Famous Quotes & Sayings

Henri Barbusse

We are all, always, the desire not to die. This desire is as immeasurable and varied as life's complexity, but at bottom this is what it is: To continue to be, to be more and more, to develop and to endure. All the force we have, all our energy and clearness of mind serve to intensify themselves in one way or another. We intensify ourselves with new impressions, new sensations, new ideas. We endeavor to take what we do not have and to add it to ourselves. Humanity is the desire for novelty founded upon the fear of death. That is what it is.

Henri Bergson

Intelligence is characterized by a natural incomprehension of life.

Henri Frederic Amiel

Wisdom consists in rising superior both to madness and to common sense, and is lending oneself to the universal illusion without becoming its dupe.

Henri Frederic Amiel

Man becomes man only by his intelligence, but he is man only by his heart.

Jacques Yves Cousteau

No sooner does man discover intelligence than he tries to involve it in his own stupidity.

Jacqueline Carey

It's funny, because in deference to conventional wisdom, I spent my struggling writer years trying to suppress my naturally baroque literary voice and write clean, spare prose. I finally gave up and embraced my baroque tendencies when I wrote the Kushiel series.

Jack Smith

No objects of value are worth risking the priceless experience of waking up one more day.

Fulton J. Sheen

Nothing is more destined to create deep-seated anxieties in people than the false assumption that life should be free from anxieties.

Francois Rabelais

Go, all of you poor people, in the name of God the Creator, and let him forever be your guide. And henceforth, do not be beguiledby these idle and useless pilgrimages. See to your families, and work, each one of you, in your vocation, raise your children, and live as the good Apostle Paul teaches you.

Francois Rabelais

So that we may not be like the Athenians, who never consulted except after the event done. [Fr., Afin que ne semblons es Athenians, qui ne consultoient jamais sinon apres le cas faict.]

George Eliot

There is no short-cut no patent tram-road, to wisdom. After all the centuries of invention, the soul's path lies through the thorny wilderness which must still be trodden in solitude, with bleeding feet, with sobs for help, as it was trodden by them of old time.

George Eliot

History repeats itself.

George Eliot

Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.

George Eliot

Adventure is not outside man; it is within.

Geoffrey Chaucer

Strike while the iron is hot.

Geoffrey Chaucer

The cat would eat fish but would not get her feet wet.

Geoffrey Chaucer

The greatest scholars are not usually the wisest people.

Francoise Sagan

curiosity is the beginning of wisdom.

George W. Bush

Before history is written down in books, it is written in courage.

George W. Bush

Some folks look at me and see a certain swagger, which in Texas is called 'walking.'

George Orwell

Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself and for others. When he has no respect for anyone, he can no longer love, and, in order to divert himself, having no love in him, he yields to his impulses, indulges in the lowest forms of pleasure, and behaves in the end like an animal. And it all comes from lying - lying to others and to yourself.

Friedrich Nietzsche

It is not enough to prove something, one also has to seduce or elevate people to it. That is why the man of knowledge should learns how to speak his wisdom: and often in such a way that it sounds like folly!

Friedrich Nietzsche

Behind your thoughts and feelings, my brother, there stands a mighty ruler. an unknown sage - whose name is self. In yourt body he dwells; he is your body. There is more reason in your body than in your best wisdom.

Friedrich Nietzsche

The growth of wisdom may be gauged exactly by the diminution of ill-temper.

Friedrich Nietzsche

I go in solitude, so as not to drink out of everybody's cistern. When I am among the many I live as the many do, and I do not think I really think; after a time it always seems as if they want to banish myself from myself and rob me of my soul.

Franz Grillparzer

Much as I honor the wisdom of the princess--there is something more dashing about a man.

Jermaine Jackson

For the larger interest of humanity, Islamic society presents the safest place on this planet.

Jeff Bridges

A fool and his money are quickly parted.

Georges Bernanos

A thought which does not result in an action is nothing much, and an action which does not proceed from a thought is nothing at all.

George Sand

A man is not a wall, whose stones are crushed upon the road; or a pipe, whose fragments are thrown away at a street corner. The fragments of an intellect are always good.

George S. Patton

Most battles are won before they are ever fought.

Groucho Marx

Wages? You want to be wage slaves? Answer me that! Of course not. What is it that makes wage slaves? Wages! I want you to be free. Strike off your chains! Strike up the band! Strike three you're out! Remember, there's nothing like Liberty, except Colliers and The Saturday Evening Post. Be free, now and forever. One and individual. One for all and all for me, and tea for two and six for a quarter....