Quotes to inspire and reflect

When a man comes to die, no matter what his talents and influence, and genius, if he dies unloved his life must be a failure to him and dying a cold horror. It seems to me that if you or I must choose between two courses of thought or action, we should remember our dying and try so to live that our death brings no pleasure to the world.

Those who don’t build must burn. It’s as old as history and juvenile delinquency.

We shape our buildings and they shape us.

If it can be dreamed, it can be done.

For the great mass of mankind, the only saving grace needed is a steady fidelity to what is nearest to hand and heart for the short moment of each human effort.

God creates men, but they choose each other.

They will kill a great many of us. We will kill a few of them. They will tire of it first.

The art of dining well is no slight art, the pleasure not a slight pleasure.

Bear in mind that you should conduct yourself in life as at a feast.

I have enjoyed greatly the second blooming... suddenly you find - at the age of 50, say - that a whole new life has opened before you.

The heads of strong old age are beautiful beyond all grace of youth.

Nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion.

Waste no more time talking about great souls and how they should be. Become one yourself!

None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.

There was a disturbance in my heart, a voice that spoke there and said, I want, I want, I want! It happened every afternoon, and when I tried to suppress it got even stronger.

There is no mistaking a real book when one meets it. It is like falling in love.

Simply the thing that I am shall make me live.

The wisest men follow their own direction.

I take it that what all men are really after is some form or perhaps only some formula of peace.

Order is not pressure which is imposed on society from without, but an equilibrium which is set up from within.

To sit in the shade on a fine day, and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment.

That which is static and repetitive is boring. That which is dynamic and random is confusing. In between lies art. John A.

So divinely is the world organized that every one of us, in our place and time, is in balance with everything else.

A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it; or offer your own version in return.

The whole life of man is but a point of time; let us enjoy it.

This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.

A single day is enough to make us a little larger.

Time does not change us. It just unfolds us.

All that really belongs to us is time; even he who has nothing else has that.

What else is love but understanding and rejoicing in the fact that another person lives, acts, and experiences otherwise than we do??

Perhaps the feelings that we experience when we are in love represent a normal state. Being in love shows a person who he should be.

Love is that splendid triggering of human vitality... the supreme activity which nature affords anyone for going out of himself toward someone else.

Every man is the builder of a temple called his body.

Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is in an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob, and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.

Men are conservatives when they are least vigorous, or when they are most luxurious. They are conservatives after dinner.

The best political community is formed by citizens of the middle class.

There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher.

Everyone who receives the protection of society owes a return for the benefit.

Ignore the awful times, and concentrate on the good ones.

We make our fortunes and call them fate.

Life is made up of marble and mud.

Sex is a part of nature. I go along with nature.

Those who become enamored of practices without science are like sailors who go aboard ship without a rudder and compass, for they are never certain where they will land.

There is no confusion like the confusion of a simple mind. F.

A democracy is two wolves and a small lamb voting on what to have for dinner. Freedom under a constitutional republic is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.

If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.

The older I get, the more I feel almost beautiful...

Fear keeps pace with hope. Nor does their so moving together surprise me; both belong to a mind in suspense, to a mind in a state of anxiety through looking into the future. Both are mainly due to projecting our thoughts far ahead of us instead of adapting ourselves to the present. Thus it is that foresight, the greatest blessing humanity has been given, is transformed into a curse.