"The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names."

Proverb, Chinese on names
9 fans of this quote   

"One never needs their humor as much as when they argue with a fool."

Proverb, Chinese on humor
8 fans of this quote   

"If you suspect a man, don't employ him, and if you employ him, don't suspect him."

Proverb, Chinese on hiring
4 fans of this quote   

"Man is the head of the family, woman the neck that turns the head."

Proverb, Chinese on family
8 fans of this quote   

"Experience is a comb which nature gives to men when they are bald."

Proverb, Chinese on experience
6 fans of this quote   

"You know, a long time ago being crazy meant something. Nowadays everybody's crazy."

Manson, Charles on insanity
8 fans of this quote   

"A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials."

Proverb, Chinese on adversity
26 fans of this quote   

"Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours."

Berra, Yogi on death
4 fans of this quote   

"In the midst of great joy, do not promise anyone anything. In the midst of great anger, do not answer anyone's letter."

Proverb, Chinese on promises
6 fans of this quote   

"Never do anything standing that you can do sitting, or anything sitting that you can do lying down."

Proverb, Chinese on simplicity
8 fans of this quote   

"Of all the thirty-six alternatives, running away is best."

Proverb, Chinese on caution
5 fans of this quote   

"I have always observed that to succeed in the world a person must seem simple, yet wise."

Montesquieu, Charles De on simplicity   

"Behind the complicated details of the world stand the simplicities: God is good, the grown-up man or woman knows the answer to every question, there is such a thing as truth, and justice is as measured and faultless as a clock. Our heroes are simple: they are brave, they tell the truth, they are good swordsmen and they are never in the long run really defeated. That is why no later books satisfy us like those which were read to us in childhood --for those promised a world of great simplicity of which we knew the rules, but the later books are complicated and contradictory with experience; they are formed out of our own disappointing memories."

Greene, Graham on simplicity   

"Get well cards have become so humorous that if you don't get sick you're missing half the fun."

Wilson, Flip on humor
3 fans of this quote   

"By blood a king, in heart a clown."

Tennyson, Lord Alfred on humor   

"Chaos in the midst of chaos isn't funny, but chaos in the midst of order is."

Martin, Steve on humor
5 fans of this quote   

"Burt Reynolds once asked me out. I was in his room."

Diller, Phyllis on humor
3 fans of this quote   

"Imagination was given man to compensate for what he is not, and a sense of humor to console him for what he is."

Bacon, Francis on humor
9 fans of this quote   

"Do not use a hatchet to remove a fly from your friend's forehead."

Proverb, Chinese on criticism
5 fans of this quote   

"You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair."

Proverb, Chinese on control
5 fans of this quote   

"If you stand straight, do not fear a crooked shadow."

Proverb, Chinese on character
3 fans of this quote   

"The wisest keeps something of the vision of a child. Though he may understand a thousand things that a child could not understand, he is always a beginner, close to the original meaning of life."

Macy, John on simplicity
3 fans of this quote   

"My country wrong or right, is like saying my mother, drunk or sober."

Chesterton, Gilbert K. on patriotism
4 fans of this quote   

"Behind every successful man is a proud wife and a surprised mother-in-law."

Humphrey, Hubert H. on mother-in-laws
11 fans of this quote   

"But then they danced down the street like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!""

Kerouac, Jack on passion
62 fans of this quote   

"Writing is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public."

Churchill, Winston on writers and writing
7 fans of this quote   

"I have never seen a greater monster or miracle than myself."

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De on miracles   

"Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters."

Hugo, Victor on adversity
16 fans of this quote   

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you."

Nietzsche, Friedrich on fights and fighting
27 fans of this quote   

"Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in one's own sunshine"

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on adversity
63 fans of this quote   

"When it is dark enough, you can see the stars."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on difficulties
53 fans of this quote   

"Society is now one polished horde, formed of two mighty tribes, the Bores and Bored."

Byron, Lord on society
3 fans of this quote   

"To attempt the destruction of our passions is the height of folly. What a noble aim is that of the zealot who tortures himself like a madman in order to desire nothing, love nothing, feel nothing, and who, if he succeeded, would end up a complete monster!"

Diderot, Denis on asceticism
4 fans of this quote   

"People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster."

Baldwin, James on innocence
3 fans of this quote   

"Only the insane have strength enough to survive. Only the survivors determine what is sane."

Unknown, Source on insanity
4 fans of this quote   

"There is only one way to come into this world; there are too many ways to leave it."

Harington, Donald on life   

"With virtue you can't be entirely poor; without virtue you can't really be rich."

Proverb, Chinese on virtue
4 fans of this quote   

"Because I could not stop for death, He kindly stopped for me; The carriage held but just ourselves and immortality."

Dickinson, Emily on death
10 fans of this quote   

"The only thing wrong with immortality is that it tends to go on forever."

Caen, Herb on immortality
4 fans of this quote   

"Death gives us sleep, eternal youth, and immortality."

Richter, Jean Paul on death
9 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book