Quotes to inspire and reflect

In every human breast, God has implanted a principle, which we call love of freedom; it is impatient of oppression, and pants for deliverance; and by the leave of our modern Egyptians I will assert, that the same principle lives in us.

So that, in the end, there was no end.

Imagination! who can sing thy force?

Wisdom is higher than a fool can reach.

The worst of doing one’s duty was that it apparently unfitted one for doing anything else.

’Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,

It was the old New York way of taking life “without effusion of blood”: the way of people who dreaded scandal more than disease, who placed decency above courage, and who considered that nothing was more ill-bred than “scenes,” except the behavior of those who gave rise to them.

In the rotation of crops there was a recognized season for wild oats; but they were not sown more than once.

He seemed a part of the mute melancholy landscape, an incarnation of its frozen woe, with all that was warm and sentient in him fast bound below the surface.

Almost everybody in the neighborhood had “troubles,” frankly localized and specified; but only the chosen had “complications.” To have them was in itself a distinction, though it was also, in most cases, a death warrant. People struggled on for years with “troubles,” but they almost always succumbed to “complications.”

There are two ways of spreading light; to be

Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.

[ Letter to Royal Air Force, 1941, when the term “Mae West,” referring to an inflatable life jacket used by airmen in World War II, was entered into a dictionary :] I’ve been in Who’s Who , and I know what’s what, but it’ll be the first time Iever made the dictionary.

Catherine was a great empress. She also had three hundred lovers. I did the best I could in a couple of hours.

[ Flower Belle Lee, played by Mae West, replying to judge’s question, “Are you trying to show contempt for the court?” :] No, I’m doing my best to hide it.

[ Flower Belle Lee, played by Mae West, speaking :] I generally avoid temptation unless I can’t resist it.

[Flower Belle Lee, played by Mae West, speaking:] Oh, arithmetic. I was always pretty good at figures myself.

[ Peaches O’Day, played by Mae West, speaking :] I always say, keep a diary and someday it’ll keep you.

[ The Frisco Doll, played by Mae West, speaking :] Between two evils, I always pick the one I never tried before.

[ Ruby Carter, played by Mae West, speaking :] It’s better to be looked over than overlooked.

[ Lady Lou, played by Mae West, speaking :] When women go wrong, men go right after them.

[ Lady Lou, played by Mae West, speaking :] Why don’t you come up sometime and see me?

[ Mandie Triplett, played by Mae West, respondingto being told, “Goodness, what beautifuldiamonds” :] Goodness had nothing to do withit, dearie.

[ Tira, played by Mae West, speaking :] Peel me a grape.

You know, I always liked a man in uniform. . . . That one fits you perfect. Say, why don’t you come up some time. I’m home every evening.

I always like a man in uniform, and that one fits you grand. Say, why don’t you drop in and see me some time? Home every evening you know. . . . Why don’t you come up some time?

The brain upon which my experiences havebeen written is not a particularly good one. If there were brain-shows, as there are cat anddog shows, I doubt if it would get even a third class prize.

Slovenliness is no part of religion; that neither this, nor any text of Scripture, condemns neatness of apparel. Certainly this is a duty, not a sin. “Cleanliness is, indeed, next to godliness.”

The catastrophe of the atomic bombs whichshook men out of cities and businesses and economic relations, shook them also out of their old-established habits of thought, and out of the lightly held beliefs and prejudices that came down to them from the past.

The professional military mind is by necessityan inferior and unimaginative mind; no man of high intellectual quality would willingly imprison his gifts in such a calling.

Are we not Men?

Nothing could have been more obvious to the people of the earlier twentieth century thanthe rapidity with which war was becomingimpossible. And as certainly they did not see it. They did not see it until the atomic bombs burst in their fumbling hands.

[ Response when asked which film directors he mostadmired :] I like the old masters, by which I mean John Ford, John Ford, and John Ford.

Would you like to see the Time Machine itself?

I started at the top and worked my way down.

[ Of a Hollywood movie studio :] This is the biggest electric train [set] any boy ever had!

Ladies and gentlemen, I have a graveannouncement to make. Incredible as it mayseem, strange beings who landed in New Jersey tonight are the vanguard of an invading armyfrom Mars.

[ Punch line of joke about a scorpion stinging a frogthat is carrying him across a river despite the fact that this would result in both their deaths :] I can’t help it. It’s my nature.

The needs of a human being are sacred. Their satisfaction cannot be subordinated either toreasons of state, or to any consideration ofmoney, nationality, race, or color, or to themoral or other value attributed to the humanbeing in question, or to any considerationwhatsoever.

Every time that I think of the crucifixion of Christ, I commit the sin of envy.

But keep the wolf far hence that’s foe to men,

Who were the fools who spread the story that brute force cannot kill ideas? Nothing is easier. And once they are dead they are no more than corpses.

[ After Randolph Churchill’s lung was removedand found not to have malignancies :] A typicaltriumph of modern science to find the onlypart of Randolph that was not malignant andremove it.

You have no idea how much nastier I would be if I was not a Catholic. Without supernaturalaid I would hardly be a human being.

Any one who has been to an English publicschool will always feel comparatively at home in prison.

In the dying world I come from quotation is a national vice. No one would think of makingan after-dinner speech without the help ofpoetry. It used to be the classics, now it’s lyric verse.

I expect you’ll be becoming a schoolmaster, sir. That’s what most of the gentlemen does, sir, that gets sent down for indecent behavior.

Almost all crime is due to the repressed desire for aesthetic expression.