Quotes
Quotes to inspire and reflect
By comparison with a night-club, churches are positively gay.
14
Marred pleasure’s best, shadow makes the sun strong.
24
I conceive that pleasures are to be avoided if greater pains be the consequence, and pains to be coveted that will terminate in greater pleasures.
9
Pleasure is the object, the duty, and the goal of all rational creatures.
8
Pleasure dies at the very moment when it charms us most.
14
No profit grows where is no pleasure ta’en.
29
Man’s pleasure is a short time growing / And it falls to the ground / As quickly.
9
Vain is the hope of finding pleasure in that which one has hitherto disdained; as when the warrior hopes to find pleasure in the joys of the sedentaries.
16
Too much pleasure disagrees with us. Too many concords are annoying in music; too many benefits irritate us; we wish to have the wherewithal to overpay our debts.
11
Better be jocund with the fruitful Grape / Than sadden after none, or bitter, Fruit.
10
The spirit is often most free when the body is satiated with pleasure; indeed, sometimes the stars shine more brightly seen from the gutter than from the hilltop.
16
Enjoyment and innocence are the most bashful things: both do not want to be sought.
10
In all pleasure hope is a considerable part.
7
Enjoying living was learning to get your money’s worth and knowing when you had it.
18
We have more days to live through than pleasures. Be slow in enjoyment, quick at work, for men see work ended with pleasure, pleasure ended with regret.
17
Pleasure is none, if not diversified.
20
It is often a mistake to combine two pleasures, because pleasures, like pains, can act as counter-irritants to each other.
10
Though sages may pour out their wisdom’s treasure, /There is no sterner moralist than Pleasure.
23
’Twere too absurd to slight / For the hereafter the today’s delight!
17
Pleasures are like poppies spread: You seize the flow’r, its bloom is shed.
17
To the art of working well a civilized race would add the art of playing well.
6
It is not abstinence from pleasures that is best, but mastery over them without being worsted.
8
Our minds need relaxation, and give way / Unless we mix with work a little play.
16
To condemn spontaneous and delightful occupations because they are useless for self-preservation shows an uncritical prizing of life irrespective of its content.
6
There are so many plans, so many schemes, and so many reasons why there should be neither plans nor schemes.
16
The true object of all human life is play. Earth is a task garden; heaven is a playground.
12
Plain living is nothing but voluntary poverty.
16
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft agley, / An' lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain, / For promis’d joy!
18
We are all of us richer than we think we are; but we are taught to borrow and to beg, and brought up
8
Were a man to order his life by the rules of true reason, a frugal substance joined to a contented mind is for him great riches; for never is there any lack of a little.
9
Begin with another’s to end with your own.
15
All places are alike, / And every earth is fit for burial.
14
A blade of grass is always a blade of grass, whether in one country or another.
7
God gives all men all earth to love, / But, since man’s heart is small, / Ordains for each one spot shall prove / Beloved over all.
22
One always begins to forgive a place as soon as it’s left behind.
6
The difference between landscape and landscape is small, but there is a great difference in the beholders.
6
All places are distant from heaven alike.
15
Worse than idle is compassion / If it end in tears and sighs.
20
What value has compassion that does not take its object in its arms?
14
Verily, I do not like them, the merciful who feel blessed in their pity: they are lacking too much in shame. If I must pity, at least I do not want it known; and if I do pity, it is preferably from a distance.
11
We may have uneasy feelings for seeing a creature in distress without pity; for we have not pity unless we wish to relieve them.
7
Compassion for the friend should conceal itself under a hard shell.
7
Sacrifice not thy heart upon every altar.
7
You may regret calamities if you can thereby help the sufferer, but if you cannot, mind your own business.
10
Endow the Living—with the Tears— / You squander on the Dead.
22
Pity melts the mind to love.
13
A tear dries quickly, especially when it is shed for the troubles of others.
16
There are a few things that’ll move people to pity, a few, but the trouble is, when they’ve been used several times, they no longer work.
32