Quotes · Skopia

215 quotes

Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, had always been the systematic organization of hatreds. — Henry Adams · 1907 The great masses of the people...more easily fall a victim to a big lie than to a little one. — Adolf Hitler · 1925 Modern politics is, at bottom, a struggle not of men but of forces. — Henry Adams · 1907 Practical politics consists in ignoring facts. — Henry Adams · 1907 To abstain from politics is in itself a political attitude. — Simone de Beauvoir · 1960 Knowledge of human nature is the beginning and end of political education. — Henry Adams · 1907 All 10 quotes →

The human condition7 quotes

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854 The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness. — Vladimir Nabokov · 1951 Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible. — Viktor Frankl · 1946 Only on the edge of the grave can man conclude anything. — Henry Adams · 1907 Every one lives by selling something. — Robert Louis Stevenson · 1892 The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong. — Carl Jung · 1962 All 7 quotes →

Love6 quotes

Love may be a sleepy, creeping thing with some others, but it is a mighty wakening thing with me. — Zora Neale Hurston · 1942 Experience shows us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking together in the same direction. — Antoine de Saint-Exupery · 1939 One of the best things about love is just recognizing a man's step when he climbs the stairs. — Colette · 1941 Marriage is a sacrament which I detest... Because it is the tomb of love. — Giacomo Casanova · 1838 I never shied away from love's hugeness but I had no idea that love could be as reliable as the sun. The daily rising of love. — Jeanette Winterson · 2011 In love, the only safety lies in flight. — Napoleon Bonaparte · 1820

Personal growth6 quotes

The best way to lift one's self up is to help someone else. — Booker T. Washington · 1900 All experience is an arch, to build upon. — Henry Adams · 1907 It is never too late to give up our prejudices. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854 I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854 Whatever you are, try to be a good one. — William Makepeace Thackeray · 1897 When we are no longer able to change a situation... We are challenged to change ourselves. — Viktor Frankl · 1946

Art5 quotes

Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. — Andy Warhol · 1975 I think having land and not ruining it is the most beautiful art that anybody could ever want to own. — Andy Warhol · 1975 I longed to arrest all beauty that came before me, and at length the longing has been satisfied. — Julia Margaret Cameron · 1874 There is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall. — Cyril Connolly · 1938 Sculpture should walk on the tips of its toes, unostentatious, unpretentious, and light as the spoor of an animal in snow. — Jean Arp

Life5 quotes

Our life is frittered away by detail…. Simplify, simplify. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854 Life is more or less a lie, but then again, that's exactly the way we want it to be. — Bob Dylan · 2004 Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible. — Viktor Frankl · 1946 Life is what we make of it. Always has been, always will be. — Grandma Moses · 1951 Life consists of two dates with a dash in between... Make the dash count. — Stuart Scott · 2014

Nature5 quotes

The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there. — Robert M. Pirsig · 1974 The world today is sick to its thin blood for lack of elemental things, for fire before the hands, for water welling from the earth, for air, for the dear earth itself underfoot. — Henry Beston · 1928 Loneliness is an aspect of the land. All things in the plain are isolate; there is no confusion of objects in the eye, but one hill or one tree or one man. To look upon that landscape in the early morning, with the sun at your back, is to lose the sense of proportion. Your imagination comes to life, and this, you think, is where Creation was begun. — N. Scott Momaday · 1967 All things are artificiall, for nature is the Art of God. — Sir Thomas Browne · 1643 The three great elemental sounds in nature are the sound of rain, the sound of wind in a primeval wood, and the sound of outer ocean on a beach. — Henry Beston · 1928

War5 quotes

To say that war is madness is like saying that sex is madness: true enough, from the standpoint of a stateless eunuch, but merely a provocative epigram for those who must make their arrangements in the world as given. — John Updike · 1989 There are occasions when it pays better to fight and be beaten than not to fight at all. — George Orwell · 1938 All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting. — George Orwell · 1938 There was no patriotism in the trenches. It was too remote a sentiment, and rejected as fit only for civilians. — Robert Graves · 1929 A good plan violenty executed now is better than a perfect plan next week. — General George S. Patton · 1947

Business4 quotes

Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art. — Andy Warhol · 1975 Deals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully on canvas or write wonderful poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That's how I get my kicks. — Donald Trump · 1987 Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. — Andy Warhol · 1975 A company will get nowhere if all of the thinking is left to management. — Akio Morita · 1986

Drugs4 quotes

Thou hast the keys of Paradise, oh just, subtle, and mighty opium. — Thomas De Quincey · 1821 That humanity at large will ever be able to dispense with Artificial Paradises seems very unlikely. Most men and women lead lives at the worst so painful, at the best so monotonous, poor and limited that the urge to escape, the longing to transcend themselves if only for a few moments, is and has always been one of the principal appetites of the soul. — Aldous Huxley · 1954 A drug is neither moral or immoral-it's a chemical compound. The compound itself is not a menace to society until a human being treats it as if consumption bestowed a temporary licence to act like an asshole. — Frank Zappa · 1989 Cocaine habit-forming? Of course not. I ought to know. I've been using it for years. — Tallulah Bankhead · 1952

Education4 quotes

No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite. — Nelson Mandela · 1994 My alma mater was books. — Malcolm X · 1965 Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts. — Henry Adams · 1907 I was told that desire for learning in women was against the will of God. — Mary Butts · 1937

Man and nature4 quotes

I am haunted by waters. — Norman Maclean · 1976 The world today is sick to its thin blood for lack of elemental things, for fire before the hands, for water welling from the earth, for air, for the dear earth itself underfoot. — Henry Beston · 1928 We can never have enough of nature…. We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854 There is surely a peece of Divinity in us, something that was before the Elements, and owes no homage unto the Sun. — Sir Thomas Browne · 1643

Self-improvement4 quotes

All experience is an arch, to build upon. — Henry Adams · 1907 The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands. — Robert M. Pirsig · 1974 I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854 Whatever you are, try to be a good one. — William Makepeace Thackeray · 1897

Sex4 quotes

Give me chastity and continency—but not yet! — St. Augustine · 398 Whatever St. Augustine may say, human creatures would not perform the work of generation if they did not find pleasure in it, and if there was not in that great work an irresistible attraction for them. — Giacomo Casanova · 1791 The most exciting thing is not-doing-it. If you fall in love with someone and never do it, it's much more exciting. — Andy Warhol · 1975 Sex and religion are bordering states. They use the same vocabulary, share like ecstasies, and often serve as a substitute for one another. — Jessamyn West · 1973

Work4 quotes

Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art. — Andy Warhol · 1975 No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. — Booker T. Washington · 1900 When men are employ'd, they are best content'd; for on the days they worked they were good-natur'd and cheerful, and, with the consciousness of having done a good day's work, they spent the evening jollily; but on our idle days they were mutinous and quarrelsome. — Benjamin Franklin · 1790 There is no substitute for hard work. — Thomas Edison · 1932

Courage3 quotes

I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854 But there was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer. — Viktor Frankl · 1946 You can't spend your whole life criticizing something and then when you have the chance to do it better refuse to go near it. — Vaclav Havel · 2007

Creativity3 quotes

Invention... Arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness. To save oneself trouble. — Agatha Christie · 1976 I have had a good many more uplifting thoughts, creative and expansive visions-while soaking in comfortable baths or drying myself after bracing showers-in well-equipped American bathrooms than I have ever had in any cathedral. — Edmund Wilson · 1956 Wise people... Are so wise and practical that they always know to a dot just why something cannot be done; they always know the limitations. — Henry Ford · 1922

Happiness3 quotes

Human felicity is produc'd not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day. — Benjamin Franklin · 1790 Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. — Viktor Frankl · 1946 One cannot divine nor forecast the conditions that will make happiness; one only stumbles upon them by chance, in a lucky hour, at the world's end somewhere, and holds fast to the days, as to fortune or fame. — Willa Cather · 1902

Human nature3 quotes

Men are nearly always willing to believe what they wish. — Julius Caesar · 49 BC There is surely a peece of Divinity in us, something that was before the Elements, and owes no homage unto the Sun. — Sir Thomas Browne · 1643 Rob him of his illusions, and man would perish of very weariness and despair. — Anatole France · 1922

Nature of art3 quotes

Nature of love3 quotes

Philosophy3 quotes

It is not the attainment of the goal that matters, it is the things that are met with by the way. — Havelock Ellis · 1923 To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, not even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live accordingly to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854 No man was ever yet a great poet, without being at the same time a profound philosopher. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge · 1817

Political progress3 quotes

If you had asked me why I had joined the militia I should have answered: "To fight against Fascism," and if you had asked me what I was fighting for, I should have answered: "Common decency." — George Orwell · 1938 You can't spend your whole life criticizing something and then when you have the chance to do it better refuse to go near it. — Vaclav Havel · 2007 We are here not because we are law-breakers. We are here in our efforts to become law-makers. — Emmeline Pankhurst · 1914

Political theory3 quotes

Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, had always been the systematic organization of hatreds. — Henry Adams · 1907 Modern politics is, at bottom, a struggle not of men but of forces. — Henry Adams · 1907 Knowledge of human nature is the beginning and end of political education. — Henry Adams · 1907

Simple living3 quotes

Our life is frittered away by detail…. Simplify, simplify. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854 I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854 I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship; three for society. When visitors came in larger and unexpected numbers there was but the third chair for them all, but they generally economized the room by standing up. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854

Soviet Union3 quotes

I decided it is better to scream. This pitiful sound, which sometimes, goodness knows how, reaches into the remotest prison cell, is a concentrated expression of the last vestige of human dignity. It is a man's way of leaving a trace, of telling people how he lived and died. By his screams he asserts his right to live, sends a message to the outside world demanding help and calling for resistance. If nothing else is left, one must scream. Silence is the real crime against humanity. — Nadezhda Mandelstam · 1970 The astonishing thing is not that so many of us went to concentration camps or died there, but that some us survived. Caution did not help. Only chance could save you. — Nadezhda Mandelstam · 1972 It was the supreme expression of the mediocrity of the apparatus that Stalin himself rose to his position. — Leon Trotsky · 1930

Success3 quotes

I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854 Success is more dangerous than failure, (the ripples break over a wider coastline). — Graham Greene · 1980 Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. — Viktor Frankl · 1946

Travel3 quotes

There are no foreign land; it is the traveller only that is foreign. — Robert Louis Stevenson · 1883 We are all travellers in what John Bunyan calls the wilderness of this world....and the best that we find in our travels is an honest friend. — Robert Louis Stevenson · 1879 It is by crawling on the face of it that one learns a country. — Evelyn Waugh · 1934

Truth3 quotes

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. — Henry David Thoreau · 1854 A man may be in as just possession of Truth as of a City, and yet bee forced to surrender. — Sir Thomas Browne · 1643 Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now—always, and indeed then most truly when it seems most unsuitable to actual circumstances. — Albert Schweitzer · 1922

Architecture2 quotes

Architecture aims at Eternity. — Christopher Wren · 1680 No house should ever be on a hill or on anything. It should be of the hill. Belonging to it. Hill and house should live together each the happier for the other. — Frank Lloyd Wright · 1932

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