The Duc de Rochefoucault, I believe, said truly, that "many would be cowards if they dared."
Lady Delacour, in Maria Edgeworth, Belinda, Chapter IV
On every formal visit a child ought to be of the party, by way of provision for discourse.
Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility, Volume I, Chapter VI
At least in Byblow Bottom when we talked, it was on subjects relevant to our life . . . But here in Bath, conversation was, it seemed, an end in itself. Materials for it were collected like kindling wood, but then used in an artificial and prodigal manner, merely to generate a flame. But to what end? Simply to make a sound, to fill a silence, to pass a period of time. Time which, it seemed to me, could in a thousand ways have been more profitably spent.
Joan Aiken, Eliza's Daughter, (Chapter) V
Women don't want to sit around listening to guys talk about themselves. Women like to have conversations about real things, like feelings— namely, theirs.
Sue Grafton, H is for Homicide, Chapter 15
Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
Dr. Sam: Johnson, quoted in p. 849, date 19 September 1777, of Life of Johnson, by James Boswell
It is so difficult to make a neat job of killing people with whom one is not on friendly terms.
Louis, in Kind Hearts and Coronets (Screenplay by Robert Hamer and John Dighton, from a novel by Roy Kerniman)
And as the Italian proverb says, 'Revenge is the dish which people of taste prefer to eat cold.'
Louis, in Kind Hearts and Coronets (Screenplay by Robert Hamer and John Dighton, from a novel by Roy Kerniman)
I believe that half the miseries of the world arise from foolish mysteries—from the want of courage to speak the truth.
Clarence Hervey, in Maria Edgeworth, Belinda, Chapter XIV
Genius does what it must; talent does what it can.
Chinese fortune cookie
Life engenders life, energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich.
Sarah Bernhardt, quoted in Madame Sarah, by Cornelia Otis Skinner, p. 14.
Life, in both its knowing and its doing, has become today a "free fall," so to say, into the next minute, into the future. So that, whereas, formerly, those not wishing to hazard the adventure of an individual life could rest within the pale of a comfortably guaranteed social order, today all the walls have burst. It is not left to us to chooseto hazard the adventure of an unprecedented life: adventure is upon us, like a tidal wave.
Joseph Campell, Mythological Themes in Creative Literature and Art, in Myths Dreams and Religion, ed. Joseph Campbell, p. 146
The secret of realizing the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment of existence is: to live dangerously! Build your cities on the slopes of Vesuvius! Send your ships out into uncharted seas! Live in conflict with your equals and with yourselves! Be robbers and ravagers as long as you cannot be rulers and owners, you men of knowledge! The time will soon be past when you could be content to live concealed in the woods like timid deer!
Friedrich Nietzsche, quoted in John McCrone, The Myth of Irrationality
A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.
Mary Crawford, in Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Chapter 22
"And in general," said Lady Anne Percival, "does Mr Vincent wish to confine our sex to the bliss of ignorance?"
"If it be bliss," said Mr Vincent, "what reason would they have for complaint?"
"If," said Belinda; "but that is a question you have not yet decided."
"And how can we decide it?" said Mr Vincent. "The taste and feelings of individuals must be the arbiters of their happiness."
"You leave reason quite out of the question, then," said Mr Percival, "and refer the whole to taste and feeling? So that, if the most ignorant person in the world assert that he is happier than you are, you are bound to believe him."
"Why should I not?" said Mr Vincent.
"Because," said Mr Percival, "though he can judge of his own pleasures, he cannot judge of yours; his are common to both, but yours are unknown to him. —Would you, at this instant, change places with that ploughman yonder, who is whistling as he goes for want of thought? or, would you choose to go a step higher in the bliss of ignorance, and turn savage?"
Maria Edgeworth, Belinda, Chapter XVII
How wisely has Providence made the benevolent and generous passions the most pleasurable!
Maria Edgeworth, Belinda, Chapter XXVIII
There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.
Dr. Sam: Johnson, quoted in Thursday, 14 July 1763 of Life of Johnson, by James Boswell
No, Sir; a man would never undertake great things, could he be amused with small.
Dr. Sam: Johnson, quoted in p. 909, Tuesday, 7 April 1778, of Life of Johnson, by James Boswell
God is in the details.
Maggie O'Connell in Northern Exposure (probably quoting someone else)
Happy is he who leaves obstacles to the less fortunate.
Sax Rohmer, Bimbashi Baruk of Egypt, p. 50
He who knows the camel knows the worst.
Sax Rohmer, Bimbashi Baruk of Egypt, p. 48
Admiration of those beauties of the inanimate world, which modern poetry so largely and so eloquently describes, is not, even in the best of us, one of the original instincts of our nature. As children, we none of us possess it. No uninstructed man or woman possesses it. Those whose lives are exclusively passed amidst the everchanging wonders of sea and land are also those whoare most universally insensible to every aspect of Nature not directly associated with the human interest of their calling. Our capacity of appreciating the beauties of the earth we live on is, in truth, one of the civilized accomplishments which we all learn, as an art; and, more, that very capacity is rarely practised by any of us except when our minds are most indolent and most unoccupied.
Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White, The First Epoch, The Story Begun by Walter Hartright, Chapter VIII
One learns in life to keep silent and draw one's own confusions.
Cornelia Otis Skinner
Philosopher, n. One who loves wisdom but whose love is usually unrequited.
L.A. Rollins
Atheist, n. One who does not believe in God but is still holier than thou.
L.A. Rollins
Schopenhauer was a degenerate, unthinking, unknowing, nonsense scribbling philosopher, whose understanding consisted solely of empty, verbal trash.
Ludwig Boltzmann, quoted in John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tipler, The Anthropic Cosmological Principle
Fortunately for the credit of my philosophy, there is no immediate danger of its being put to the test.
Belinda, in Maria Edgeworth, Belinda, Chapter XXX
Never judge the future by the perceptions of the present.
Mack Reynolds
Remember that discontent is the beginning of intent.
Mack Reynolds
Resemblances are the shadows of differences.
John Shade, in Pale Fire, by Vladimir Nabokov (Commentary on Line 894)
In this world of guns and knives, wherever Tang Lung may go to, he will always travel on his own.
The Return of the Dragon (movie)
Tolerance is easy enough if you exclude from it everyone you despise.
Paula Fox, The God of Nightmares, Chapter 1
Anatomy has its uses, even in a midnight scuffle.
R. Austin Freeman, The Uttermost Farthing, Ch. III
"Do you want a map?"
"Oh! I know this country well."
"You? When were you here before?"
"I was brought up here."
"Indeed!"
"It is worth something, you see, to have been brought up somewhere."
Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers, Ch. LXII
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