Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
A man gazing on the stars is proverbially at the mercy of the puddles in the road.
A man gazing at the stars is proverbially at the mercy of the puddles in the road.
A bottomless pit of violence, a Tower of Babel where all are speakers and no hearers.
Love is but the discovery of ourselves in others, and the delight in the recognition.
Fame is but an inscription on a grave, and glory the melancholy blazon on a coffin lid.
The dead keep their secrets, and in a while we shall be as wise as they - and as taciturn.
In the entire circle of the year there are no days so delightful as those of a fine October.
A man's real possession is his memory. In nothing else is he rich, in nothing else is he poor.
Not on the stage alone, in the world also, a man's real character comes out best in his asides.
We bury love; Forgetfulness grows over it like grass: That is a thing to weep for, not the dead.
Each time we love,We turn a nearer and a broader markTo that keen archer, Sorrow, and he strikes.
The truly great rest in the knowledge of their own deserts, nor seek the conformation of the world.
The man who in this world can keep the whiteness of his soul is not likely to lose it in any other.
Some books are drenchèd sandsOn which a great soul's wealth lies all in heaps,Like a wrecked argosy.
It is a characteristic of pleasure that we can never recognize it to be pleasure till after it is gone.
Happiness never lays its finger on its pulse. If we attempt to steal a glimpse of its features it disappears.
I have learned to prize the quiet, lightning deed, not the applauding thunder at its heels that men call fame.
Men praise poverty, as the African worships Mumbo Jumbo--from terror of the malign power, and a desire to propitiate at.
The sun was down, And all the west was paved with sullen fire. I cried, Behold! the barren beach of hell At ebb of tide.
Eternity doth wear upon her face the veil of time. They only see the veil, and thus they know not what they stand so near!
Yet through all, we know this tangled skein is in the hands of One, Who sees the end from the beginning: He shall unravel all.
In winter, when the dismal rain Comes down in slanting lines, And Wind, that grand old harper, smote His thunder-harp of pines.
A man can bear a world's contempt when he has that within which says he's worthy. When he contemns himself, there burns the hell.
A thought may be very commendable as a thought, but I value it chiefly as a window through which I can obtain insight on the thinker.
Thoughts must come naturally, like wild-flowers; they cannot be forced in a hot-bed, even although aided by the leaf-mould of your past.
Death, which we are accustomed to consider an evil, really acts for us the friendliest part, and takes away the commonplace of existence.
If you do your fair day's work, you are certain to get your fair day's wage - in praise or pudding, whichever happens to suit your taste.
One never hugs one's good luck so affectionately as when listening to the relation of some horrible misfortunes which has overtaken others.
Nature never quite goes along with us. She is somber at weddings, sunny at funerals, and she frowns on ninety-nine out of a hundred picnics.
Seated in my library at night, and looking on the silent faces of my books, I am occasionally visited by a strange sense of the supernatural.
It is not of so much consequence what you say, as how you say it. Memorable sentences are memorable on account of some single irradiating word.
Pride's chickens have bonny feathers, but they are an expensive brood to rear. They eat up everything, and are always lean when brought to market.
The greatness of an artist or a writer does not depend on what he has in common with other artists and writers, but on what he has peculiar to himself.
How beautiful the yesterday that stood Over me like a rainbow! I am alone, The past is past. I see the future stretch All dark and barren as a rainy sea.
The discovery of a grey hair when you are brushing out your whiskers of a morning - first fallen flake of the coming snows of age - is a disagreeable thing.
Fine phrases I value more than bank-notes. I have ear for no other harmony than the harmony of words. To be occasionally quoted is the only fame I care for.
The pleased sea on a white-breasted shore-- A shore that wears on her alluring brows Rare shells, far brought, the love-gifts of the sea, That blushed a tell-tale.
Vanity in its idler moments is benevolent, is as willing to give pleasure as to take it, and accepts as sufficient reward for its services a kind word or an approving smile.
If the egotist is weak, his egotism is worthless. If the egotist is strong, acute, full of distinctive character, his egotism is precious, and remains a possession of the race.
We have two lives; The soul of man is like the rolling world, One half in day, the other dipt in night; The one has music and the flying cloud, The other, silence and the wakeful stars.
In my garden I spend my days, in my library I spend my nights. My interests are divided between my geraniums and my books. With the flower I am in the present; with the book I am in the past.
If we were to live here always, with no other care than how to feed, clothe, and house ourselves, life would be a very sorry business. It is immeasurably heightened by the solemnity of death.
My garden, with its silence and pulses of fragrance that come and go on the airy undulations, affects me like sweet music. Care stops at the gates, and gazes at me wistfully through the bars.
It is the sternest philosophy, but on the whole the truest, that, in the wide arena of the world, failure and success are not accidents, as we so frequently suppose, but the strictest justice.
The world is not so much in need of new thoughts as that when thought grows old and worn with usage it should, like current coin, be called in, and, from the mint of genius, reissued fresh and new.
In life there is nothing more unexpected and surprising than the arrivals and departures of pleasure. If we find it in one place today, it is vain to seek it there tomorrow. You can not lay a trap for it.
If you wish to make a man look noble, your best course is to kill him. What superiority he may have inherited from his race, what superiority nature may have personally gifted him with, comes out in death.
We twain have met like the ships upon the sea, Who behold an hour's converse, so short, so sweet: One little hour! and then, away they speed On lonely paths, through mist, and cloud, and foam, To meet no more.
The globe has been circumnavigated, but no man ever yet has; you may survey a kingdom and note the result in maps, but all the savants in the world could not produce a reliable map of the poorest human personality.
There is a certain even-handed justice in Time; and for what he takes away he gives us something in return. He robs us of elasticity of limb and spirit, and in its place he brings tranquility and repose—the mild autumnal weather of the soul.