Famous Quotes & Sayings

Carl von Clausewitz

It should be noted that the seeds of wisdom that are to bear fruit in the intellect are sown less by critical studies and learned monographs than by insights, broad impressions, and flashes of intuition.

Carl Sandburg

Tell no man anything, for no man listens Yet hold thy lips ready to speak.

C. S. Lewis

Surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of man he is.

C. S. Lewis

Now is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It won't last forever. We must take it or leave it.

C. S. Lewis

Telling us to obey instinct is like telling us to obey 'people.' People say different things: so do instincts. Our instincts are at war... Each instinct, if you listen to it, will claim to be gratified at the expense of the rest.

C. S. Lewis

Be sure that the ins and outs of your individuality are no mystery to Him; and one day they will no longer be a mystery to you.

C. S. Lewis

If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we are backing our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalists for the same reasons.

C. S. Lewis

Talk to me about the truth of religion and I'll listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I'll listen submissively. But don't come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don't understand.

C. S. Lewis

We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and private: and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship.

C. S. Lewis

What seem our worst prayers may really be, in God's eyes, our best. Those, I mean, which are least supported by devotional feeling. For these may come from a deeper level than feeling. God sometimes seems to speak to us most intimately when he catches us, as it were, off our guard.

C. S. Lewis

If you are really a product of a materialistic universe, how is it that you don't feel at home there?

C. S. Lewis

To live his life in his own way, to call his house his castle, to enjoy the fruits of his own labour, to educate his children as his conscience directs, to save for their prosperity after his death -- these are wishes deeply ingrained in civilised man. Their realization is almost as necessary to our virtues as to our happiness. From their total frustration disastrous results both moral and psychological might follow.

C. S. Lewis

No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing.

C. S. Lewis

You cannot go on 'explaining away' for ever: you will find that you have explained explanation itself away. You cannot go on 'seeing through' things for ever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it.

C. S. Lewis

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

Miley Cyrus

I don't ever want to have to need someone again - where you feel like, without them, you can't be yourself.

Calvin Coolidge

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. It may not be difficult to store up in the mind a vast quantity of facts within a comparatively short time, but the ability to form judgments requires the severe discipline of hard work and the tempering heat of experience and maturity.

Alain de Botton

Not being understood may be taken as a sign that there is much in one to understand.

Charles R. Swindoll

Good listeners believe they can learn something from everyone.

Charles R. Swindoll

Allow me to offer a simple definition of wisdom. Wisdom is looking at life from God's point of view.

Charles Kettering

Inventing is a combination of brains and materials. The more brains you use, the less material you need.

Arthur Schopenhauer

The shortness of life, so often lamented, may be the best thing about it.

Arthur Schopenhauer

In action a great heart is the chief qualification. In work, a great head.

Antonio Machado

There is no way; we make the road by walking it.

Edwin Arlington Robinson

I have been reading the Old Testament, a most bloodthirsty and perilous book for the young. Jehovah is beyond doubt the worst character in fiction.

Edward Young

The clouds may drop down titles and estates, and wealth may seek us, but wisdom must be sought.

Edward Young

The man of wisdom is the man of years.

Edmund Burke

The wisdom of our ancestors.

Edmund Burke

The more accurately we search into the human mind, the stronger traces we everywhere find of the wisdom of Him who made it.

Edmund Burke

The grand instructor, time.

Edmund Burke

In such a strait the wisest may well be perplexed and the boldest staggered.

Edmund Burke

Never, no never, did Nature say one thing, and wisdom another.

Edmund Burke

There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men.