Quotes to inspire and reflect

Wherever illiteracy is a problem, it’s as fundamental a problem as getting enough to eat or a place to sleep.

The language of Mexicans springs from abysmal extremes of power and impotence, domination and resentment.

Poetry should help, not only to refine the language of the time, but to prevent it from changing too rapidly.

Language is the archives of history.

To a teacher of language there comes a time when the world is but a place of many words and man appears a mere talking animal not much more wonderful than a parrot.

Correct English is the slang of prigs who write history and essays. And the strongest slang of all is the slang of poets.

I am still of the opinion that only two topics can be of the least interest to a serious and studious mind—sex and the dead.

If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success.

So much has already been written about everything that you can’t find out anything about it.

I don’t know nothing, I think. And glad of it.

Learning is but an adjunct to ourself, / And where we are our learning likewise is.

The right to know is like the right to live. It is fundamental and unconditional in its assumption that knowledge, like life, is a desirable thing.

Seeing is believing and believing is knowing and knowing beats unknowing and the unknown.

Knowledge—that is, education in its true sense— is our best protection against unreasoning prejudice and panic-making fear, whether engendered by special interest, illiberal minorities, or panic-stricken leaders.

All knowledge that is divorced from justice must be called cunning.

Most people affirm pleasure to be the good, but the finer sort of wits say it is knowledge.

Such is the constitution of the human mind, that any kind of knowledge, if it be really such, is its own reward.

Sin, guilt, neurosis—they are one and the same, the fruit of the tree of knowledge.

In expanding the field of knowledge we but increase the horizon of ignorance.

There is no more merit in being able to attach a correct description to a picture than in being able to find out what is wrong with a stalled motorcar. In each case it is special knowledge.

Man is not weak, knowledge is more than equivalent to force. The master of mechanics laughs at strength.

A reading-machine, always wound up and going, / He mastered whatever was not worth the knowing.

All knowledge is of itself of some value. There is nothing so minute or inconsiderable, that I would not rather know it than not.

A desire of knowledge is the natural feeling of mankind; and every human being, whose mind is not debauched, will be willing to give all that he has to get knowledge.

’Tis not knowing much, but what is useful, that makes a wise man.

To he proud of knowledge is to be blind with light.

Why / do we make so much of knowledge, struggle so hard / to get some little skill not worth the effort?

If I cannot brag of knowing something, then I brag of not knowing it.

The paradox of knowledge is not confined to the small, atomic scale; on the contrary, it is as cogent on the scale of man, and even of the stars.

The raft of knowledge ferries the worst sinner to safety.

A kiss, when all is said, what is it? / An oath that’s given closer than before; / A promise more precise; the sealing of / Confessions that till then were barely breathed; / A rosy dot placed on the i in loving.

The acquisition of knowledge always involves the revelation of ignorance—almost is the revelation of ignorance.

The kiss originated when the first male reptile licked the first female reptile, implying in a subtle, complimentary way that she was as succulent as the small reptile he had for dinner the night before.

“Kiss me. Again. Once more.” Commands to be obeyed when issued by a woman.

kisses are a better fate / than wisdom.

We turned on one another deep, drowned gazes, and exchanged a kiss that reduced my bones to rubber and my brain to gruel.

[Tjhose quite useless articles called “kisses."

The foremost art of kings is the power to endure hatred.

A king is he who has laid fear aside and the base longings of an evil heart; whom ambition unrestrained and the fickle favor of the reckless mob move not.

What are kings, when regiment is goiie, / But perfect shadows in a sunshine day?

Men are cruel, but Man is kind.

It is no bad thing to be a king—to see one’s house enriched and one’s authority enhanced.

Do not ask me to be land; just ask me to act as though I were.

Kindness it is that brings forth kindness always.

True kindness presupposes the faculty of imagining as one’s own the suffering and joys of others.

Nature, in giving tears to man, confessed that he / Had a tender heart; this is our noblest quality.

Unseasonable kindness gets no thanks.

By Chivalries as tiny, / A Blossom, or a Book, / The seeds of smiles are planted— / Which Blossom in the dark.