Words of wisdom

The ability to quote is a serviceable substitute for wit.
– W. Somerset Maugham

The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by quotations.
- Isaac Disraeli

A book of quotations can never be complete.
- Robert M. Hamilton

Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
- Ernest Hemingway

The shortest answer is doing the thing.
- Ernest Hemingway

Work is the curse of the drinking classes.
- Oscar Wilde, In Life of Oscar Wilde, H. Pearson

Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.
- Oscar Wilde

Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same.
- Oscar Wilde

In married life three is company and two none.
- Oscar Wilde

Only the shallow know themselves.
- Oscar Wilde

Life’s greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved.
- Victor Hugo (1802 – 1885), Les Miserables, 1862

Where words fail, music speaks.
– Hans Christian Andersen, (1805-1875), Danish short-story writer, poet

You are the music while the music lasts.
– T. S. Eliot

Without music, life is a journey through a desert
– Pat Conroy

It is only by introducing the young to great literature, drama and music, and to the excitement of great science that we open to them the possibilities that lie within the human spirit – enable them to see visions and dream dreams.
– Eric Anderson

We enjoy warmth because we have been cold. We appreciate light because we have been in darkness. By the same token, we can experience joy because we have known sadness.
– David Weatherford

Sadness flies away on the wings of time.
– Jean de La Fontaine

The walls we build around us to keep out the sadness also keep out the joy.
– Jim Rohn

The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.
– Albert Einstein

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
– Albert Einstein

If you love something, set it free; if it comes backs it’s yours, if it doesn’t, it never was.
– Richard Bach

Without an understanding of myth or religion, without an understanding of the relationship between destruction and creation, death and rebirth, the individual suffers the mysteries of life as meaningless mayhem alone.
- Marion Woodman

If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything
– Mark Twain

The man who doesn’t read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.
– Mark Twain

All men by nature desire knowledge.
– Aristotle

Knowledge is a process of piling up facts; wisdom lies in their simplification.
– Martin Fischer

The test and the use of man’s education is that he finds pleasure in the exercise of his mind.
– Jacques Martin Barzun

If I were asked to enumerate ten educational stupidities, the giving of grades would head the list… If I can’t give a child a better reason for studying than a grade on a report card, I ought to lock my desk and go home and stay there.
– Dorothy De Zouche

Good manners will open doors that the best education cannot.
– Clarence Thomas

I’d like to live like a poor man with lots of money.
– Pablo Picasso

There is certainly no absolute standard of beauty. That precisely is what makes its pursuit so interesting.
– John Kenneth Galbraith

Strange, the desire for certain pleasures is a part of my pain.
– Kahlil Gibran

Desire is the root cause of misery.
-Buddha

A thing of beauty is joy forever.
-John Keats

A true friend is one who overlooks your failures and tolerates your success.
- Doug Larson

A harmful truth is always better than a useful lie.
- Eric Bolton

Laughter is the closest distance between two people.
- Victor Borge

Don’t take life too seriously, you’ll never get out of it alive.
- Elbert Hubbard

Always and never are two words you should always remember never to use.
- Wendell Johnson

I’ve been in love with the same woman for forty-one years. If my wife finds out, she’ll kill me.
- Henry Youngman

It was on my fifth birthday that Papa put his hand on my shoulder and said, ‘Remember, my son, if you ever need a helping hand, you’ll find one at the end of your arm.
- Sam Levenson

The purpose of competition is not to beat someone down, but to bring out the best in every player.
- Walter Wheeler

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
- Thomas Edison

If you chase two rabbits, both will escape.
- Chinese Proverb