Quotes to inspire and reflect

Who has ever stopped to think of the divinity of Lamont Cranston?

There have been only two authentic geniuses in the world, Willie Mays and Willie Shakespeare.

[ Remark to Alexander Woollcott after attending an unsuccessful revival of Maeterlinck’s play Aglavaine and Selysette:] There is less in this than meets the eye.

I don’t know what I am, darling. I’ve tried several varieties of sex. The conventional position makes me claustrophobic. And the others give me either stiff neck or lockjaw.

Never practice two vices at once.

Le titre général [of Balzac’s novels] est la Comédie humaine.

Le secret des grandes fortunes sans cause apparente est un crime oublié .

Je ne suis pas profond, mais très épais, et il faut du temps pour faire le tour de ma personne .

The White man, someone told me, discovered the Cross by way of the Bible, but the Black man discovered the Bible by way of the Cross .

“I’ve been tormented by evil thoughts.”

Around the age of 5, 6, or 7. . . . It comes as a great shock to see Gary Cooper killing off the Indians and, although you are rooting for Gary Cooper, that the Indians are you.

Consider the history of labor in a country in which, spiritually speaking, there are no workers, only candidates for the hand of the boss’s daughter.

If we do not now dare everything, the fulfillment of that prophecy, re-created from the Bible in song by a slave, is upon us: God gave Noah the rainbow sign, No more water, the fire next time!

Do I really want to be integrated into a burning house?

The French are wiser than they seem, and the Spaniards seem wiser than they are.

[ Confession to Parliament of his being guilty of corruption as Lord Chancellor :] I beseech your Lordships, be merciful unto a broken reed.

Above all things, good policy is to be used that the treasure and moneys in a state be not gathered into few hands. For otherwise a state may have a great stock, and yet starve. And money is like muck, not good except it be spread.

Patience and gravity of hearing is an essential part of justice; and an overspeaking judge is no well-tuned cymbal.

There was a young man in Rome that was very like Augustus Caesar; Augustus took knowledge of it and sent for the man, and asked him “Was your mother never at Rome?” He answered “No Sir; but my father was.”

Nothing is terrible except fear itself.

We are much beholden to Machiavel and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do.

There are four classes of Idols which beset men’s minds. To these for distinction’s sake I have assigned names—calling the first class, Idols of the Tribe; the second, Idols of the Cave; the third, Idols of the Market-Place; the fourth, Idols of the Theater.

You’re trying to live without enemies. That’s all you think about, not having enemies.

A phrase is born into the world both good and bad at the same time. The secret lies in a slight, an almost invisible twist. The lever should rest in your hand, getting warm, and you can only turn it once, not twice.

She gloried in being a sailor’s wife, but she must pay the tax of quick alarm for belonging to that profession which is, if possible, more distinguished in its domestic virtues than in its national importance.

Persuasion ch. 24 (1818)

One man’s ways may be as good as another’s, but we all like our own best.

[ On history :] The quarrels of popes and kings, with wars or pestilences in every page; the men all so good for nothing, and hardly any women at all, it is very tiresome; and yet I often think it odd that it should be so dull, for a great deal of it must be invention.

Be honest and poor, by all means—but I shall not envy you; I do not much think I shall even respect you. I have a much greater respect for those that are honest and rich.

We all love to instruct, though we can teach only what is not worth knowing.

Everything nourishes what is strong already.

Your sister is crossed in love, I find. I congratulate her. Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed in love a little now and then.

In nine cases out of ten, a woman had better show more affection than she feels.

She was not a woman of many words; for, unlike people in general, she proportioned them to the number of her ideas.

Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.

An annuity is a very serious business.

It is not power that corrupts but fear. Fear of losing power corrupts those who wield it and fear of the scourge of power corrupts those who are subject to it.

My face looks like a wedding-cake left out in the rain.

Of course, Behaviorism “works.” So does torture. Give me a no-nonsense, down-to-earth behaviorist, a few drugs, and simple electrical appliances, and in six months I will have him reciting the Athanasian Creed in public.

Speaking for myself, the questions which interest me most when reading a poem are two. The first is technical: “Here is a verbal contraption. How does it work?” The second is, in the broadest sense, moral: “What kind of a guy inhabits this poem? What is his notion of the good life or the good place? His notion of the Evil One? What does he conceal from the reader? What does he conceal even from himself?”

“The unacknowledged legislators of the world” describes the secret police, not the poets.

The strong

They lost their pride

That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third,

Out of the air a voice without a face

The mass and majesty of this world, all

The expensive delicate ship that must have seen

She looked over his shoulder