Quotes about Employment

If the building of a bridge does not enrich the awareness of those who work on it, then that bridge ought not to be built.  Frantz Fanon

An “acceptable” level of unemployment means that the government economist to whom it is acceptable still has a job. Unknown

To crush, to annihilate a man utterly, to inflict on him the most terrible of punishments so that the most ferocious murderer would shudder at it and dread it beforehand, one need only give him work of an absolutely, completely useless and irrational character. Dostoevsky  

Don’t condescend to unskilled labor. Try it for half a day first. Brooks Atkinson  

If while you are in school, there is a shortage of qualified personnel in a particular field, then by the time you graduate with the necessary qualifications, that field’s employment market is glutted. Marguerite Emmons

It is the privilege of any human work which is well done to invest the doer with a certain haughtiness. Emerson 

We seldom break our leg so long as life continues a toilsome upward climb. The danger comes when we begin to take things easily and choose the convenient paths. Nietzsche 

I like work; it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours. I love to keep it by me; the idea of getting rid of it nearly breaks my heart. Jerome K. Jerome 

Constant labor of one uniform kind destroys the intensity and flow of a man’s animal spirits, which find recreation and delight in mere change of activity.  Karl Marx

Honest labor bears a lovely face. Thomas Dekker

Work is not the curse, but drudgery is. Henry Ward Beecher 

The hand of little employment hath the daintier sense.  William Shakespeare

Most people spend most of their days doing what they do not want to do in order to earn the right, at times, to do what they may desire. John Mason Brown

Few things are of themselves impossible, and we lack the application to make them a success rather than the means. La. Rochefoucauld 

Employment is my right my destiny. James Baldwin  

A great many people who spend their time mourning over the brevity of life could make it seem longer if they did a little more work. Don Marquis  

The ant is knowing and wise; but he doesn’t know enough to take a vacation. Clarence Day 

Greater is he who enjoys the fruits of his labor than he who fears heaven. The Haggadah 

Every man who does not teach his son a trade, it is as though he teaches him to rob. The Haggadah 

A man’s work is rather the needful supplement to himself than the outcome of it. Max Beerbohm 

A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor. Victor Hugo

He is idle that might be better employed. Thomas Fuller

Why, since we are always complaining of our ills, are we constantly employed in redoubling them? Voltaire

Whether our work is art or science or the daily work of society, it is only the form in which we explore our experience which is different. Jacob Bronowski 

The struggle alone pleases us, not the victory. Pascal

He who does nothing renders himself incapable of doing anything; but while we are executing any work, we are preparing and qualifying ourselves to undertake another. William Hazlitt 

It is weariness to keep toiling at the same things so that one becomes ruled by them. Heraclitus 

If you direct your whole thought to work itself, none of the things which invade eyes or ears will reach the mind. Quintilian 

Where there is most labor there is not always most life. Havelock Ellis 

One of the saddest things is the only thing a man can do for eight hours a day, day after day, is work. You can’t eat eight hour a day nor drink for eight hours nor make love for eight hours. William Faulkner 

He who considers his work beneath him will be above doing it well. Alexander Chase 

Let us be grateful to Adam our benefactor. He cut us out of the “blessing” of idleness and won for us the curse of labor. Mark Twain

No mind is much employed upon the present; recollection and anticipation fill up almost all our moments. Samuel Johnson

Serious occupation is labor that has reference to some want. Hegel 

Love labor: for if thou dost not want it for food, thou may for physic. It is wholesome for thy body and good for thy mind. William Penn 

Most people work the greater part of their time for a mere living; and the little freedom which remains to them so troubles them that they use every means of getting rid of it.  Goethe 

No race can prosper until it learns there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. Booker T. Washington 

What is work? And what is not work? Are questions that perplex the wisest of men. Unknown 

Every calling is great when greatly pursued. Olive Wendell Holmes 

Life has not taught me to expect nothing, but she has taught me not to expect success to be the inevitable result of my endeavors. She taught me to seek sustenance from the endeavor itself, but to leave the result to God. Alan Paton  

Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Samuel Johnson 

Human service is the highest form of self-interest for the person who serves. Elbert Hubbard 

There is certainly no greater happiness than to be able to look back on a life usefully and virtuously employed, to trace our own progress in existence, by such tokens as excite neither shame nor sorrow. Samuel Johnson

Originality and the feeling of one’s own dignity are achieved only through work and struggle. Dostoevsky 

No one gains from fair employment law and legislation if there is no employment to be had. John F. Kennedy

He that will not work according to his faculty; let him perish according to his necessity: there is no law more just than that. Thomas Carlyle  

He that would have the fruit must climb the tree. Thomas Fuller 

To work is to pray. St. Benedict

Quotes about Poverty and the Poor

The possession of gold has ruined fewer men than the lack of it. What noble enterprises have been checked and what fine souls have been blighted in the gloom of poverty the world will never know. Thomas Bailey Aldrich 

Poverty has, in large cities, very different appearances; it is often concealed in splendor, and often in extravagance. Samuel Johnson 

We who are liberal and progressive know that the poor are our equals in every sense except that of being equal to us. Lionel Trilling 

Poverty is very good in poems, but it is very bad in a house. It is very good in maxims and in sermons, but it is very bad in practical life. Henry Ward Beecher 

Love and business and family and religion and art and patriotism are nothing but shadows of words when a man’s starving. O. Henry 

A man willing to work, and unable to find work, is perhaps the saddest sight that fortune’s inequality exhibits under this sun. Thomas Carlyle 

Poverty with joy is not poverty at all. The poor man is not one who has little, but one who hankers after more. Seneca 

Unhappiness doesn't grow on the chest like leprosy. Poverty won't fall off the roof like a loose tile, no; poverty and unhappiness are man’s doing. Bertolt Brecht 

An empty stomach will not listen to anything. Proverb 

For the poor of this world, two major ways of expiring are available; either by the absolute indifference of your fellow men in peacetime, or by the homicidal passion of these same when war breaks out. Louis Ferdinand Celine 

To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships. W. E. B. Du Bois 

The strong demand, contend, prevail; the beggar is a fool. Georgia Douglas Johnson

Moral principle is a looser bond than pecuniary interest. Abraham Lincoln 

All the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil show it to be evidently a great evil. You never find people laboring to convince you that you may live very happily upon a plentiful fortune. Samuel Johnson

To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness. Bertrand Russell 

Those who have not, and live in want, are a menace. Ridden with envy and fooled by demagogues. Euripides 

An earthquake achieves what the law promises but does not in practice maintain the equality of all men. Ignazio Silone 

For every talent that poverty has stimulated it has blighted a hundred. John W. Gardner 

The poor don't know that their function in life is to exercise our generosity. Jean Paul Sartre 

You may not know it, but at the far end of despair, there is a white clearing where one is almost happy. Jean Anouilh 

Three were the fates. Poverty that chains; gray drudgery that grinds the hope away, and gaping ignorance that starves the soul. Edwin Markham 

Hunger is the teacher of the arts and bestows invention. Persius 

There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher. Victor Hugo

It is extraordinary how many emotional storms one may weather in safety if one is ballasted with ever so little gold. William MC Fee 

In a change of government, the poor change nothing beyond the change of their master. Phaedrus 

God gives almonds to those who have no teeth. Proverb

It is not poverty so much as pretense that harasses a ruined man; the struggle between a proud man and an empty purse; the keeping up of a hollow show that must soon come to an end. Washington Irving 

A hungry man is not a free man. Adlai Stevenson 

It is easy enough to say that poverty is no crime. No; if it were, men wouldn't be ashamed of it. It’s a blunder, though, and is punished as such. Jerome K. Jerome 

We know well only what we are deprived of. Francois Mauriac 

Some men make money not for the sake of living; but ache in the blindness of greed and live just for their fortunes sake. Juvenal 

Poverty is no disgrace, but no honor either. Proverb 

If you would know what the Lord God thinks of money, you have only to look at those to whom he gives it.  Maurice Baring 

To eat bread without hope is still slowly to starve to death. Pearl S. Buck 

Beggars should be abolished entirely. Verily, it is annoying to give to them and it is annoying not to give to them. Nietzsche 

Short of genius, a rich man cannot imagine poverty. Charles Peguy 

Pearls around the neck; stones upon the heart. Proverb

Quotes about Antiquity

The Old Man of Stoer is 60 metres high and found in Sutherland, Scotland UK

Mad is the man who is forever gritting his teeth against that granite block, complete and changeless, of the past. Saint Exupery 

If we look backwards to antiquity, it should be as those that are winning a race. Charles Caleb Colton 

To excel the past we must not allow ourselves to lose contact with it; on the contrary, we must feel it under our feet because we raised ourselves upon it. Jose Ortega Y Gasset 

History is the witness of the times, the light of truth, the life of memory, the teacher of life, the messenger of antiquity. Cicero 

Books that have become classics; books that have had their day and now get more praise than perusal, always remind me of retired colonels and majors and captains who, having reached the age limit, find themselves retired on half pay. Thomas Bailey Aldrich 

Nothing is improbable until it moves into the past tense George Ade 

Antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwreck of time. Francis Bacon

The passing minute is every man’s equal possession, but what has once gone by is not ours. Marcus Aurelius

A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is but often prompts us to rearrange the past. Eric Hoffer

The Will-be and the Has-been touch us more nearly than the Is. So we are more tender towards children and old people than to those who are in the prime of life. Samuel Butler

Antiquity cannot privilege an error, nor do novelties prejudice a truth. Thomas Fuller

Why doesn’t the past decently bury itself, instead of sitting waiting to be admired by the present? D. H. Lawrence

Antiquity is full of the praises of another antiquity still more remote. Voltaire  

Do we not all spend the greater part of our lives under the shadow of an event that has not yet come to pass? Maurice Maeterlinck  

I would not fear nor wish my fate, but boldly say each night; tomorrow let my sun his beams display, or in clouds hide them; I have lived today. Abraham Cowley 

What’s said is said and goes upon its way. Like it or not, repent as you may. Chaucer 

Respect the past in the full measure of its deserts, but do not make the mistake of confusing it with the present nor seek in it the ideals of the future. Jose Ingenieros 

The past is the present, isn’t it? It’s the future, too. We all try to lie out of that but life won't let us. Eugene O’Neill 

Antiquity was perhaps created to provide professors with their bread and butter. Edmund and Jules De Concourt 

Those who do not remember the past are condemned to relive it. George Santayana 

Here at least the spirit of the ancient builders was at one with the spirit of the modern beholder. Standing before this abraded pile, the eye regarded its present usage, the mind dwelt upon its past history, with a satisfied sense of functional continuity throughout. … For once medievalism and modernism had a common standpoint. Thomas Hardy

To what a degree the same past can leave different marks; and especially admit of different interpretations. Andre Gide

The mill cannot grind with water that’s past. George Herbert 

We are not free to use today, or to promise tomorrow, because we are already mortgaged to yesterday. Emerson

The future is an opaque mirror. Anyone who tries to look into it sees nothing but the dim outlines of an old and worried face. Jim Bishop 

Happy the man, and happy he alone, he can call today his own; he who, secure within, can say, tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today. John Dryden 

Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be. Unknown

One can return to their place of birth, but one cannot go back to your youth. John Burroughs

Remember that the sole life which a man can lose is that which he is living at the moment. Marcus Aurelius 

What we look for does not come to pass; god finds a way for what none foresaw. Euripides  

With the past, as past, I have nothing to do; nor with the future as future. I live now, and will verify all past history in my own moments. Emerson 

All things are taken from us, and become portions and parcels of the dreadful past. Alfred Lord Tennyson 

People are what they are because they have come out of what was. Therefore they should bow down before what was, and take it and say it’s good; or should they? Carl Sandburg 

Remember that the future is neither ours nor wholly not ours, so that we may neither count on it as sure to come, nor abandon hope of it as certain not to be. Epicurus 

What is a ruin but time easing itself of endurance? Djuna Barnes 

We live between two dense clouds; the forgetting of what was and the uncertainty of what will be. Anatole France 

Man is a history making creature who can neither repeat his past nor leave it behind him. W. H. Auden 

Had the Greeks held novelty in such disdain as we, what work of ancient date would now exist?  Horace 

Nostalgia: Praising what is lost, makes the remembrance dear. Shakespeare  

All our yesterdays are summarized in our now, and all our tomorrows are ours to shape. Hal Borland 

Every situation and every moment is of infinite worth, for it is the representative of a whole eternity. Goethe  

How the past perishes is how the future becomes. Alfred Lord Whitehead 

I believe the future is only the past again, entered through another gate. Sir Arthur Wing Pinero 

Obligations, hatreds, injuries; what did I expect my memories to be? I was forgetting remorse. Now I have a complete past. Jean Anouilh

The past not merely is not fugitive, it remains present. Marcel Proust

The present, like a note in music, is nothing but as it appertains to what is past and what is to come. Walter Savage Landor 

It is not the weight of the future or the past that is pressing upon you, but ever that of the present alone. Even this burden, too, can be lessened if you confine it strictly to its own limits. Marcus Aurelius 

The mind which renounces, once and for ever, a futile hope, has its compensation in ever-growing calm. George Gissing 

Necessity is the theme and the inventress, the eternal curb and law of nature. Leonardo DA Vinci 

Quotes about Maturity

Faye and Dick by Ohsusana of Morguefile

The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one.  Wilhelm Stekel

We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we move from the passive voice to the active voice; and that is, until we have stopped saying “it got lost” and say "I lost it."  Sydney J. Harris

To live with fear and not be afraid is the final test of maturity. Edward Weeks 

Years ago we discovered the exact point, the dead center of middle age. It occurs when you are too young to take up golf and too old to rush up to the net.  Franklin P. Adams 

As you get older, and felt yourself to be at the center of your time, and not at a point in its circumference, as you felt when you were little, you were seized with a sort of shuddering.  Thomas Hardy 

As we grow old we slowly come to believe that everything will turn out badly for us, and that failure is in the nature of things; but then we do not much mind what happens to us one way or the other. Isak Dinesen 

Basically my wife was immature. I’d be at home in the bath and she’d come in and sink my boats.  Woody Allen

Better one bite at forty, of truths bitter rind, than the hot wine that gushed from the vintage of twenty. James Russell Lowell  

People always fancy that we must become old to become wise; but, in truth, as years advance, it is hard to keep ourselves as wise as we were. Goethe 

As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable.  Bruce Lee

How good we all are, in theory, to the old; and how in fact we wish them to wonder off like old dogs, die without bothering us, and bury themselves. Edgar Watson Howe 

To be grown up is to sit at the table with people who have died, who neither listen nor speak; who do not drink their tea, though they always said tea was such a comfort. Edna St. Vincent Millay 

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

How shall one who is so weak in his childhood become really strong when he grows older? We only change our fancies. Pascal 

Nature, with her customary beneficence, has ordained that man shall not learn how to live until the reasons for living are stolen from him, that he shall find no enjoyment until he becomes incapable of vivid pleasure. Giacomo Leopardi  

The Indian summer of life should be a little sunny and a little sad, like the season, and infinite in wealth and depth and tone, but never hustled. Henry Adams  

It is well for old age that it is always accompanied with want of perception, ignorance, and a facility of being deceived.  For should we see how we are used and would not acquiesce, what would become of us? Montaigne  

You are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinitely. Ogden Nash

The old, like children talk to themselves, for they have reached that hopeless wisdom of experience which knows that though were one to cry it in the streets to multitudes, or whisper it in a kiss to one’s beloved, the only ears that can ever hear one’s secret are one’s own. Eugene O’Neill  

By the time a man notices that he is no longer young, his youth has long since left him. Francois Mauriac 

Old age has a great sense of calm and freedom; when the passions relax their hold, then we are freed from the grasp not of one mad master only, but of many. Plato 

A man’s maturity consists in having found again the seriousness one had as a child at play. Nietzsche 

Youth is not a time of life, it is a state of mind; it is a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, a predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over love of ease.  Samuel Ullman

And so from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe, and then from hour to hour, we rot and rot; and thereby hangs a tale. Shakespeare

Is life so wretched? Isn’t it rather your hands which are too small, your vision which is muddled? You are the one who must grow up. Dag Hammarskjold 

From forty to fifty a man is at heart either a stoic or a satyr. Sir Arthur Wing Pinero 

Youth is when you blame all your troubles on your parents; maturity is when you learn that everything is the fault of the younger generation. Unknown

When we rejoice in our fullness, then we can part with our fruits with joy. Tagore 

Grown up, and that is a terribly hard thing to do. It is much easier to skip it and go from one childhood to another.  F. Scott Fitzgerald 

After thirty, a man wakes up sad every morning, excepting perhaps five or six, until the day of his death. Emerson 

Involvement with people is always a very delicate thing; it requires real maturity to become involved and not get all messed up.  Bernard Cooke

The wisest man is just a boy who grieves that he’s grownup. Vincenzo Cardarelli 

When a middle aged man says in a moment of weariness that he is half dead, he is telling the literal truth. Elmer Davis  

The mere process of growing old together will make our slightest acquaintances seem like bosom-friends. Logan Pearsall Smith

There is more felicity on the far side of baldness than young men can possibly imagine. Logan Pearsall Smith 

Rashness is the error of youth, timid caution of age. Manhood is the ripe and fertile season of action, when alone we can hope to find the head to contrive, united with the hand to execute. Charles Caleb Colton

The blush that flies at seventeen is fixed at forty-nine. Rudyard Kipling   

Maturity is only a short break in adolescence.  Jules Feiffer

There are cases in which the blade springs, but the plant does not go on to flower. There are cases where it flowers, but no fruit is subsequently produced. Confucius 

There are people who are beautiful in dilapidation, like old houses that were hideous when new. Logan Pearsall Smith

When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. Bible quote

How do you know the fruit is ripe?  Simply because it leaves the branch. Andre Gide

Old men grasp more at life than babies, and leave it with much worse grace than young people.  It is because all their labors having been for this life, they perceive at last their trouble lost. Rousseau 

To be adult and mature is to be alone. Jean Rostand 

We are like thistle-down blown about by the wind; up and down, here and there, but not one in a thousand ever getting beyond seed-hood.  Samuel Butler 

Middle age is when your age starts to show around the middle. Bob Hope 

Youth is cause; effect is age; so with the thickening of the neck we get data. Djuna Barnes

I began my comedy as its only actor and I come to the end as its only spectator. Antonio Porchia 

In a man’s middle years there is scarcely a part of the body he would hesitate to turn over to the proper authorities. E. B. White  

Quotes about Men and Women

Model Alexis Skye with publisher Ed Trice

The worldly relations of men and women often form an equation that cancels out without warning when some insignificant factor has been added to either side. William Mc Fee 

Woman have, commonly, a very positive moral sense; that which they will is right; that which they reject is wrong; and their will, in most cases, ends by settling the moral. Henri Adams

The average woman is at the head of something with which she can do as she likes; the average man has to obey orders and do nothing else. G. K. Chesterton 

Women wish to be loved without a why or a wherefore; not because they are pretty, or good, or well-bred, or graceful, or intelligent, but because they are themselves. Henri Frederic Amiel 

It is truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.  Jane Austen

A lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.  Jane Austen 

A woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her, but she can never forgive him for the sacrifices he makes on her account. Somerset Maugham 

Here’s to woman! Would that we could fall into her arms without falling into her hands. Ambrose Bierce 

Charm is a glow within a woman that casts a most becoming light on others.  John Mason Brown 

Women have no wilderness in them. They are provident instead, content in the tight hot cell of their hearts; to eat dusty bread. Louise Bogan 

Men build bridges and throw railroads across deserts, and yet they contend successfully that the job of sewing on a button is beyond them. Accordingly they don’t have to sew buttons. Heywood Broun 

Intimacies between women often go backwards, beginning in revelations and ending up in small talk without loss of esteem. Elizabeth Bowen 

Women, as they grow older, rely more and more on cosmetics. Men, as they grow older, rely more and more on a sense of humor. George Jean Nathan 

The females of all species are most dangerous when they appear to retreat. Don Marquis 

Women, who are either indisputably beautiful, or indisputably ugly, are best flattered upon the score of their understanding.  Lord Chesterfield 

Ugly girls may be naturally quite as capricious as pretty ones; but as they are never petted and spoiled, and as no allowances are made for them, they soon find themselves obliged either to suppress their whims or to hide them. Anatole France 

Most women have all other women as adversaries; most men have all other men as their allies. Gelett Burgess

Females have simple tastes. They can get pleasure out of the conversation of children in arms and men in love. H. L. Mencken  

Most females will forgive a liberty rather than a slight. Charles Caleb Colton 

History is bright and fiction dull with homely men who have charmed women. O. Henry

A beauty is a woman you notice; a charmer is one who notices you. Adlai Stevenson 

Women are better than they are reputed to be; they don’t mock the tears men shed, unless they themselves are responsible for them. Georges Courteline 

The entire being of a female is a secret that should be kept. Unknown 

Men know so little about us women. We’ve a weakness, it is true, for those who charm us, but we always come back to those who love us. Henry Becque 

Men should not care too much for good looks; neglect is becoming. Ovid

When a man holds his tongue it does not signify much. But when a woman dispenses with the office of that mighty member, when she sheathes her natural weapon at a trying moment, it means that she trusts to still more formidable enginery; to tears it may be. Oliver Wendell Holmes 

The woman who is known only through a man is known wrong. Henry Adams 

There is no character in the comedy of human life more difficult to play well than that of an old bachelor.  Washington Irving

It’s absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious. Oscar Wilde 

What is most beautiful in virile men is something feminine; what is most beautiful in feminine women is something masculine. Susan Sontag 

God made the rose out of what was left of woman at the creation. The great difference is, we feel the rose’s thorns when we gather it; and the other’s when we have had it for some time. Walter Savage Landor 

A man is like a phonograph with half-a-dozen records. You get tired of them all; and yet you have to sit at table whilst he reels them off to every new visitor. George Bernard Shaw 

Where neither love nor hate is in the game, the female’s game is mediocre. Nietzsche 

Every man is made of clay and diamond, and no woman can nourish both. Lawrence Durrell 

Women speak because they wish to speak, whereas a man speaks only when driven to speech by something outside himself.  Jean Kerr

As the dog becomes thoroughbred in the laws of clan and caste; obedient, fraternal and loyal; so is the man who accepts the gentleman’s code.  Gelett Burgess 

It is charm a sort of bloom on a woman. If you have it you don’t need to have anything else; and if you don’t have it, it doesn’t much matter what else you have. J. M. Barrie 

What a life we men lead! Either bachelors or cuckolds; what a choice!  Henry Becque  

Women are not men’s equals in anything except responsibility. We are not their inferiors, either, or even their superiors. We are simply different races. Phyllis Mc Ginley 

If a woman wants to hold a man, she has merely to appeal to what is worst in him. We make gods of them, and they leave us. Others make brutes of them and they fawn and are faithful.  Oscar Wilde

There’s nothing like mixing with women to bring out all the foolishness in a man of sense.  Thornton Wilder 

In our civilization, men are afraid that they will not be men enough and women are afraid that they might be considered only women. Theodor Reik  

The bachelor’s admired freedom is often a yoke, for the freer a man is to himself the greater slave he often is to the whims of others. George Jean Nathan 

Women, as they are like riddles in being unintelligible, so generally resemble them in this, that they please us no longer once we know them. Alexander Pope

Women are quite unlike men. They have higher voices, longer hair, smaller waistlines, daintier feet and prettier hands. They also invariably have the upper hand.  Stephen Potter 

Quotes about Morality

Distaste sounds more emphatic when expressed as moral disapproval. With most of us the moral counterblast is nothing more than the angry rendering of a yawn. Frank Moore Colby 

There can be no final truth in ethics any more than in physics, until the last man has had his experience and said his say. William James 

Every man has his moral backside too, which he doesn’t expose unnecessarily but keeps covered as long as possible by the trousers of decorum. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg 

Every truth has two sides; it is well to look at both, before we commit ourselves to either.  Aesop 

A man who permits his honor to be taken, permits his life to be taken. Pietro Aretino

How could sincerity be a condition of friendship?  A taste for truth at any cost is a passion which spares nothing. Albert Camus 

Rhetoric takes no real account of the art in literature and morality takes no account of the art in life. Joseph Wood Krutch 

No man has a right perception of any truth, who has not been reacted on by it, so as to be ready to be its martyr. Emerson

Honor is like a steep island without a shore; one cannot return once one is outside.  Nicolas Boileau 

As with the pursuit of happiness, the pursuit of truth is itself gratifying whereas the consummation often turns out to be elusive. Richard Hofstadter 

Morality regulates the acts of man as a private individual; honor, his acts as a public man. Esteban Echeverria 

Honor; how much we fight with weakness to preserve thee. John Ford

It is dangerous for mortal beauty, or terrestrial virtue, too be examined by too strong a light. The torch of truth shows much that we cannot, and all that we would not, see.  Samuel Johnson 

Our error and our controversies, in the sphere of morality, arise sometimes from looking on men as though they could be altogether bad, or altogether good. Vauvenargues 

To be mistaken is a misfortune to be pitied; but to know the truth and not to conform one’s actions to it is a crime which heaven and earth condemn.  Giuseppe Mazzini 

How can we be scrupulous in a life which from birth onwards is so determined to wring us dry of any serenity at all. Christopher Fry

Our whole life is startlingly moral. There is never an instant’s truce between virtue and vice. Thoreau  

Everything has to be taken on trust; truth is only that which is taken to be true. It’s the currency of living. There may be nothing behind it, but it doesn’t make any difference so long as it is honored.  Tom Stoppard 

Without civic morality communities perish; without personal morality their survival has no value. Bertrand Russell 

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.  Samuel Johnson

So little trouble do men take in the search for truth, so readily do they accept whatever comes first to hand. Thucydides 

There are no moral phenomena at all, but only a moral interpretation of phenomena. Nietzsche  

The only truths we can point to are the ever-changing truths of our own experience. Peter Weiss 

To be individually righteous is the first of all duties, come what may to one’s self, to one’s country, to society, and to civilization itself. Joseph Wood Krutch 

All sects differ, because they come from men; morality is everywhere the same, because it comes from god. Voltaire 

On the one hand, we may tell the truth, regardless of consequences, and on the other hand we may mellow it and sophisticate it to make it humane and tolerable.  H. L. Mencken 

It’s never what you say, but how you make it sound sincere. Marya Mannes

The whole speculation about morality is an effort to find a way of living which men who live it will instinctively feel is good.  Walter Lippman 

If your morals make you dreary, depend upon it, they are wrong. Robert Louis Stevenson

The life of an honest man must be a perpetual infidelity. Charles Peguy 

If there is one thing worse than the modern weakening of major morals it is the modern strengthening of minor morals. G. K. Chesterton 

The primary condition for being sincere is the same as for being humble; not to boast of it, and probably not even to be aware of it. Henri Peyre 

The essence of morality is the subjugation of nature in obedience to social needs. John Morley  

When reason and instinct are reconciled, there will be no higher appeal. Jean Philippe Rameau 

As society is now constituted, a literal adherence to the moral precepts scattered throughout the gospels would mean sudden death. Alfred North Whitehead 

We must never delude ourselves into thinking that physical power is a substitute for moral power, which is the true sign of national greatness. Adlai Stevenson 

Morals are an acquirement like music, like a foreign language, like piety, poker, paralysis; no man is born with them. Mark Twain

Never has there been one possessed of complete sincerity who did not move others. Never has there been one who had not sincerity who was able to move others. Mencius  

You cannot throw words like heroism and sacrifice and nobility and honor away without abandoning the qualities they express. Marya Mannes 

Virtue is praised, but hated. People run away from it, for it is ice-cold and in this world you must keep your feet warm.  Denis Diderot 

Morality turns on whether the pleasure precedes or follows the pain. Samuel Butler 

Who cannot open an honest mind, no friend will be of mine. Euripides

Morality’s not practical. Morality’s a gesture. A complicated gesture learned from books.  Robert Bolt  

Honor and shame from no condition rise.  Act well your part, there all the honor lies.  Alexander Pope

The success of any great moral enterprise does not depend upon numbers. William Lloyd Garrison 

Morals are conforming to a local and mutable standard of right and having the quality of general expediency.  Ambrose Bierce 

It is an endless and frivolous pursuit to act by any other rule than the care of satisfying our own minds in what we do.  Richard Steele 

There are people who are virtuous only in a piece-meal way; virtue is a fabric from which they never make themselves a whole garment. Joseph Joubert   

Morality is the thing upon which your friends smile, and immorality is the thing on which they frown. Elbert Hubbard 

Honesty’s praised, then left to freeze. Juvenal 

Our system of morality is a body of imperfect social generalizations expressed in terms of emotion. Oliver Wendell Holmes 

The only immorality is to not do what one has to do when one has to do it. Jean Anouilh 

If virtue cannot shine bright, but by the conflict of contrary appetites, shall we then say that she cannot subsist without the assistance of vice, and that it is from her that she derives her reputation and honor. Montaigne 

Sometimes I feel something akin to rage at the corrupted morals of this age. Moliere 

He who defines his conduct by ethics imprisons his songbird in a cage. Kahlil Gibran  

God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Emerson 

Morality is either a social contract or you have to pay cash. Stanislaw Lec 

They who know the truth are not equal to those who love it, and they who love it are not equal to those who delight in it. Confucius 

Quotes about Excellence

Rolls-Royce Phantom

The artisan or scientist or the follower of whatever discipline who has the habit of comparing himself not with other followers but with the discipline itself will have a lower opinion of himself, the more excellent he is.  Giacomo Leopardi  

Too often we forget that genius, too, depends upon the data within its reach, that even Archimedes could not have devised Edison’s inventions.  Ernest Dimnet  

Are not our greatest men as good as lost? The men that walk daily among us, warming us, feeding us, walk shrouded in darkness, mere mythic men. Thomas Carlyle 

Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no blessedness. Thomas Carlyle 

The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as in poetry.  Bertrand Russell

Men are like the stars; some generate their own light while others reflect the brilliance they receive.  Jose Marti 

Sensibility alters from generation to generation in everybody, whether we will or no; but expression is only altered by a man of genius. T. S. Eliot

The perfect man is the true partner. Not a bed partner nor a fun partner, but a man who will shoulder burdens equally with you and possess that quality of joy.  Erica Jong

Genius seems to consist merely in trueness of sight, in using such words as show that the man was an eye-witness, and not a repeater of what was told.  Emerson

Conceit and presumption have not been any more fatal to the world, than the waste which comes of great men failing in their hearts to recognize how great they are. John Morley

Knowledge may give weight, but accomplishments give luster, and many more people see than weigh. Lord Chesterfield  

Human excellence means nothing unless it works with the consent of god. Euripides

Lives of great men all remind us we can make our lives sublime, and departing leave behind us footprints on the sand of time. Longfellow 

Genius goes around the world in its youth incessantly apologizing for having large feet. What wonder that later in life it should be inclined to raise those feet too swiftly to fools and bores.  F. Scott Fitzgerald 

A great man need not be virtuous, nor his opinions right, but he must have a firm mind, a distinctive luminous character. George Santayana 

As many languages as he has, as many friends, as many arts and trades, so many times he is a man. Emerson

Geniuses are the luckiest of mortals because what they must do is the same as what they most want to do. W. H. Auden 

Men of genius do not excel in any profession because they labor in it, but they labor in it because they excel. William Hazlitt 

Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.  Alexander Pope

Nothing is likely about masterpieces, least of all whether there will be any.  Igor Stravinsky 

To be a great man it is necessary to know how to profit by the whole of our good fortune. LA Rochefoucauld 

It is skill not strength that governs a ship. Thomas Fuller

We measure the excellence of other men by some excellence we conceive to be in ourselves.  John Selden

Genius is a native to the soil where it grows and is fed by the air, and warmed by the sun; and is not a hothouse plant or an exotic. William Hazlitt 

The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigator. Edward Gibbon 

Great men, like comets, are eccentric in their courses, and formed to do extensive good by modes unintelligible to vulgar minds. Charles Caleb Colton 

The world is always ready to receive talent with open arms. Very often it does not know what to do with genius. Oliver Wendell Holmes 

All excellence is equally difficult.  Thornton Wilbur

Men worship the shows of great men; the most disbelieve that there is any reality of great men to worship. Thomas Carlyle

Genius is gifted with a vitality which is expended in the enrichment of life through the discovery of new worlds of feeling.  Hans Hofmann 

Skill and confidence are an unconquered army. George Herbert 

All your youth you want to have your greatness taken for granted; when you find it taken for granted, you are unnerved. Elizabeth Bowen

You cannot create genius. All you can do is nurture it. Ninette De Valois

What is our praise or pride but to imagine excellence and try to make it? What does it say over the door of heaven; but, homo (sapiens) fecit?   Richard Wilbur  

Great things are accomplished by men who are not conscious of the importance of man. Such insensitiveness is precious. Paul Valery 

A genius is a man who does unique things of which nobody would expect him to be capable.  E. V. Lucas 

All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Albert Camus 

Skills vary with the man. We must tread a straight path and strive by that which is born in us. Pindar 

He who comes up to his own idea of greatest must always have had a very low standard of it in his mind. William Hazlitt 

The first thing the world does to a genius is to make him lose all his youth.  Clarence Day

Desire of greatness is a godlike sin. John Dryden 

Men who produce works of genius are not those who live in the most delicate atmosphere, whose conversation is most brilliant, or their culture broadest, but those who have had the power, ceasing in a moment to live only for themselves, to make use of their personality as of a mirror. Marcel Proust 

To know the great men dead is compensation for having to live with the mediocre. Elbert Hubbard

When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him. Jonathan Swift

Consider first, that great or bright infers not excellence. Milton 

To do easily what is difficult for others is the mark of talent. To do what is impossible for talent is the mark of genius. Henri Frederic Amiel 

If men of genius only knew what love their works inspire. Hector Berlioz 

Great offices will have great talents. William Cowper 

Quotes about Prosperity

Lakshmi the Hindu Goddess of Prosperity

Happiness seems to require a modicum of external prosperity. Aristotle

When fortune flatters, she does it to betray.  Publilius Syrus 

Distress: A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a friend.  Ambrose Bierce

Broad acres are a patent of nobility; and no man but feels more of a man in the world if he have a bit of ground that he can call his own. However small it is on the surface, it is four thousand miles deep; and that is a very handsome property.  Charles Dudley Warner

It is easy when we are in prosperity to give advice to the afflicted. Aeschylus

Men are divided between those who are as thrifty as if they would live forever, and those who are as extravagant as if they were going to die the next day.  Aristotle 

He that has a penny in his purse is worth a penny. Have and you shall be esteemed. Petronius  

Prosperity is the best protector of principle.  Mark Twain

Men first feel necessity, then look for utility, next attend to comfort, still later amuse themselves with pleasure, thence grow dissolute in luxury, and finally go mad and waste their substance.   Giambattista Vico 

When fortune comes, seize her in front with a sure hand, because behind she is bald. Leonardo DA Vinci 

A successful tool is one that was used to do something undreamed of by its author. S C Johnson

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.  Mark Twain

In big houses in which things are done properly, there is always the religious element.  The diurnal cycle is observed with more feeling when there are servants to do the work. Elizabeth Bowen 

Look how men live, always precariously balanced between good and bad fortune. Sophocles 

Social prosperity means man happy, the citizen free, and the nation great. Victor Hugo

Money is indeed the most important thing in the world; and all sound and successful personal and national morality should have this fact for its basis. George Bernard Shaw 

There are one hundred men seeking security to one able man who is willing to risk his fortune. Jean Paul Getty

It should be remembered that the foundation of the social contract is property; and its first condition, that everyone should be maintained in the peaceful possession of what belongs to him. Rousseau 

Prosperity’s the very bond of love, whose fresh complexion and whose heart together, affliction alters. Shakespeare  

All this wheeling and dealing around, why, it isn’t for money, it’s for fun. Money’s just the way we keep score. Henry Tyroon

When a man is a favorite of fortune, she never takes him unawares, and, however astonishing her favors may be, she finds him ready. Napoleon 

Money is coined liberty, and so it is ten times dearer to a man who is deprived of freedom.  If money is jingling in his pocket, he is half consoled, even though he cannot spend it. Dostoevsky 

The rich are more envied by those who have little than by those who have nothing. Charles Caleb Colton 

Business is a good game; lots of competition and minimum of rules. You keep score with money. Nolan Bushnell

Fortunate persons hardly ever amend their ways; they always image that they are in the right when fortune upholds their bad conduct.  LA Rochefoucauld 

There is a time when a man distinguishes the idea of felicity from the idea of wealth; it is the beginning of wisdom. Emerson 

If a man has money, it is usually a sign, too, that he knows how to take care of it; don’t imagine his money is easy to get simply because he has plenty of it. Edgar Watson Howe 

I should like to bring a case to trial: Prosperity versus Beauty. Cash registers teetering in a balance against the comfort of the soul. Amy Lowell  

Have but luck, and you will have the rest; be fortunate, and you will be thought great.  Victor Hugo

If a man is wise, he gets rich, and if he gets rich, he gets foolish, or his wife does. That’s what keeps the money moving around.  Finley Peter Dunne 

Necessity is an evil; but there is no necessity for continuing to live subject to the need.  Epicurus 

Fortune, men say, doth give too much to many, but yet she never gave enough to any. Sir John Harrington 

Anyone who lives within his means suffers from a lack of imagination. Lionel Stander 

Money is the alienated essence of man’s work and existence; this essence dominates him and he worships it. Karl Marx 

Men honor property above all else; it has the greatest power in human life. Euripides 

It requires a great deal of boldness and a great deal of caution to make a great fortune, and when you have got it, it requires ten times as much wit to keep it. Emerson

They must know but little of mankind who can imagine that, after they have once been seduced by luxury, they can never renounce it. Rousseau

When you find fortune favorable, stride boldly forward, for she favors the bold, and being a woman the young.  Baltasar Gracian 

It is not the possessions but the desires of mankind which require to be equalized. Aristotle 

The use of money is all the advantage there is to having money. Benjamin Franklin

Riches are intended for the comfort of life, and not life for the purpose of hoarding riches. Sadi 

Natural wealth is limited and easily obtained; the wealth defined by vain fancies is always beyond reach. Epicurus 

Industry if fortune’s right hand, and frugality her left. Thomas Fuller

When you ascend the hill of prosperity, may you not meet a friend. Mark Twain

Hardship is vanishing, but so is style and the two are more closely connected than the present generation supposes. E. M. Forster 

Economy is a distributive virtue, and consists not in saving but in selection. Edmund Burke 

Wealth stays with us a little moment if at all; only our characters are steadfast, not our gold. Euripides 

Money is not an aphrodisiac; the desire it may kindle in the female eye is more for the cash than the carrier. Marya Mannes 

There is in the worst of fortune the best of chances for a happy change. Euripides 

The makers of fortunes have a second love of money as a creation of their own, resembling the affection of authors for their own poems, or of parents for their children, besides that natural love of it for the sake of use and profit. Plato

It’s pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness; poverty and wealth have both failed.  Kim Hubbard

Nothing is more admirable than the fortitude with which millionaires tolerate the disadvantages of their wealth.  Rex Stout & Nero Wolfe

Riches rather enlarge than satisfy appetites. Thomas Fuller 

We have produced a world of contented bodies and discontented minds. Adam Clayton Powell 

Don’t envy men because they seem to have a run of luck, since luck’s a nine day’s wonder. Wait their end.  Euripides

The control of the production of wealth is the control of human life itself.  Hilaire Belloc

The lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master.  Kahlil Gibran 

Good fortune leads one to the highest glory, but to renounce it calls for equal courage. Corneille 

Prosperity is only an instrument to be used, not a deity to be worshipped. Calvin Coolidge

Economy, in the estimation of common minds, often means the absence of all taste and comfort. Sydney Smith

Some men worship rank, some worship heroes, some worship power, some worship gods, and over these ideals they dispute; but they all worship money.  Mark Twain 

Let everyone witness how many different cards fortune has up her sleeve when she wants to ruin a man. Benvenuto Cellini

A penny saved is a penny to squander. Ambrose Bierce 

Now and then there is a person born who is so unlucky that he runs into accidents which started out to happen to somebody else. Don Marquis    

The difference between a little money and no money at all is enormous and can shatter the world. And the difference between a little money and an enormous amount is very slight, and that, also, can shatter the world. Thornton Wilder  

And Finally Remember:
The ass loaded with gold still eats thistles. 

Quotes about Eloquence

Polyhymnia Greek Muse of Eloquence

He who wants to persuade should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right word. The power of sound has always been greater than the power of sense. Joseph Conrad 

Speech is one symptom of affection; and silence one; the perfect communication is heard of none. Emily Dickinson  

Everything that steel achieves in war can be won in politics by eloquence. Demetrius

Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid. Dostoevsky 

He that has no silver in his purse should have silver on his tongue. Thomas Fuller 

There is no more sovereign eloquence than the truth of indignation. Victor Hugo

When the eyes say one thing, and the tongue another, a practiced man relies on the language of the first. Emerson 

True eloquence consists in saying all that should be said, and that only. LA Rochefoucauld 

Promise is most given when the least is said. George Chapman 

Today it is neither the classroom nor the classics which are the models of eloquence, but the ad agencies. Marshall McLuhan 

Good communication is stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after. Anne Morrow Lindbergh 

Speech is civilization itself. The word, even the most contradictious word, preserves contact; it is silence which isolates. Thomas Mann

Yes and no are soon said, but give much to think over. Baltasar Gracian 

There are some who speak well and write badly. For the place and the audience warm them, and draw from their minds more than they think of without that warmth. Pascal

The articulate voice is more distracting than mere noise. Seneca 

It is an impertinent and unreasonable fault in conversation for one man to take up all the discourse. Richard Steele 

Nothing is often a good thing to say, and always a clever thing to say. Will Durant 

If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried onto success.  Confucius 

A man does not know what he is saying until he knows what he is not saying. G. K. Chesterton 

Eloquence; it requires the pleasant and the real; but the pleasant must itself be drawn from the true. Pascal

Brevity is very good, when we are or are not understood.  Samuel Butler 

We should have a great many fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves. John Locke 

I see that everywhere among the race of men, it is the tongue that wins and not the deed. Sophocles 

The voice is a second face. Gerard Bauer 

Whenever I have talked to anyone at too great length, I am like a man who has drunk too much, and ashamed, doesn’t know where to put himself. Jules Renard 

Clarity is the politeness of the man of letters. Jules Renard 

The stillest tongue can be the truest friend. Euripides 

Eloquence is a republican art, as conversation is an aristocratic one. George Santayana

Language is by its very nature a communal thing; that is, it expresses never the exact thing but a compromise; that which is common to you, me, and everybody. Thomas Ernest Hulme  

That is the happiest conversation where there is no competition, no vanity, but a calm quiet interchange of sentiments. Samuel Johnson 

No one would talk much in society, if he only knew how often he misunderstands others. Goethe 

I distrust the incommunicable; it is the source of all violence. Jean-Paul Sartre 

Words have users, but as well, users have words. And it is the users that establish the world’s realities. Le Roi Jones 

People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others. Pascal 

The tongue of man is a twisty thing, there are plenty of words there, of every kind, the range of words is wide, and their variance. Homer 

Least said is soonest disavowed. Ambrose Bierce 

Eloquence wins its great and enduring fame quite as much from the benches of our opponents as from those of our friends. Tacitus 

Intelligence is silence, truth being invisible. But what a racket I make in declaring this. Ned Rorem 

The art of conversation is the art of hearing as well as of being heard. William Hazlitt 

What is conceived well is expressed clearly; and the words to say it with arrive with ease.  Nicolas Boileau 

Use what language you will, you can never say anything but what you are.  Emerson 

It’s when the thing itself is missing that you have to supply the word.  Henry De Montherlant 

There can be no fairer ambition than to excel in talk; to be affable, gay, ready, clear, and welcome. Robert Louis Stevenson 

The sum of human wisdom is not contained in any one language, and no single language is capable of expressing all the forms and degrees of human comprehension. Ezra Pound 

Talking is like playing on the harp; there is as much in laying the hand on the strings to stop their vibrations as in twanging them to bring out their music. Oliver Wendell Holmes 

Nothing is so unbelievable that oratory cannot make it acceptable. Cicero 

When I struggle to be terse, I end by being obscure. Horace

The dumbness in the eyes of animals is more touching than the speech of man, but the dumbness in the speech of men is more agonizing than the eyes of animals. Unknown 

We oftener say things because we can say them well, than because they are sound and reasonable. Walter Savage Landor

The silence of the pure innocence persuades when speaking fails. Shakespeare 

When orators and auditors have the same prejudices, those prejudices run a great risk of being made to stand for incontestable truths. Joseph Roux  

Poetry should help, not only to refine the language of the time, but to prevent it from changing too rapidly. T. S. Eliot

If to talk to oneself when alone is folly; it must be doubly unwise to listen to oneself in the presence of others. Baltasar Gracian

To grasp the meaning of the world of today we use the language created to express the world of yesterday.  The life of the past seems to us nearer our true natures, but only for the reason that it is nearer our language. Saint-Exupery  

What oh wise man is the tongue in the mouth? It is a key to the casket of the intellectual treasurer; so long as the lid remains shut how can any person say whether he be a dealer in gems or in pedlery?  Sadi

If a people have no word for something, either it does not matter to them or it matters too much to talk about. Edgar Z. Friedenberg