took hold on thee.
To be perfectly just is an attribute of the divine nature; to be so to the utmost of our abilities, is the glory of man.
There is nothing which one regards so much with an eye of mirth and pity as innocence when it has in it a dash of folly.
As long as our civilization is essentially one of property, of fences, of exclusiveness, it will be mocked by delusions.
Dreams have a poetic integrity and truth. This limbo and dust-hole of thought is presided over by a certain reason, too.
The bitterest tragic element in life to be derived from an intellectual source is the belief in a brute Fate or Destiny.
What is excellent, As God lives, is permanent; Hearts are dust, hearts' loves remain, Heart's love will meet thee again.
All I know is reception; I am and I have: but I do not get, and when I fancied I had gotten anything, I found I did not.
Pain is superficial, and therefore fear is. The torments of martyrdoms are probably most keenly felt by the by-standers.
So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man, When Duty whispers low, 'Thou must,' The youth whispers, 'I can.
The attraction and superiority of California are in its days. It has better days & more of them, than any other country.
We grizzle every day. I see no need of it. Whilst we converse with what is above us, we do not grow old, but grow young.
Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say "I think," "I am," but quotes some saint or sage.
The young men were born with knives in their brain, a tendency to introversion, self-dissection, anatomizing of motives.
I always assume that a good book is more intelligent than its author. It can say things that the writer is not aware of.
What is national freedom if not a people’s inner freedom to cultivate its abilities along the beaten path of its history?
If there's a power above us, (And that there is all nature cries aloud Through all her works,) he must delight in virtue.
Not having a car gives me volumes not to think or worry about, and makes walks around the neighborhood a daily adventure.
Research is not seeing what others do not see, it is seeing the same thing as other people and thinking what they do not.
The cure for false theology is motherwit. Forget your books and traditions, and obey your moral perceptions at this hour.
Freedom has nothing to do with having the right to vote for your oppressor; freedom is not having any form of oppression.
We love flattery, even though we are not deceived by it, because it shows that we are of importance enough to be courted.
The history of persecution is a history of endeavors to cheat nature, to make water run up hill, to twist a rope of sand.
The astonishment of life is the absence of any appearances of reconciliation between the theory and the practice of life.
When the vain speaker has sat down, and the people say 'what a good speech,' it still takes an ounce to balance an ounce.
We must leave our pets at home, when we go into the street, and meet men on broad grounds of good meaning and good sense.
They think him the best dressed man, whose dress is so fit for his use that you cannot notice or remember to describe it.
Wise men are not wise at all hours, and will speak five times from their taste or their humor, to once from their reason.
The crime which bankrupts men and nations is that of turning aside from one's main purpose to serve a job here and there.
Thanks to the morning light, Thanks to the foaming sea, To the uplands of New Hampshire, To the green-haired forest free.
We boast our emancipation from many superstitions; but if we have broken any idols, it is through a transfer of idolatry.
What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice. Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.
The cruelest foe is a masked benefactor. The wars which make history so dreary have served the cause of truth and virtue.
It is one of the biggest blessing that you can be stupid with your true friends and behave like you shame to do elsewhere
What is the city in which we sit here, but an aggregate of incongruous materials, which have obeyed the will of some man?
Be a football to Time and Chance, the more kicks, the better, so that you inspect the whole game and know its utmost law.
Enough if every age produce two or three critics of this esoteric class, with here and there a reader to understand them.
It comes down to a question of attention: it's difficult to use the Net distractedly, unlike the television or the radio.
As an adolescent I wrote comic books, because I read lots of them, and fantasy novels set in Malaysia and Central Africa.
A kitten is chiefly remarkable for rushing about like mad at nothing whatever and generally stopping before it gets there.
If we take science as our sole guide, if we accept and hold fast that alone which is verifiable, the old theology must go.
Our Grub-street biographers watch for the death of a great man like so many undertakers on purpose to make a penny of him.
Tis not my talent to conceal my thoughts, Or carry smiles and sunshine in my face, When discontent sits heavy at my heart.
The person who has a firm trust in the Supreme Being is powerful in his power, wise by his wisdom, happy by his happiness.
To mankind in general Macbeth and Lady Macbeth stand out as the supreme type of all that a host and hostess should not be.
I come from a family of teachers, and I believe ideas matter; the good ones deserve reverence, and the bad ones, defiance.