Property is organized robbery.
We sing in a church, why can we not dance there?
It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.
A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time. When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, The one I feed the most. On Other Peoples Expectations: The only man who behaved sensibly was my tailor; he took my measurement anew every time he saw me, while all the rest went on with their old measurements and expected them to fit me.
Self-denial is not a virtue, it is only the effect of prudence on rascality.
The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation.
If you strike a child, take care that you strike it in anger, even at the risk of maiming it for life. A blow in cold blood neither can nor should be forgiven.
That strong mother doesn’t tell her cub Son, stay weak so the wolves can get you’. She says, Toughen up, this is reality we are living in’.
Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles.
We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.
To be candid, in Middlemarch phraseology, meant, to use an early opportunity of letting your friends know that you did not take a cheerful view of their capacity, their conduct, or their position; and a robust candor never waited to be asked for its opinion.
To keep your secret is wisdom, but to expect others to keep it is folly.
We have all seen with a sense of nausea the abject, squalid, shameless avowal made in the Oxford Union. We are told that we ought not to treat it seriously. The Times talked of the childrens hour. I disagree. It is a very disquieting and disgusting symptom. One can almost feel the curl of contempt upon the lips of the manhood of Germany, Italy, and France when they read the message sent out by Oxford University in the name of Young England. Let them be assured that it is not the last word. But before they blame, as blame they should, these callow ill-tutored youths, they must be sure that they have not been set a bad example by people much older and much higher up.
Wisdom is not wisdom when it is derived from books alone.
Not to be provok’d is best: But if mov’d, never correct till the Fume is spent; For every Stroke our Fury strikes, is sure to hit our selves at last.
Perhaps the greatest social service that can be rendered by anybody to the country and to mankind is to bring up a family.
The world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down.
A man is a god in ruins.
Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.
You’ve got a big, big problem if you get caught up in what people say. If you’re gonna live for what people say, you might as well lay down and forget it. Because it doesn’t work that way.
We are as much informed of a writer’s genius by what he selects as by what he originates.
The public must and will be served.
