Famous Quotes & Sayings

Henry David Thoreau

After reading Howitt's account of the Australian gold-diggings one evening,... I asked myself why I might not be washing some golddaily, though it were only the finest particles,--why I might not sink a shaft down to the gold within me, and work that mine.... At any rate, I might pursue some path, however solitary and narrow and crooked, in which I could walk with love and reverence.

Henry David Thoreau

I do not remember anything which Confucius has said directly respecting man's "origin, purpose, and destiny." He was more practical than that. He is full of wisdom applied to human relations,--to the private life,--the family,--government, etc. It is remarkable that, according to his own account, the sum and substance of his teaching is, as you know, to do as you would be done by.

Henry David Thoreau

Webster never goes behind government, and so cannot speak with authority about it. His words are wisdom to those legislators who contemplate no essential reform in the existing government; but for thinkers, and those who legislate for all time, he never once glances at the subject.... Comparatively, he is always strong, original, and, above all, practical. Still, his quality is not wisdom, but prudence.

Henry David Thoreau

Men do not fail commonly for want of knowledge, but for want of prudence to give wisdom the preference.

Henry David Thoreau

Ex oriente lux may still be the motto of scholars, for the Western world has not yet derived from the East all the light which itis destined to receive thence.

Henry David Thoreau

To some extent, mythology is only the most ancient history and biography. So far from being false or fabulous in the common sense,it contains only enduring and essential truth, the I and you, the here and there, the now and then, being omitted. Either time or rare wisdom writes it.

Henry David Thoreau

What we need to know in any case is very simple.

Henry David Thoreau

English sense has toiled, but Hindoo wisdom never perspired.

Henry David Thoreau

When we consider what, to use the words of the catechism, is the chief end of man, and what are the true necessaries and means of life, it appears as if men had deliberately chosen the common mode of living because they preferred it to any other. Yet they honestly think there is no choice left.

Henry David Thoreau

Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.

Henry David Thoreau

But men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon plowed into the soil for compost.

Henry David Thoreau

Not by constraint or severity shall you have access to true wisdom, but by abandonment, and childlike mirth-fulness. If you would know aught, be gay before it.

Henry David Thoreau

I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well.

Ernest Hemingway

As in no other form of lute or combat, the conditions are such; the winner takes nothing, neither his ease, nor his pleasure, nor any notion of glory, nor if he wins far enough, will he find anything within himself.

Ernest Hemingway

To stay in places and to leave, to trust, to distrust, to no longer believe and believe again, . . . to watch the snow come, to watch it go, to hear rain on a tent, to know where I can find what I want.

Erwin W. Lutzer

There are no shortcuts to spiritual maturity. It takes time to be holy.

Henry Lawson

It is quite time that our children were taught a little more about their country, for shame's sake.

Henry Lawson

We shall never be understood or respected by the English until we carry our individuality to extremes, and by asserting our independence, become of sufficient consequence in their eyes to merit a closer study than they have hitherto accorded us.

Henry Lawson

Oh, my ways are strange ways and new ways and old ways, And deep ways and steep ways and high ways and low, I'm at home and at ease on a track that I know not, And restless and lost on a road that I know.

Henri Barbusse

We are all, always, the desire not to die. This desire is as immeasurable and varied as life's complexity, but at bottom this is what it is: To continue to be, to be more and more, to develop and to endure. All the force we have, all our energy and clearness of mind serve to intensify themselves in one way or another. We intensify ourselves with new impressions, new sensations, new ideas. We endeavor to take what we do not have and to add it to ourselves. Humanity is the desire for novelty founded upon the fear of death. That is what it is.

Henri Bergson

Intelligence is characterized by a natural incomprehension of life.

Henri Frederic Amiel

Wisdom consists in rising superior both to madness and to common sense, and is lending oneself to the universal illusion without becoming its dupe.

Henri Frederic Amiel

Man becomes man only by his intelligence, but he is man only by his heart.

Cat Stevens

Islam is not just a religion. Islam is everything.

George Eliot

To judge wisely, we must know how things appear to the unwise.

Guy Finley

Make it your moment-to-moment aim to recognize the difference between being aware of your thoughts, and being carried along by them.

Jakob Dylan

A guilty conscience means at least you have one.

J. R. R. Tolkien

Who cannot understand your silence, cannot understand your words.

Immanuel Kant

Maturity is having the courage to use one's own intelligence!

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Few people have the wisdom to prefer the criticism that would do them good, to the praise that deceives them.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

The strongest symptom of wisdom in man is his being sensible of his own follies.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

As it is the characteristic of great wits to say much in few words, so small wits seem to have the gift of speaking much and saying nothing.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Nothing is given so profusely as advice.