Quotes to inspire and reflect

When you have a child, the world has a hostage.

The "highest" states of mind held up before mankind by Christianity as of supreme value, are actually forms of convulsive epilepsy.

We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.

The more we study, the more we discover our ignorance.

The phrase "domestic cat" is an oxymoron.

Knowledge is recognition of something absent; it is a salutation, not an embrace.

What will a child learn sooner than a song?

Jesus was a bachelor and never lived with a woman. Surely living with a woman is one of the most difficult things a man has to do, and he never did it.

Being able to support oneself allows one to choose a marriage out of love and not just economic dependence. It also allows one to risk that marriage.

I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.

Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.

the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness, the independence of solitude.

Art is the Indispensible medium for the communication of a moral idea.

An American Monkey after getting drunk on Brandy would never touch it again, and thus is much wiser than most men.

While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?

Sleep... Oh! how I loathe those little slices of death.

You become responsible forever, for what you have tamed.

Love, I find, is like singing. Everybody can do it enough to impress themselves, though it may not impress the neighbors as being very much.

Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised for sins committed in previous lives.

The life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.

If I had only known, I would have been a locksmith.

All that we are is the result of what we have thought.

Every civilization that has ever existed has ultimately collapsed.

Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats

Entrepreneurs and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all the economic growth in the United States.

Even the longest day has its end. Irish Proverb Beware the man of one book.

Here is the world, sound as a nut, perfect, not the smallest piece of chaos left, never a stitch nor an end, not a mark of haste, or botching, or second thought; but the theory of the world is a thing of shreds and patches.

Do not mind anything that anyone tells you about anyone else. Judge everyone and everything for yourself.

Divide and rule, a sound motto. Unite and lead, a better one.

Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors.

Control thy passions, lest they take vengeance on thee.

Ever notice that what the hell is always the right decision?

Coercion, after all, merely captures man. Freedom captivates him.

Colleges hate geniuses, just as convents hate saints.

But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.

Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom.

Beauty is the purgation of superfluities.

Bore: one who has the power of speech but not the capacity for conversation.

Be gentle to all and stern with yourself.

Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.

Be a friend to thyself, and others will be so too.

At twilight, nature is not without loveliness, though perhaps its chief use is to illustrate quotations from the poets.

Appraise war in terms of the fundamental factors. The first of these factors is moral influence.

Anyone who truly loves God travels securely.

Anybody can observe the Sabbath, but making it holy surely takes the rest of the week.

Any artist should be grateful for a naive grace which puts him beyond the need to reason elaborately.

And all who told it added something new, And all who heard it made enlargements too.

And say my glory was I had such friends.