Poems List

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over lousy fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average of the world's great civilizations before they decline has been 200 years. These nations have progressed in this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; from faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to Complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency; from dependency back again to bondage.

The man who follows the crowd will get no farther than the crowd. A man who walks alone is likely to get places no one has ever been before.

The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war.

It still remains true that no justification of virtue will enable a man to be virtuous.

Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a democracy that did not commit suicide.

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than saying a drunken man is happier than a sober man.

That which is not just is not law.

Every poem can be considered in two ways--as what the poet has to say, and as a thing which he makes.

Success means doing the best we can with what we have. Success is the doing, not the getting; in the trying, not the triumph. Success is a personal standard, reaching for the highest that is in us, becoming all that we can be. If we do our best, we are a success. Success is the maximumutilization of the ability that you have.

Blessed are they who have nothing to say and who cannot be persuaded to say it.

The time for thinkers has come.

Badness is only spoiled goodness.

May your home always be too small to hold all of your friends.

It is by not always thinking of yourself, if you can manage it, that you might somehow be happy. Until you can make room in your life for someone as important to you as yourself, you will always be searching and lost....

This year, or this month, or, more likely, this very day, we have failed to practise ourselves the kind of behaviour we expect from other people.

Love inspires, illuminates, designates and leads the way.

Far away in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.

Money is a terrible master but an excellent servant.

Ignore the awful times, and concentrate on the good ones.

Not eating meat is a decision, eating meat is an instinct.

Dream lofty dreams, as you dream, so shall you become. Your vision is the promise of what you one day shall be: your ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.

A compliment is a statement of an agreeable truth; flattery is a statement of an agreeable untruth.

The trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed.

If a million people see my movie, I hope they see a million different movies.