Quotes to inspire and reflect

We do not remember days; we remember moments.

Count reminiscences like money .

After thirty, a body has a mind of its own.

Memory is the diary we all carry about with us.

I speak truth, not so much as I would, but as much as I dare; and I dare a little the more, as I grow older.

A person is always startled when he hears himself seriously called an old man for the first time.

When grace is joined with wrinkles, it is adorable. There is an unspeakable dawn in happy old age.

What most persons consider as virtue, after the age of 40 is simply a loss of energy.

Middle age is the time when a man is always thinking that in a week or two he will feel just as good as ever.

The mask, given time, comes to be the face itself.

As we grow old, the beauty steals inward.

Whatever a man’s age may be, he can reduce it several years by putting a bright-colored flower in his buttonhole.

The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions.

Age is a high price to pay for maturity.

The best-educated human being is the one who understands most about the life in which he is placed.

It is easier to be wise for others than for ourselves.

Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.

The most manifest sign of wisdom is continued cheerfulness.

What we do not understand we do not possess.

What the heart knows today, the head will understand tomorrow.

To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice.

The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.

Reason deceives us; conscience, never.

Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends.

Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.

One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach. One can collect only a few, and they are more beautiful if they are few.

It is not the man who has too little who is poor, but the one who craves more.

The pursuit of perfection often impedes improvement.

When we have provided against cold, hunger and thirst, all the rest is but vanity and excess.

The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn.

To see what is in front of one’s nose requires a constant struggle.

In the long run men hit only what they aim at.

There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds.

Hold fast to dreams/For if dreams die/Life is a broken-winged bird/That cannot fly.

If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities.

I doubt that the imagination can be suppressed. If you truly eradicated it in a child, he would grow up to be an eggplant.

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it, we go nowhere.

Imagination offers people consolation for what they cannot be, and humor for what they actually are.

The man who has no imagination has no wings.

Imagination is the true magic carpet.

Imagination is a good horse to carry you over the ground—not a flying carpet to set you free from probability.

A man can’t ride your back unless it’s bent.

We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.

We are all worms, but I do believe I am a glowworm.

I don’t want everyone to like me; I should think less of myself if some people did.

Misfortunes one can endure—they come from outside; they are accidents. But to suffer for one’s own faults—ah, there is the sting of life.

Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.

One can only face in others what one can face in oneself.