Famous Quotes & Sayings

Charles Dickens

I had seen the damp lying on the outside of my little window, as if some goblin had been crying there all night, and using the window for a pocket-handkerchief.

Charles Dickens

Ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies.

Charles Caleb Colton

Falsehood is often rocked by truth, but she soon outgrows her cradle and discards her nurse.

Charles Caleb Colton

Pride is less ashamed of being ignorant, than of being instructed, and she looks too high to find that, which very often lies beneath her.

Charles Caleb Colton

Ignorance lies at the bottom of all human knowledge, and the deeper we penetrate the nearer we arrive unto it. For what do we truly know, or what can we clearly affirm, of any one of those important things upon which all our reasonings must of necessity be built--time and space, life and death, matter and mind?

Charles Caleb Colton

Men of great and shining qualities do not always succeed in life, but the fault lies more often in themselves than in others.

Charles Dickens

The persons on whom I have bestowed my dearest love lie deep in their graves; but, although the happiness and delight of my life lie buried there too, I have not made a coffin of my heart, and sealed it up for ever on my best affections. Deep affliction has only made them stronger; it ought, I think, for it should refine our nature.

Charles Dickens

I mean a man whose hopes and aims may sometimes lie (as most men's sometimes do, I dare say) above the ordinary level, but to whom the ordinary level will be high enough after all if it should prove to be a way of usefulness and good service leading to no other. All generous spirits are ambitious, I suppose, but the ambition that calmly trusts itself to such a road, instead of spasmodically trying to fly over it, is of the kind I care for.

Charles Dickens

The boy was lying, fast asleep, on a rude bed upon the floor; so pale with anxiety, and sadness, and the closeness of his prison, that he looked like death; not death as it shews in shroud and coffin, but in the guise it wears when life has just departed; when a young and gentle spirit has, but an instant, fled to Heaven: and the gross air of the world has not had time to breathe upon the changing dust it hallowed.

Charles Dickens

There is something in sickness that breaks down the pride of manhood.

Charles Caleb Colton

There is this paradox in pride - it makes some men ridiculous, but prevents others from becoming so.

Charles Caleb Colton

Pride requires very costly food-its keeper's happiness.

Charles Caleb Colton

Pride, like the magnet, constantly points to one object, self; but, unlike the magnet, it has no attractive pole, but at all points repels.

Charles Caleb Colton

Whenever we find ourselves more inclined to persecute than to persuade, we may then be certain that our zeal has more of pride in it than of charity.

Charles Caleb Colton

Pedantry prides herself on being wrong by rules; while common sense is contented to be right without them.

Charles Caleb Colton

The most ridiculous of all animals is a proud priest; he cannot use his own tools without cutting his own fingers.

Charles Caleb Colton

Pride differs in many things from vanity, and by gradations that never blend, although they may be somewhat indistinguishable. Pride may perhaps be termed a too high opinion of ourselves founded on the overrating of certain qualities that we do actually possess; whereas vanity is more easily satisfied, and can extract a feeling of self-complacency from qualifications that are imaginary.

Charles Caleb Colton

Many ... begin to make converts from motives of charity, but continue to do so from motives of pride. ... Charity is contented with exhortation and example, but pride is not to be so easily satisfied. ... Whenever we find ourselves more inclined to persecute than persuade, we may then be certain that our zeal has more of pride in it than of charity.

Chinua Achebe

That we are surrounded by deep mysteries is known to all but the incurably ignorant.

David Walker

I know that the blacks, take them half enlightened and ignorant, are more humane and merciful than the most enlightened and refined European that can be found in all the earth.

William Shakespeare

Let me be ignorant, and in nothing good, but graciously to know I am no better.

Benjamin Franklin

We are all born without knowledge, but curious. With curiosity we should be able to learn as much as possible. With curiosity, it has to take a lot of work to remain ignorant.

Rig Veda

A Brahmin well versed in the scriptures is undoubtedly superior to an ignorant person.

Philip Massinger

Pray enter, You are learned Europeans, and we worse Than ignorant Americans

Brian Herbert

An ignorant friend is worse than a learned foe.

Charles Osgood

While some of us may know than others about certain things, it is the thinnest slice of all that is, or could be known. In that sense, we are all profoundly ignorant.

Barry Gibb

I like blues but it is music I am too ignorant to understand.