Quotes to inspire and reflect

We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on.

Philosophers say a great deal about what is absolutely necessary for science, and it is always, so far as one can see, rather naive, and probably wrong.

I loathe the expression "What makes him tick." It is the American mind, looking for simple and singular solution, that uses the foolish expression. A person not only ticks, he also chimes and strikes the hour, falls and breaks and has to be put together again, and sometimes stops like an electric clock in a thunderstorm.

Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics and our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever.

Minds, like bodies, will often fall into a pimpled, ill-conditioned state from mere excess of comfort.

If the point is sharp, and the arrow is swift, it can pierce through the dust no matter how thick.

It is your work in life that is the ultimate seduction.

For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.

When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber.

The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night.

The ancestor of every action is a thought.

The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.

Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.

I might repeat to myself slowly and soothingly, a list of quotations beautiful from minds profound - if I can remember any of the damn things.

Every sweet has its sour; every evil its good.

Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than you dare to think.

We are what we repeatedly do.

A man thinks that by mouthing hard words he understands hard things.

When you have loved as she has loved, you grow old beautifully. W.

Give all to love; obey thy heart.

The Argument from Intimidation is a confession of intellectual impotence.

When we lose one we love, our bitterest tears are called forth by the memory of hours when we loved not enough.

The scornful nostril and the high head gather not the odors that lie on the track of truth.

I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction.

Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all - the apathy of human beings.

The animals of the planet are in desperate peril... Without free animal life I believe we will lose the spiritual equivalent of oxygen.

It is not advisable, James, to venture unsolicited opinions. You should spare yourself the embarrassing discovery of their exact value to your listener.

I have enjoyed greatly the second blooming that comes when you finish the life of the emotions and of personal relations; and suddenly find - at the age of fifty, say - that a whole new life has opened before you, filled with things you can think about, study, or read about...It is as if a fresh sap of ideas and thoughts was rising in you.

A Hospital is no place to be sick.

The true traveler is he who goes on foot, and even then, he sits down a lot of the time.

In every power, of which taste is the foundation, excellence is pretty fairly divided between the sexes.

Evil is obvious only in retrospect.

The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it.

If a writer wrote merely for his time, I would have to break my pen and throw it away.

We distinguish the excellent man from the common man by saying that the former is the one who makes great demands upon himself, and the latter who makes no demands on himself.

We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.

The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.

Curious things, habits. People themselves never knew they had them.

Perhaps I am a bear, or some hibernating animal underneath, for the instinct to be half asleep all winter is so strong in me.

Happiness: a good bank account, a good cook and a good digestion.

Television is the triumph of machine over people.

Laughter is by definition healthy.

A schedule defends from chaos and whim.

The self is not something ready-made, but something in continuous formation through choice of action.

Before he sets out, the traveler must possess fixed interests and facilities to be served by travel.

I cannot pretend to feel impartial about colors. I rejoice with the brilliant ones and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns.

When you make a world tolerable for yourself, you make a world tolerable for others.

The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice.