Quotes
Quotes about Wit
Men are often capable of greater things than they perform. They are sent into the world with bills of credit, and seldom draw to their full extent.
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.
I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.
In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes; so with present time.
Many people take no care of their money till they come nearly to the end of it, and others do just the same with their time.
To be well informed, one must read quickly a great number of merely instructive books. To be cultivated, one must read slowly and with a lingering appreciation the comparatively few books that have been written by men who lived, thought, and felt with style.
Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned.
Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste they hurry past it.
Every dewdrop and raindrop had a whole heaven within it.
We grow tyrannical fighting tyranny. The most alarming spectacle today is not the spectacle of the atomic bomb in an unfederated world, it is the spectacle of the Americans beginning to accept the device of loyalty oaths and witchhunts, beginning to call anybody they don't like a Communist.
A guidance counselor who has made a fetish of security, or who has unwittingly surrendered his thinking to economic determinism, may steer a youth away from his dream of becoming a poet, an artist, a musician or any other of thousands of things, because it offers no security, it does not pay well, there are no vacancies, it has no "future".
The lights of stars that were extinguished ages ago still reach us. So it is with great men who died centuries ago, but still reach us with the radiation of their personalities.
A poem begins with a lump in the throat.
Without darkness there are no dreams.
To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not, rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common--this is my symphony.
Each man carries within him the soul of a poet who died young.
No one should drive a hard bargain with an artist.
Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.
It is in deep solitude that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brothers. The more solitary I am the more affection I have for them. Solitude and silence teach me to love my brothers for what they are, not for what they say.
With enough 'ifs' we could put Paris in a bottle.
A man has to live with himself, and he should see to it that he always has good company.
The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.
A nation, like a tree, does not thrive well till it is engrafted with a foreign stock.
It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds.
Who is content with nothing possesses all things.
