Quotes to inspire and reflect

If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.

The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people.

The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.

I will call no being good, who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow-creatures; and if such a being can sentence me to hell for not so calling him, to hell I will go.

No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible, until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought.

The Conservatives … being by the law of their existence the stupidest party.

Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.

When it’s three o’clock in New York, it’s still 1938 in London.

The marble not yet carved can hold the form

Enter these enchanted woods,

Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul

The lark ascending.

All men have the mind which cannot bear [to see the suffering of] others.

Kissing don’t last: cookery do!

It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics and chemistry.

There is always a well-known solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong.

Conscience: the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.

Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

Whom the gods love dies young.

We live, not as we wish to, but as we can.

Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale … from hell’s heart I stab at thee.

A whaleship was my Yale College and my Harvard.

Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.

Call me Ishmael.

Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five.

I [Death] was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.

People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise.

The most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency.

What I dream of is an art of balance, of purity and serenity devoid of troubling or depressing subject matter … a soothing, calming influence on the mind, rather like a good armchair which provides relaxation from physical fatigue.

The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

A spectre is haunting Europe—the spectre of Communism.

The class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat.

All I know is that I am not a Marxist.

The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.

Hegel says somewhere that all great events and personalities in world history reappear in one fashion or another. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.

Religion is … the opium of the people.

From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.

I never forget a face, but in your case I’ll be glad to make an exception.

PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON’T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT ME AS A MEMBER.

it s cheerio

Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.

an optimist is a guy

Virtue is the fount whence honour springs.

Is it not passing brave to be a king,

BARNARDINE : Thou hast committed—