Quotes to inspire and reflect

We seem to have a compulsion these days to bury time capsules in order to give those people living in the next century or so some idea of what we are like. I have prepared one of my own. I have placed some rather large samples of dynamite, gunpowder, and nitroglycerin. My time capsule is set to go off in the year 3000. It will show them what we are really like.

Take away the right to say "fuck" and you take away the right to say "fuck the government.

The test of a first-fate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. F.

I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time

The good people sleep much better at night than the bad people. Of course, the bad people enjoy the waking hours much more.

We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves in order to be like other people.

Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right.

They certainly give very strange names to diseases.

We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.

Children are all foreigners.

Preserving health by too severe a rule is a worrisome malady.

How is it possible to find meaning in a finite world, given my waist and shirt size?

They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse.

When a thing has been said and well, have no scruple. Take it and copy it.

It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.

Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all.

When dealing with the insane, the best method is to pretend to be sane.

Curiosity in children, is but an appetite for knowledge. One great reason why children abandon themselves wholly to silly pursuits and trifle away their time insipidly is, because they find their curiosity balked, and their inquiries neglected.

Half of the secular unrest and dismal, profane sadness of modern society comes from the vain ideas that every man is bound to be a critic for life.

Doubtless criticism was originally benignant, pointing out the beauties of a work rather that its defects. The passions of men have made it malignant, as a bad heart of Procrustes turned the bed, the symbol of repose, into an instrument of torture.

Ten censure wrong, for one that writes amiss.

It is folly for an eminent person to think of escaping censure, and a weakness to be affected by it. All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and indeed of every age, have passed through this fiery persecution. There is no defense against reproach but obscurity; it is a kind of concomitant to greatness, as satires and invectives were an essential part of a Roman triumph.

Ours is an age of criticism, to which everything must be subjected. The sacredness of religion, and the authority of legislation, are by many regarded as grounds for exemption from the examination by this tribunal, But, if they are exempted, and cannot lay claim to sincere respect, which reason accords only to that which has stood the test of a free and public examination.

Everyone is as God has made him, and oftentimes a great deal worse.

Take everything you like seriously, except yourselves.

It is equally offensive to speed a guest who would like to stay and to detain one who is anxious to leave.

Physicists like to think that all you have to do is say, these are the conditions, now what happens next?

I keep the subject of my inquiry constantly before me, and wait till the first dawning opens gradually, by little and little, into a full and clear light.

Fortune can, for her pleasure, fools advance, and toss them on the wheels of Chance.

I do not have a psychiatrist and I do not want one, for the simple reason that if he listened to me long enough, he might become disturbed.

The great thing about human language is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand.

The reserve of modern assertions is sometimes pushed to extremes, in which the fear of being contradicted leads the writer to strip himself of almost all sense and meaning.

As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, keep it.

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.

Ordinarily he was insane, but he had lucid moments when he was merely stupid.

We confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no large ones.

Skepticism, like chastity, should not be relinquished too readily.

Refuse to be ill. Never tell people you are ill; never own it to yourself. Illness is one of those things which a man should resist on principle.

The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye. The lighter you shine on it, the more it will contract.

The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it.

From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.

A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.

What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expected generally happens.

Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.

Get happiness out of your work or you may never know what happiness is.

Another unsettling element in modern art is that common symptom of immaturity, the dread of doing what has been done before.

While the fates permit, live happily; life speeds on with hurried step, and with winged days the wheel of the headlong year is turned.

Cherish all your happy moments: they make a fine cushion for old age.