The Quotes canon
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Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Marcus Aurelius27 quotes
Every instant of time is a pinprick of eternity. — Marcus Aurelius · 180Be like a headland of rock on which the waves break incessantly: but it stands fast and around it the seething of the waters sinks to rest. — Marcus Aurelius · 180Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one. — Marcus Aurelius · 180What is not good for the swarm is not good for the bee. — Marcus Aurelius · 180Mankind have been created for the sake of one another. — Marcus Aurelius · 180Love the little trade which you have learned, and be content with it. — Marcus Aurelius · 180All 27 quotes →Mark Twain16 quotes
Familiarity breeds contempt—and children. — Mark Twain · 1894Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its only sure defense. — Mark Twain · 1889Principles have no real force except when one is well fed. — Mark Twain · 1893Man was made at the end of the week's work, when God was tired. — Mark Twain · 1904Each race determines for itself what indecencies are. Nature knows no indecencies; man invents them. — Mark Twain · 1896An uneasy conscience is a hair in the mouth. — Mark Twain · 1904All 16 quotes →Ralph Waldo Emerson8 quotes
Come out of your warm, angular house, resounding with few voices, into the chill, grand, instantaneous night, with such a Presence as a full moon in the clouds. — Ralph Waldo Emerson · 1838With the Past as past I have nothing to do, nor with the Future as future. I live now. — Ralph Waldo Emerson · 1839The sky is the daily bread of the eyes. — Ralph Waldo Emerson · 1843It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them. — Ralph Waldo Emerson · 1838Life consists in what a man is thinking of all day. — Ralph Waldo Emerson · 1847A good writer seems to be writing about himself, (but never is,) but has his eye always on that thread of the Universe which runs through himself, & all things. — Ralph Waldo Emerson · 1867All 8 quotes →Henry David Thoreau7 quotes
There is no remedy for love but to love more. — Henry David Thoreau · 1839The savage in man is never quite eradicated. — Henry David Thoreau · 1859What does education often do? It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free, meandering brook. — Henry David Thoreau · 1850Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each. — Henry David Thoreau · 1853The Indian...stands free and unconstrained in Nature, is her inhabitant and not her guest, and wears her easily and gracefully. But the civilized man has the habits of the house. His house is a prison. — Henry David Thoreau · 1841That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest. — Henry David Thoreau · 1856All 7 quotes →Leonardo da Vinci7 quotes
Whoever in discussion adduces authority uses not intellect but rather memory. — Leonardo da Vinci · 1519Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind. — Leonardo da Vinci · 1519Human subtlety... Will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does Nature, because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous. — Leonardo da Vinci · 1519Man and animal are merely a passage and channel for food, a tomb for other animals, a haven for the dead, giving life by the death of others, a coffer full of corruption. — Leonardo da Vinci · 1508Perspective is the bridle and rudder of painting. — Leonardo da Vinci · 1519Painting is poetry which is seen and not heard, and poetry is a painting which is heard but not seen. — Leonardo da Vinci · 1519All 7 quotes →John Muir6 quotes
How hard to realize that every camp of men or beast has this glorious starry firmament for a roof!...In such places standing alone on the mountain-top it is easy to realize that whatever special nests we make—leaves and moss like the marmots and birds, or tents, or piled stone—we all dwell in a house of one room—the world with the firmament for its roof—and are sailing the celestial spaces without leaving any track. — John Muir · 1890In God's wildness lies the hope of the world—the great fresh unblighted, unredeemed wilderness. — John Muir · 1890Most people are on the world, not in it—have no conscious sympathy or relationship to anything about them—undiffused, separate, and rigidly alone like marbles of polished stone, touching but separate. — John Muir · 1890The mountains are fountains of men as well as of rivers, of glaciers, of fertile soil. The great poets, philosophers, prophets, able men whose thoughts and deeds have moved the world, have come down from the mountains—mountain-dwellers who have grown strong there with the forest trees in Nature's workshops. — John Muir · 1890All the wilderness seems to be full of tricks and plans to drive and draw us up into God's light. — John Muir · 1869When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe. — John Muir · 1869Samuel Pepys6 quotes
In appearance, at least, he being on all occasions glad to be at friendship with me, though we hate one another, and know it on both sides. — Samuel Pepys · 1668I find my wife hath something in her gizzard, that only waits an opportunity of being provoked to bring up; but I will not, for my content-sake, give it. — Samuel Pepys · 1668Strange to see how a good dinner and feasting reconciles everybody. — Samuel Pepys · 1665Musique and women I cannot but give way to, whatever my business is. — Samuel Pepys · 1666Musique is the thing of the world that I love most. — Samuel Pepys · 1666Strange to see what delight we married people have to see these poor fools decoyed into our condition. — Samuel Pepys · 1665Abraham Lincoln4 quotes
If all men were just, there still would be some, though not so much, need of government. — Abraham Lincoln · 1854In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. — Abraham Lincoln · 1862As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy. — Abraham Lincoln · 1858He never lets the logic of principle, displace the logic of success. — Abraham Lincoln · 1859Anais Nin4 quotes
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. — Anais Nin · 1941Electric flesh-arrows...traversing the body. A rainbow of color strikes the eyelids. A foam of music falls over the ears. It is the gong of the orgasm. — Anais Nin · 1937Sex loses all its power and magic when it becomes explicit, mechanical, overdone, when it becomes a mechanistic obsession. It becomes a bore. — Anais Nin · 1941I write about little things because the big ones are like abysses. — Anais Nin · 1934Anton Chekhov4 quotes
But perhaps the universe is suspended on the tooth of some monster. — Anton Chekhov · 1904Everyone has something to hide. — Anton Chekhov · 1904Love, friendship, respect do not unite people as much as common hatred for something. — Anton Chekhov · 1921Between "God exists" and "There is no God" lies a whole enormous field which a true sage has great difficulty in crossing. But a Russian knows only one of these two extremes and the middle between them doesn't interest him, which is why he knows nothing or very little... A good man's indifference is as good as any religion. — Anton Chekhov · 1921Eugene Delacroix4 quotes
The first virtue of a painting is to be a feast for the eyes. — Eugene Delacroix · 1863Cultivate a well-ordered mind, it's your only road to happiness; and to reach it, be orderly in everything, even in the smallest details. — Eugene Delacroix · 1823The beautiful implies a combination of many different qualities. Strength alone, without elegance, etc., is not beauty. In a single word, the broadest definition would be harmony. — Eugene Delacroix · 1854The artist who aims at perfection in everything achieves it in nothing. — Eugene Delacroix · 1850Samuel Butler (novelist)4 quotes
God is Love-I dare say. But what a mischievous devil Love is! — Samuel Butler (novelist) · 1902An apology for the Devil: It must be remembered that we have only heard one side of the case. God has written all the books. — Samuel Butler (novelist) · 1902To live is like to love-all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct for it. — Samuel Butler (novelist) · 1902All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income. — Samuel Butler (novelist) · 1902Anne Frank3 quotes
It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals. They seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart. — Anne Frank · 1944What one Christian does is his own responsibility, what one Jew does is thrown back at all Jews. — Anne Frank · 1944I want to go on living even after death! — Anne Frank · 1944John Adams3 quotes
Virtue is not always amiable. — John Adams · 1779A pen is certainly an excellent instrument to fix a man's attention and to inflame his ambition. — John Adams · 1760This is the most significant movement of all! There is a dignity, a majesty, a sublimity, in this last effort of the patriots, that I greatly admire. The people should never rise without doing something to be remembered, something notable and striking. This destruction of the tea is so bold, so daring, so firm, intrepid and inflexible, and it must have so important consequences, and so lasting, that I cannot but consider it as an epocha in history. — John Adams · 1773William Bradford3 quotes
Being thus arrived in a good harbor, and brought safe to land, they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of Heaven, who had brought them over the vast and furious ocean, and delivered them from all the perils and miseries thereof, again to set their feet on the firm and stable earth, their proper element. — William Bradford · 1620But it pleased God to visit us then with death daily, and with so general a disease that the living were scarce able to bury the dead. — William Bradford · 1621Thus out of small beginnings greater things have been produced by His hand that made all things of nothing, and gives being to all things that are; and, as one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shone unto many, yea in some sort to our whole nation. — William Bradford · 1630Dorothy Wordsworth2 quotes
We walked up to the house and stood some minutes watching the swallows that flew about restlessly, and flung their shadows upon the sunbright walls of the old building; the shadows glanced and twinkled, interchanged and crossed each other, expanded and shrunk up, appeared and disappeared every instant. — Dorothy Wordsworth · 1803I never saw daffodils so beautiful. They grew among the mossy stones about and about them; some rested their heads upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness; and the rest tossed and reeled and danced, and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the lake. — Dorothy Wordsworth · 1802F. Scott Fitzgerald2 quotes
Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy. — F. Scott Fitzgerald · 1940It is in the thirties that we want friends. In the forties we know they won't save us any more than love did. — F. Scott Fitzgerald · 1940George Fox2 quotes
The Lord showed me, so that I did see clearly, that he did not dwell in these temples which men had commanded and set up, but in people's hearts... His people were his temple, and he dwelt in them. — George Fox · 1646I saw also that there was an ocean of darkness and death, but an infinite ocean of light and love, which flowed over the ocean of darkness. — George Fox · 1647Georges Braque2 quotes
Truth exists; only lies are invented. — Georges Braque · 1952Art is meant to disturb, science reassures. — Georges Braque · 1952Henri-Frederic Amiel2 quotes
To be misunderstood even by those whom one loves is the cross and bitterness of life. It is the secret of that sad and melancholy smile on the lips of great men which so few understand; it is the cruelest trial reserved for self-devotion; it is what must have oftenest wrung the heart of the Son of man; and if God could suffer, it would be the wound we should be forever inflicting upon Him. He also-He above all-is the great misunderstood, the least comprehended. — Henri-Frederic Amiel · 1849The man who has no inner life is a slave to his surroundings. — Henri-Frederic Amiel · 1883Jules Renard2 quotes
On Earth there is no heaven, but there are pieces of it. — Jules Renard · 1896There are moments when everything goes well; don't be frightened, it won't last. — Jules Renard · 1908Katherine Mansfield2 quotes
How can you hesitate? Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinions of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth. — Katherine Mansfield · 1922I want, by understanding myself, to understand others. I want to be all that I am capable of becoming... This all sounds very strenuous and serious. But now that I have wrestled with it, it's no longer so. I feel happy-deep down. All is well. — Katherine Mansfield · 1922Lord Byron2 quotes
When one subtracts from life infancy (which is vegetation),—sleep, eating, and swilling—buttoning and unbuttoning—how much remains of downright existence? The summer of a dormouse. — Lord Byron · 1813The best of Prophets of the future is the Past. — Lord Byron · 1821Nathaniel Hawthorne2 quotes
Words, so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become, in the hands of one who knows how to combine them. — Nathaniel Hawthorne · 1848Our most intimate friend is not he to whom we show the worst, but the best of our nature. — Nathaniel Hawthorne · 1864Soren Kierkegaard2 quotes
God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners. — Soren Kierkegaard · 1838The tyrant dies and his rule is over, the martyr dies and his rule begins. — Soren Kierkegaard · 1848Thomas Hardy2 quotes
Pessimism (or rather what is called such) is, in brief, playing the sure game. You cannot lose at it; you may gain. It is the only view of life in which you can never be disappointed. — Thomas Hardy · 1902Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened. — Thomas Hardy · 1871Voltaire2 quotes
God is on the side not of the heavy battalions, but of the best shots. — Voltaire · 1750It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue. — Voltaire · 1750Alan Clark1 quote
There are no true friends in politics. We are all sharks circling, and waiting, for traces of blood to appear in the water. — Alan Clark · 1990Albert Camus1 quote
Politics, and the fate of mankind, are shaped by men without ideals and without greatness. — Albert Camus · 1962Alexis de Tocqueville1 quote
The French want no-one to be their superior. The English want inferiors. The Frenchman constantly raises his eyes above him with anxiety. The Englishman lowers his beneath him with satisfaction. On either side it is pride, but understood in a different way. — Alexis de Tocqueville · 1835