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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
Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved. Helen Keller
A strong sense of personal identity gives man an idea he can do no wrong; too little accomplishes the same. D. Barnes
Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their own disposition to put moral chains on their own appetites. Edmund Burke
The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed. Carl Jung
Personal identity begins to form at the first pinch of anxiety about ourselves. Y. Yevtushenko
Temperament, like liberty, is imported despite how many crimes are committed in its name. Louis Kronenberger
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. Martin Luther King Jr
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power. Abraham Lincoln
Behavior is conduct as determined, not by principle, but by breeding. Ambrose Bierce
Few men are of one plain, decided color, most are mixed, shaded, and blended; and vary as much, from different situations, as changeable silks do from different lights. Lord Chesterfield
Old age and sickness bring out the essential characteristics of a man. Felix Frankfurter
A man’s personal identity is the custodian of his spirit. Maxine Chandler
Behavior is a mirror in which everyone displays his own image. Goethe
We know next to nothing about virtually everything. It is not necessary to know the origin of the universe; it is necessary to want to know. Civilization depends not on any particular knowledge, but on the disposition to crave knowledge. George Will
Only two of my personal identities are schizophrenic, but one of them is paranoid and the other one is out to get him. Woody Allen
Dreams are the touchstones of our characters. Henry David Thoreau
If you act you show character, if you are still you show it, if you sleep you show it. Emerson
It is circumstance and proper measure that give an action its character, and make it either good or bad. Plutarch
Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character. Lowell
We are each a unique entity created by nature with a personal identity created by each other. Arnold Bexley
The individual man tries to escape the race. And as soon as he ceases to represent the race, he represents man. Andre Gide
It is my view that the vegetarian manner of living, by its purely physical effect on the human temperament, would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind. Albert Einstein
Listen to a man’s words and look at the pupil of his eye. How can a man conceal his character? Mencius
The conduct of our lives is the true mirror of our doctrine. Montaigne
When in the present world, men behave well, that is no doubt sometimes because they are creatures of habit as well as, sometimes, because they are reasonable. Joseph Wood Krutch
Man who sleeps on railroad track wake up with split personality. David Cozens
A woman of generous character will sacrifice her life a thousand times over for her lover, but will break with him forever over a question of pride, for the opening or the shutting of a door. Stendhal
I used to be a lawyer, but now I am a reformed character. Woodrow Wilson
Men can starve from a lack of self-realization as much as they can from a lack of bread. Richard Wright
No matter how full a reservoir of maxims one may possess, and no matter how good one’s sentiments may be, if one has not taken advantage of every concrete opportunity to act, one’s character may remain entirely unaffected for the better. With mere good intentions, hell is proverbially paved. William James
Good intentions are far more difficult to cope with than malicious behavior. Jenifer Jameson
There is an invisible garment woven around us from our earliest years; it is of the way we eat, the way we walk, the way we greet people, woven of tastes and colors and perfumes which our senses spin in childhood. Jean Giraudoux
When a person lacks character, he is badly in need of a method. Albert Camus
Every attempt to explain human behavior, especially the irrational, must as a matter of course end in simplification. Morton Irving Seiden
The mirror sees the man as beautiful, the mirror loves the man; another mirror sees the man as frightful and hates him; and it is always the same being that produces the impressions. Marquis De Sade
No man can climb out beyond the limitations of his own character. John Morley
It was a beautiful, harmonious, peaceful-looking planet, blue with white clouds, and one that gave you a deep sense of home, of being, of identity. It is what I prefer to call instant global consciousness. Edgar Mitchell, Astronaut
The more peculiarly his own a man’s character is, the better it fits him. Cicero
The city is ourselves, mirroring with precision our needs and our activities, our values and our aspirations, our confusions and our contradictions. Michael Middleton
You have to go the rounds from individual to individual in order to gather the totality of the race. Schiller
Brisk talkers are usually slow thinkers. There is, indeed, no wild beast more to be dreaded than a communicative man having nothing to communicate. If you are civil to the voluble, they will abuse your patience; if brusque, your character. Jonathan Swift
Fine conduct is always spontaneous. Seneca
In great matters, men behave as they are expected to; in little ones, as they would naturally. Chamfort
A man’s character is his guardian divinity. Heraclitus
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| Lazy Days |
Delay always breeds danger and to protract a great design is often to ruin it. Cervantes
It is by his activities and not by enjoyment that man feels he is alive. In idleness we not only feel that life is fleeting, but we also feel lifeless. Stephen Venables
It is better to be part of the idle rich class than be part of the idle poor class. Elbert Cunard
It is idle to attempt to talk a young woman out of her passion: love does not lie in the ear. Horatio Walpole
Indolence is a delightful but distressing state; we must be doing something to be happy. William Hazlitt
The idle mind knows not what it is it wants. Quintus Ennius
If a soldier or laborer complains of the hardship of his lot, set him to do nothing. Pascal
Laziness is the mother of nine inventions out of ten. Philip K. Saunders
To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual. Oscar Wilde
Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy. Charlie McCarthy
Love is born of Idleness and, once born, by idleness is fostered. Ovid
If you have a difficult task, give it to a lazy person, they will find an easier way to do it. Stephan Gleeson
You cannot teach people to be idle, for they either grasp the concept or lay down. Finley Flack
I am retired leisure. I am to be met with in trim gardens. I am already come to be known by my vacant face and careless gesture, perambulating at no fixed pace nor with any settled purpose. I walk about; no to and from. Charles Lamb
Idleness is a mother. She has a son, robbery, and a daughter, hunger. Victor Hugo
We rarely find anyone who can say he has lived a happy life, and who, content with his life, can retire from the world like a satisfied guest. Quintus Horatius Flaccus
Absence of occupation is not rest. A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed. William Cowper
Passions are less mischievous than boredom, for passions tend to diminish, boredom to increase. Jules Barbey D'Aurevilly
When I rest, I rust. Proverb
Procrastination avoids boredom; one never has the feeling that there is nothing important to do. Murphy’s Law
It is because artists do not practice, patrons do not patronize, crowds do not assemble to reverently worship the great work of doing nothing, that the world has lost its philosophy and even failed to invent a new religion. G. K. Chesterton
Procrastination means never having to say you're sorry. Angus Duncan
A faculty for idleness implies a catholic appetite and a strong sense of personal identity. Robert Louis Stevenson
The incompetent professional, bluffs and procrastinates, moving the responsibility for the completion of a task onto someone else. Brian Bronzite
It is better to have loafed and lost than never to have loafed at all. James Thurber
I fell asleep reading a dull book, and I dreamt that I was reading on, so I woke up from sheer boredom and read the final page. Dustin Ian Combs
There is a slowness in affairs which ripens them, and a slowness which rots them. Joseph Roux
One can be bored until boredom becomes the most sublime of all emotions. Logan Pearsall Smith
Life, as it is called, is for most of us on long postponement. Henry Miller
The prospect of being pleased tomorrow will never console me for the boredom of today. Mark Hammond
Few men of action have been able to make a graceful exit at the appropriate time. Malcolm Muggeridge
If we examine well the diverse effects of boredom, we shall find that it causes us to neglect more duties than does interest. LA Rochefoucauld
Expect poison from the standing water. William Blake
Too much rest itself becomes a pain. Homer
Procrastination is the thief of time. Edward Young
What use is a good head if the legs won't carry it. Ian Irving
We are always getting ready to live, but never living. Emerson
Boredom; the desire for desires. Leo Tolstoy
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| Kindness |
I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind. Kahlil Gibran
The best portion of a good man’s life are his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love. William Wordsworth
A man of humanity is one who, in seeking to establish himself, finds a foothold for others and who, desiring attainment for himself, helps others to attain. Confucius
Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can read. Mark Twain
The fact that people are poor or discriminated against doesn’t necessarily endow them with any special qualities of justice, nobility, charity or compassion. Saul Alinsky
No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted. Aesop
The poor do not need our sympathy and pity. They need our love and compassion. Mother Teresa
To make one good action succeed another is the perfection of goodness. Talib
There was a time a while back when charity was a virtue and not an organization. Brendon Stark
Public sympathy is everything; with it nothing can fail, without it nothing can succeed. Abraham Lincoln
No one knows like a woman how to say things that are at once gentle and deep. Victor Hugo
The Holy-supper is kept indeed, in what we share with another’s need. Not what we give, but what we share. For the gift without the giver is bare. James Russell Lowell
Man discovers his own wealth when god comes to ask gifts of him. Tagore
A benevolent man extends his love from those that he loves to those he does not love. Mencius
Surely great loving kindness yet may go with a little gift; all’s dear that comes from friends. Theocritus
Men are cruel, but man is kind. Tagore
Goodness is uneventful. It does not flash, it glows. David Grayson
The better the state is established, the fainter is humanity. To make the individual uncomfortable, that is my task. Nietzsche
There is, nevertheless, a certain respect and a general duty of humanity that ties us, not only to beasts that have life and sense, but even to trees and plants. Montaigne
In necessary things, unity; in doubtful things, liberty; in all things, charity. Richard Baxter
What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other’s folly; that is the first law of nature. Voltaire
Goodness is achieved not in a vacuum, but in the company of other men, attended by love. Saul Bellow
Do not ask me to be kind; just ask me to act as though I were. Jules Renard
Men that talk of their own benefits are not believed to talk of them because they have done them, but to have done them because they might talk of them. Ben Jonson
Charity and personal force are the only investments worth anything. Walt Whitman
Live not as though there were a thousand years ahead of you. Fate is at your elbow; make yourself good while life and power are still yours. Marcus Aurelius
The only gift is a portion of thyself. Emerson
We are better pleased to see those on whom we confer benefits than those from whom we receive them. LA Rochefoucauld
Good men are the stars, the planets of the ages wherein they live, and illustrate the times. Ben Jonson
If charity cost no money and benevolence caused no heartache, the world would be full of philanthropists. Proverb
Women treat us just as humanity treats its gods. They worship us and are always bothering us to do something for them. Oscar Wilde
An elderly lady, standing in a queue at a supermarket, let me in before her so I could join a pal who was already at the checkout. I said, “Thank you so much.” She replied, “Don’t think about it; it’s my good deed for the day.” “You’ll go to heaven.” I said. There was a slight pause, and then she said firmly, “I don’t want to go to heaven. I want to go to hell and dance a bit.” “Me too, let’s all go to hell and dance a lot.” Source: The Happy Hoofer by Celia Imrie
A man makes no noise over a good deed, but passes onto another as a vine to bear grapes again in season. Marcus Aurelius
The unfortunate need people who will be kind to them; the prosperous need people to be kind to. Aristotle
The humanitarian wishes to be a prime mover in the lives of others. He cannot admit either the divine or the natural order, by which men have the power to help themselves. Isabel Paterson
The silver ore of pure charity is an expensive article in the catalogue of a man’s good qualities. Richard Sheridan
I know what I have given you. I do not know what you have received. Antonio Porchia
Philanthropy is almost the only virtue which is sufficiently appreciated by mankind. Thoreau
Goodness is easier to recognize than to define. W. H. Auden
There is sublime thieving in all giving. Someone gives us all he has and we are his. Eric Hoffer
My true religion is kindness. Dalai Lama
The worshipper of energy is too physically energetic to see that he cannot explore certain higher fields until he is still. Clarence Day
Every action is measured by the depth of the sentiment from which it proceeds. Emerson
To say yes, you have to sweat and roll up your sleeves and plunge both hands into life up to the elbows. It is easy to say no, even if saying no means death. Jean Anouilh
Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing. Thomas Jefferson
There is no action so slight, nor so mean, but it may be done to great purpose, and enabled. John Ruskin
Urgent necessity prompts many to do things, at the very thoughts of which they perhaps would start at other times. Cervantes
It is circumstance and proper measure that give an action its character, and make it either good or bad. Plutarch
How could there be any question of acquiring or possessing, when the one thing needful for a man, is to become, to be at last, and to die in the fullness of his being. Saint Exupery
In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence…. In time every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out his duties… Work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence. Laurence J Peter
The wise find pleasure in water; the virtuous find pleasure in hills. The wise are active; the virtuous are tranquil. The wise are joyful; the virtuous are long lived. Confucius
For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism. Don Foley
What I must do is all that concerns me, and not what people think. Emerson
Everyone has time if he likes. Business runs after nobody; people cling to it of their own free will and think that to be busy is a proof of happiness. Seneca
A thought that does not result in an action is nothing much, and an action that does not proceed from a thought is nothing at all. Georges Bernanos
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
Involvement with people is always a very delicate thing; it requires real maturity to become involved and not get all messed up. Bernard Cooke
There is nothing more frightening than ignorance in action. Goethe
Scholarship is to be created not by compulsion, but by awakening a pure interest in knowledge. The wise instructor accomplishes this by opening to his pupils precisely the attractions the study has for himself. Emerson
It is by losing himself in the objective, in inquiry, creation, and craft, that a man becomes something. Paul Goodman
Though men pride themselves on their great actions, often they are not the result of any great design but of chance. LA Rochefoucauld
We immoralists have the suspicion that the decisive value of an action lies precisely in what is unintentional in it. Nietzsche
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. Emerson
Men of action: those men who are too busy with the day’s work to see beyond it. They are essential men, we cannot do without them, and yet we must not allow all our vision to be bound by their limitations. Pearl S. Buck
Saying is one thing and doing is another; we are to consider the sermon and the preacher distinctly and apart. Montaigne
Given the choice between accomplishing something and just lying around, I’d rather lie around. No contest. Eric Clapton
Furious activity is no substitute for understanding. H Williams
Is it really so difficult to judge a good action from a bad one? I think one usually knows right away or a moment afterward, in a horrid flash of regret. Mary McCarthy
For blessings ever wait on virtuous deeds, and though a late, a sure reward succeeds. William Congreve
Good words without deeds are rushes and reeds. Proverb
There are people who want to be everywhere at once and they seem to get nowhere. Carl Sandburg
What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people and new deeds for new. Thoreau
Any theory can be made to fit any facts by means of approximate, additional assumptions. Patrick Cully
The materials of action are variable, but the use we make of them should be constant. Epictetus
Progress does not consist in replacing a theory that is wrong with one that is right. It consists in replacing a theory that is wrong with one that is more subtly wrong. S. Hawkins
You cannot achieve the impossible without attempting the absurd. Oscar Wilde
Live all you can; it’s a mistake not to. It doesn't so much matter what you do in particular, so long as you have your life. If you haven’t had that, what have you had? Henry James
Men need some kind of external activity, because they are inactive within. Schopenhauer
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
The truth is, men are very hard to know, and yet, not to be deceived, we must judge them not by their present actions, but for the present only. Napoleon
Life is made up of constant calls to action, and we seldom have time for more than hastily contrived answers. Learned Hand
In theory, there is nothing to hinder our following what we are taught, but in life there are many things to draw us aside. Epictetus
Since it is not granted us to live long, let us transmit to posterity some memorial that we have at least lived. Pliny the Younger
For every action there is an equal and opposite government program. Don Troy
The probability of someone watching you is directly proportional to the stupidity of your actions. Murphy’s Law
A cosmic philosophy is not constructed to fit a man; it is constructed to fit a cosmos. A man can no more possess a private religion than he can possess a private sun and moon. G. K. Chesterton
A religion that has lost its basic conviction about the interconnection of men with men in their common struggles for the human, will never command belief in the realm of the superhuman. Max Lerner
The belief that becomes truth for me is that which allows me the best use of my strength, the best means of putting my virtues into action. Andre Gide
Religion should be disentangled as much as possible from history and authority and metaphysics, and made to rest honestly on one’s fine feelings, on one’s indomitable optimism and trust in life. Santayana
The fact of the religious vision, and its history of persistent expansion, is our one ground for optimism. Apart from it, human life is a flash of occasional enjoyments lighting up a mass of pain and misery, a bagatelle of transient experience. Alfred North Whitehead
A key to the understanding of all religions is that a God’s idea of a good time is a game of Snakes and Ladders with greased rungs. Terry Pratchett
We are so constituted that we believe the most incredible things; and, once they are engraved upon the memory, woe to him who would endeavor to erase them. Goethe
In religion above all things the only thing of use is an objective truth. The only god that is of use is a being who is personal, supreme and good, and whose existence is as certain as that two and two make four. Somerset Maugham
Acceptance without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western religion. Rejection without proof is the fundamental characteristic of Western science. Gary Zukav
One of my less pleasant chores when I was young was to read the Bible from one end to the other. Reading the Bible straight through is at least 70 percent discipline, like learning Latin. But the good parts are, of course, simply amazing. God is an extremely uneven writer, but when He’s good, nobody can touch Him. John Gardner
If religion does not make us better people, it will make us very much worse. And of all the bad men who have lived, the religious “bad man” is the worst of all. C S Lewis
It is natural for the mind to believe, and for the will to love; so that, for want of true objects, they must attach themselves to the false. Pascal
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence that it is not utterly absurd; indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more often likely to be foolish than sensible. Bertrand Russell
Belief indeed enlightens, terrifies, subdues; it give faith, it inflicts remorse, it inspires resolutions, it draws tears, it inflames devotion, but only for the occasion. John Henry Newman
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
Hope looks for unqualified success; but faith counts certainly on failure, and takes honorable defeat to be a form of victory. Robert Louis Stevenson
It is desire that engenders belief and if we fail as a rule to take this into account, it is because most of the desires that create beliefs end only with our own death. Marcel Proust
Can one be a saint without God? This is the problem I know of today. Albert Camus
Grace is indeed needed to turn a man into a saint; and he who doubts it does not know what a saint or a man is. Pascal
It is well that the stately synagogue should lift its walls by the side of the aspiring cathedral, a perpetual reminder that there are many mansions in Father’s earthly house as well as in the heavenly ones. Oliver Wendell Holmes
Religion pervades intensely the whole frame of society, and is according to the temper of the mind which it inhabits, a passion, a persuasion, an excuse, a refuge; never a check. Shelley
The belief that enhanced understanding will necessarily stir a nation to action is one of mankind’s oldest illusions. Andrew Hacker
We are self-uncertain creatures, and we may, yes, even when we know not, mix our spites, and private hates with our defense of heaven. Alfred Lord Tennyson
Religion is something infinitely simple, ingenious. It is not Knowledge, not content of feeling, it is not duty and not renunciation, it is not restriction, but in the infinite extent of the universe it is a direction of the heart. Rainer Maria Rilke
Faith consists in believing not what seems true, but what seems false to our understanding. Voltaire
Politics, like religion, hold up the torches of martyrdom to the reformers of error. Thomas Jefferson
Religion is always a patron of the arts, but its taste is by no means impeccable. Aldous Huxley
Faith in our savior is so great a thing that it is right that those who will not take the trouble to seek it, if it be obscure, should be deprived of it. Pascal
The saints indulge in subtleties in order to think themselves criminals, and impeach their better actions. Pascal
It is easier to make a saint out of a libertine than out of a prig. Santayana
Religion is indeed a convention which a man must be bred in to endure with any patience; and yet for all its poetic motley, comes closer than work-a-day opinion to the heart of things. Santayana
Without their fictions the truths of faiths would for the multitude be neither intelligible nor even apprehensible; and the prophets would prophesy and the teachers teach in vain. George Bernard Shaw
Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich. Napoleon
The founders of the great religions, Gautama Buddha, Jesus, Lao-Tzu, Muhammad, all seem to have striven for a worldwide brotherhood of man; but none of them could develop institutions which would include the enemy, the unbeliever. Geoffrey Gore
Will thy not take the doubts of our children whom the time commands to try all things in the place of the unquestioning faith of earlier generations. Oliver Wendell Holmes
A believer, a mind whose faith is consciousness, is never disturbed because other persons do not yet see the fact which he sees. Emerson
Science is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary condition. Alan Turing
One man finds in religion his literature and science, another finds in it his joy and his duty. Joseph Joubert
We must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart. H. L. Mencken
True religion is slow in growth, and, when once planted, is difficult of dislodgement; but its intellectual counterfeit has no root in itself; it springs up suddenly, it suddenly withers. John Henry Newman
The price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that someday they might force their beliefs on us. Mario Cuomo
To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine. Emerson
The worship of god is not a rule of safety; it is an adventure of the spirit, a flight after the unattainable. Alfred North Whitehead
There is only one true faith, though there are a hundred versions of it. George Bernard Shaw.
All religions are ancient monuments to superstition, ignorance, ferocity; and modern religions are only ancient follies rejuvenated. Baron D’Holbach
Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones. Bertrand Russell
The scripture in time of disputes is like an open town in time of war, which serves indifferently the occasions of both parties. Alexander Pope
The heathen is a benighted creature who has the folly to worship something that he can see and feel. Ambrose Bierce
I always felt that the great high privilege, relief and comfort of friendship was that one had to explain nothing. Katherine Mansfield
I argue very well. Ask any of my remaining friends. I can win an argument on any topic, against any opponent. People know this, and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don’t even invite me. David Barry
A woman may very well form a friendship with a man, but for this to endure; it must be assisted by a little physical antipathy. Nietzsche
Distrust all those who love you extremely upon a very slight acquaintance and without any visible reason. Lord Chesterfield
Bernard Shaw is an excellent man; he has not an enemy in the world, and none of his friends like him either. Oscar Wilde
Friendships last when each friend thinks he has a slight superiority over the other. Balzac
I always choose my friends for their good looks and my enemies for their good intellects. Man cannot be too careful in his choice of enemies. Oscar Wilde
Like driftwood spars, which meet and pass upon the boundless ocean-plain, so on the sea of life, alas. Man meets man; meets and quits again. Matthew Arnold
All my friends and I are crazy. That’s the only thing that keeps us sane. Dolly Patton
How casually and unobserved we make all our most valued acquaintances. Emerson
I do not believe that friends are necessarily the people you like best; they are merely the people who got there first. Peter Ustinov
Instead of loving your enemies, treat your friends a little better. Edgar Howe
My friends, no matter how rough the road may be, we can and we will, never, never surrender to what is right. Dan Quayle
What men call social virtues, good fellowship, is commonly but the virtue of pigs in a litter, which lie close together to keep each other warm. Thoreau
Even the best of friends cannot attend each other’s funeral. Keith Allan
The best that we can do is to be kindly and helpful toward our friends and fellow passengers who are clinging to the same speck of dirt while we are drifting side by side to our common doom. Clarence Darrow
Good friends, good books and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. Mark Twain
Good company and good discourse are the very sinews of virtue. Izaak Walton
Never speak ill of yourself, your friends will always say enough on that subject. Charles Maurice
Friends may come and go, but enemies accumulate. Thomas Jones
We are not loved by our friends for what we are; rather, we are loved in spite of what we are. Victor Hugo
Psychiatrists say that one out of four people are mentally ill. Check three friends. If they're OK, you're it. Kay Dayton
I get my exercise acting as pallbearer to my friends who exercise. Charlie pride
The most disagreeable thing that your worst enemy says to your face does not approach what your best friends say behind your back. Allen Sparks
Tart words make no friends; a spoonful of honey will catch more flies than a gallon of vinegar. Benjamin Franklin
Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years. Richard Bach
Love demands infinitely less than friendship. George J. Nathan
We secure our friends not by accepting favors but by doing them. Tim Ticker
If a man does not make new acquaintance as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, sir, should keep his friendship in constant repair. Samuel Johnson
To have the universe bear one company would be a great consolation in death. Thoreau
The test of interesting people is that subject matter doesn't matter. Louis Kronenberger
The bonds that unite another person to ourselves exist only in our mind. Marcel Proust
Friendship is love without his wings. Byron
I have great faith in fools; self-confidence my friends call it. Edgar Allan Poe
Infinitely often it is clear that we appreciate, even respect, not a multitude, but ten people gathered in a room, each of whom, taken by himself, we consider of no account. C. Leopard
You shall judge of a man by his foes as well as by his friends. Joseph Conrad
An ancient father says that a dog we know is better company than a man whose language we do not understand. Montaigne
Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows. Shakespeare
Money may buy friendship but money cannot buy love. Kenny Lewis
Togetherness is a substitute sense of community, a counterfeit communion. Gabriel Vania
At the heart of our friendly or purely social relations, there lurks a hostility momentarily cured but recurring by fits and starts. Marcel Proust
A man knows his companion in a long journey is a little inn. Thomas Fuller
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| Avarice |
Though avarice will prevent a man from being necessitous and poor, it generally makes him to timorous to be wealthy. Thomas Paine
What’s the matter with the world? Why, there ain't but one thing wrong with every one of us, and that’s "selfishness". Will Rogers
The avarice of the miser may be termed the grand sepulcher of all his other passions, as they successively decay. Charles Caleb Colton
Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit. Somerset Maugham
I wish to become rich, so that I can instruct the people and glorify honest poverty a little, like those kind hearted, fat, benevolent people do. Mark Twain
Avarice often produces opposite results: there are an infinite number of persons who sacrifice their property to doubtful and distant expectations; others mistake great future advantages for small present interests. Rochefoucauld
A bachelor is a selfish, undeserving guy who has cheated some woman out of a divorce. Don Quinn
Avarice is a fine absorbing passion, and many a fellow is as happy with his arm around his bank account as he was sleigh riding with his first girl. Finley Peter Dunne
Human history is the sad result of each one looking out for himself. Julio Courtenay
A person who is religiously enlightened appears to me to be one who has, to the best of his abilities, liberated himself from the fetters of his selfish desires and is preoccupied with thoughts, feelings and aspirations to which he clings because of their supra-personal value. Albert Einstein
There are some sordid minds, formed of slime and filth, to whom interest and gain are what glory and virtue are to superior souls; they feel no other pleasure but to acquire money. Jean DE La Bruyere
A moderate addiction to money may not always be hurtful, but when taken in excess it is nearly always bad for the health. Clarence Day
I could not possibly count the gold digging ruses of women; not if I had ten mouths, not if had ten tongues. Ovid
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
Corrupt, stupid grasping functionaries will make at least as big a muddle of socialism as stupid, selfish and acquisitive employers can make of capitalism. Walter Lippmann
Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess. Oscar Wilde
There is held to be no surer test of civilization than the increase per head of the consumption of alcohol and tobacco. Yet alcohol and tobacco are recognizably poisons, so that their consumption has only to be carried far enough to destroy civilization altogether. Havelock Ellis
Avarice misapprehends itself almost always. There is no passion which more often will miss its aim, nor upon which the present has so much influence to the prejudice of the future. Rochefoucauld
I would rather be rich affluent and greedy and go to hell when I die, than live in poverty on this earth. Al Capone
He who lives only for himself is truly dead to others. Syrus
Avarice is a cursed vice. Offer a man enough gold, and he will part with his own small hoard of food, however great his hunger. Lucan
The moral peril to humanity of thoughtlessly accepting these conveniences of materialism with their inherent disadvantages as constituting a philosophy of life is now becoming apparent. For the implications of this disruptive materialism are that human beings are nothing but bodies, animals, machines. Aldous Huxley
.JPG "Fame and Famous")
