Famous Quotes & Sayings

Herman Melville

What troops Of generous boys in happiness thus bred Saturnians through life's Tempe led, Went from the North and came from the South, With golden mottoes in the mouth, To lie down midway on a bloody bed.

Herman Melville

We incline to think that God cannot explain His own secrets and that He would like a little information upon certain points Himself. We mortals astonish Him as much as He us. But it is this Being of the matter; there lies the knot with which we choke ourselves. As soon as you say Me, a God, a Nature, so soon you jump off from your stool and hang from the beam. Yes, that word is the hangman. Take God out of the dictionary, and you would have Him in the street.

Henry David Thoreau

Nature herself has not provided the most graceful end for her creatures. What becomes of all these birds that people the air and forest for our solacement? The sparrow seems always chipper, never infirm. We do not see their bodies lie about. Yet there is a tragedy at the end of each one of their lives. They must perish miserably; not one of them is translated. True, "not a sparrow falleth to the ground without our Heavenly Father's knowledge," but they do fall, nevertheless.

Henry David Thoreau

Your richest veins don't lie nearest the surface.

Henry David Thoreau

Our vices always lie in the direction of our virtues, and in their best estate are but plausible imitations of the latter.

Henry David Thoreau

Perchance the time will come when we shall not be content to go back and forth upon a raft to some huge Homeric or Shakespearean Indiaman that lies upon the reef, but build a bark out of that wreck and others that are buried in the sands of this desolate island, and such new timber as may be required, in which to sail away to whole new worlds of light and life, where our friends are.

Henry David Thoreau

That is mere sentimentality that lies abed by day and thinks itself white, far from the tan and callus of experience.

Henry David Thoreau

Every ambitious would-be empire, clarions it abroad that she is conquering the world to bring it peace, security and freedom, and it is sacrificing her sons only for the most noble and humanitarian purposes. That is a lie; and it is an ancient lie, yet generations still rise and believe it.

Henry David Thoreau

One man lies in his words, and gets a bad reputation; another in his manners, and enjoys a good one.

Henry David Thoreau

I love nature, I love the landscape, because it is so sincere. It never cheats me. It never jests. It is cheerfully, musically earnest. I lie and relie on the earth.

Henry David Thoreau

Men rush to California and Australia as if the true gold were to be found in that direction but that is to go to the very opposite extreme to where it lies. They go prospecting farther and farther away from the true lead, and are most unfortunate when they think themselves most successful.

Henry David Thoreau

The lakes are something which you are unprepared for; they lie up so high, exposed to the light, and the forest is diminished to a fine fringe on their edges, with here and there a blue mountain, like amethyst jewels set around some jewel of the first water, - so anterior, so superior, to all the changes that are to take place on their shores, even now civil and refined, and fair as they can ever be.

Henry David Thoreau

If one listens to the faintest but constant suggestions of his genius, which are certainly true, he sees not to what extremes, or even insanity, it may lead him; and yet that way, as he grows more resolute and faithful, his road lies.

H. L. Mencken

A home is not a mere transient shelter: its essence lies in the personalities of the people who live in it.

Jean Genet

I give the name violence to a boldness lying idle and enamored of danger.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

God is intelligent; but in what manner? Man is intelligent by the act of reasoning, but the supreme intelligence lies under no necessity to reason. He requires neither premise nor consequences; nor even the simple form of a proposition. His knowledge is purely intuitive. He beholds equally what is and what will be. All truths are to Him as one idea, as all places are but one point, and all times one moment.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The freedom of Mankind does not lie in the fact that can do what we want, but that we do not have to do that which we do not want.

Jessica Hahn

What bothers me is that Jim Bakker lies. Jim Bakker knows for a fact that I was virgin.

Jerry Hall

Why would anybody lie? The truth is always more colourful.

Jeremy Collier

The road to heaven lies as near by water as by land.

Jeremy Collier

Envy lies between two beings equal in nature though unequal in circumstances.

Jennifer Capriati

I know there is much mystery, much question to what happened, and I must also say, many lies.

Jennifer Chiaverini

Deception by an omission of the truth is as bad as a lie.

Jennifer Egan

We lie. That's what we do. You're selling me a line of bullshit and you want me to sell you a line of bullshit back so you can write a major line of bullshit and be paid for it.

Jeff Tweedy

All my lies are only wishes / I know I would die if I could come back new.

Jeff Tweedy

I know my lies are always wishes.

Jeff Tweedy

Everything alive must die. Every building built to the sky will fall. Don't try to tell me my everlasting love is a lie.

Jean Rostand

I prefer the honest jargon of reality to the outright lies of books.

Jean Rostand

In politics, yesterday's lie is attacked only to flatter today's.

Jean Rostand

We find it easy to believe that praise is sincere: why should anyone lie in telling us the truth?

Jean de La Fontaine

Le mensonge et les vers de tout temps sont amis. Lies and literature have always been friends.

Jean de La Fontaine

Man is ice to truth and fire to falsehood.

Jerry Seinfeld

Maybe if we lie down our brains will work.