Quotes
Quotes about Art
A fact never went into partnership with a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of wonders. A fact will fit every other fact in the universe, and that is how you can tell whether it is or is not a fact. A lie will not fit anything except another lie.
The real cause of personal existence is not the favor of the Almighty, but the sexual love of one's earthly parents.
The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic, and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant, and kind. Failure makes people bitter and cruel.
Every luxury must be paid for, and everything is a luxury, starting with being in this world.
Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.
The strongest man upon Earth is he who stands most alone.
One great society alone on earth: the noble living and the noble dead.
Scientists tell us that the fastest animal on earth, with a top speed of 120 ft/sec, is a cow that has been dropped out of a helicopter.
To love truth for truth's sake is the principal part of human perfection in this world, and the seed-plot of all other virtues.
Evolution as such is no longer a theory for a modern author. It is as much a fact as that the earth revolves around the sun.
A thousand leagues of ocean, a company of kings, You came across the watching world to show how heroes die. When the splendour of your story Builds the halo of its glory, 'Twill belt the earth like Saturn's rings And diadem the sky.
Earth! render back from out thy breast A remnant of our Spartan dead! Of the three hundred grant but three, To make a new Thermopylae!
His breast with wounds unnumber'd riven, His back to earth, his face to heaven.
He stands erect; his slouch becomes a walk; He steps right onward, martial in his air, His form and movement.
O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell, Let it not be among the jumbled heap Of murky buildings: climb with me the steep,-- Nature's observatory--whence the dell, In flowery slopes, its river's crystal swell, May seem a span; let me thy vigils keep 'Mongst boughs pavilion'd, where the deer's swift leap Startles the wild bee from the foxglove bell.
A song of hate is a song of Hell; Some there be who sing it well. Let them sing it loud and long, We lift our hearts in a loftier song: We life our hearts to Heaven above, Singing the glory of her we love, England.
She makes her hand hard with labour, and her heart soft with pity: and when winter evenings fall early (sitting at her merry wheel), she sings a defiance to the giddy wheel of fortune . . . and fears no manner of ill because she means none.
A happier lot were mine, If I must lose thee, to go down to earth, For I shall have no hope when thou art gone,-- Nothing but sorrow. Father have I none, And no dear mother.
O, sorrow! Why dost borrow Heart's lightness from the merriment of May?
Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds, At which the universal host up sent A shout that tore hell's concave, and beyond Frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night.
I did never know so full a voice issue from so empty a heart; but the saying is true, 'The empty vessel makes the greatest sound.'
My eyes are dim with childish tears, My heart is idly stirred, For the same sound is in my ears Which in those days I heard.
Why should the brave Spanish soldiers brag? The sunne never sets in the Spanish dominions, but ever shineth on one part or other we have conquered for our king.
Doubtless there are men of great parts that are guilty of downright bashfulness, that by a strange hesitation and reluctance to speak murder the finest and most elegant thoughts and render the most lively conceptions flat and heavy.
O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.
