Quotes to inspire and reflect

Eccentricity is not, as dull people would have us believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics because genius and aristocrat are entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd.

To see what is right, and not to do it, is want of courage or of principle.

They used to photograph Shirley Temple through gauze. They should photograph me through linoleum.

The thing I hate about an argument is that it always interrupts a discussion. G. K.

In the United States, doing good has come to be, like patriotism, a favorite device of persons with something to sell

Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.

When we are unable to find tranquility within ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere.

The dead might as well try to speak to the living as the old to the young.

Rogues are preferable to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.

I have always felt that a politician is to be judged by the animosities he excites among his opponents.

Without the aid of prejudice and custom I should not be able to find my way across the room.

If you are a dog and your owner suggests that you wear a sweater, suggest that he wear a tail.

Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others.

Every increased possession loads us with new weariness.

At least two-thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity: idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political ideas.

A true friend is the greatest of all blessings, and that which we take the least care of all to acquire.

When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject of interest.

No wise man ever wished to be younger.

What others think of us would be of little moment did it not, when known, so deeply tinge what we think of ourselves. Paul Valery #7047 A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor.

The main things which seem to me important on their own account, and not merely as means to other things, are knowledge, art, instinctive happiness, and relations of friendship or affection.

First there is a time when we believe everything, then for a little while we believe with discrimination, then we believe nothing whatever, and then we believe everything again - and, moreover, give reasons why we believe.

All human beings should try to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.

Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are.

It is easier to exclude harmful passions than to rule them, and to deny them admittance than to control them after they have been admitted.

There are two cardinal sins from which all others spring: Impatience and Laziness.

A man can stand anything except a succession of ordinary days.

Those who speak most of progress measure it by quantity and not by quality.

The only sure thing about luck is that it will change.

Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.

All successful newspapers are ceaselessly querulous and bellicose. They never defend anyone or anything if they can help it; if the job is forced on them, they tackle it by denouncing someone or something else

If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.

This is one of those views which are so absolutely absurd that only very learned men could possibly adopt them.

Failure is not the only punishment for laziness; there is also the success of others.

Set all things in their own peculiar place, and know that order is the greatest grace.

Though inclination be as sharp as will My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent, And, like a man to double business bound, I stand in pause where I shall first begin, And both neglect.

The punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government is to live under the government of worse men.

We do not know what we want and yet we are responsible for what we are - that is the fact.

We always like those who admire us; we do not always like those whom we admire.

If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have paradise in a few years.

But love is blind and lovers cannot see The pretty follies that themselves commit for if they could, Cupid himself would blush to see me thus transformed to a boy.

Everybody likes a kidder, but nobody lends him money.

For ten years Caesar ruled with an iron hand. Then with a wooden foot, and finally with a piece of string.

I love the deep quiet in which I live and grow against the world and harvest what they cannot take from me by fire or sword.

The tradition of all the dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living.

Nowadays men lead lives of noisy desperation.

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. Lord Acton #6953 It is a far, far better thing that I do now, then I have ever done before... it is a far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known before.

God makes all things good; man meddles with them and they become evil.

Envy will merit, as its shade, pursue, But, like the shadow, proves the substance true.