Quotes to inspire and reflect

The ideas of Freud were popularized by people who only imperfectly understood them, who were incapable of the great effort required to grasp them in their relationship to larger truths, and who therefore assigned to them a prominence out of all proportion to their true importance.

The greatest invention of the nineteenth century was the invention of the method of invention.

The science of pure mathematics, in its modern developments, may claim to be the most original creation of the human spirit.

It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle—they are strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisivemoments.

To come very near to a true theory, and to grasp its precise application, are two very differentthings, as the history of a science teaches us. Everything of importance has been said before by somebody who did not discover it.

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.

Wisdom is higher than a fool can reach.

Imagination! who can sing thy force?

’Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,

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

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

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.

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.”

Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.

There are two ways of spreading light; to be

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

[ 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.

[ 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 :] Why don’t you come up sometime and see me?

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

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

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

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?

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

Are we not Men?

[ 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?

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

I started at the top and worked my way down.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.