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| Potpourri |
As brevity is the soul of wit, form, it seems to me, is the heart of humor and the salvation of comedy. James Thurber
When the bad imitate the good, there is no knowing what mischief is intended. Syrus
Just as dumb creatures are snared by food, human beings would not be caught unless they had a nibble of hope. Petronius
A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a quip and worried to death by a frown on the right man’s brow. Charles Brower
That character in conversation which commonly passes for agreeable is made up of civility and falsehood. Alexander Pope
Imitation is a necessity of nature; when young, we imitate others; when old, ourselves. Joseph Roux
Life is the art of being well deceived; and in order that the deception may succeed it must be habitual and uninterrupted. William Hazlitt
Man’s life is short; and therefore an honorable death is his immortality. Syrus
Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, who never to himself has said, this is my own, my native land. Sir Walter Scott
Isn't it better to have men being ungrateful than to miss a chance to do good. Denis Diderot
Hope is a risk that must be run. George Bernanos
Our bodies can be mobilized by law and police and men with guns, if necessary; but where shall we find that which will make us believe in what we must do, so that we can fight through to victory. Pearl S. Buck
Nothing is beneath you if it is in the direction of your life. Emerson
When you know a thing, to hold that you know it, and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it: this is knowledge. Confucius
Clever people seem not to feel the natural pleasure of bewilderment, and are always answering questions when the chief relish of a life is to go on asking them. Frank Moore Colby
A house may draw visitors, but it is the possessor alone that can detain them. Charles Caleb Colton
Knowledge and timber shouldn’t be much used till they are seasoned. Oliver Wendell Holmes
Absolute frustration is a dangerous emotion to run a world with. Russell Baker
If all alms were given only from pity, all beggars would have starved long ago. Nietzsche
Black are the brooding clouds and troubled the deep waters, when the sea of thought, first heaving from a calm, gives up its dead. Charles Dickens
The whole family of pride and ignorance are incestuous and mutually beget each other. Charles Caleb Colton
The friendships of nations, built on common interests, cannot survive the mutability of those interests. Agnes Repplier
Justice is impartiality. Only strangers are impartial. George Bernard Shaw
I wish to say what I think and feel today, with the proviso that tomorrow perhaps I shall contradict it all. Emerson
Not one of us can lie or pretend. We’re all fixed in good faith in a certain concept of ourselves. Luigi Pirandello
If a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger? Thomas Henry Huxley
A wise man is superior to any insults which can be put upon him, and the best reply to unseemly behavior is patience and moderation. Moliere
He that lives upon hope will die fasting. Benjamin Franklin
Woe to the man who tries to stretch the imagination of man. He shall be mocked, he shall be scourged by the blinkered guardians of morality. Peter Weiss
Fun is a good thing, but only when it spoils nothing better. Santayana
We play make believe, pretend to take ourselves and each other seriously, to love each other, hate each other; but then it isn’t true! It isn’t true, we don’t care at all! Ugo Betti
There are no days in life so memorable as those which vibrated to some stroke of the imagination. Emerson
Man is not weak, knowledge is more than equivalent to force. The master of mechanics laughs at strength. Samuel Johnson
Human altruism which is not egoism, is sterile. Marcel Proust
In the mouths of many men soft words are like roses that soldiers put into the muzzles of their muskets on holidays. Longfellow
He that judges without informing himself to the utmost that he is capable, cannot acquit himself of judging amiss. John Locke
Friendship increases in visiting friends, but in visiting them seldom. Thomas Fuller
We fancy men are individuals; so are pumpkins; but every pumpkin in the field goes through every point of pumpkin history. Emerson
Every man with an idea has at least two or three followers. Brooks Atkinson
Uncultivated minds are not full of wildflowers, like uncultivated fields. Villainous weeds grow in them and they are the haunt of toads. Logan Pearsall
There is no subject so old that something new cannot be said about it. Dostoevsky
We are now again in an epoch of wars of religion, but a religion is now called an “ideology” Bertrand Russell
Most people affirm pleasure to be the good, but the finer sort of wits say it is knowledge. Plato
Say “Yes” to seedlings and a giant forest cleaves the sky. Say “Yes” to the universe and the planets become your neighbors. Say “yes” to dreams of love and freedom. It is the password to utopia. Brooks Atkinson
Anybody who is any good is different from anybody else. Felix Frankfurter
He who wants to do good knocks at the gate; he who loves finds the gate open. Tagore
Humility is not renunciation of pride but the substitution of one pride for another. Eric Hoffer
One can know a man from his laugh, and if like a man’s laugh before you know anything of him, you may confidently say that he is a good man. Dostoevsky
Hope is a great falsifier of truth. Baltasar Gracian
To say that an idea is fashionable is to say, I think, that it has been adulterated to a point where it is hardly an idea at all. Murray Kempton
It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one. Voltaire
Man is more interesting than men. God made him and not them in his image. Each one is more precious than all. Andre Gide
Life finds its wealth by the claims of the world, and its worth by the claims of love. Tagore
Men are admitted into heaven not because they have curbed and governed their passions, or have no passions, but because they have cultivated their understandings. William Blake
The perfect joys of heaven do not satisfy the cravings of nature. William Hazlitt
It is equally offensive to speed a guest who would like to stay and to detain one who is anxious to leave. Homer
Pain is deeper than all thought; laughter is higher than all pain. Elbert Hubbard
Those who are incapable of committing great crimes do not readily suspect them in others. La Rochefoucauld
It is sweet to think that wherever we rove we are sure to find something blissful and dear, and that, when we are far from the lips we love, we have but to make love to the lips we are near. Thomas Moore
The free mind must have one policeman, Irony. Elbert Hubbard
Murderers, in general, are people who are consistent, people who are obsessed with one idea and nothing else. Ugo Betti
Meekness is an uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is worthwhile. Ambrose Bierce
People exercise an unconscious selection in being influenced. T. S. Eliot
One has to be a lowbrow, a bit of a murderer, to be a politician, ready and willing to see people sacrificed, slaughtered, for the sake of an idea, whether a good one or a bad one. Henry Miller
Though all men are made of one metal, yet they be not cast all in one mold. John Lyly
Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know. Eric Hoffer
Death is the greatest evil, because it cuts off hope. William Hazlitt
A superior man may be made to go to the well, but he cannot be made to go down into it. He may be imposed upon, but he cannot be fooled. Confucius
Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its only sure defense. Mark Twain
Nature, in giving tears to man, confessed that he had a tender heart: this is our noblest quality. Juvenal
Plenty of people wish to become devout, but no one wishes to be humble. La Rochefoucauld
Whoever acquires knowledge and does not practice it resembles him who ploughs his land and leaves it unsown. Sadi
Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in the arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess. Samuel Johnson
The short span of life forbids us to take on far-reaching hopes. Horace
There’s 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
That which we know is but little; that which we have a presentiment of is immense; it is in this direction that the poet outruns the learned man. Joseph Roux
Hope has as many lives as a cat or a king. Longfellow
Influence is neither good nor bad in an absolute manner, but only in relation to the one who experiences it. Andre Gide
General and abstract ideas are the source of the greatest errors of mankind. Rousseau
Not many sounds in life, and I include all urban and all rural sounds, exceed in interest a knock at the door. Charles Lamb
We come nearest to the great when we are great in humility. Tagore
Strong hope is a much greater stimulant of life than any single realized joy could be. Nietzsche
To give reason for fancy were to weigh the fire, and measure the wind. John Lyly
Genuine victories, the sole conquests yielding no remorse, are those gained over ignorance. Napoleon
We are mistaken in believing the mind and the judgment two separate things; judgment is only the extent of the mind’s illumination. La Rochefoucauld
The secret of living is to find a pivot, the pivot of a concept on which you can make your stand. Luigi Pirandello
There is much virtue in a window. It is to a human being as a frame is to a painting, as a proscenium to a play, as "form" to literature. It strongly defines its content. Max Beerbohm
An injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult. Lord Chesterfield
Humility has its origin in an awareness of unworthiness, and sometimes too in a dazzled awareness of saintliness. Colette
We must laugh before we are happy from fear of dying without ever having laughed at all. La Bruyere
Nothing is so good for an ignorant man as silence, and if he knew this he would no longer be ignorant. Sadi
At first we hope too much, later on, not enough. Joseph Roux
Most people have seen worse things in private than they pretend to be shocked at in public. Edgar Watson Howe
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. F. Scott Fitzgerald
Small rooms or dwellings discipline the mind, large ones weaken it. Leonardo Da Vinci
Anyone who takes it upon himself, on his private authority, to break a bad law, thereby authorizes everyone else to break the good ones. Denis Diderot
Whoever blushes is already guilty; true innocence is ashamed of nothing. Rousseau
A young man must let his ideas grow, and not be continually rooting them up to see how they are getting on. William McFee
Those who are too lazy and comfortable to think for themselves and be their own judges obey the laws. Others sense their own laws within them. Herman Hesse
When hospitality becomes an art, it loses its very soul. Max Beerbohm
A king is he who has laid fear aside and the base longings of an evil heart; whom ambition unrestrained and the fickle favor of the reckless mob move not. Seneca
Defeat is a fact and victory can be a fact. If the idea is good, it will survive defeat, it may even survive the victory. Stephen Vincent Benet
Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears. Marcus Aurelius
Imagination is that deceitful part in man, that mistress of error and falsity, the more deceptive that she is not always so; for she would be an infallible rule of truth, if she were an infallible rule of falsehood. Pascal
Seven days is the length of a guest's life. Proverb
In all the ills which befall us, we look more at the intention than the effect. A tile which falls from the house may hurt more, but does not vex us so much as a stone thrown designedly by an ill-natured hand. Rousseau
The idealist is incorrigible; if he is thrown out of heaven, he makes himself a suitable ideal out of hell. Nietzsche
Just as our eyes need light in order to see, our minds need ideas in order to conceive. Nicolas Malebranche
Nothing is absolutely unjust. There is no real equity, no total grandeur, no pure vice, no absolute crime. Julien Offroy De La Mettrie
Humility is often only feigned submission which people use to render others submissive. It is a subterfuge of pride which lowers itself in order to rise. La Rochefoucauld
Shall I tell you the opinion of a famous economist on jealousy? Jealousy is just the fact of being deprived. Nothing more. Henry Becque
The hater of property and of government takes care to have his warranty deed recorded; and the book written against fame and learning has the author’s name on the title-page. Emerson
From ignorance our comfort flows; the only wretched are the wise. Matthew Prior
It’s unpleasant to be able to turn certain ideas over in your mind that nobody suspects you of having. Ugo Betti
In laughter all that is evil comes together, but is pronounced holy and absolved by its own bliss. Nietzsche
It is common to forget a man and slight him if his goodwill cannot help you. Plautus
One can always legislate against specific acts of human wickedness; but one can never legislate against the irrational itself. Morton Irving Seiden
We suffer primarily not from our vices or our weaknesses, but from our illusions. We are haunted, not by reality, but by those images we put in place of reality. Daniel J. Boorstin
Let no one say that I have said nothing new; the arrangement of the subject is new. Pascal
There is no social evil, no form of injustice whether of the feudal or the capitalist order which has not been sanctified in some way or another by religious sentiment and thereby rendered more impervious to change. Reinhold Niebuhr
A man who can be entertaining for a full day will be in his grave by nightfall. Edward Dahlberg
Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer. Charles Caleb Colton
Our judgement about things varies according to the time left us to live; that we think is left us to live. Andre Gide
The perplexity of life arises from there being too many interesting things in it for us to be interested properly in any of them. G. K. Chesterton
We are in the world to laugh. In purgatory or in hell we shall no longer be able to do so. And in heaven it would not be proper. Jules Renard
We do not get good laws to restrain bad people. We get good people to restrain bad laws. G. K. Chesterton
