Famous Quotes & Sayings

Charles Dickens

External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty.

Charles Dickens

Minds, like bodies, will often fall into a pimpled, ill-conditioned state from mere excess of comfort.

Charles Caleb Colton

He [the miser] falls down and worships the god of this world, but will have neither its pomps, its vanities nor its pleasures for his trouble.

Charles Caleb Colton

The soundest argument will produce no more conviction in an empty head than the most superficial declamation; as a feather and a guinea fall with equal velocity in a vacuum.

Charles Caleb Colton

Power. like the diamond, dazzles the beholder, and also the wearer; it dignifies meanness; it magnifies littleness; to what is contemptible, it gives authority; to what is low, exaltation. To acquire it, appears not more difficult than to be dispossessed of it when acquired, since it enables the holder to shift his own errors on dependents, and to take their merits to himself. But the miracle of losing it vanishes, when we reflect that we are as liable to fall as to rise, by the treachery of others; and that to say "I am" is language that has been appropriated exclusively to God!

Charles Caleb Colton

There is no quality of the mind, or of the body, that so instantaneously and irresistibly captivates, as wit. An elegant writer has observed that wit may do very well for a mistress, but that he should prefer reason for a wife. He that deserts the latter, and gives himself up entirely to the guidance of the former, will certainly fall into many pitfalls and quagmires, like him who walks by flashes of lightning, rather than the steady beams of the sun.

Charles Caleb Colton

Let us not be too prodigal when we are young, nor too parsimonious when we are old. Otherwise we shall fall into the common error of those, who, when they had the power to enjoy, had not the prudence to acquire; and when they had the prudence to acquire, had no longer the power to enjoy.

Charles Dickens

You fear the world too much,' she answered gently. 'All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off, one by one, until the master passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?

Charles Dickens

Around and around the house the leaves fall thick, but never fast, for they come circling down with a dead lightness that is sombre and slow.

Charles Caleb Colton

Atheism is a system which can communicate neither warmth nor illumination, except from those fagots which your mistaken zeal has lighted up for its destruction.

Alan Watts

Change is an illusion because we're always at the place where any future can take us.

William Congreve

Where modesty's ill manners, 'tis but fitThat impudence and malice pass for wit.

Bill Robinson

What success I achieved in the theatre is due to the fact that I have always worked just as hard when there were ten people in the house as when there were thousands. Just as hard in Springfield, Illinois as on Broadway.

Dick Durbin

Illinois Senator Paul Simon, once said "The test for a Supreme Court nominee is not where he stands on any one specific issue. The test is this: Will you use your power on the court to restrict freedom or expand it"?

Carol Moseley Braun

Illinois has less than a 12 percent black population and I won with 55 percent of the vote.

Alan Keyes

I accept the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate, to represent the State of Illinois.

Bill Lipinski

I am committed to working with Speaker Hastert and the other members of the Illinois congressional delegation to do all that I can to ensure that Illinois' funding needs are adequately met.

Steve Rauschenberger

What he's going to do I think is stretch out the payment cycle. What he's going to do is essentially make the providers of the state of Illinois pay for it by paying them more re-imbursements and more slowly.