Quotes to inspire and reflect

Hypotheses non fingo.

To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction: or, the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts.

Every body continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it.

The alteration of motion is ever proportional to the motive force impressed; and is made in the direction of the right line in which that force is impressed.

We can believe what we choose. We are answerable for what we choose to believe.

Cor ad cor loquitur.

Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom,

Praise to the Holiest in the height,

Firmly I believe and truly

May He support us all the day long, till the shades lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done! Then in His mercy may He give us a safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at the last.

If I am obliged to bring religion into after-dinner toasts (which indeed does not seem quite the thing) I shall drink—to the Pope, if you please—still, to Conscience first, and to the Pope afterwards.

She [the Catholic Church] holds that it were better for sun and moon to drop from heaven, for the earth to fail, and for all the many millions who are upon it to die of starvation in extremest agony, as far as temporal affliction goes, than that one soul, I will not say, should be lost, but should commit one single venial sin.

It is almost a definition of a gentleman to say that he is one who never inflicts pain.

Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt.

Two and two only supreme and luminously self-evident beings, myself and my Creator.

Je suis le ténébreux,—le veuf,—Vincoonsolé,

Sure, deck your lower limbs in pants;

Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido.

The cow is of the bovine ilk;

Any kiddie in school can love like a fool,

The turtle lives ’twixt plated decks

The camel has a single hump;

The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.

Life is a great surprise. I do not see why death should not be an even greater one.

You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

Melody is the essence of music. I compare a good melodist to a fine racer, and counterpoints to hack post-horses.

The whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it, like a fine picture or a beautiful statue, at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once.

Life is a foreign language: all men mispronounce it.

See, the conquering hero comes!

This hath not offended the king.

I pray you, master Lieutenant, see me safe up, and my coming down let me shift for my self.

Fare well my dear child and pray for me, and I shall for you and all your friends that we may merrily meet in heaven.

Is not this house as nigh heaven as my own?

Anyone who campaigns for public office becomes disqualified for holding any office at all.

Your sheep, that were wont to be so meek and tame, and so small eaters, now, as I hear say, be become so great devourers, and so wild, that they eat up and swallow down the very men themselves.

I never nursed a dear gazelle,

Oft, in the stilly night,

’Tis the last rose of summer

The Minstrel Boy to the war is gone,

The harp that once through Tara’s halls

No, there’s nothing half so sweet in life

Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,

Happy the people whose annals are blank in history-books!

In most things success depends on knowing how long it takes to succeed.

If the triangles were to make a God they would give him three sides.

It could be said of me that in this book I have only made up a bunch of other men’s flowers, providing of my own only the string that ties them together.

Man is quite insane. He wouldn’t know how to create a maggot, and he creates gods by the dozen.