"Men in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All men have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration."

Machiavelli, Niccolo on judgment and judges   

"Benefits should be conferred gradually; and in that way they will taste better."

Machiavelli, Niccolo on favors   

"It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both."

Machiavelli, Niccolo on fear
7 fans of this quote   

"Hatred is gained as much by good works as by evil."

Machiavelli, Niccolo on hatred
4 fans of this quote   

"We must combine the toughness of the serpent with the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart."

King Jr. Martin Luther on mind
9 fans of this quote   

"Men shrink less from offending one who inspires love than one who inspires fear."

Machiavelli, Niccolo on leadership
4 fans of this quote   

"The promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present."

Machiavelli, Niccolo on promises
4 fans of this quote   

"One change always leaves the way open for the establishment of others."

Machiavelli, Niccolo on change
3 fans of this quote   

"There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others."

Machiavelli, Niccolo on war
5 fans of this quote   

"The fact is that a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous."

Machiavelli, Niccolo on virtue
3 fans of this quote   

"Princes and governments are far more dangerous than other elements within society."

Machiavelli, Niccolo on anger   

"Tardiness often robs us opportunity, and the dispatch of our forces."

Machiavelli, Niccolo on punctuality   

"The beauty of the past is that it is the past. The beauty of the now is to know it. The beauty of the future is to see where one is going."

Unknown, Source on past
5 fans of this quote   

"In those days he was wiser than he is now -- he used frequently to take my advice."

Churchill, Winston on advice
13 fans of this quote   

"We are happier in many ways when we are old than when we were young. The young sow wild oats. The old grow sage."

Churchill, Winston on age and aging
14 fans of this quote   

"Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful."

Schweitzer, Albert on success
14 fans of this quote   

"Romance has been elegantly defined as the offspring of fiction and love."

Disraeli, Isaac on romance and romanticism
3 fans of this quote   

"The essence of romantic love is that wonderful beginning, after which sadness and impossibility may become the rule."

Brookner, Anita on romance and romanticism
4 fans of this quote   

"No age seemed the age of romance to itself."

Carlyle, Thomas on romance and romanticism   

"Rather would I have the love songs of romantic ages, rather Don Juan and Madame Venus, rather an elopement by ladder and rope on a moonlight night, followed by the father's curse, mother's moans, and the moral comments of neighbors, than correctness and propriety measured by yardsticks."

Goldman, Emma on romance and romanticism   

"The finest language is mostly made up of simple unimposing words."

Eliot, George on language   

"Might, could, would --they are contemptible auxiliaries."

Eliot, George on language   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"A toddling little girl is a center of common feeling which makes the most dissimilar people understand each other."

Eliot, George on girls   

"In the vain laughter of folly wisdom hears half its applause."

Eliot, George on fools and foolishness   

"Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact."

Eliot, George on facts
3 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"But human experience is usually paradoxical, that means incongruous with the phrases of current talk or even current philosophy."

Eliot, George on experience
4 fans of this quote   

"Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand."

Eliot, George on expectation
3 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from."

Eliot, George on evil
7 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"What quarrel, what harshness, what unbelief in each other can subsist in the presence of a great calamity, when all the artificial vesture of our life is gone, and we are all one with each other in primitive mortal needs?"

Eliot, George on disasters   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"Renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly."

Eliot, George on abstinence   

"A supreme love, a motive that gives a sublime rhythm to a woman's life, and exalts habit into partnership with the soul's highest needs, is not to be had where and how she wills."

Eliot, George on love
4 fans of this quote   

"Great feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the aspect of illusion."

Eliot, George on appearance
3 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"A difference of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections."

Eliot, George on humor
4 fans of this quote   

"No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness."

Aristotle on madness
22 fans of this quote   

"The falling out of faithful friends, renewing is of love."

Edwardes, Richard on quarrels   

"One way of getting an idea of our fellow-countrymen's miseries is to go and look at their pleasures."

Eliot, George on creation   

"In all private quarrels the duller nature is triumphant by reason of dullness."

Eliot, George on quarrels   

"Quarrel? Nonsense; we have not quarreled. If one is not to get into a rage sometimes, what is the good of being friends?"

Eliot, George on quarrels
5 fans of this quote   

"What makes life dreary is the want of a motive."

Eliot, George on purpose   

"The only failure a man ought to fear is failure in cleaving to the purpose he sees to be best."

Eliot, George on purpose