Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
For truth has such a face and such a mien, as to be loved needs only to be seen.
No good is ever done to society by the pictorial representation of its diseases.
Time is the River on which the leaves of our thoughts are carried into oblivion.
We must not always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest.
Literature is a textually transmitted disease, normally contracted in childhood.
There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method.
Know which officials are voted into office and which are appointed, and by whom.
Literature is that which he can not read without pain, without choking on truth.
Drink moderately, for drunkeness neither keeps a secret, nor observes a promise.
We must wash literature off ourselves. We want to be men above all, to be human.
When one begins to live by habit and by quotation, one has begun to stop living.
Know the function of a fuse box and the appearance of a tripped circuit breaker.
Divide and rule, the politician cries; unite and lead, is watchword of the wise.
The young are generally full of revolt, and are often pretty revolting about it.
It seems to never occur to fools that merit and good fortune are closely united.
There is more of good nature than of good sense at the bottom of most marriages.
Be able to blow out a dinner candle without sending wax flying across the table.
In literature and in life we ultimately pursue, not conclusions, but beginnings.
Think before you speak is criticism's motto; speak before you think, creation's.
Her great merit is finding out mine; there is nothing so amiable as discernment.
But Satan now is wiser than of yore, and tempts by making rich, not making poor.
Never underestimate the power of the State to act out its own massive fantasies.
Don't appear so scholarly, pray. Humanize your talk, and speak to be understood.
Society has really no graver interest than the well-being of the literary class.
It is, of course, traditional in children's literature to get rid of the parents.
The English sent all their bores abroad, and acquired the Empire as a punishment.
I thought, frankly, that it would be more pleasant to write a memoir than it was.
We never completely comprehend ourselves, but we can do far more than comprehend.
For me, the worst part of playing golf, by far, has always been hitting the ball.
When men sow the wind it is rational to expect that they will reap the whirlwind.
But better die than live mechanically a life that is a repetition of repetitions.
Generally speaking anybody is more interesting doing nothing than doing anything.
The word user is the word used by the computer professional when they mean idiot.
The art of the parenthesis is one of the greatest secrets of eloquence in Society
Little minds are interested in the extraordinary; great minds in the commonplace.
The essay is a literary device for saying almost everything about almost anything
The ruling passion, be it what it will. The ruling passion conquers reason still.
This was another of our fears: that Life wouldn't turn out to be like Literature.
A polite enemy is just as difficult to discredit, as a rude friend is to protect.
As a matter of fact is an expression that precedes many an expression that isn't.
Irony is the form of paradox. Paradox is what is good and great at the same time.
Learning and literature have a way of outlasting the civilization that made them.
Every woman is supposed to have the same set of motives, or else to be a monster.
What is exhilarating in bad taste is the aristocratic pleasure of giving offense.
When the mind withdraws into itself and dispenses with facts it makes only chaos.
In science, all facts, no matter how trivial or banal, enjoy democratic equality.
The world is crawling with authors touring now. They're like performance artists.
Thus, literature, together with language, preserves and protects a nation's soul.
Selfishness must always be forgiven you know, because there is no hope of a cure.
Observe due measure, for right timing is in all things the most important factor.