Falling in love consists merely in uncorking the imagination and bottling the common-sense.
A bachelor never quite gets over the idea that he is a thing of beauty and a boy forever.
I\'m passionately involved in life: I love its change, its color, its movement. To be alive, to be able to see, to walk, to have houses, music, paintings--iT\'s All A Miracle.
Literature is where I go to explore the highest and lowest places in human society and in the human spirit, where I hope to find not absolute truth but the truth of the tale, of the imagination and of the heart.
The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it.
He is the greatest artist who has embodied, in the sum of his works, the greatest number of the greatest ideas.
Modern travelling is not travelling at all; it is merely being sent to a place, and very little different from becoming a parcel.
The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world...To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion all in one.
Change is one thing, progress is another. ?Change? is scientific, ?progress? is ethical; change is indubitable, whereas progress is a matter of controversy.
Conventional people are roused to fury by departure from convention, largely because they regard such departure as a criticism of themselves.
Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this or that, but hope and enterprise and change.
Italy, and the spring and first love all together should suffice to make the gloomiest person happy.
If all our happiness is bound up entirely in our personal circumstances it is difficult not to demand of life more than it has to give.
In America everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors, for, from the time of Jefferson onward, the doctrine that all men are equal applies only upwards, not downwards.
Many people when they fall in love look for a little haven of refuge from the world, where they can be sure of being admired when they are not admirable, and praised when they are not praiseworthy.
Love is something far more than desire for sexual intercourse; it is the principal means of escape from the loneliness which afflicts most men and women throughout the greater part of their lives.
Marriage is for women the commonest mode of livelihood, and the total amount of undesired sex endured by women is probably greater in marriage than in prostitution.
Religions that teach brotherly love have been used as an excuse for persecution, and our profoundest scientific insight is made into a means of mass destruction.
The theoretical understanding of the world, which is the aim of philosophy, is not a matter of great practical importance to animals, or to savages, or even to most civilised men.
As a rock on the seashore he standeth firm, and the dashing of the waves disturbeth him not. He raiseth his head like a tower on a hill, and the arrows of fortune drop at his feet. In the instant of danger, the courage of his heart sustaineth him; and the steadiness of his mind beareth him out.
Labour not after riches first, and think thou afterwards wilt enjoy them. He who neglecteth the present moment, throweth away all that he hath. As the arrow passeth through the heart, while the warrior knew not that it was coming; so shall his life be taken away before he knoweth that he hath it.
As a camel beareth labor, and heat, and hunger, and thirst, through deserts of sand, and fainteth not; so the fortitude of a man shall sustain him through all perils.
The higher the sun ariseth, the less shadow doth he cast; even so the greater is the goodness, the less doth it covet praise; yet cannot avoid its rewards in honours.
If thou be industrious to procure wealth, be generous in the disposal of it. Man never is so happy as when he giveth happiness unto another.
Perils, and misfortunes, and want, and pain, and injury, are more or less the certain lot of every man that cometh into the world. It behooveth thee, therefore, O child of calamity! early to fortify thy mind with courage and patience, that thou mayest support, with a becoming resolution, thy allotted portion of human evil.
Hear the words of prudence, give heed unto her counsels, and store them in thine heart; her maxims are universal, and all the virtues lean upon her; she is the guide and the mistress of human life.
Why seeketh thou revenge, O man! with what purpose is it that thou pursuest it? Thinkest thou to pain thine adversary by it? Know that thou thyself feelest its greatest torments.
Put a bridle on thy tongue; set a guard before thy lips, lest the words of thine own mouth destroy thy peace...On much speaking cometh repentance, but in silence is safety.
Reflection is the business of man; a sense of his state is his first duty: but who remembereth himself in joy? Is it not in mercy then that sorrow is allotted unto us?
Scorn also to depress thy competitor by any dishonest or unworthy method; strive to raise thyself above him only by excelling him; so shall thy contest for superiority be crowned with honour, if not with success.
If thou wouldst preserve understanding and health to old age, avoid the allurements of Voluptuousness, and fly from her temptations...For if thou hearkenest unto the words of the Adversary, thou art deceived and betrayed. The joy which she promiseth changeth to madness, and her enjoyments lead on to diseases and death.
The bird alighteth not on the spread net when it beholds another bird in the snare. Take warning by the misfortunes of others, that others may not take example from you.
The bad fortune of the good turns their faces up to heaven; the good fortune of the bad bows their heads down to the earth.
The beloved of the Almighty are: the rich who have the humility of the poor, and the poor who have the magnamity of the rich.
Travel is the most private of pleasures. There is no greater bore than the travel bore. We do not in the least want to hear what he has seen in Hong-Kong.
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.
As the blessings of health and fortune have a beginning, so they must also find an end. Everything rises but to fall, and increases but to decay.
Valor is a gift. Those having it never know for sure whether they have it till the test comes. And those having it in one test never know for sure if they will have it when the next test comes.
Like an image in a dream the world is troubled by love, hatred, and other poisons. So long as the dream lasts, the image appears to be real; but on awaking it vanishes.
Experience seems to most of us to lead to conclusions, but empiricism has sworn never to draw them.