I hold visions to be wisdom, and would deny them only to ambition, which exists only by the destruction of visions of everybody else.
This life is but a pilgrimage.
This is a bad world; nor have I had cause to leave it with regret.
The most remarkable thing I have observed since I came abroad, is, that there are no people so obviously mad as the English.
My veracity is dearer to me than my life,” said the peasant; “nor would I purchase the one by forfeiting the other.
There is nothing I hold so cheap as a learned man, except an unlearned one .
My soul abhors a falsehood.
It’s peculiar to me,′ she said, ’that everybody pays so much attention to living and so little to dying. Why are these high-powered scientists always screwing around trying to prolong life instead of finding pleasant ways to end it? There must be a hell of a lot of people in the world like me – who want to die but haven’t got the guts.
Customers at a marathon do not have to be prepared for their excitement. When anything happens they get excited all at once. In that respect a marathon dance is like a bullfight.
This was one day Gloria had no reason to be morbid, but she was more morbid than ever.
The hemlock tree is named spruce-pine, while spruce is he-balsam, balsam itself is she-balsam, laurel is ivy, and rhododendron is laurel.
The aim of the poet is to inform or delight, or to combine together, in what he says, both pleasure and applicability to life. In instructing, be brief in what you say in order that your readers may grasp it quickly and retain it faithfully. Superfluous words simply spill out when the mind is already full. Fiction invented in order to please should remain close to reality.
Humour is often stronger and more effective than sharpness in cutting knotty issues.
Captive Greece took captive her savage conquerer and brought the arts to rustic Latium.
Pale death kicks with impartial foot at the hovels of the poor and the towers of kings.
If you wish people to weep, you must weep first.
Captive Greece captured her rude conqueror.
For my part, whether sailing in cruiser or dinghy, I shall remain myself. My sails are not puffed out with the north wind in my favour, nor am I beating into the southern gales of affliction.
Why do you laugh? Change the name and the story is about you.
The story is told of yourself.