Quotes to inspire and reflect

All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.

Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.

We shall show mercy, but we shall not ask for it.

We shall not fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire...Give us the tools and we will finish the job.

Wise men have more to learn of fools than fools of wise men.

When there are monsters there are miracles.

It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinions than our own.

We shall support whatever the enemy opposes and oppose whatever the enemy supports.

Every mile is two in winter.

Tell me where I can escape death: discover for me the country, show me the men to whom I must go, whom death does not visit. Discover to me a charm against death. If I have not one, what do you wish me to do? I cannot escape from death, but shall I die lamenting and trembling? . . . Therefore, if I am able to change externals according to my wish, I change them: but if I cannot, I am ready to tear the eyes out of him who hinders me.

Winter lies too long in country towns; hangs on until it is stale and shabby, old and sullen.

The world is a great book; he who never stirs from home reads only a page.

When a traveler returned home, let him not leave the countries where he hath travelled altogether behind him.

Loving is misery for women always. I shall never forgive God for making me a woman and dearly am I beginning to pay for the honour of owning a pretty face.

He saw that it was an ironical thing for him to be running thus toward that which he had been at such pains to avoid. But he said, in substance, to himself that if the earth and the moon were about to clash, many people would doubtless plan to get upon the roofs to witness the collision.

I hope you love birds too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven.

I am one of those who believe that spiritual progress is a rule of human life, but the approach to perfection is slow and painful. If a woman elevates herself in one respect and is retarded in another, it is because the rough trail that leads to the mountain peak is not free of ambushes of thieves and lairs of wolves.

When thou seest an eagle, thou seest a portion of genius; lift up thy head!

I have a hundred times wished that one could resign life as an officer resigns a commission.

How tranquil is a coral tomb, and may the heavens grant that my companions and I be buried in no other!

Never lend books - nobody ever returns them; the only books I have in my library are those which people have lent me.

Scent is the soul of flowers, and sea flowers, as splendid as they may be, have no soul!

When books are burned in the end people will be burned too.

When the destroyer comes, his first act will be to destroy all the books.

For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure.

There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it.

I do not know everything; still many things I understand.

Trade-offs have been with us ever since the late unpleasantness in the Garden of Eden.

Human beings cannot stand too much reality. Thomas S.

Not that you lied to me, but that I no longer believe you, has shaken me.

Why should I do anything for posterity? What has posterity ever done for me?

In a minute there is time for decision and revisions that a minute will reverse. T. S.

I meant to write about death, only life came breaking in as usual.

I cannot call to mind a single instance where I have ever been irreverent, except toward the things which were sacred to other people.

I read part of it all the way through.

Woe be to him that reads but one book.

Blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself; neither do we rejoice therein, because we control our lusts, but contrariwise, because we rejoice therein, we are able to control our lusts.

He who loves God cannot endeavor that God should love him in return.

The mind has greater power over the emotions, and is less subject thereto, insofar as it understands all things to be necessary.

A love of tradition has never weakened a nation, indeed it has strengthened nations in their hour of peril; but the new view must come, the world must roll forward.

If men were born free, they would, so long as they remained free, form no conception of good and evil.

People who count their chickens before they are hatched, act very wisely, because chickens run about so absurdly that it is impossible to count them accurately.

The troublesome ones in a family are usually either the wits or the idiots.

Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen.

Our deeds are like children that are born to us; they live and act apart from our own will.

What we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.

I am a Conservative to preserve all that is good in our constitution, a Radical to remove all that is bad. I seek to preserve property and to respect order, and I equally decry the appeal to the passions of the many or the prejudices of the few.

Some people did what their neighbors did so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them.