John Galsworthy OM (August 14, 1867 - January 31, 1933) was an English novelist and playwright. Notable works include The Forsyte Saga (1906–1921) and its sequels, A Modern Comedy and End of the Chapter. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1932. (Click here for full Wikipedia article)
-----
A man of action forced into a state of thought is unhappy until he can get out of it.
Art is the great and universal refreshment. For Art is never dogmatic; holds no brief for itself; you may take it, or you may leave it.
Come! Let us lay a lance in rest, And tilt at windmills under a wild sky!
Everything known before it happens; and headlines twice the size of the events.
He is but a poor philosopher who holds a view so narrow as to exclude forms not to his personal taste.
How to save the old that's worth saving, whether in landscape, houses, manners, institutions, or human types, is one of our greatest problems, and the one that we bother least about.
I cannot explain. There are things that I can't make clear, because you are wilfully blind to all that I believe in.
I don't know much about morality and that, but there is this: It's always worth while before you do anything to consider whether it's going to hurt another person more than is absolutely necessary.
If you do not think about the future, you cannot have one.
It isn't enough to love people because they're good to you, or because in some way or other you're going to get something by it. We have to love because we love loving.
Justice is a machine that, when someone has once given it the starting push, rolls on of itself.
Life was to be lived- not torpidly dozed through in this queer cultured place, where age was in the blood! Life was for love- to be enjoyed!
Love of beauty is really only the sex instinct, which nothing but complete union satisfies.
Love! Beyond measure- beyond death- it nearly kills. But one wouldn't have been without it.
One's eyes are what one is, one's mouth what one becomes.
Only out of stir and change is born new salvation.
Public opinion's always in advance of the law.
Summer- summer- summer! The soundless footsteps on the grass!
The beginnings and endings of all human undertakings are untidy, the building of a house, the writing of a novel, the demolition of a bridge, and, eminently, the finish of a voyage.
The good will live, the bad will die; and tomorrow only can tell us which is which!
The value of a sentiment is the amount of sacrifice you are prepared to make for it.
The world's a fine place for those who go out to take it; there's lots of unknown stuff in it yet. I'll fill your lap, my pretty, so full of treasures that you shan't know yourself. A man wasn't meant to sit at home...
There's just one rule for politicians all over the world: Don't say in Power what you say in Opposition; if you do, you only have to carry out what the other fellows have found impossible.
When Man evolved Pity, he did a queer thing- deprived himself of the power of living life as it is without wishing it to become something different.
-----
(August 14 is also the birthday of Gary Larson, Russell Baker, and Steve Martin.)
Categories: John Galsworthy, Quotes of the day
KGB Stuff Commentwear E-Mail KGB
Donate via PayPal
