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| 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
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| 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
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| 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
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| 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
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| 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
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| 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
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Vogue
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Vogue changes the people, the nation, the world; it is the fresh ink in the old pen that writes history. Victor Hugo
Fashion is a despot whom the wise ridicule and obey. Ambrose Bierce
Fashions smile has given wit to dullness, and grace to deformity, and has brought everything into vogue, by turns, but virtue. Charles Caleb Colton
If you are not in fashion, you are nobody. Lord Chesterfield
Those graces which from their presumed facility encourage all to attempt an imitation of them are usually the most inimitable. Charles Caleb Colton
What I wear is what I dare myself to be commented on by hundreds of columnists who must earn a living; real and true comment is never expected, except between friends. Melissa Smith Dayton
From the cradle to the coffin vogue comes first. Betty Boswell
The dress must move as would a second skin, if it doesn’t move it becomes invisible. Tia Farina
Vogues are short lived graces which are reborn every twenty years or so. Daniella Dee
One had as good be out of the world, as out of the fashion. Colley Cibber
There is merit in the horror of outrageous design. It is the pattern of tomorrow’s vogue. Felicity Aguilar
Vogue is not a matter of taste; it is the creation of the first taste that everyone must experience. Boris Johnson
There was a time when social standing and one’s class, even family history, could be attached to the wearing of a tie. Thanks to satirists and modern day values such fashions are now obsolete. Jacob Morse
Only great masters of style can succeed in being obtuse. Oscar Wilde
Art produces ugly things which frequently become beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time. Jean Cocteau
Fashion is gentility running away from vulgarity and afraid of being overtaken. William Hazlitt
Vogue is more powerful than today’s oppressor. Igor White
The fear of becoming a has-been keeps some people from becoming anything. Eric Hoffer
The greater part of mankind judge of men only by their modishness or their fortune. LA Rochefoucauld
I cannot keep track of all the vagaries of fashion. Every day so it seems, bring in a different style. Ovid
Gracefulness is to the body what understanding is to the mind. LA Rochefoucauld
Conformism is so hot on the heels of the mass-produced Avant-garde that the “ins and the outs” change places with speed. Igor Stravinsky
Every generation mocks yesterday’s vogue but they worship the new. Rene Greer
Firstly I draw some pictures, and then I cut some cloth. I choose some colors and frills. I take it all to my local children’s playgroup and let the kids design a dress for their favorite doll; and hence I have an array of candid original concepts. Marina Geneva
Feeling oneself in vogue instills confidence, but does not immunize one from the criticism of others. Sophia Zapper
Merit is not enough unless supported by grace. Baltasar Gracian
When seen in perspective of half a dozen years, the best of our fashions strike us as grotesque, if not unsightly. Thorstein Veblen
On any morning these days whole segments of the population wake up to find themselves famous, while, to keep matters shipshape, whole contingents of celebrities wake up to find themselves forgotten. Louis Kronenberger
No public character has ever stood the revelation of private utterance and correspondence. Lord Acton
Fame is like a river which bears up things light and swollen, and drowns things weighty and solid. Francis Bacon
Public men are bees working in a glass hive; and curious spectators enjoy themselves in watching every secret movement, as if it were a study in natural history. Henry Ward Beecher
Fame, that public destruction of one in process of becoming, into whose building the crowd breaks in, displacing his stones. Rainer Maria Rilke
Glory ought to be the consequence, not the motive of our actions. Pliny the Younger
Men prominent in life are mostly hard to converse with. They lack small-talk and at the same time one doesn’t like to confront them with their own great themes. Max Beerbohm
All fame is dangerous; good brings envy; bad, shame. Thomas Fuller
We imagine that the admiration of the works of celebrated men has become common, because the admiration of their names has become so. William Hazlitt
The honor paid to a wise man is a great good for those who honor him. Epicurus
Though later to become a renowned actress, the young Maureen O’Hara got her “big break” by gaining the admiration of established actor Charles Laughton. Shortly before shooting their first film together, Laughton decreed during the following conversation:
“Maureen, you’re going to be just marvelous in this picture... but your name is too long for the marquee, and we have to change it.”
“But I don’t want to change my name.”
“Well, I’m sorry, but you have to. You can either be Maureen O-Mara or Maureen O’Hara; which do you prefer?”
“Neither; I’m Maureen FitzSimons.”
“So you’re Maureen O’Hara.”
In her autobiography, she relates, and so I was, and so I am.
Source: Tis Herself: An Autobiography by Maureen O'Hara and John Nicoletti
Glory is largely a theatrical concept. There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience. Eric Hoffer
A celebrity is a person who works hard all his life to become known, then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized. Fred Allen
The whole earth is a sepulcher of famous men. Thucydides
The nearest way to glory, a short cut as it were; is to strive to be what you wish to be thought to be. Socrates
Celebrity is the advantage of being known by those who don’t know you. Chamfort
Celebrity is a picture of myself as a marble bust with legs to run everywhere. Jean Cocteau
A man’s renown is like the hue of grass, which comes and goes. Dante
People that seem so glorious are all show. Underneath they are like anybody else. Euripides
If you wish to obtain a great name or to found an establishment, be completely mad; but be sure that your madness corresponds with the turn and temper of your age. Voltaire
High honors are sweet to a man’s heart, but ever they stand close to the brink of grief. Euripides
Glory comes from the unchanging din-din-din of one supreme gift. F. Scott Fitzgerald
Who has not for the sake of his good reputation; sacrificed himself once? Nietzsche
Attempting to make dinner reservations at an upscale restaurant, actress Celia Imrie recounts the following interchanges: “Hello, could I please reserve a table for three for to-night?” The waiter laughed at me down the line, “You are joking,” he sneered. “You’ll get absolutely nothing here at this short notice.” I put the phone down, seething. About a quarter of an hour later I phoned again. I changed my voice ever so slightly and said, “Hello, its Celia Imrie here. Might you have a table for me, Allan Bates and Allan Bennet to-night?” “Certainly, Ms. Imrie we have a splendid table available.” It was the first time that I fully realized the positive power of fame. It gets you through doors, but how unfair! Source: The Happy Hoofer by Celia Imrie
When I hear a man applauded by the crowd I always feel a pang of pity for him. All he has to do to be hissed at is to live long enough. H. L. Mencken
Glory is that bright tragic thing that for an instance means domination and warms some poor name that never felt the sun, gently replacing in oblivion. Emily Dickinson
We are all clever enough at envying a clever man while he is yet alive, and at praising him when he is dead. Terrence Cummings
The dispersing and scattering our names into many mouths, we call making them more great. Montaigne
False is the praise which says that men’s eminence comes from their noble qualities; for the people of this world as a rule do not care about a man’s true nature. Clarence Pierre
Admiration involves a glorious obliquity of vision. Max Beerbohm
Would you be known by everybody? Then you know nobody. Syrus
There are two modes of establishing our reputation; to be praised by honest men, and to be abused by rouges. Charles Caleb Colton
Thou shall confess the vain pursuit; of human glory yields no fruit, but an untimely grave. Thomas Carew
My slumber broken and my doublet torn; I find the laurel also bears a thorn. Walter Savage Landor
The shortest way to arrive at glory would be to do that for conscience which we do for glory. Montaigne
Reputation is often got without merit and lost without fault. Gerald Morley
People before the public live an imagined life in the thought of others, and flourish or feel faint as their self-outside themselves grow bright or dwindle in that mirror. Logan Pearsall Smith
We do not content ourselves with the life we have in ourselves and in our own being; we desire to live an imaginary life in the mind of others, and for this purpose we endeavor to shine. Pascal
One can survive everything nowadays, except death, and live down anything except a good reputation. Oscar Wilde
The world more often rewards the appearances of merit than merit itself. LA Rochefoucauld
While thought exists, words are alive and literature becomes an escape, not from, but into living. Cyril Connolly
Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered. W. H. Auden
The unusual is only found in a very small percentage, except in literary creations, and that is exactly what makes literature. Julio Cortazar
The adult relation to books is one of absorbing rather than being absorbed. Anthony Burgess,
Most of today’s books have an air of having been written in one day from books read the night before. Chamfort
The existence of good bad literature; the fact that no one can be amused or excited or even moved by a book that one’s intellect simply refuses to take seriously is a reminder that art is not the same thing as celebration. George Orwell
When one can read, can penetrate the enchanted realm of books, why write? Colette
Most people won’t realize that writing is a craft. You have to take your apprenticeship it like anything else. Katherine Anne Porter
Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade, just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself. Truman Capote
A writer lives, at best, in a state of astonishment. Beneath any feeling he has of the good or evil of the world lays a deeper one of wonder at it all. To transmit that feeling, he writes. William Sansom
The bare objects of a book, or of a story, might also have a subtle relation to our own past. ... It is where lies part of the pleasure and urgency. It is one of the ways an author speaks to a reader, and becomes integrated into the reader’s own imaginative life. Even the most sophisticated readers read novels in the light of their own experience, and in such recognition, sympathy may begin. Source: My Life in Middlemarch by Rebecca Mead
A book, like a landscape, is a state of consciousness varying with readers. Ernest Dimnet
Literature was formerly an art and finance a trade; today it is the reverse. Joseph Roux
The most thrilling version of the Bible was printed in 1631 by Robert Barker and Martin Lucas, the King’s printers at London. It contained several mistakes, but one was inspired, for the word “not” was omitted from the Seventh Commandment and enjoined its readers, on the highest authority, to commit adultery.
A classic is something that everyone wants to have read and nobody wants to read. Mark Twain
The illusion of art is to make one believe that great literature is very close to life, but exactly the opposite is true. Life is Amorphous, literature is formal. Francoise Sagan
The business of the poet is not to find new emotions, but to use the ordinary ones and, in working them up into poetry, to express feelings which are not in actual emotions at all. T. S. Eliot
Substitute “damn” every time you’re inclined to write “very”; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. Mark Twain
I do not know where to find in any literature, whether ancient or modern, any adequate account of that nature with which I am acquainted. Mythology comes nearest to it of any. Henry David Thoreau
A book is not harmless merely because no one is consciously offended by it. T. S. Eliot
Perversity is the muse of modern literature. Susan Sontag
Perhaps no person can be a poet, or even enjoy poetry without a certain unsoundness of mind. Thomas Macaulay
An inveterate and incurable itch for writing besets many and grows old with their sick hearts. Juvenal
It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was too famous. Robert Benchley
No man understands a deep book until he has seen and lived at least part of its contents. Ezra Pound
Literature is the human activity that takes the fullest and most precise account of the various, the possibility, complexity, and difficulty. Lionel Trilling
There is much trickery required to grow rich by a stupid book as there is folly in buying it. LA Bruyere
A writer and nothing else; a man alone in a room with the English language, trying to get human feelings right. John K. Hutchens
Reading makes a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man. Francis Bacon
A great classic means a man whom one can praise without having read. G. K. Chesterton
There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are. Somerset Maugham
In writing biography, fact and fiction shouldn’t be mixed. And if they are, the fiction parts should be printed in red ink, the fact parts in black ink. Catherine Drinker Bowen
In some respects the better a book is, the less it demands from binding. Charles Lamb
The writer is the Faust of modern society, the only surviving individualist in a mass age. To his orthodox contemporaries he seems a semi-madman. Boris Pasternak
A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction. Virginia Woolf
In a very real sense, the writer writes in order to teach himself, to understand himself, to satisfy himself; the publishing of his ideas, though it brings gratifications, is a curious anticlimax. Alfred Kazin
Books give not wisdom where none before was, but where some is, their reading makes it more. Sir John Harrington
I have never started a poem yet whose end I knew. Writing a poem is discovering. Robert Frost
He that writes to himself writes to an eternal public. Emerson
I read the newspaper avidly. It is my one form of continuous fiction. A. Bevan
Have you any right to read, especially novels, until you have exhausted the best part of the day in some employment that is called practical? Charles Dudley Warner
Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal but which the reader recognizes as his own. Salvatore Quasimodo
He that I am reading seems always to have the most force. Montaigne
The modernness of all good books seems to give me an existence as wide as man. Emerson
Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they are written. Thoreau
Isn’t it interesting that the same people who laugh at science fiction listen to weather forecasts and economists? Kelvin Throop
My experience with public libraries is that the first volume of the book I inquire for is out, unless I happen to want the second, when that is out. Oliver Wendell Holmes
The most beautiful things are those that madness prompts and reason writes. Andre Gide
Hard-covered books break up friendships. You loan a hard-covered book to a friend and when he doesn’t return it you get mad at him. It makes you mean and petty. But twenty-five-cent books are different. John Steinbeck
When we read too fast or too slowly we understand nothing. Pascal
Poetry is the universal possession of mankind, revealing itself everywhere, and at all times, in hundreds and hundreds of men. Goethe
Writing is not a profession but a vocation of unhappiness. Georges Simenon
The poet begins where the man ends. The man’s lot is to live his human life; the poet’s to invent what is nonexistent. Jose Ortega Y Gasset
How strangely do we diminish a thing as soon as we try to express it in words. Maurice Maeterlinck
A writer is unfair to himself when he is unable to be hard on himself. Marianne Moore
The business man who is a novelist is able to drop in on literature and feel no suicidal loss of esteem if the lady is not at home, and he can spend his life preparing without fuss for the awful interview. V. S. Pritchett
Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who are minded beyond reason the opinion of others. Virginia Woolf
Words not only affect us temporarily; they change us, they socialize or unsocialize us. David Riesman
Biography broadens the vision and allows us to live a thousand lives in one. Elbert Hubbard
The world, in its sheer exuberance of kindness, will try to bury the poet with warm and lovely human trivialities. It will even ask him to autograph books. Christopher Morley
Few books have more than one thought; the generality indeed have not quite so many. Julius and Augustus Hare
Authors are sometimes like tomcats; they distrust all other toms, but they are kind to kittens. Malcolm Cowley
The poet camouflages, in the expression of joy, his despair at not having found its reality. Max Jacob
He that does not expect a million readers should not write a line. Goethe
The first thing to have in a library is a shelf. From time to time this can be decorated with literature, but the shelf is the main thing. Finley Peter Dunne
Those things, for which we find words, are things that we have already overcome. Nietzsche
There are favorable hours for reading a book, as for writing it. Longfellow
As to the pure mind all things are pure, so to the poetic mind all things are poetical. Longfellow
If you would be a reader, read; if a writer, write. Epictetus
Journalism is literature in a hurry. Matthew Arnold
We poets in our youth begin in gladness; but thereof come in the end despondency and madness. William Wordsworth
.JPG "Fame and Famous")
