Quotes to inspire and reflect

Sarcasm: the last refuge of modest and chaste- souled people when the privacy of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded.

Our life on earth is, and ought to be, material and carnal. But we have not yet learned to manage our materialism and carnality properly; they are still .entangled with the desire for ownership.

That which probably hears more stupidities than anything else in the world is a painting in a museum.

There is nothing like the dead cold hand of the Past to take down our tumid egotism and lead us into the solemn flow of the life of our race.

Though 1 know he loves me, / Tonight my heart is sad; / His kiss was not so wonderful / As all the dreams I had.

A sentence begins quite simply, then it undulates and expands, parentheses intervene like quick-set hedges, the flowers of comparison bloom, and three fields off, like a wounded partridge, crouches the principal verb, making one wonder as one picks it up, poor little thing, whether after all it was worth such a tramp, so many guns, and such expensive dogs, and what, after all, is its relation to the main subject, potted so gaily half a page back, and proving finally to have been in the accusative case.

It is mere childishness to expect men to believe as their fathers did; that is, if they have any minds of their own. The world is a whole generation older and wiser than when the father was of his son’s age.

The final test for a novel will be our affection for it, as it is the test of our friends, and of anything else which we cannot define.

It is the peculiarity of the bore that he is the last person to find himself out.

The man who thinks his wife, his baby, his house, his horse, his dog, and himself severally unequalled, is almost sure to he a good-humored person, though liable to be tedious at times.

There is no idea, no fact, which could not be vulgarized and presented in a ludicrous light.

Spend all you have for loveliness, / Buy it and never count the cost; / For one white singing hour of peace / Count many a year of strife well lost, / And for a breath of ecstasy / Give all you have been, or could be.

Fun is like life insurance: The older you get, the more it costs.

Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.

I hate and I love. Perhaps you ask why I do so. I do not know, but I feel it, and am in agony.

My grandkids say, 'Reality Bites.' O.K., but it also challenges and rewards...I believe our best days are yet to come.

In the U.S. you have to be a deviant or exist in extreme boredom...Make no mistake all intellectuals are deviants in the U.S.

The trouble is that everyone talks about reforming others, and no one thinks about reforming himself.

Nothing is as irritating as the fellow who chats pleasantly while he's overcharging you.

I hold it true, what’re befall feel it, when I sorrow most ‘is better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.

Doubt of the reality of love ends by making us doubt everything.

It ain't a bad plan to keep still occasionally, even when you know what you're talking about.

Friendship is not necessary, like philosophy, like art....

Friendship is...the sort of love one can imagine between angels.

There is no friend like an old friend who has shared our morning days, no greeting like his welcome, no homage like his praise.

Man has his will - but woman has her way.

Aesthetic emotion puts man in a state favorable to the reception of erotic emotion. Art is the accomplice of love.

Odd how much it hurts when a friend moves away- and leaves behind only silence.

His house was perfect, whether you liked food, or sleep, or work, or story-telling, or singing, or just sitting and thinking, best, or a pleasant mixture of them all. J. R. R.

 

I love you. I used to pity your sorrow. But now, were you sorrowless, without fear or any lack, still i would love you. J. R. R.

 

Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens. J. R. R.

Golf is like a love affair. If you don't take it seriously, it's no fun; if you do take it seriously, it breaks your heart.

The next best thing to being wise oneself is to live in a circle of those who are.

A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art.... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.

Friendship is born at that moment when one man says to another: "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . ."

If I had a flower for every time I thought of you...I could walk through my garden forever.

Than never to have loved at all.

Love is the flower of life, and blossoms unexpectedly and without law, and must be plucked where it is found, and enjoyed for the brief hour of its duration.

To expect too much is to have a sentimental view of life and this is a softness that ends in bitterness.

Without passion man is a mere latent force and possibility, like the flint which awaits the shock of the iron before it can give forth its spark.

Sex is just another form of talk, where you act the words instead of saying them.

The tragedy is when you’ve got sex in the head instead of down where it belongs.

You know a real friend? Someone you know will look after your cat after you are gone.

WHAT DRAWS PEOPLE TO BE FRIENDS IS THAT THEY SEE THE SAME TRUTH. THEY SHARE IT.

A friendship can weather most things and thrive in thin soil but it needs a little mulch of letters and phone calls and small silly presents every so often just to save it from drying out completely.

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.

 

’Tis better to have loved and lost