Quotes to inspire and reflect

I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.

You are only as old as the woman you feel.

The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppose.

People might not get all they work for in this world, but they must certainly work for all they get.

For authentic living what is needed is the resolute confrontation of death.

A patriot is mocked, scorned and hated; yet when his cause succeeds, all men will join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.

They deem me mad for I will not sell my days for gold; I deem them mad for they think my days have a price.

Disgust with dirt can be so great that it prevents us from cleaning ourselves - from "justifying" ourselves.

Let us weigh the gain and the loss, in wagering that God is. Consider these alternatives: if you win, you win all, if you lose you lose nothing. Do not hesitate, then, to wager that he is.

The sole advantage of power is that you can do more good.

There was something awesome in the thought of the solitary mortal standing by the open window and summoning in from the gloom outside the spirits of the nether world.

I never said actors were cattle. I said that actors should be treated like cattle.

The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.

You raise your voice when you should reinforce your argument.

We have to play what is actually in demand, and we have to play it as well and as beautifully and as expressively as ever we can.

I have always found that angels have the vanity to speak of themselves as the only wise.

People who like quotations love meaningless generalizations.

Toward the accomplishment of an aim, which in wantonness of atrocity would seem to partake of the insane, he will direct a cool judgement, sagacious and sound. These men are madmen, and of the most dangerous sort.

A hair divides what is false and true.

A poet is an unhappy being whose heart it torn by secret sufferings, but whose lips are so strangely formed that when the sighs and the cries escape them, they sound like beautiful music... and then people crowd about the poet and say to him: "Sing for us soon again;" that is as much as to say. "May new sufferings torment your soul.

If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet renounce controversy are people who want crops without ploughing the ground.

He who has not first laid his foundations may be able with great ability to lay them afterwards, but they will be laid with trouble to the architect and danger to the building.

Men will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon.

Beware of sentimental alliances where the consciousness of good deeds is the only compensation for noble sacrifices.

And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter and the sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.

Science commits suicide when it adopts a creed. Thomas H.

Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country.

There is an ecstasy that marks the summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive.

The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men.

Murder is unique in that it abolishes the party it injures, so that society has to take the place of the victim and on his behalf demand atonement or grant forgiveness; it is the one crime in which society has a direct interest. W. H.

Many a promising career has been wrecked by marrying the wrong sort of woman. The right sort of woman can distinguish between Creative Lassitude and plain shiftlessness.

Few people can see genius in someone who has offended them.

There is no being of any race who, if he finds the proper guide, cannot attain to virtue.

The love of truth lies at the root of much humor.

Beauty is truth, truth beauty. That is all ye know, and all ye need to know.

The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear. And the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. H. P.

If I must choose between righteousness and peace, I choose righteousness.

Our own physical body possesses a wisdom which we who inhabit the body lack.

We should conduct ourselves not as if we ought to live for the body, but as if we could not live without it.

I stand in awe of my body.

Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.

Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart.

Without tenderness, a man is uninteresting.

A book burrows into your life in a very profound way because the experience of reading is not passive.

Accustom yourself continually to make many acts of love, for they enkindle and melt the soul.

Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air?

I have learned not to worry about love; but to honor its coming with all my heart.

If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend.