Quotes
Quotes to inspire and reflect
A thief passes for a gentleman when stealing has made him rich.
4
The faults of the burglar are the qualities of the financier.
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The prestige you acquire by being able to tell your friends that you know famous men proves only that you are yourself of small account.
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All stealing is comparative. If you come to absolutes, pray who does not steal?
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In statesmanship get formalities right, never mind about the moralities.
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Statesmen are not only liable to give an account of whatThey say or do in public, but there is a busy inquiry? made into their very meals, beds, marriages, and every other sportive or serious action.
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There are some whom the applause of the multitude has deluded into the belief that they are really statesmen.
13
The minds of some of our statesmen, like the pupil of the human eye, contract themselves the more, the stronger light there is shed upon them.
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The responsibility of great states is to serve and not to dominate the world.
5
The difference between being an elder statesman / And posing successfully as an elder statesman / Is practically negligible.
5
Each State can have for enemies only other States, and not men; for between things disparate in nature there can be no real relation.
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As great edifices collapse of their own weight, so Heaven sets a similar limit to the growth of prosperous states.
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The State not seldom tolerates a comparatively great evil to keep out millions of lesser ills and inconveniences which otherwise would be inevitable and without remedy.
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The state is the servant of the citizen, and not his master.
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The State is our neighbors; our neighbors are the State.
5
When fear enters the heart of a man at hearing the names of candidates and the reading of laws that are proposed, then is the State safe, but when these things are heard without regard, as above or below us, then is the Commonwealth sick or dead.
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A state worthy of the name has no friends—only interests.
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The State is a poor, good beast who means the best: it means friendly.
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The modern state no longer has anything but rights; it does not recognize duties any more.
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A thousand years scarce serve to form a state; / An hour may lay it in the dust.
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The state exists for the sake of a good life, and not for the sake of life only.
4
We weed out the darnel from the corn and the unfit in war, but do not excuse evil men from the service of the state.
9
Baseball is meant to be fun, and not all the solemn money-men in fur-collared greatcoats, not all the scruffy media cameramen and sour-faced reporters that crowd around the dugouts can quite smother the exhilarating spaciousness and grace of this impudently relaxed sport, a game of innumerable potential redemptions and curious disappointments.
4
Going to college offered me the chance to play football for four more years.
6
When I were a young man, I used to play baseball and steal bases just like Jackie [Robinson], If the empire would rule me out, I would get mad and hit the empire.
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Too much improvisation leaves the mind stupidly void.
4
The individual never asserts himself more than when he forgets himself.
7
We never do anything well till we cease to think about the manner of doing it. This is the reason why it is so difficult for any but natives to speak a language correctly or idiomatically.
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Improvisation is the essence of good talk. Heaven defend us from the talker who doles out things prepared for us! But let heaven not less defend us from the beautifully spontaneous writer who puts his trust in the inspiration of the moment!
6
Nuns fret not at their convent’s narrow room; / And hermits are contented with their cells.
6
To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul.
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Pressed, I would define spirituality as the shadow of light humanity casts as it moves through the darkness of everything that can be explained.
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All spiritual interests are supported by animal life.
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There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky; there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul.
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To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine.
6
The soul may ask God for anything, and never fail.
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Give unto us this day the daily manna / Without which, in this desert where we dwell, / He must go backward who would most advance.
13
One of our problems today is that we are not well acquainted with the literature of the spirit. We’re interested in the news of the day and the problems of the hour.
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I am certainly convinced that it is one of the greatest impulses of mankind to arrive at something higher than a natural state.
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Spirit is an invisible force made visible in all life.
11
There is no secrecy comparable to celerity.
9
Wearing spectacles makes men conceited, because spectacles raise them to a degree of sensual perfection which is far above the power of their own nature.
3
Specialized meaninglessness has come to be regarded, in certain circles, as a kind of hall mark of true science.
4
It is the man determines what is said, not the words.
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Nature, which gave us two eyes to see, and two ears to hear, has given us but one tongue to speak.
11
There can be no fairer ambition than to excel in talk; to be affable, gay, ready, clear, and welcome.
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Just as our bread, mixed and baked, packaged and sold without benefit of accident or human frailty, is uniformly good and uniformly tasteless, $0 will our speech become one speech.
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[A] rejection of the way a woman speaks is often a way of blaming or dismissing her without dealing with the content of what she is saying.
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