Quotes
Quotes to inspire and reflect
Nobody can have the consolations of religion or philosophy unless he has first experienced their desolations.
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Religion is always a patron of the arts, but its taste is by no means impeccable.
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Religion is the best armour in the world, but the worst cloak.
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Religion either makes men wise and virtuous, or it makes them set up false pretences to both.
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What is god, what is not god, what is between man / and god, who shall say?
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Nature teaches us to love our friends, but religion our enemies.
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Men make their choice: one man honors one God, / and one another.
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The test of a religion or philosophy is the number of things it can explain.
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The religions of the world are the ejaculations of a few imaginative men.
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For a great nature, it is a happiness to escape a religious training,—religion of character is so apt to be invaded.
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The cosmic religious experience is the strongest and the noblest driving force behind scientific research.
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A cosmic philosophy is not constructed to fit a man; a cosmic philosophy is constructed to fit a cosmos. A man can no more possess a private religion than he can possess a private sun and moon.
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I am always most religious upon a sunshiny day.
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I am no Platonist, I am nothing at all; but I would sooner be a Paulician, Manichean, Spinozist, Gentile, Pyrrhonian, Zoroastrian, than one of the seventy-two villainous sects who are tearing each other to pieces for the love of the Lord and hatred of each other.
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Religion, n. A daughter of Flope and Fear, explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
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The true laws of God are the laws of our own wellbeing.
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Blood's thicker than water, and when one’s in trouble / Best to seek out a relative’s open arms.
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A poor relation—is the most irrelevant thing in nature,—a piece of impertinent correspondency,—an odious approximation,—a haunting conscience,—a preposterous shadow, lengthening in the noontide of our prosperity.
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There is no hope of joy except in human relations.
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Those whom we can love, we can hate; to others we are indifferent.
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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.
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The only thing as challenging as getting tangled in the underbrush of relationship is trying to write about it.
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The first thing to learn in intercourse with others is non-interference with their own peculiar ways of being happy, provided those ways do not assume to interfere by violence with ours.
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Persons are line things, but they cost so much! for thee I must pay me.
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Oh, seek, my love, your newer way; / I’ll not be left in sorrow. / So long as I have yesterday, / Go take your damned to-morrow!
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To find oneself jilted is a blow to one’s pride. One must do one’s best to forget it and if one doesn’t succeed, at least one must pretend to.
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I have loved badly, loved the great / Too soon, withdrawn my words too late; / And eaten in an echoing
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Spurn not the nobly-born / With love affected, / Nor treat with virtuous scorn / The well- connected.
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Ah, in this world, where every guiding thread / Ends suddenly in the one sure centre, death, / The visionary hand of Might-have-been / Alone can fill Desire’s cup to the brim!
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We as often repent the good we have done as the ill.
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In refusing benefits caution must be used lest we seem to despise or to refuse them for fear of having to repay them in kind.
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He who never says “no” is no true man.
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He who awaits the call, but sees the need, / Already sets his spirit to refuse it.
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Every abuse ought to be reformed, unless the reform is more dangerous than the abuse itself.
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I am a correctionist. If something is wrong in society, it must be fixed. At least one should try to fix it.
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If anything ail a man, so that he does not perform his functions, if he have a pain in his bowels even,— for that is the seat of sympathy,—he forthwith sets about reforming the world.
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It is a folly second to none, / To try to improve the world.
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The man who is forever disturbed about the condition of humanity either has no problems of his own or has refused to face them.
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Long customs are not easily broken: he that attempts to change the course of his own life very often labours in vain: and how shall we do that for others, which we are seldom able to do for ourselves?
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The spirit of improvement is not always a spirit of liberty, for it may aim at forcing improvements on an unwilling people.
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Those who are fond of setting things to rights, have no great objection to seeing them wrong.
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The religions are obsolete when the reforms do not proceed from them.
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Every reform was once a private opinion, and when it shall be a private opinion again, it will solve the problem of the age.
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Men reform a thing by removing the reality from it, and then do not know what to do with the unreality that is left.
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Men are more prone to revenge injuries than to requite kindnesses.
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Evidence of trust begets trust, and love is reciprocated by love.
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He who loves others is constantly loved by them. He who respects others is constantly respected by them.
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Men seldom give pleasure when they are not pleased themselves.
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