Quotes
Quotes about Wit
Our current obsession with creativity is the result of our continued striving for immortality in an era when most people no longer believe in an after-life.
Business more than any other occupation is a continual dealing with the future; it is a continual calculation, an instinctive exercise in foresight.
By rights, satire is a lonely and introspective occupation, for nobody can describe a fool to the life without much patient self-inspection.
The ugliest of trades have their moments of pleasure. Now, if I were a grave-digger, or even a hangman, there are some people I could work for with a great deal of enjoyment.
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean--roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; Man marks the earth with ruin--his control Stops with the shore.
And I have loved them, Ocean! and my joy Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be Borne, like shy bubbles, onward; from a boy I wanton'd with thy breakers. . . . . And laid my hand upon thy mane--as I do here.
October's foliage yellows with his cold.
And close at hand, the basket stood With nuts from brown October's wood.
To discover joy is to return to a state of oneness with the universe.
Going to the opera, like getting drunk, is a sin that carries its own punishment with it.
With books and money placed, for show Like nest eggs, to make clients lay, And for his false opinion pay.
As the saying is, So many heades, so many wittes.
Monuments of the safety with which errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
We hardly find any persons of good sense save those who agree with us.
With effervescing opinions, the quickest way to let them get flat is to let them get exposed to the air.
Public opinion is a weak tyrant, compared with our private opinion--what a man thinks of himself, that is which determines, or rather indicates his fate.
In this and like communities, public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed.
It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
Opinions founded on prejudice are always sustained with the greatest violence.
A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.
Gain from your opponents without sacrificing your own strength.
Seek not for fresher founts afar, Just drop your bucket where you are; And while the ship right onward leaps, Uplift it from the exhaustless deeps. Parch not your life with dry despair; The stream of hope flow everywhere-- So under every sky and star, Just drop your bucket where you are.
The actual fact is that in this day Opportunity not only knocks at your door but is playing an anvil chorus on every man's door, and then lays for the owner around the corner with a club. The world is in sore need of men who can do things. Indeed, cases can easily be recalled by every one where Opportunity actually smashed in the door and collared her candidate and dragged him forth to success. These cases are exceptional, usually you have to meet Opportunity half-way. But the only place where you can get away from Opportunity is to lie down and die. Opportunity does not trouble dead men, or dead ones who flatter themselves that they are alive.
Not by appointment do we meet delight Or joy; they heed not our expectancy; But round some corner of the streets of life They of a sudden greet us with a smile.
The sad truth is that opportunity doesn't knock twice. You can put things off until tomorrow but tomorrow may never come. Where will you be a few years down the line. Will it be everything you dreamed of. We seal our fate with the choices we take, but don't give a second thought to the chances we take.
