"Progress is not an illusion, it happens, but it is slow and invariably disappointing."

Orwell, George on progress
4 fans of this quote   

"Political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible."

Orwell, George on politics   

"To accept civilization as it is practically means accepting decay."

Orwell, George on civilization   

"To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel an actual doubt about the continuity of civilization."

Orwell, George on defeat   

"Great persecutors are recruited among martyrs whose heads haven't been cut off."

Cioran, E. M. on art
3 fans of this quote   

"There are in every generation those who shrink from the ultimate sacrifice, but there are in every generation those who make it with joy and laughter and these are the salt of the generations."

Pearse, Patrick Henry on art   

"Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity."

Mann, Horace on victory   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"If any man seeks for greatness, let him forget greatness and ask for truth, and he will find both."

Mann, Horace on truth   

"Every addition to true knowledge is an addition to human power."

Mann, Horace on power   

"It is more difficult, and it calls for higher energies of soul, to live a martyr than to die one."

Mann, Horace on art   

"Manners easily and rapidly mature into morals."

Mann, Horace on manners
4 fans of this quote   

"Education, then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is the great equalizer of the conditions of men -- the balance-wheel of the social machinery."

Mann, Horace on education
3 fans of this quote   

"The way of the world is, to praise dead saints, and persecute living ones."

Howe, Nathaniel on art
3 fans of this quote   

"The bad end unhappily, the good unluckily. That is what tragedy means."

Stoppard, Tom on tragedies   

"When you close your eyes to tragedy, you close your eyes to greatness."

Vizinczey, Stephen on tragedies
4 fans of this quote   

"Tragedy delights by affording a shadow of the pleasure which exists in pain."

Shelley, Percy Bysshe on tragedies
3 fans of this quote   

"A tragic situation exists precisely when virtue does not triumph but when it is still felt that man is nobler than the forces which destroy him."

Orwell, George on tragedies
7 fans of this quote   

"There are no tragedies, just facts not recognized in time."

Montapert, William D. on tragedies   

"Commonplace people dislike tragedy because they dare not suffer and cannot exult."

Masefield, John on tragedies   

"Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically."

Lawrence, D. H. on tragedies   

"When any calamity has been suffered, the first thing to be remembered is how much has been escaped."

Johnson, Samuel on tragedies   

"The tragedy of life is in what dies inside a man while he lives -- the death of genuine feeling, the death of inspired response, the awareness that makes it possible to feel the pain or the glory of other men in yourself."

Cousins, Norman on tragedies
6 fans of this quote   

"The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible -- and achieve it, generation after generation."

Buck, Pearl S. on youth
49 fans of this quote   

"It isn't enough for your heart to break because everybody's heart is broken now."

Ginsberg, Allen on art
8 fans of this quote   

"Lord we may know what we are, but know not what we may be."

Shakespeare, William on potential
7 fans of this quote   

"Let us not take ourselves too seriously. None of us has a monopoly on wisdom."

Elizabeth, Queen on wisdom
3 fans of this quote   

"Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends."

Shakespeare, William on procrastination
4 fans of this quote   

"You shall judge a man by his foes as well as by his friends."

Conrad, Joseph on enemies
6 fans of this quote   

"The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness."

Conrad, Joseph on evil
6 fans of this quote   

"Perhaps life is just that... a dream and a fear."

Conrad, Joseph on life
3 fans of this quote   

"What all men are really after is some form, or perhaps only some formula, of peace."

Conrad, Joseph on peace
9 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"There is something haunting in the light of the moon; it has all the dispassionateness of a disembodied soul, and something of its inconceivable mystery."

Conrad, Joseph on moon
7 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"The scrupulous and the just, the noble, humane, and devoted natures; the unselfish and the intelligent may begin a movement -- but it passes away from them. They are not the leaders of a revolution. They are its victims."

Conrad, Joseph on evolution   

"The sea -- this truth must be confessed -- has no generosity. No display of manly qualities -- courage, hardihood, endurance, faithfulness -- has ever been known to touch its irresponsible consciousness of power."

Conrad, Joseph on sea   

"Woe to the man whose heart has not learned while young to hope, to love -- and to put its trust in life."

Conrad, Joseph on trust
7 fans of this quote   

"Aim at heaven, and you will get earth thrown in; aim at earth, and you will get neither."

Lewis, C. S. on heaven
15 fans of this quote   

"Success doesn't mean the absence of failures; it means the attainment of ultimate objectives. It means winning the war, not every battle."

Bliss, Edwin C. on success
8 fans of this quote   

"O Lord, if there is a Lord, save my soul, if I have a soul."

Renan, Joseph Ernst on soul
4 fans of this quote   

"Prosperity is the surest breeder of insolence I know."

Twain, Mark on prosperity   

"Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer."

Twain, Mark on prayer
8 fans of this quote