Quotes to inspire and reflect

When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone, and of good cheer - say traveling in a carriage, or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep - it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best, and most abundantly. Whence and how they come, I know not, nor can I force them...

You can never have a revolution in order to establish a democracy. You must have a democracy in order to have a revolution G. K.

Only a scientific people can survive in a scientific future. Thomas H.

Man with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the solar system- with all these exalted powers- Man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.

In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment.

Look not mournfully into the past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the present. It is thine. Go forth to meet the shadowy future, without fear.

The most wonderful discovery made by scientists is science itself.

Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty.

One should count each day a separate life.

For this invention of yours will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn it, by causing them to neglect their memory, inasmuch as, from their confidence in writing, they will recollect by the external aid of foreign symbols, and not by the internal use of their own faculties. Your discovery, therefore, is a medicine not for memory, but for recollection-for recalling to, not for keeping in mind.

You are providing for your disciples a show of wisdom without the reality. For, acquiring by you means much information unaided by instruction, they will appear to possess much knowledge, while, in fact, they will, for the most part, know nothing at all; and, moreover, be disagreeable people to deal with, as having become wise in their own conceit, instead of truly wise.

I know not if I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or if I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man.

Sin is the only real color element left in modern life.

It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, then to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.

Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.

Being natural is simply a pose.

With reasonable men, I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost.

When critics disagree the artist is in accord with himself.

Nothing discernable to the eye of the spirit is more brilliant or obscure than man; nothing is more formidable, complex, mysterious, and infinite. There is a prospect greater than the sea, and it is the sky; there is a prospect greater than the sky, and it is the human soul.

America, why are your libraries full of tears?

Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each.

Eternity. It is the sea mingled with the sun.

Our wisdom comes from our experience, and our experience comes from our foolishness.

Do not condemn the man that cannot think or act as fast as you can, because there was a time when you could not do things as well as you can today. Dr.

It does not take sharp eyes to see the sun and the moon, nor does it take sharp ears to hear the thunderclap. Wisdom is not obvious. You must see the subtle and notice the hidden to be victorious.

Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest.

Genius is the ability to put into effect what is in your mind.

It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish.

Providence protects children and idiots. I know because I have tested it.

The more pity, that fools may not speak wisely what wise men do foolishly.

Think what you do when you run into debt; you give another power over your liberty.

If it come to prohibiting, there is aught more likely to be prohibited than truth itself.

Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.

Men are generally idle, and ready to satisfy themselves, and intimidate the industry of others, by calling that impossible which is only difficult.

The end excuses any evil.

The first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that the end justifies the means. Georges Bernanos, "Why Freedom?

Just as I shall select my ship when I am about to go on a voyage, or my house when I propose to take a residence, so I shall choose my death when I am about to depart from life.

If all the world hated you and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved of you and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends.

Make all you can, save all you can, give all you can.

We do what we must, and call it by the best names.

Never go to excess, but let moderation be your guide.

Sanity is a madness put to good use.

Philosophy consists very largely of one philosopher arguing that all others are jackasses. He usually proves it, and I should add that he also usually proves that he is one himself

Metaphysics is a dark ocean without shores or lighthouse, strewn with many a philosophic wreck.

I have deep faith that the principle of the universe will be beautiful and simple.

Happy is he who gets to know the reasons for things.

We know very little, and yet it is astonishing that we know so much, and still more astonishing that so little knowledge can give us so much power.

By always thinking unto them. I keep the subject constantly before me and wait till the first dawning’s open little by little into the full light.