WednesdayMay 13, 2026
Quotes: 53419 Authors: 9969
We love peace, but not peace at any price. There is a peace more destructive of the manhood of living man, than war is destructive to his body. Chains are worse than bayonets.
Dogmatism is puppyism come to its full growth.
Wilt thou seal up the avenues of ill? Pay every debt, as if God wrote the bill!
Whoever fights, whoever falls, Justice conquers evermore.
When Shakespeare is charged with debts to his authors, Landor replies, 'Yet he was more original than his originals. He breathed upon dead bodies and brought them into life.'
Too busy with the crowded hour to fear to live or die.
Thought is the property of him who can entertain it, and of him who can adequately place it.
There is something about a wedding-gown prettier than in any other gown in the world.
There is nothing settled in manners, but the laws of behaviour yield to the energy of the individual.
There is no great and no small To the Soul that maketh all; And where it cometh, all things are; And it cometh everywhere.
The virtue in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.
The ugliest of trades have their moments of pleasure. Now, if I were a grave-digger, or even a hangman, there are some people I could work for with a great deal of enjoyment.
The surest way to hit a woman's heart is to take aim kneeling.
The silent organ loudest chants The master's requiem.
The passages of Shakespeare that we most prize were never quoted until within this century.
The nobleman of the garden.
The manly part is to do with might and main what you can do.
The life of the husbandman,a life fed by the bounty of earth and sweetened by the airs of heaven.
The hearing ear is always found close to the speaking tongue.
The best thing I know between France and England is the sea.
The alleged power to charm down insanity, or ferocity in beasts, is a power behind the eye.
That fellow would vulgarize the day of judgment.
Talk to him of Jacob's ladder, and he would ask the number of the steps.
Some people are so fond of ill-luck that they run half-way to meet it.
Olympian bards who sung Divine ideas below, Which always find us young And always keep us so.
Oh, tenderly the haughty day Fills his blue urn with fire.
Nor sequent centuries could hit Orbit and sum of Shakespeare's wit.
Nor mourn the unalterable Days That Genius goes and Folly stays.
Love not the flower they pluck and know it not, And all their botany is Latin names.
It is as impossible for a man to be cheated by any one but himself, as for a thing to be and not to be at the same time.
I do not find that the age or country makes the least difference; no, nor the language the actors spoke, nor the religion which they professed, whether Arab in the desert or Frenchman in the Academy. I see that sensible men and conscientious men all over the world were of one religion.
He thought it happier to be dead, To die for Beauty, than live for bread.
He is one of those wise philanthropists who in a time of famine would vote for nothing but a supply of toothpicks.
Great men are they who see that spiritual is stronger than any material force; that thoughts rule the world.
Good is a good doctor, but Bad is sometimes a better.
Fine manners need the support of fine manners in others.
Fear not, then, thou child infirm; There 's no god dare wrong a worm.
Earth is here so kind, that just tickle her with a hoe and she laughs with a harvest.
By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote.
As for the brandy, 'nothing extenuate;' and the water, put nought in in malice.
And with Cæsar to take in his hand the army, the empire, and Cleopatra, and say, 'All these will I relinquish if you will show me the fountain of the Nile.'
And striving to be man, the worm Mounts through all the spires of form.
And every man, in love or pride, Of his fate is never wide.
A man is a bundle of relations, a knot of roots, whose flower and fruitage is the world.
A blessed companion is a book,a book that fitly chosen is a life-long friend.
In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent.
I find the Englishman to be him of all men who stands firmest in his shoes.
Every action is measured by the depth of the sentiment from which it proceeds.
Proverbs, like the sacred books of each nation, are the sanctuary of the intuitions.
What potent blood hath modest May!
It is a beautiful necessity of our nature to love something.
None shall rule but the humble, And none but Toil shall have.
Happiness grows at our own firesides, and is not to be picked in strangers' gardens.
Born for success he seemed, With grace to win, with heart to hold, With shining gifts that took all eyes.
I rarely read any Latin, Greek, German, Italian, sometimes not a French book, in the original, which I can procure in a good version. I like to be beholden to the great metropolitan English speech, the sea which receives tributaries from every region under heaven. I should as soon think of swimming across Charles River when I wish to go to Boston, as of reading all my books in originals when I have them rendered for me in my mother tongue.
God may forgive sins, he said, but awkwardness has no forgiveness in heaven or earth.
He was so good he would pour rose-water on a toad.
The law is a pretty bird, and has charming wings. It would be quite a bird of paradise if it did not carry such a terrible bill.
Treason is like diamonds; there is nothing to be made by the small trader.
We love peace, as we abhor pusillanimity; but not peace at any price.
Happiness grows at our own firesides, And is not to be picked in stranger's gardens.
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