Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Lift up our eyes to you? no, God, we stare and stare, upon a nearer thing that greets us here, Death, violent and near.
What we learn only through the ears makes less impression upon our minds than what is presented to the trustworthy eye.
Dare to begin! He who postpones living rightly is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses.
A wise God shrouds the future in obscure darkness. [Lat., Prudens futuri temporis exitum Caliginosa nocte premit deus.]
That which makes people dissatisfied with their condition, is the chimerical idea they form of the happiness of others.
True freedom is to share All the chains our brothers wear, And, with heart and hand, to be Earnest to make others free!
He who is firmly seated in authority soon learns to think security, and not progress, the highest lesson in statecraft.
It is only before those who are glad to hear it, and anxious to spread it, that we find it easy to speak ill of others.
The spirit of creation is the spirit of contradiction. It is the breakthrough of appearances toward an unknown reality.
Now the night's breath responds to the sea, which I can scarcely hear from here, as it reminisces about its shipwrecks.
On out deathbeds we're not going to regret all the work we didn't do. We're going to regret all the sex we didn't have!
Every parent is at some time the father of the unreturned prodigal, with nothing to do but keep his house open to hope.
Doth not a man die even in his birth? The breaking of prison is death, and what is our birth, but a breaking of prison?
Take me to you, imprison me, for I, except you enthrall me, never shall be free, nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
Virgil, above all poets, had a stock which I may call almost inexhaustible, of figurative, elegant, and sounding words.
O for ten years, that I may overwhelm / Myself in poesy; so I may do the deed / That my own soul has to itself decreed.
All is not lost, the unconquerable will, and study of revenge, immortal hate, and the courage never to submit or yield.
Yet some there be that by due steps aspire To lay their just hands on that golden key That opes the palace of Eternity.
Innumerable as the stars of night, Or stars of morning, dewdrops which the sun Impearls on every leaf and every flower.
And now the herald lark Left his ground-nest, high tow'ring to descry The morn's approach, and greet her with his song.
Holding occasion by the hand, Not over nice 'twixt weed and flower, Waiving what none can understand, I make mine hour.
An insatiable appetite for glory leads to sacrifice and death, but innate instinct leads to self-preservation and life.
Dear Lord; we beg but one boon more: Peace in the hearts of all men living, peace in the whole world this Thanksgiving.
What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear. What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer.
The greatest assassin of life is haste, the desire to reach things before the right time which means overreaching them.
O Poverty, thy thousand ills combined Sink not so deep into the generous mind, As the contempt and laughter of mankind.
But in order to have an adult faith, most of us have to outgrow and unlearn much of what we were taught about religion.
I'm more interested in the writing than in the content per se (good writing can be about wallpaper and I'll devour it).
Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself, but if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires.
They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold; and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price.
Is not the beautiful moon, that inspires poets, the same moon which angers the silence of the sea with a terrible roar?
Generosity is not giving me that which I need more than you do, but it is giving me that which you need more than I do.
These things he said in words. But much in his heart remained unsaid. For he himself could not speak his deeper secret.
Pity it is we drowse too soon Pity it is we fall asleep Ere our song encompass the height Ere our hand inherit the deep
A world I dream where black or white, Whatever race you be, Will share the bounties of the Earth And every man is free.
I stay cool, and dig all jive, That's the way I stay alive. My motto, as I live and learn, is Dig and be dug In return.
Good morning, daddy! Ain't you heard The boogie-woogie rumble Of a dream deferred? • • • • You think It's a happy beat?
One of the great needs of Negro children is to have books about themselves and their lives that can help them be proud.
I live by the code 'Kill them with kindness, blood everywhere;' for me, it's always about being the nicest kind of guy.
Because language is the carrier of ideas, it is easy to believe that it should be very little else than such a carrier.
Flirtation and coquetry are so nearly allied as to be identical; both are the art of successful and pleasing deception.
Too often in time past, religion has brought forth criminal and shameful actions... How many evils has religion caused?
The nature of the universe has by no means been made through divine power, seeing how great are the faults that mar it.
It is pleasurable, when winds disturb the waves of a great sea, to gaze out from land upon the great trials of another.
The stupidity of militarized fences between two worlds is a metaphor for all the things that divide us as human beings.
What breaks in daybreak? Is it the night? Is it the sun, cracked in two by the horizon like an egg, spilling out light?
I'm not interested in cutting the feet off my characters or stretching them to make them fit my certain political view.
There's blood, a taste I remember. It tastes of orange popsicles, penny gumballs, red licorice, gnawed hair, dirty ice.
I was delighted with the film [Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth]; it almost made me want to be a film-maker!
The characters [of The Tempest] have always been favorites of mine. It is one of his meditations on art - what it does.