A host is like a general: calamities often reveal his genius.
A human being is not attaining his full heights until he is educated.
A stomach that is seldom empty despises common food.
A tactful man can pull the stinger from a bee without getting stung.
A teacher who is attempting to teach without inspiring the pupil with a desire to learn is hammering cold iron.
Adversity reveals genius, prosperity conceals it.
Apathy is a sort of living oblivion.
As we speak cruel time is fleeing. Seize the day, believing as little as possible in the morrow.
Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.
Books are all right, but dead men's brains are no good unless you mix a live one's with them.
Books are not made for furniture but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house.
Books are the windows through which the soul looks out. A house without books is like a room without windows.
By deafness one gains in one respect more than one loses; one misses more nonsense than sense.
Colleges don't make fools, they only develop them.
Culture is not a matter of a change of climate.
Doing nothing for others is the undoing of ourselves. We must purposely be kind and generous, or we miss the best part of existence. The heart which goes out of itself gets large and full. This is the great secret of the inner life. We do ourselves the most good doing something for others.
Don't play for safety. It's the most dangerous thing in the world.
Drop the question what tomorrow may bring, and count as profit every day that Fate allows you.
Dynasties and governments used to be attacked and defended by arms; now the attack and the defence are mainly carried on by types. (referring to the printing press).
Education is our only political safety. Outside of this ark all is deluge.
Education, then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men- the balance-wheel of the social machinery.
Every addition to true knowledge is an addition to human power.
Every fellow is really two men- what he is and what he might be; and you're never absolutely sure which you're going to bury till he's dead.
Exercise is the worst thing in the world and as bad an invention as gunpowder.
Fame is a vapor; popularity an accident; riches take wings; the only certainty is oblivion.
Foolish writers and readers are created for each other.
Force without wisdom falls of its own weight.
Generosity during life is a very different thing from generosity in the hour of death; one proceeds from genuine liberality and benevolence, the other from pride or fear.
Genius may conceive but patient labor must consummate.
Get money first; virtue comes later.
Give me a house furnished with books rather than furniture! Both, if you can, but books at any rate!
He who has begun is half done. Dare to be wise; begin!
He who shuts out truth, by the same act opens the door to all the error that supplies its place.
History is a romance that is believed; romance, a history that is not believed.
I have known men of valor cowards to their wives.
I have never heard anything about the resolutions of the apostles, but a good deal about their acts.
If a passion for freedom is not in vogue, patriots may sound the alarm till they are weary.
If any man seeks for greatness, let him forget greatness and ask for truth, and he will find both.
Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he isn't. A sense of humor was provided to console him for what he is.
In adversity, remember to keep an even mind.
In all science error precedes the truth, and it is better it should go first than last.
In my youth I thought of writing a satire on mankind but now in my age I think I should write an apology for them.
It is difficult to speak of the universal specifically.
It is good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it's good too, to check up once in a while and make sure you haven't lost the things money can't buy.
It is more difficult, and it calls for higher energies of soul, to live a martyr than to die one.
It is your concern when your neighbor's wall is on fire.
It isn't what a man's got in the bank, but what he's got in his head, that makes him a great merchant.
Jails and prisons are the complement of schools; so many less as you have of the latter, so many more must you have of the former.
Justice is rather the activity of truth, than a virtue in itself. Truth tells us what is due to others, and justice renders that due. Injustice is acting a lie.
Let but the public mind become once thoroughly corrupt, and all attempts to secure property, liberty or life, by mere force of laws written on parchment, will be as vain as to put up printed notices in an orchard to keep off the canker-worms.
Let the public mind become corrupt, and all efforts to secure property, liberty, or life by the force of laws written on paper will be as vain as putting up a sign in an apple orchard to exclude canker worms.
Let us labor for that larger and larger comprehension of truth, that more and more thorough repudiation of error, which shall make the history of mankind a series of ascending developments.
Life grants nothing to us mortals without hard work.
Life's short span forbids us to enter on far reaching hopes.
Lost- Yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for they are gone forever.
Manners easily and rapidly mature into morals.
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.
Mystery is the wisdom of blockheads.
Never ask a man what he knows, but what he can do.
Nine-tenths of the people were created so you would want to be with the other tenth.
Once a word has been allowed to escape, it cannot be recalled.
Poetry is a beautiful way of spoiling prose, and the laborious art of exchanging plain sense for harmony.
Posterity always degenerates till it becomes our ancestors.
Prognostics do not always prove prophecies- at least the wisest prophets make sure of the event first.
Putting off a hard thing makes it impossible.
Resolve to edge in a little reading every day, if it is but a single sentence. If you gain fifteen minutes a day, it will make itself felt at the end of the year.
Rule your mind or it will rule you.
Struggling to be brief I become obscure.
Ten men have failed from defect in morals, where one has failed from defect in intellect.
The contempt of money is no more a virtue than to wash one's hand is one; but one does not willingly shake hands with a man that never washes his.
The curse of modern times is, that almost everything does create controversy.
The darkest hour in any man's life is when he sits down to plan how to get money without earning it.
The easiest way in the world to make enemies is to hire friends.
The great secret of good management is to be more alert to prevent a man's going wrong than eager to punish him for it.
The most ignorant are the most conceited.
The poniard and the stiletto were once the resource of a murderous spirit; now the vengeance, which formerly would assassinate in the dark, libels character, in the light of day, through the medium of the press.
The whole secret of life is to be interested in one thing profoundly and in a thousand things well.
The world is full of bright men who know all the right things to say and who say them in the wrong place.
The years as they pass plunder us of one thing after another.
There are two unpardonable sins in this world-- success and failure.
Think to yourself that every day is your last; the hour to which you do not look forward will come as a welcome surprise.
This world is a comedy to those that think; a tragedy to those that feel.
To act with common sense, according to the moment, is the best wisdom I know; and the best philosophy, to do one's duties, take the world as it comes, submit respectfully to one's lot, bless the goodness that has given us so much happiness with it, whatever it is, and despise affectation.
To flee vice is the beginning of virtue, and to have got rid of folly is the beginning of wisdom.
Tyrants have no consciences, and reformers no feeeling; and the world suffers both by the plague and by the cure.
Unfaithfulness in the keeping of an appointment is an act of clear dishonesty. You may as well borrow a person's money as his time.
We are but dust and shadow.
We are but numbers, born to consume resources.
We often repent of our first thoughts, and scarce ever of our second.
When a fortune comes without calling, it's apt to leave without asking.
When a man makes a specialty of knowing how some other fellow ought to spend his money, he usually thinks in millions and works for hundreds.
When people will not weed their own minds, they are apt to be overrun by nettles.
When the tongue lies, the eyes tell the truth.
When will the world know that peace and propagation are the two most delightful things in it?
When you wish to instruct, be brief; that men's minds may take in quickly what you say, learn its lesson, and retain it faithfully.
Whether a young man shall reap pleasure or pain from winning the objects of his choice, depends, not only upon his wisdom or folly in selecting those objects, but upon the right or wrong methods by which he pursues them.
You've got to get up every morning with determination if you're going to go to bed with satisfaction.
Found 97 occurence(s) in 52,041 quotation(s).
Categories: Quotes of the day
KGB Quotation Database Search page design and software
contributed by Rafal Sulejman.
