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Love21 quotes
Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair. — William Blake · 1794Love to faults is always blind,
Always is to joy inclin'd,
Lawless, wing'd, and unconfin'd,
And breaks all chains from every mind. — William Blake · 1792Flesh of flesh,
Bone of my bone thou art, and from thy state
Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe. — John Milton · 1667Man's love is of man's life a thing apart,
'Tis woman's whole existence. — Lord Byron · 1819Alas! the love of women! it is known
To be a lovely and a fearful thing. — Lord Byron · 1819How wonderful life is while you're in the world. — Elton John · 1970All 21 quotes →Political theory14 quotes
Liberty consists in doing what one desires. — John Stuart Mill · 1859A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life. — John Stuart Mill · 1859Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. — John Stuart Mill · 1867For forms of government let fools contest;
Whate'er is best administered is best. — Alexander Pope · 1733The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation. — Jeremy Bentham · 1832Any government is free to the people under it where the laws rule and the people are a party to those laws. — William Penn · 1682All 14 quotes →Politics14 quotes
Liberty consists in doing what one desires. — John Stuart Mill · 1859A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life. — John Stuart Mill · 1859Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise. — Francis Bacon · 1625The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation. — Jeremy Bentham · 1832There are no true friends in politics. We are all sharks circling, and waiting, for traces of blood to appear in the water. — Alan Clark · 1990In political activity, then, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea; there is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place nor appointed destination. The enterprise is to keep afloat on an even keel; the sea is both friend and enemy; and the seamanship consists in using the resources of a traditional manner of behavior in order to make a friend of every hostile occasion. — Michael Oakeshott · 1962All 14 quotes →Freedom13 quotes
A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for...is a miserable creature, who has no chance of being free. — John Stuart Mill · 1862Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom: it is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. — William Pitt, Earl of Chatham · 1783Who would be free themselves must strike the blow? — Lord Byron · 1818Liberty consists in doing what one desires. — John Stuart Mill · 1859The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people. — John Stuart Mill · 1859There is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind. — Virginia Woolf · 1929All 13 quotes →Men and women13 quotes
I can't get no satisfaction,
I can't get no girl reaction. — The Rolling Stones · 1965Why are women…so much more interesting to men than men are to women? — Virginia Woolf · 1929Flesh of flesh,
Bone of my bone thou art, and from thy state
Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe. — John Milton · 1667Man's love is of man's life a thing apart,
'Tis woman's whole existence. — Lord Byron · 1819Alas! the love of women! it is known
To be a lovely and a fearful thing. — Lord Byron · 1819Men are vile inconstant toads. — Lady Mary Wortley Montagu · 1710All 13 quotes →Death12 quotes
Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other. — Francis Bacon · 1625Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too truly to be fearful of the night. — Sarah Williams · 1868There is a silence where hath been no sound,
There is a silence where no sound may be,
In the cold grave-under the deep, deep sea. — Thomas Hood · 1827Age will not be defied. — Francis Bacon · 1625It comes equally to us all, and makes us all equal. — John Donne · 1621How often are we to die before we go quite off this stage? In every friend we lose a part of ourselves, and the best part. — Alexander Pope · 1732All 12 quotes →Marriage11 quotes
Marriage is the only actual bondage known to our law. There remain no legal slaves, except the mistress of every house. — John Stuart Mill · 1869No slave is a slave to the same lengths, and in so full a sense of the word, as a wife is. — John Stuart Mill · 1869Love and marriage rarely can combine,
Although they both are born in the same clime;
Marriage from love, like vinegar from wine—
A sad, sour, sober beverage—by time
Is sharpen'd from its high celestial flavour,
Down to a very homely household savour. — Lord Byron · 1821He was reputed one of the wise men that made answer to the question when a man should marry, "A young man not yet, an elder man not at all." — Francis Bacon · 1625The moral regeneration of mankind will only really commence, when the most fundamental of the social relations is placed under the rule of equal justice, and when human beings learn to cultivate their strongest sympathy with an equal in rights and in cultivation. — John Stuart Mill · 1869In matters of religion and matrimony I never give any advice; because I will not have anybody's torments in this world or the next laid to my charge. — Lord Chesterfield · 1765All 11 quotes →The human condition11 quotes
Human existence is girt round with mystery: the narrow region of our experience is a small island in the midst of a boundless sea. — John Stuart Mill · 1873Man was made for joy and woe,
And when this we rightly know
Through the world we safely go. — William Blake · 1805Age will not be defied. — Francis Bacon · 1625It comes equally to us all, and makes us all equal. — John Donne · 1621But men must know, that in this theatre of man's life it is reserved only for God and angels to be lookers on. — Francis Bacon · 1605What is the worst of woes that wait on age?
What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow?
To view each loved one blotted from life's page,
And be alone on earth, as I am now. — Lord Byron · 1818All 11 quotes →Women11 quotes
O fairest of Creation, last and best
Of all God's works. — John Milton · 1667Woman's at best a contradiction still. — Alexander Pope · 1735I do not wish them to have power over men; but over themselves. — Mary Wollstonecraft · 1792Why then should women be denied the benefit of instruction? If knowledge and understanding had been useless additions to the sex, God Almighty would never have given them capacities. — Daniel Defoe · 1697It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window. — Raymond Chandler · 1940Sweet is revenge—especially to women. — Lord Byron · 1819All 11 quotes →Aging10 quotes
I am ashes where once I was fire. — Lord Byron · 1824Well, I've been afraid of changing
'Cause I've built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Even children get older
And I'm getting older too. — Fleetwood Mac · 1975Age will not be defied. — Francis Bacon · 1625Years steal
Fire from the mind as vigour from the Limb;
And life's enchanted cup but sparkles near the brim. — Lord Byron · 1818No spring, nor summer beauty hath such grace
As I have seen in one autumnal face. — John Donne · 1631What is the worst of woes that wait on age?
What stamps the wrinkle deeper on the brow?
To view each loved one blotted from life's page,
And be alone on earth, as I am now. — Lord Byron · 1818All 10 quotes →Nature10 quotes
No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings. — William Blake · 1793Great things are done when men and mountains meet. — William Blake · 1807There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the Lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I Love not Man the Less, but Nature more. — Lord Byron · 1818Nature to be commanded must be obeyed. — Francis Bacon · 1620The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. — William Blake · 1799Where rose the mountains, there to him were friends;
Where rolled the ocean, thereon was his home;
Where a blue sky, and glowing clime, extends,
He had the passion and the power to roam. — Lord Byron · 1818All 10 quotes →Beauty9 quotes
Exuberance is beauty. — William Blake · 1793Love built on beauty, soon as beauty, dies. — John Donne · 1631No spring, nor summer beauty hath such grace
As I have seen in one autumnal face. — John Donne · 1631Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies for instance. — John Ruskin · 1851Beauty is truth, truth beauty. — John Keats · 1820A thing of beauty is a joy for ever. — John Keats · 1818All 9 quotes →Human nature8 quotes
How little do we know that which we are!
How less what we may be! — Lord Byron · 1824For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes. — Francis Bacon · 1620Nature has left this Tincture in the Blood,
That all Men wou'd be Tyrants if they cou'd. — Daniel Defoe · 1701They that deny a God destroy a man's nobility, for certainly man is of a kin to the beasts by his body; and if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature. — Francis Bacon · 1625Neither reason nor faith will ever die; for men would die if deprived of either. — G.K. Chesterton · 1926There is surely a peece of Divinity in us, something that was before the Elements, and owes no homage unto the Sun. — Sir Thomas Browne · 1643All 8 quotes →Life8 quotes
Everything that lives,
Lives not alone, nor for itself. — William Blake · 1789For every thing that lives is Holy. — William Blake · 1794O for a Life of Sensations rather than of Thoughts! — John Keats · 1817The long habit of living indisposeth us for dying. — Sir Thomas Browne · 1658Take your delight in momentariness,
Walk between dark and dark-a shining space
With the grave’s narrowness, though not its peace. — Robert Graves · 1929I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers. Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure. — Oliver Sacks · 2015All 8 quotes →Books7 quotes
Books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are. — John Milton · 1644Age, that Age appeared
to be best in four things: Old
Wood best to burn, Old Wine to drink, Old
Friends to trust, and old Authors to read. — Francis Bacon · 1625Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man. — Francis Bacon · 1625All books are divisible into two classes, the books of the hour, and the books of all time. — John Ruskin · 1864The only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet got ourselves. — E.M. Forster · 1944No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting. — Lady Mary Wortley Montagu · 1753All 7 quotes →Gender relations7 quotes
I do not wish them to have power over men; but over themselves. — Mary Wollstonecraft · 1792No slave is a slave to the same lengths, and in so full a sense of the word, as a wife is. — John Stuart Mill · 1869It is the masculine values that prevail... This is an important book, the critic assumes, because it deals with war. This is an insignificant book because it deals with the feelings of women in a drawing room. — Virginia Woolf · 1929The principle which regulates the existing social relations between the two sexes—the legal subordination of one sex to the other—is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement. — John Stuart Mill · 1869A Woman is a foreign land,
Of which, though there he settle young,
A man will ne'er quite understand
The customs, politics, and tongue. — Coventry Patmore · 1854There is more difference within the sexes than between them. — Ivy Compton-Burnett · 1955All 7 quotes →Oppression of women7 quotes
So true is it that unnatural generally means only uncustomary, and that everything which is usual appears natural. The subjection of women to men being a universal custom, any departure from it quite naturally appears unnatural. — John Stuart Mill · 1869The principle which regulates the existing social relations between the two sexes—the legal subordination of one sex to the other—is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement. — John Stuart Mill · 1869From the first dawn of life unto the grave,
Poor womankind's in every state a slave. — Sarah Egerton · 1703The history of men's opposition to women's emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself. — Virginia Woolf · 1929The generality of the male sex cannot yet tolerate the idea of living with an equal. — John Stuart Mill · 1869It would be an endless task to trace the variety of meannesses, cares, and sorrows, into which women are plunged by the prevailing opinion, that they were created rather to feel than reason. — Mary Wollstonecraft · 1792All 7 quotes →Travel7 quotes
Railway termini... Are our gates to the glorious and the unknown. Through them we pass out into adventure and sunshine, to them, alas! we return. — E.M. Forster · 1910They say travel broadens the mind; but you must have the mind. — G.K. Chesterton · 1921Those who travel heedlessly from place to place, observing only their distance from each other and attending only to their accommodation at the inn at night, set out fools, and will certainly return so. — Lord Chesterfield · 1747It is by crawling on the face of it that one learns a country. — Evelyn Waugh · 1934When a traveller returneth home, let him not leave the countries where he hath travelled altogether behind him. — Francis Bacon · 1625Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience. He that travelleth into a country before he hath some entrance into the language, goeth to school, and not to travel. — Francis Bacon · 1625All 7 quotes →Truth7 quotes
Tis strange,—but true; for truth is always strange;
Stranger than fiction. — Lord Byron · 1823A Truth that's told with bad intent
Beats all the Lies you can invent — William Blake · 1803It is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions. — T.H. Huxley · 1880A man may be in as just possession of Truth as of a City, and yet bee forced to surrender. — Sir Thomas Browne · 1643Beauty is truth, truth beauty. — John Keats · 1820Truth often suffers more by the heat of its defenders than from the arguments of its opposers. — William Penn · 1682All 7 quotes →Youth7 quotes
Ancient times were the youth of the world. — Francis Bacon · 1605Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to-day,
To-morrow will be dying. — Robert Herrick · 1648Yes, of course we were pretentious—what else is youth for? — Julian Barnes · 2011Oh, talk not to me of a name great in story—
The days of our Youth are the days of our glory;
And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty
Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty. — Lord Byron · 1830Then be not coy, but use your time;
And while ye may, go marry
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry. — Robert Herrick · 1648Time, the subtle thief of youth. — John Milton · 1645All 7 quotes →Downsides of wealth6 quotes
Riches are a good handmaid, but the worst mistress. — Francis Bacon · 1605Why should man be in love with his fetters, though of gold? — Francis Bacon · 1626Prosperity doth best discover Vice; But Adversity doth best discover Vertue. — Francis Bacon · 1625Among the Very Rich you will never find a really generous man, even by accident. They may give their money away, but they will never give themselves away; they are egoistic, secretive, dry as old bones. To be smart enough to get all that money you must be dull enough to want it. — G.K. Chesterton · 1912Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness. — John Ruskin · 1872Prosperity is not without many Feares and Distastes; and Adversity is not without Comforts and Hopes. — Francis Bacon · 1625Freedom of speech and expression6 quotes
We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still. — John Stuart Mill · 1859An opinion that corn-dealers are starvers of the poor, or that private property is robbery, ought to be unmolested when simply circulated through the press, but may justly incur punishment when delivered orally to an excited mob assembled before the house of a corn-dealer. — John Stuart Mill · 1859If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. — John Stuart Mill · 1859The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. — John Stuart Mill · 1859If we think to regulate printing, thereby to rectify manners, we must regulate all recreations and pastimes, all that is delightful to man... And who shall silence all the airs and madrigals, that whisper softness in chambers? — John Milton · 1644Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties. — John Milton · 1644Friends6 quotes
Champagne for my real friends, real pain for my sham friends. — Francis Bacon · 1996It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend. — William Blake · 1815How often are we to die before we go quite off this stage? In every friend we lose a part of ourselves, and the best part. — Alexander Pope · 1732True happinesse
Consists not in the multitude of friends,
But in the worth, and choice. — Ben Jonson · 1600Age, that Age appeared
to be best in four things: Old
Wood best to burn, Old Wine to drink, Old
Friends to trust, and old Authors to read. — Francis Bacon · 1625Histories are more full of Examples of the Fidelity of dogs than of Friends. — Alexander Pope · 1709Legal theory6 quotes
The king, moreover, is not only incapable of doing wrong, but even of thinking wrong: he can never mean to do an improper thing: in him is no folly or weakness. — William Blackstone · 1765Whence it is that in our law the goodness of a custom depends upon its having been used time out of mind; or, in the solemnity of our legal phrase, time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary. — William Blackstone · 1765All presumptive evidence of felony should be admitted cautiously; for the law holds, that it is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer. — William Blackstone · 1769Here the great art lies, to discern in what the law is to bid restraint and punishment, and in what things persuasion only is to work. — John Milton · 1644That the king can do no wrong, is a necessary and fundamental principle of the English constitution. — William Blackstone · 1765Public opinion's always in advance of the law. — John Galsworthy · 1922Man and animals6 quotes
Near this spot
Are deposited the Remains of one
Who possessed Beauty without Vanity,
Strength without Insolence,
Courage without Ferocity,
And all the Virtues of Man without his Vices. — Lord Byron · 1808They that deny a God destroy a man's nobility, for certainly man is of a kin to the beasts by his body; and if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature. — Francis Bacon · 1625A full-grown horse or dog is beyond comparison a more rational, as well as a more conversable animal, than an infant of a day, or a week, or even a month old. But suppose the case were otherwise, what would it avail? The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer? — Jeremy Bentham · 1789It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. — John Stuart Mill · 1861Little Fly,
Thy summer's play
My thoughtless hand
Has brushed away.
Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?
For I dance
And drink and sing,
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing. — William Blake · 1794Histories are more full of Examples of the Fidelity of dogs than of Friends. — Alexander Pope · 1709Moral theory6 quotes
All inequality that has no special utility to justify it is injustice. — Jeremy Bentham · 1795Vice came in always at the door of necessity, not at the door of inclination. — Daniel Defoe · 1722Actions receive their tincture from the times,
And as they change, are virtues made or crimes. — Daniel Defoe · 1703It is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong. — Jeremy Bentham · 1776The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation. — Jeremy Bentham · 1832To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it. — G.K. Chesterton · 1917Nature of love6 quotes
Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair. — William Blake · 1794Man's love is of man's life a thing apart,
'Tis woman's whole existence. — Lord Byron · 1819Love is a thing.
It is a prick, it is a sting,
It is a pretty, pretty thing;
It is a fire, it is a coal
Whose flame creeps in at every hole. — George Peele · 1591Love wants to enjoy in other ways the human being whom it has enjoyed in bed; it looks forward to having breakfast. But in the morning Lust is always furtive. — Henry Fairlie · 1978It's no good trying to fool yourself about love. You can't fall into it like a soft job, without dirtying up your hands. It takes muscle and guts. And if you can't bear the thought of messing up your nice, clean soul, you'd better give up the whole idea of life and become a saint. — John Osborne · 1956Love is a thing as any spirit free. — Geoffrey Chaucer · 1400Personal growth6 quotes
The childhood shows the man,
As morning shows the day. — John Milton · 1671Prosperity doth best discover Vice; But Adversity doth best discover Vertue. — Francis Bacon · 1625Of all means to regeneration Remorse is surely the most wasteful. It cuts away healthy tissues with the poisoned. It is a knife that probes far deeper than the evil. — E.M. Forster · 1910Whatever you are, try to be a good one. — William Makepeace Thackeray · 1897A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday. — Alexander Pope · 1727Does character develop over time? In novels, of course it does: otherwise there wouldn't be much of a story. But in life? I sometimes wonder. Our attitudes and opinions change, we develop new habits and eccentricities; but that's something different, more like decoration. Perhaps character resembles intelligence, except that character peaks a little later: between twenty and thirty, say. And after that, we're just stuck with what we've got. We're on our own. If so, that would explain a lot of lives, wouldn't it? And also—if this isn't too grand a word—our tragedy. — Julian Barnes · 2011Sex6 quotes
The orgasm has replaced the Cross as the focus of longing and the image of fulfilment. — Malcolm Muggeridge · 1966Love wants to enjoy in other ways the human being whom it has enjoyed in bed; it looks forward to having breakfast. But in the morning Lust is always furtive. — Henry Fairlie · 1978What hath night to do with sleep? — John Milton · 1634The summer hath his joys,
And winter has delights;
Though love and all his pleasures are but toys,
They shorten tedious nights. — Thomas Campion · 1617They have invented a phrase, a phrase that is a black and white contradiction in two words—"free-love"—as if a lover ever had been, or ever could be, free. It is the nature of love to bind itself, and the institution of marriage merely paid the average man the compliment of taking him at his word. — G.K. Chesterton · 1901The pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable. — Lord Chesterfield · 1773The past6 quotes
Ancient times were the youth of the world. — Francis Bacon · 1605The best of Prophets of the future is the Past. — Lord Byron · 1821The past is the only dead thing that smells sweet. — Edward Thomas · 1917Things bygone are the only things that last:
The Present is mere grass, quick-mown away;
The Past is stone, and stands for ever fast. — Eugene Lee-Hamilton · 1894The Past is like a funeral gone by
The Future comes like an unwelcomed guest. — Edmund Gosse · 1911People who are always praising the past
And especially the times of faith as best
Ought to go and live in the Middle Ages
And be burnt at the stake as witches and sages. — Stevie Smith · 1957