Quotes about Gratitude

Gratitude

Those whose approval you seek the most give you the least. Bart Simpson

Benefits received are a delight to us as long as we think we can requite them; when that possibility is far exceeded, they are paid with hatred rather than gratitude. Tacitus 

A perfectly honest woman, a woman who never flatters, who never manages, who never cajoles, who never conceals, who never uses her eyes, who never speculates on the effect which she produces, who never is conscious of unspoken admiration, what a monster, I say, would such a female be!  William Makepeace Thackeray 

I would rather be able to appreciate things I cannot have than to have things I am not able to appreciate.  Elbert Hubbard

Admiration: Our polite recognition of another’s resemblance to ourselves. Ambrose Bierce 

Bees sip honey from flowers and hum their thanks when they leave. The gaudy butterfly is sure that the flowers owe thanks to him. Tagore 

Next to ingratitude, the most painful thing to bear is gratitude. Henry Ward Beecher

An ingenuous mind feels in unmerited praise the bitterest reproof. Walter Savage Landor

Men sometimes feel injured by praise because it assigns a limit to their merit. Vauvenargues 

My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.  Albert Einstein

The man with a host of friends who slaps on the back everybody he meets is regarded as the friend of nobody. Aristotle 

There is innocence in admiration; it is found in those to whom it has not yet occurred that they, too, might be admired someday. Nietzsche 

Popularity is a crime from the moment it is sought; it is only a virtue where men have it whether they will or not. Sir George Seville

There is an ancient saying, famous among men that they shouldn't judge fully of a man’s life before he dies, whether it should be called blessed or wretched.  Sophocles

We are nearer loving those who hate us than those who owe us more than we wish. LA Rochefoucauld  

I appreciate the fact that this draft was done in haste, but some of the sentences that you are sending out in the world to do your work for you are loitering in taverns or asleep beside the highway.  Dwight Van DE Vate

A grateful mind, by owing owes not, but still pays at once; indebted and discharged. Milton

There are minds so impatient of inferiority that their gratitude is a species of revenge, and they return benefits, not because recompense is a pleasure, but because obligation is a pain. Samuel Johnson 

Every artist love applause. The gratitude of his contemporaries is the most valuable part of his recompense.  Rousseau 

The great merit of society is to make one appreciate solitude. Herman Hesse 

We seldom find people ungrateful so long as we are in a position to be beneficial. LA Rochefoucauld  

The trouble with being punctual is that nobody’s there to appreciate it.  Franklin P Jones

Praise, though it be our due, is not like a blank-bill to be paid upon demand; to be valuable, it must be voluntary.  Coll Cibber 

The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was. Anonymous 

Men who cherish for women the highest respect are seldom popular with them.  Joseph Addison

A refined nature is vexed by knowing that someone owes it thanks, a course nature by knowing that it owes thanks to someone.  Nietzsche 

True praise comes often even to the lowly, false only to the strong. Seneca

In the majority of men gratitude is only a veiled desire of receiving greater benefaction. LA Rochefoucauld 

To refuse approval is to seek it twice. Unknown

Raised of themselves, their genuine charms they boast, and those who paint them truest praise them the most. Joseph Addison

To speak highly of one with whom we are intimate is a species of egotism. Our modesty as well as our jealousy teaches us caution on this subject. William Hazlitt  

Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive. Edward Gibbon 

It is one thing to praise discipline, and another to submit to it. Miguel DE Cervantes

Let others commend ancient times; I am glad I was born in these. Ovid 

Praise out of season, or tactlessly bestowed, can freeze the heart as much as blame. Pearl S. Buck 

Great indebtedness does not make men grateful, but vengeful. Nietzsche

The most popular persons in society are those who take the world as it is, find the least fault, and have no hobbies. Charles Dudley Warner 

There’s no acclaim to beat the sort you can put in your pocket. Moliere 

The deafest man can hear praise, and is slow to think any an excess. Walter Savage Landor 

Gratefulness is the poor man’s payment. Proverb

Acclaim makes good men better and bad men worse. Thomas Fuller

The way of the world is to praise dead saints and prosecute live ones.  Nathaniel Howe

God give you pardon from gratitude, and other mild forms of servitude. Robert Creeley

We are always more anxious to be distinguished for a talent which we do not possess, than to be praised for the fifteen which we do possess.  Mark Twain

Evermore thanks, the exchequer of the poor. Shakespeare 

Praise is always pleasing, let it come from whom, or upon what account it will. Montaigne 

The soil in return for her service keeps the tree tied to her; the sky asks nothing and leaves it free. Tagore

Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones. Charles Caleb Colton

Generally we praise only to receive the same. LA Rochefoucauld 

Quotes about Wants and Desire

Desire

How few are our real wants, and how easy is it to satisfy them? Our imaginary ones are boundless and insatiable. Julius Charles and Augustus William Hare

Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. John Cage

Those desires that do not bring pain if they are not satisfied are not necessary; and they are easily thrust aside whenever to satisfy them appears difficult or likely to cause injury. Epicurus  

Having the fewest wants, I am nearest to the gods. Socrates

The superiority of the distant over the present is only due to the mass and variety of the pleasures that can be suggested, compared with the poverty of those that at any time can be felt. George Santayana 

Man belongs wherever he wants to go. Scot Joplin

No living being is held by anything so strongly as by its own needs. Whatever therefore appears a hindrance to these, be it brother, or father, or mistress, or friend, is hated, abhorred, and execrated. Epictetus

The best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it. Theodore Roosevelt

I mean by a picture a beautiful romantic dream of something that never was, never will be;  in a light better than any light that ever shone;  in a land no one can define or remember, only desire’ and the forms divinely beautiful.  Edward Burne-Jones

I treasure this strange combination found in very few persons: a fierce desire for life as well as a lucid perception of the ultimate futility of the quest. Madeleine Gobeil

The constant demands of the heart and the belly can allow man only an incidental indulgence in the pleasures of the eye and the understanding. George Santayana 

Man’s unique agony as a species consists in his perpetual conflict between the desire to stand out and the need to blend in. Sydney J Harris

Some might consider him as too fond of fame; for the desire of glory clings even to the best men longer than any other passion. Tacitus

Conscious is when you are aware of something and conscience is when you wish you weren’t. Terry Wimpole  

I do not wish women to have power over men; but over themselves. Mary Wollstonecraft

It is hard to fight against impulsive desire; whatever it wants it will buy at the cost of the soul. Heraclitus 

There are certain people who so ardently and passionately desire a thing, that from dread of losing it they leave nothing undone to make them lose it. LA Bruyere 

I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as king as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love.  Edward, Duke of Windsor

I wish, by the way, that I knew who separated time from eternity; there seems only one thing to me, and I always feel that I am in eternity. Georgiana Burne-Jones 

Since the creation of the world there has been no tyrant like intemperance, and no slave cruelly treated as his. William Lloyd Garrison 

Understanding human needs is half the job of meeting them. Adlai Stevenson 

It is much easier to extinguish a first desire than to satisfy those which follow it. LA Rochefoucauld 

If you do not wish a man to do a thing, you had better get him to talk about it; for the more men talk, the more likely they are to do nothing else. Thomas Carlyle

It is equally bad when one speeds on the guest unwilling to go, and when he holds back one who is hastening. Rather one should befriend the guest who is there, but speed him when he wishes.  Homer

If you desire many things, many things will seem but a few. Benjamin Franklin 

Thieves respect property; they merely wish the property to become their property so that they may more perfectly respect it. Gilbert K Chesterton

We do not wish ardently for what we desire only through reason. LA Rochefoucauld 

Those who wish to appear wise among fools, among the wise seem foolish. Quintilian

What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which are exact opposites. Bertrand Russell 

He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence. William Blake

You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it true. You may have to work for it, however. Richard Bach

Other people’s appetites easily appear excessive when one doesn't share them. Andre Gide 

Often, the thing we pursue most passionately is but a substitute for the one thing we really want and cannot have. Eric Hoffer 

Men take only their needs into consideration; never their abilities. Napoleon 

When a man has been intemperate so long that shame no longer paints a brush upon his cheek, his liquor generally does it instead. George Dennison Prentice 

All impediments in fancy’s course are motives of more fancy. Shakespeare 

Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion, and he whose real wants are supplied must admit those of fancy. Samuel Johnson

Appetite is an instinct thoughtfully implanted by providence as a solution to the labor question. Ambrose Bierce 

Needs must where the Devil drives. Proverb

Quotes about Ambition and Aspiration

Woman of ambition by James Tissot

Everything that has been achieved, for good or for bad, is due to the way humans are. The future will be no different. Whether we reach for the stars or plumb the depths, humans will be responsible. Tom Johnston

All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries or credulity's of mankind. Joseph Conrad

Here lay the tragedy. Western man is so constituted that he cannot abide contentment. It is the unforgivable sin. He must forever strive towards some unseen goal, whether it be material comfort, a greater and purer God, or some weapon that will make him master of the universe. Daphne Du Maurier

It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book. Friedrich Nietzsche

The city is ourselves, mirroring with precision our needs and our activities, our values and our aspirations, our confusions and our contradictions.  Michael Middleton

All sins have their origin in a sense of inferiority, otherwise called ambition. Cesare Pavese 

In the long run men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high. Thoreau 

To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to do. Khalil Gibran

Not every end is the goal. The end of a melody is not its goal, and yet if a melody has not reached its end, it has not reached its goal. Nietzsche 

Life is a petty thing unless it is moved by the indomitable urge to extend its boundaries. Only in proportion as we are desirous of living more do we really live. Jose Ortega Y Gasset  

On the neck of the young man sparkles no gem as gracious as enterprise. Hafiz 

I like a state of continual becoming, with a goal in front and not behind.  George Bernard Shaw

What appears to be generosity is often only ambition disguised, which despises small interests to pursue great ones. LA Rochefoucauld 

We should be careful as to the play, but indifferent to the ball. Epictetus 

We often pass from love to ambition, but we hardly ever return from ambition to love. LA Rochefoucauld 

I drink the wine of aspiration and the drug of illusion. Thus I am never dull. John Galsworthy

Wild ambition loves to slide, not stand; and fortunes ice prefers to virtue’s land. John Dryden 

Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success. Francis Bacon

A slave has but one master; an ambitious man has as many masters as there are people who may be useful in bettering his position. LA Bruyere

A man’s aspiration should exceed his success or he begins to die. Gerald Wolfe 

If you would hit the mark, you must aim a little above it; every arrow that flies feels the attraction of earth. Longfellow 

First, say to yourself what you would be, and then do what you have to do. Epictetus 

None will improve your lot if you yourselves will not. Bertolt Brecht 

Ambition often puts men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same posture with creeping. Jonathan Swift

There is a mortal breed most full of futility. In contempt of what is at hand, they strain into the future, hunting impossibilities on the wings of ineffectual hopes. Pindar 

The passion to get ahead is sometimes born of the fear lest we be left behind. Eric Hoffer

A man’s worth is no greater than the worth of his ambitions. Marcus Aurelius 

If you aspire to the highest place, it is no disgrace to stop at the second, or even the third place. Cicero

The means prepare the end, and the end is what the means have made it. John Morley

People are always neglecting something they can do in trying to do something they can’t do. Edgar Watson Howe

The tallest trees are most in the power of the winds, and ambitious men of the blasts of fortune. William Penn

Aspiration provides man with the reason for living; that being activity. Mary Simmonds   

Nothing is so common-place as to wish to be remarkable. Oliver Wendell Holmes

Quotes about Aesthetics

Define Beauty 

Mystery it all is; but we are part of it, and no trouble that happens to us is a new one in the world. God bless you, most dear ones, and keep you by the way only known to himself and yourselves. George Eliot 

There’s something the technicians need to learn from the artists. If it isn’t aesthetically pleasing, it’s probably wrong. Julius Fenton

Beauty is unbearable, drives us to despair, offering us for a minute the glimpse of an eternity that we should like to stretch out over the whole of time. Albert Camus

Pay attention only to the form; emotion will come spontaneously to inhabit it. A perfect dwelling always finds an inhabitant. Andre Gide 

Aesthetics is for the artist like ornithology is for the birds. Barnet Newman

The artist is a cut above the critic, for the artist is writing something which will move the critic. The critic is writing something which will move everybody but the artist. William Faulkner 

Take the advice of light when you’re looking at linens or jewels; looking at faces or forms, take the advice of the day. Ovid

In a culture whose already classical dilemma is the hypertrophy of the intellect at the expense of energy and sensual capability, interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art. Susan Sontag 

A picture of human life such as a great artist can give, surprises even the trivial and the selfish into that attention to what is apart from themselves, which may be called the raw material of moral sentiment.  George Eliot

And any stone… being mentally handled must become endowed with such poetry and artistry as God has given you. Gavin Stamp

A fine thought, to become poetry, must be seasoned in the upper warm garrets of the mind for long and long, then it must be brought down and slowly carved into words, shaped with emotion, polished with love. David Grayson 

The most exciting rhythms seem unexpected and complex, the most beautiful melodies simple and inevitable. W H. Auden

Things are pretty, graceful, rich, elegant, handsome, but, until they speak to the imagination, not yet beautiful. Emerson

When a man says he sees nothing in a book, he very often means that he does not see himself in it; which, if it is not a comedy or a satire, is likely enough. Julius Charles Hare and Augustus William Hare

The greatest benefit we owe to the artist, whether painter, poet, or novelist, is the extension of our sympathies. George Eliot

Near this spot are deposited the remains of one who possessed beauty without vanity, strength without insolence, courage without ferocity, and all the virtues of man without the vices.  Lord Byron, epitaph on his dog’s tomb

What really shapes and conditions and makes us is somebody only a few of us ever have the courage to face: and that is the child you once were, long before formal education ever got its claws into you; that impatient, all-demanding child who wants love and power and can’t get enough of either and who goes on raging and weeping in your spirit till at last your eyes are closed. Robertson Davies

A good poem is a contribution to reality. The world is never the same once a good poem has been added to it. A good poem helps to change the shape and significance of the universe, helps to extend everyone’s knowledge of himself and the world around him. Dylan Thomas

Every nation, every race, has not only its own creative, but its own critical turn of mind; and is even more oblivious of the shortcomings and limitations of its critical habits than of those of its creative genius. T. S. Eliot

New music: new listening. Not an attempt to understand something that is being said, for, if something were being said, the sounds would be given the shapes of words. Just an attention to the activity of sounds. John Cage

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

Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present. Shelley

Beauty is a primeval phenomenon, which itself never makes its appearance, but the reflection of which is visible in a thousand different utterances of the creative mind, and is as various as nature herself. Goethe  

We’re constantly being bombarded by insulting and humiliating music, which people are making for you the way they make those Wonder Bread products. Just as food can be bad for your system, music can be bad for your spiritual and emotional feelings. It might taste good or clever, but in the long run, it’s not going to do anything for you.  Bob Dylan

Beauty deprived of its proper foils and adjuncts ceases to be enjoyed, just as light deprived of all shadows ceases to be enjoyed as light. John Ruskin

Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one’s soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself but with its subject. John Keats

The slanders of the pen pierce to the heart; they rankle longest in the noblest spirits; they dwell ever present in the mind and render it morbidly sensitive to the most trifling collision. Washington Irving 

When music fails to agree to the ear, to soothe the ear and the heart and the senses, then it has missed its point. Maria Callas

The eye is the painter and the ear the singer. Emerson

You cannot have good architecture merely by asking people’s advice on occasion. All good architecture is the expression of national life and character; and it is produced by a prevalent and eager national taste, or desire for beauty.  John Ruskin

Spend all you have for loveliness, buy it and never count the cost; for one white singing hour of peace count many a year of strife well lost, and for a breath of ecstasy give all you have been, or could be. Sara Teasdale

We every day and every hour say things of another that we might more properly say of ourselves, could we but apply our observations to our own concerns. Montaigne 

Who is there that, in logical words, can express the effect music has on us? A kind of inarticulate unfathomable speech, which leads us to the edge of the infinite, and lets us for moments gaze into that. Thomas Carlyle

Quotes about Facts and Truths

Speaking Truth

Any theory can be made to fit any facts by means of approximate, additional assumptions. Mark Holden  

A common-sense interpretation of the facts suggest that a super intellect has monkeyed with the physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature.  Sir Fred Hoyle

Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper. Thomas Jefferson

On carelessly made or insufficient observations how many fine theories are built up which do not bear examination. Andre Gide 

Any clod can have the facts, but having an opinion is an art. Charles McCabe

Art establishes the basic human truths which must serve as a touchstone for our judgment.  John F Kennedy.

It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Hypotheses are only the pieces of scaffolding which are erected round a building during the course of construction, and which are taken away as soon as the edifice is completed. Goethe 

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed.  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” Martin Luther King

Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable. Wilton Jones

More wisdom is latent in things as they are than in all the words men use. Saint Exupery 

Many of the truths we cling to are greatly the result of our own point of view. John Lucas

You too must not count overmuch on your reality as you feel it today, since, like that of yesterday, it may prove an illusion for you tomorrow. Luigi Pirandello 

There are but two truths in the world the Bible and Greek architecture. Nicholas Biddle

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.  Aldous Huxley

There are ten or twenty basic truths, and life is the process of discovering them over and over and over.  David Nichols

Facts may weaken under extreme heat and pressure. Graham Bergen  

A platitude is simply a truth repeated till people get tired of hearing it. Stanley Baldwin

If facts do not conform to the theory, they must be disposed of. Peter Maier

Eliminate the impossible and whatever remains, no matter how improbable, is the truth. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

My mind is made up, don’t confuse me with facts. Bette Davis

History has the relation to truth that theology has to religion; none to speak of.  Taylor Smith

Practical politics consists in ignoring facts.  Henry Adams

I have discovered the art of deceiving diplomats. I tell them the truth and they never believe me.  Camillo Di Cavour

Science is facts; just as houses are made of stones, so is science made of facts; but a pile of stones, is not a house and a collection of facts is not necessarily science.  Jules Henri Poincairé

If a scientist uncovers a publishable fact, it will become central to his theory. His theory, in turn, will become central to all scientific truth. Murphy’s Law

If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out. Oscar Wilde

I speak truth, not so much as I would, but as much as I dare; and I dare a little the more as I grow older.  Michel Montaigne

If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.  Virginia Woolf

Mental things which have not gone in through the senses are vain and bring forth no truth except detrimental.  Leonardo

Each one of us has his own reality to be respected before god, even when it is harmful to one’s very self. Luigi Pirandello 

The Right Honorable Gentleman is indebted to his memory for his jests and to his imagination for his facts.  Richard Sheridan

Reality is a staircase going neither up nor down, we don’t move, today is today, always is today. Octavio Paz

My way of joking is to tell the truth. That’s the funniest joke in the world.  Muhammad Ali

What was once called the objective world is a sort of ink blot, into which each culture, each system of science and religion, each type of personality, reads a meaning only remotely derived from the shape and color of the blot itself. Lewis Mumford 

The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanations of complex facts… Seek simplicity and distrust it. Alfred North Whitehead.

Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth. Benjamin Disraeli

All our separate fictions add up to joint reality. Stanislaw Lec 

Standards are different for all things, so the standard set by man is by no means the only ‘certain’ standard. If you mistake what is relative for something certain, you have strayed far from the ultimate truth. Wilmot Chowder 

What is actual is actual for only one time; and only for one place. T. S. Eliot

The real advantage which truth has, consists in this, that when an opinion is true, it may be extinguished once, twice, or many times, but in the course of ages there will generally be found persons to rediscover it. John Stuart Mill 

We are each entitled to our own opinion, but no one is entitled to his own facts.  Patrick Moynihan

You can prove almost anything with the evidence of a small enough segment of time. How often, in any search for truth, the answer of the minute is positive, the answer of the hour qualified, the answers of the year contradictory. Edwin Way Teale

Everything is a dangerous drug except reality, which is unendurable. Cyril Connolly 

Telling the truth to people who misunderstand you is generally promoting a falsehood, isn’t it. Anthony Hope

If it were possible to talk to the unborn, one could never explain to them how it feels to be alive, for life is washed in the speechless real. Jacques Barzun 

There is no better way of exercising the imagination than the study of law. No poet ever interpreted nature as freely as a lawyer interprets truth. Jean Giraudoux

I like reality, it tastes of bread. Jean Anouilh 

Thank god, except at its one moment there’s never any such thing as a bare fact. Ten minutes later, half an hour later, one’s begun to glaze the fact over with a deposit of some sort. Elizabeth Bowen

Time dissipates to shining ether the solid angularity of facts. Emerson

All generous minds have a horror of what are commonly called facts. They are the brute beasts of the intellectual domain. Oliver Wendell Holmes

Realists do not fear the results of their study. Dostoevsky 

A fact is like a sack which won’t stand up when it is empty. In order that it may stand up, one has to put into it the reason and sentiment which have caused it to exist. Luigi Pirandello 

Pure truth, like pure gold, has been found unfit for circulation, because men have discovered that it is far more convenient to adulterate it than to refine themselves. Charles Caleb Colton

The utmost abstractions are the true weapons with which to control our thought of concrete fact. Alfred North Whitehead 

Quotes about Affection

Affection

Show your affection, which will probably meet with pleasant response. Tim Minter  

When elderly invalids meet with fellow victims of their own ailments, then at last real conversation begins, and life is delicious. Logan Pearsall Smith

Existence warps too much. It sets us so we can only receive certain kinds of opposite numbers. But in the abstract, in essence, any two human beings can find warmth together. Norman Mailer

The emotions may be endless. The more we express them, the more we may have to express. E. M. Forster 

We may not return the affection of those who like us, but we always respect their good judgment. Stephen Fry

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

Most affections are habits or duties we lack the courage to end. Henry De Montherlant 

It is healthy to enjoy sentiment as to enjoy jam. G. K. Chesterton

Praise is well, compliment is well, but affection; that is the last and final and most precious reward that any man can win, whether by character or achievement. Mark Twain

The head does not know how to play the part of the heart for long. LA Rochefoucauld 

If we had keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heartbeat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the side of silence. George Eliot

Though in itself emotion counts for little; processes of mind must make good through emotion. Saint Exupery 

Love is like a friendship caught on fire.  In the beginning a flame; very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light flickering.  As love grows older our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable. Bruce Lee

Love demands infinitely less than friendship.  George Jean Nathan

The opinions which we hold of one another, our relations with friends and kinsfolk are in no sense permanent, save in appearance, but are as eternally fluid as the sea itself. Marcel Proust

Affection never was wasted; if it enriches not the heart of, its waters, returning back to their springs, like the rain, shall fill them full of refreshment; that which the fountain sends forth returns again to the fountain. Longfellow

Emotion has taught mankind to reason. Vauvenargues 

Men, as well as women, are much oftener led by their hearts than by their understandings. Lord Chesterfield 

We know too much and feel too little. At least we feel too little of those creative emotions from which a good life springs. Bertrand Russell 

Absence diminishes mediocre passions and increases great ones, as the wind blows out candles and fans fires.  La Rochefoucauld

Most people would rather get than give affection. Aristotle 

Blossoms are scattered by the wind and the wind cares nothing, but the blossom of the heart no wind can touch. Yoshida Kenko 

All passions that suffer themselves to be relished and digested are but moderate.  Michel Montaigne

Every person’s feelings have a front door and a side door by which they may be entered. Oliver Wendell Holmes 

A mixture of admiration and pity is one of the surest recipes for affection. Andre Maurois 

Man is a knot, a web, a mesh into which relationships are tied. Only those relationships matter. Saint-Exupery 

Life is the enjoyment of emotion, derived from the past and aimed at the future. Alfred North Whitehead 

Let’s just say that where a change was required, I adjusted. In every relationship that exists, people have to seek a way to survive. If you really care about the person, you do what’s necessary, or that’s the end. For the first time, I found that I really could change, and the qualities I most admired in myself I gave up. Katherine Hepburn

The direct speech of feeling is allegorical and cannot be replaced by anything. Boris Pasternak 

Affection is created by habit, community of interests, convenience and the desire of companionship. It is a comfort rather than exhilaration. Somerset Maugham  

Whatever makes an impression on the heart seems lovely in the eye. Sadi 

It is not our exalted feelings; it is our sentiments that build the necessary home. Elizabeth Bowen

One ought to hold onto one’s heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too. Nietzsche

Nothing is little to him that feels it with great sensibility. Samuel Johnson

All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is my own. Goethe 

We are minor in everything but our passions. Elizabeth Bowen 

Quotes about Adversity

Adversity

Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man; but for one man who can stand prosperity there is a hundred that will stand adversity. Thomas Carlyle

A high heart ought to bear calamities and not flee them, since in bearing them appears the grandeur of the mind and in fleeing them the cowardice of the heart. Pietro Aretino 

Adversity reveals genius, prosperity conceals it. Horace

To be brave in misfortune is to be worthy of manhood; to be wise in misfortune is to conquer fate. Agnes Repplier 

The only incurable troubles of the rich are the troubles that money can’t cure, which is kind of unfair if you are poor. Ogden Nash 

By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man’s, I mean.  Mark Twain

The world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willingly avoids the sight of distress. Somerset Maugham 

Sorrow and silence are strong, and patient endurance is Godlike. Longfellow

Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others. Ambrose Bierce 

Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men.  Seneca

Men are living now just the way they were before, as if we didn’t have a new all over-shadowing danger to deal with and it’s clear, they have learned nothing from the horrors they’ve experienced. The little intrigues, with which they complicated their lives before, take up again the greatest part of their thoughts. What a strange species we are. Albert Einstein

The good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished, but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired. Seneca

Trouble will come soon enough, and when he does come receive him as pleasantly as possible. Like the tax-collector, he is a disagreeable chap to have in one’s house, but the more amiably you greet him the sooner he will go away. Artemus Ward

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.  Abraham Lincoln

One’s own escape from troubles makes one glad; but bringing friends to trouble is hard grief. Sophocles 

Prosperity makes friends, adversity tries them.  Syrus

There is a solution to every problem; the only difficulty is finding it. Philip Drummond 

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. Winston Churchill

In a hierarchical system, the rate of pay varies inversely with the unpleasantness and difficulty of the task. Graham Burnside 

Advice is a dangerous gift; be cautious about giving and receiving it. Matt Lucas 

Don’t worry about being in a dangerous situation. You have the rest of your life to straighten it out. Johnathon C. Venables  

Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have.  Harry Emerson Fosdick

Politics are almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous. In war, you can only be killed once.  Winston Churchill

He that has never suffered extreme adversity knows not the full extent of his own deprivation. Charles Caleb Colton

The chief danger in life is that you may take too may precautions. Alfred Adler

The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding. Justice Louis D Brandeis

The misfortune of the wise is better than the prosperity of the fool. Epicurus 

Adversity is the first path to truth. Lord Byron

Whenever a child lies, you will always find a severe parent. A lie would have no sense unless the truth was felt to be dangerous.  Alfred Adler

A woman, especially if she has the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.  Jane Austen

Comparison, more than reality, makes men happy or wretched. Thomas Fuller

Perhaps the greatest consolation of the oppressed is to consider themselves superior to their tyrants. Julian Green

Socrates thought that if all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap, whence everyone must take an equal portion, most persons would be contented to take their own and depart.  Plutarch

Difficulties are things that show what men are. Epictetus 

Those who have had no share in the good fortunes of the mighty often have a share in their misfortunes.  Bertolt Brecht

He knows not his own strength that hath not met adversity. Ben Jonson 

It is hard to keep a secret, to employ leisure well, and to be able to bear an injury. Chilon 

What’s too hard for a man must be worth looking into. Douglas Sharp

To accuse others for one’s own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one’s education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one’s education is complete.  Epictetus

The worse the passage the more welcome the port. Thomas Fuller

With man, most of his misfortunes are occasioned by man.  Pliny the Elder

I may have to keep some place where I can go to be myself now and then, for I cannot guarantee to endure at all times the confinements of even an attractive cage.  Amelia Earhart

All passions that suffer themselves to be relished and digested are but moderate.  Montaigne

No man can smile in the face of adversity and mean it. . Edgar Watson Howe 

Let us be of good cheer, however, remembering that the misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never come. James Russell Lowell 

Light troubles speak; the weighty are struck dumb. Seneca 

Fools ignore complexity. Pragmatists suffer it. Geniuses remove it. Bernard Krupp 

I am convinced that the truest act of courage is to sacrifice ourselves for others in a totally nonviolent struggle for justice. To be a man is to suffer for others.  Cesar Chavez

Indomitable in retreat; invincible in advance; insufferable in victory. Winston Churchill

Take warning by the mischance of others, that others may not take warning by thine. Socrates 

It is impossible to achieve the aim without suffering.  J G Bennett

Man alone suffers so excruciatingly in the world that he was compelled to invent laughter. Carlton Major 

There is no comfort without pain; thus we define salvation through suffering.  Cato

Sweet are the uses of adversity, which, like a toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in his head. Shakespeare 

Whatever joy there is in this world all comes from desiring others to be happy. Whatever suffering there is in this world comes from desiring myself to be happy.  St. Francis

Don’t take yourself too seriously: don’t think that somehow you should be protected from misfortune that befalls others. Robert Louis Stevenson

Quotes about Democracy and Equality

Fighting for equality

A president of a democracy is a man who is always ready, willing, and able to lay down your life for his country. John Thorndike 

You cannot possibly have a broader basis for any government than that which includes all the people, with all their rights in their hands, and with an equal power to maintain their rights. William Lloyd Garrison

Democracy can only be measured on the existence of an opposition. Poul Henningsen

Even though counting heads is not an ideal way to govern, at least it is better than breaking them. Learned Hand

The masses are the material of democracy, buts its form, that is to say, the laws which express the general reason, justice and utility, can only be rightly shaped by wisdom, which is by no means a universal property. Henri Frederic Amiel 

Self-government requires qualities of self-denial and restraint. John F. Kennedy

Equality consists in the same treatment of similar persons. Aristotle

Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.  George Bernard Shaw

Just as modern mass production requires the standardization of commodities, so the social process requires standardization of man and this is called equality. Erich Fromm 

If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost. Aristotle

There can be no truer principle than this; that every individual of the community at large has an equal right to the protection of government. Alexander Hamilton 

Democracy is a form of government in which it is permitted to wonder aloud what the country could do under first-class management. Chuck Dillon 

The grand paradox of our society is this: we magnify man’s rights but we minimize his capacities. Joseph Wood Krutch

We clamor for equality chiefly in matters in which we ourselves cannot hope to obtain excellence. Eric Hoffer

Democracy is a form of government which may be rationally defended, not as being good, but as being less bad than any other. William Ralph Inge 

The consent of the governed is more than a safeguard against ignorant tyrants. It is an insurance against benevolent despots as well. Walter Lippmann 

We hold the truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Thomas Jefferson 

In a democracy the general good is furthered only when the special interests of competing minorities accidentally coincide or cancel each other out. Alexander Chase  

It is the western vice, the disease which expresses its tyranny by reducing everything unique to the level of the herd. Henry Miller

Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.  George Bernard Shaw

Weariness is the shortest path to equality and fraternity, and finally liberty is bestowed by sleep. Nietzsche 

Democracy is the superior form of government, because it is based on a respect for man as a reasonable being. John F. Kennedy

The principle of equality does not destroy the imagination, but lowers its flight to the level of the earth. Alexis De Tocqueville 

Democracy is a government where you can say what you think even if you don’t think. George Burns

It was the contemplation of god that created men who were equal, for it was in god that they were equal. Saint-Exupery 

Democracy is never a final achievement. It is a call to untiring effort, to continual sacrifice and to the willingness, if necessary, to die in its defense. John F. Kennedy 

Inside the polling booth every man and woman stands as an equal of every other. They have no superiors. There they have no masters save their own minds and consciences. Franklin D. Roosevelt 

Though reconciled to the future of democracy, including that of the people in the subway, I cannot be sanguine about it. Frank Moore Colby

The Lord so constituted everybody that no matter what color you are you require the same amount of nourishment. Will Rogers

Democracy is a process by which the people are free to choose the man who will get the blame. Oscar Wilde

Unless man is committed to the belief that all of mankind are his brothers, then he labors in vain and hypocritically in the vineyards of equality. Adam Clayton Powell

No amount of charters, direct primaries, or short ballots will make a democracy out of an illiterate people. Walter Lippman

Wherever there is a human being, I see God-given rights inherent in that being; whatever may be their gender or color. William Lloyd Garrison 

My notion of democracy is that under it the weakest should have the same opportunity as the strongest. This can never happen except through non-violence. Mohandas K. Gandhi

Government laws are needed to give us civil rights, and god is needed to make us civil. Ralph W. Sockman

Democracy is good. I say this because other systems are worse. Jawaharlal Nehru

Couldn't we even argue that it is because men are unequal that they have that more need to be brothers? Charles Dubois 

Democracy is that form of government where everybody gets what the majority deserves. James Dale Davidson 

The defeats and victories of the fellows at the top aren’t always defeats and victories for the fellows at the bottom. Bertolt Brecht

Democracy is the name we give the people whenever we need them. Norman Chives

The man who occupies the first place seldom plays the principle part. Goethe 

There is merit without rank, but there is no rank without some merit. LA Rochefoucauld 

Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time.  E B White

It is a very curious fact that, with all our boasted free and equal superiority over the communities of the old world, our people have the most enormous appetite for the old world titles of distinction. Oliver Wendell Holmes

What democracy needs most of all is a party that will separate the good that is in it theoretically from the evils that beset it practically, and then try to erect that good into a workable system. H. L. Mencken 

When fortune surprises us by giving us an important position, without having led us to it by degrees, or without our being elevated to it by our hopes, it is almost impossible for us to maintain ourselves suitably in it, and appear worthy of possessing it. LA Rochefoucauld 

Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.  Winston Churchill

The good Lord sees your heart, not the braid on your jacket, before him we are all in our birthday suits, generals and common men alike. Thomas Mann

Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.  Oscar Wilde

Let the people think they can govern and they will be governed. William Penn

Government lies, and newspapers lie, but in a democracy they are different lies. Origin; media publications

That a peasant may become king does not render the kingdom democratic. Woodrow Wilson

The majority is the best way, because it is visible, and has strength to make itself obeyed. Yet it is the opinion of the least able. Pascal

I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy. But that could change.  Dan Quayle

The republic is a dream; nothing happens unless first a dream. Carl Sandburg 

This is not the age of pamphleteers. It is the age of the engineers. The spark-gap is mightier than the pen. Democracy will not be salvaged by men who talk fluently, debate forcefully and quote aptly. Lancelot Hogben 

There may be as much nobility in being last as in being first, because the two positions are equally necessary in the world, the one to compliment the other. Jose Ortega Y Gasset

Democratic nations care but little for what has been, but they are haunted by visions of what will be. Alexis De Tocqueville 

A man of quality does not fear a woman seeking equality. Fabian Timber 

Titles distinguish the mediocre, embarrass the superior, and are disgraced by the inferior. George Bernard Shaw 

Democracy, the practice of self-government, is a covenant among free men to respect the rights and liberties of their fellows. Franklin D. Roosevelt 

The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as the poor, to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. Anatole France

Were there a people of gods, their government would be democratic. So perfect a government is not for men.  Rousseau  

Emperors, kings, artisans, peasants, big people, little people; at bottom we are all alike and all the same, all just alike on the inside, and when our clothes are off, nobody can tell which of us is which. Mark Twain 

Democracy represents the disbelief in all great men and in all elite societies. Nietzsche  

The doctrine of human equality reposes on this: that there is no man really clever who has not found that he is stupid.  G. K. Chesterton

If despotism failed only for want of a capable benevolent despot, what chance has democracy, which requires a whole population of capable voters? George Bernard Shaw 

Democracy is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and the unequal alike. Plato

The essence of a republican government is not command. It is consent. Adlai Stevenson 

If one man offers you democracy and another offers you a bag of grain, at what stage of starvation will you prefer the grain to the vote. Bertrand Russell

Quotes about Conversation

Old boys chatting

It is a secret known but to few, yet of no small use in the conduct of life, that when you fall into a man’s conversation, the first thing you should consider is, whether he has a greater inclination to hear you, or that you should hear him. Richard Steele

A gossip is one who talks to you about others, a bore is one who talks to you about himself; and a brilliant conversationalist is one who talks to you about yourself.  Lisa Kirk

Conversation is a fair for the display of the minor mental commodities, each exhibitor being too intent upon the arrangement of his own wares to observe those of his neighbor. Ambrose Bierce 

Argument is the worst sort of conversation.  Jonathan Swift

Reading makes a full man, meditation a profound man, discourse a clear man. Benjamin Franklin

Never speak of yourself to others; make them talk about themselves instead; therein lies the whole art of pleasing. Everyone knows it and everyone forgets it. Edmond and Jules De Concourt 

The art of conversation, or the qualification for a good companion, is a certain self-control, which now holds the subject, now lets it go, with a respect for the emergencies of the moment. Emerson

No animal should ever jump on the dining room furniture unless absolutely certain he can hold his own in conversation.  Fran Lebowitz

At no time is freedom of speech more precious than when a man hits his thumb with a hammer.  Marshall Lumsden

I have often regretted my speech, never my silence. Syrus

It is by the fortune of God that, in this country, we have three benefits: freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and the wisdom never to use either.  Mark Twain

The success of conversation consists less in being witty than is bringing out wit in others; the man who leaves after talking with you, pleased with himself and his own wit, is perfectly pleased with you. LA Bruyere 

It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.  Mark Twain

Men use thought only to justify their wrong doings, and speech only to conceal their thoughts.  Voltaire

When all other means of communication fail, try words. Denis Clifford

Political speeches are like steer horns; a point here, a point there, and a lot of bull in between.  Harvey Kurtzman 

To listen closely and reply well is the highest perfection we are able to attain in the art of conversation. LA Rochefoucauld 

The more time and energy you put into preparing a meal the greater the chance you guests will spend the entire meal discussing other meals they have had. Murphy’s Law

We do not talk; we bludgeon one another with facts and theories gleaned from cursory readings of, newspaper, magazines, and digests. Henry Miller

In conversation discretion is more important than eloquence. Baltasar Gracian 

Any child who chatters non-stop at home will adamantly refuse to utter a word when requested to demonstrate for an audience. Murphy’s Law

The more the pleasures of the body fade away, the greater to me is the pleasure and charm of conversation. John Yates 

Anything is possible if you don’t know what you’re talking about. Francis Wilkins 

While a transcendent vocabulary is laudable, one must be eternally careful so that the calculated objective of communication does not become ensconced in obscurity. In other words, eschew obfuscation. Benny Tillman 

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

How can you prove whether at this moment we are sleeping, and all our thoughts are a dream; or whether we are awake, and talking to one another in the waking state.  Plato

That woman speaks eight languages and can’t say “no” in any of them. Dorothy Parker

The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it.  George Bernard Shaw

Mathematics is the only science where one never knows what one is talking about nor whether what is said is true. Bertrand Russell

It is not what we learn in conversation that enriches us. It is the elation that comes of swift contact with tingling currents of thought. Agnes Repplier

One advantage of talking to yourself is that you know at least somebody’s listening.  Franklin P Jones

A free conversation will no more bear a dictator than a free government will. Lord Chesterfield 

Talking about music is like dancing about architecture. Thomas Henry

The inevitable result of improved and enlarged communications between different levels in a hierarchy is a vastly increased area of misunderstanding. Thomas Martin

The intelligence of any discussion diminishes with the square of the number of participants.  Adam Walinsky

Whoever interrupts the conversation of others to make a display of his fund of knowledge, makes notorious his own stock of ignorance. Sadi 

Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.  Friedrich Nietzsche

Private, accidental, confidential conversation breeds thought. Clubs produce oftener words. Emerson

Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak it to?  Clarence Darrow

God gave man two ears and one tongue so that we listen twice as much as we speak. Beatrice Logan 

The opposite of talking isn’t listening. The opposite of talking is waiting. Fran Lebowitz

Conceit causes more conversation than wit.  La Rochefoucauld

I often quote myself; it adds spice to my conversation.  George Bernard Shaw

There’s no sense in being precise when you don’t even know what you’re talking about. John Von Neumann

Talk ought always to run obliquely, not nose to nose with no chance of mental escape. Frank Moore Colby 

The only proper intoxication is conversation.  Oscar Wilde

We seldom repent talking too little, but very often talking too much. Jean De la Bruyere