Quotes, Quotations and Sayings

Digressions, incontestably, are the sunshine; they are the life, the soul of reading! Take them out of this book, for instance, --you might as well take the book along with them; --one cold external winter would reign in every page of it; restore them to the writer; --he steps forth like a bridegroom, --bids All-hail; brings in variety, and forbids the appetite to fail.

Attitudes to museums have changed. If it had Marilyn Monroe's knickers or Laurence Olivier's jockstrap they would flock to it.

In solitude the mind gains strength and learns to lean upon itself.

I'm in Pittsburgh. Why am I here?;"Harold Urey, Nobel Laureate

Now is the winter of our discontent Made glorious summer by this sun of York, And all the clouds that loured upon our house In the deep bosom of the ocean buried. Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths, Our bruised arms hung up for monuments, Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings, Our dreadful marches to delightful measures. Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds To fright the souls of fearful adversaries, He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber To the lascivious pleasing of a lute. But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks, Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass I, that am rudely stamped, and want love's majesty To strut before a wanton ambling nymph I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion, Cheated of feature by dissembling nature, Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time Into this breathing world, scarce half made up, And that so lamely and unfashionable That dogs bark at me as I halt by them,-- Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace, Have no delight to pass away the time, Unless to spy my shadow in the sun.

I'm happy for you and I do wish you the best,-Howard Stern

Solitude is the best nurse of wisdom.

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.

Men tire themselves in pursuit of rest.

There are worse occupations in this world than feeling a woman's pulse.

I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the Stern Fact, the Sad Self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from.

Behold then Septimus Dodge returning to Dodge-town victorious. Not crowned with laurel, it is true, but wreathed in lists of things he has seen and sucked dry. Seen and sucked dry, you know: Venus de Milo, the Rhine or the Coliseum: swallowed like so many clams, and left the shells.

The triumphs of peace have been in some proximity to war. Whilst the hand was still familiar with the sword-hilt, whilst the habits of the camp were still visible in the port and complexion of the gentleman, his intellectual power culminated; the compression and tension of these stern conditions is a training for the finest and softest arts, and can rarely be compensated in tranquil times, except by some analogous vigor drawn from occupations as hardy as war.

Lessons of wisdom have the most power over us when they capture the heart through the groundwork of a story, which engages the passions.

A large volume of adventures may be grasped within this little span of life, by him who interests his heart in everything.

Nature in darkness groans and men are bound to sullen contemplation in the night: restless they turn on beds of sorrow; in their inmost brain feeling the crushing wheels, they rise, they write the bitter words of stern philosophy and knead the bread of knowledge with tears and groans.

I was seized by the stern hand of Compulsion, that dark, unreasonable Urge that impels women to clean house in the middle of the night.

The history of a soldier's wound beguiles the pain of it.

Firm, faithful, and devoted, full of energy and zeal, and truth, he labors for his race; he clears their painful way to improvement; he hews down like a giant the prejudices of creed and caste that encumber it. He may be stern; he may be exacting; he may be ambitious yet; but his is the sternness of the warrior Greatheart, who guards his pilgrim convoy from the onslaught of Apollyon. His is the exaction of the apostle, who speaks but for Christ, when he says, ''Whosoever will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.'' His is the ambition of the high master-spirit, which aims to fill a place in the first rank of those who are redeemed from the earth -- who stand without fault before the throne of God, who share the last mighty victories of the Lamb, who are called, and chosen, and faithful.

All womankind, from the highest to the lowest love jokes; the difficulty is to know how they choose to have them cut; and there is no knowing that, but by trying, as we do with our artillery in the field, by raising or letting down their breeches, till we hit the mark.

Nothing wilts faster than laurels that have been rested upon.

People who overly take care of their health are like misers. They hoard up a treasure which they never enjoy.

I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me.

Pain and pleasure, like light and darkness, succeed each other.

Though sages may pour out their wisdom's treasure, there is no sterner moralist than pleasure.

In criticism I will be bold, and as sternly, absolutely just with friend and foe. From this purpose nothing shall turn me.

You don't fall in love with a boy you just met. [you do these days Lauren!]

Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve. He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.

We lose the right of complaining sometimes, by denying something, but this often triples its force.

First, whenever a man talks loudly against religion, always suspect that it is not his reason, but his passions, which have got the better of his creed. A bad life and a good belief are disagreeable and troublesome neighbors, and where they separate, depend upon it, 'Tis for no other cause but quietness sake.

When ever a person talks loudly against religion, always suspect that it is not their reason, but their passions, which have got the better of their beliefs. A bad life and a good belief are disagreeable and troublesome neighbors; and when they separate, depend on it that it is for the sake of peace and quiet.

Positiveness is an absurd foible. If you are in the right, it lessens your triumph; if in the wrong, it adds shame to your defeat.

The American Constitution, one of the few modern political documents drawn up by men who were forced by the sternest circumstances to think out what they really had to face, instead of chopping logic in a university classroom.

Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world -- though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst -- the cant of criticism is the most tormenting!

Duty. That which sternly impels us in the direction of profit, along the line of desire.

So long as a man rides his Hobby-Horse peaceably and quietly along the King's highway, and neither compels you or me to get up behind him -- pray, Sir, what have either you or I to do with it?

We always believe God is like ourselves, the indulgent think him indulgent and the stern, terrible.

To most men experience is like the stern lights of a ship, which illuminate only the track it has passed.

The strongest poison ever known came from Caesar's laurel crown.

False happiness renders men stern and proud, and that happiness is never communicated. True happiness renders them kind and sensible, and that happiness is always shared.

Stern accuracy in inquiring, bold imagination in describing, these are the cogs on which history soars or flutters and wobbles.

For every ten jokes you acquire a hundred enemies.

It takes a little courage, and a little self -- control. And some grim determination, If you want to reach the goal. It takes a deal of striving, and a firm and stern-set chin. No matter what the battle, If you really want to win. There's no easy path to glory, There's no road to fame. Life, however we may view it, Is no simple parlor game; But it's prizes call for fighting, For endurance and for grit; For a rugged disposition and don't know when to quit.

'Tis no extravagant arithmetic to say, that for every ten jokes, thou hast got an hundred enemies; and till thou hast gone on, and raised a swarm of wasps about thine ears, and art half stung to death by them, thou wilt never be convinced it is so.

Be gentle to all, and stern with yourself.

The desire of knowledge, like the thirst for riches, increases ever with the acquisition of it.

I am persuaded that every time a man smiles, but much more so when he laughs, it adds something to this fragment of life.

Literature, as a field of glory, is an arena where a tomb may be more easily found than laurels; and as a means of support, it is the chance of chances.

The greater part of humanity is too much harassed and fatigued by the struggle with want, to rally itself for a new and sterner struggle with error.

Popularity is the crown of laurel which the world puts on bad art. Whatever is popular is wrong.