Quotes by Smith, Logan Pearsall

"A slight touch of friendly malice and amusement towards those we love keeps our affections for them from turning flat."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on affection
4 fans of this quote   

"There are people who, like houses, are beautiful in dilapidation."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on decay   

"How many of our daydreams would darken into nightmares, were there a danger of their coming true!"

Smith, Logan Pearsall on dream   

"All my life, as down an abyss without a bottom. I have been pouring van loads of information into that vacancy of oblivion I call my mind."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on education   

"Only among people who think no evil can Evil monstrously flourish."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on evil   

"He who goes against the fashion is himself its slave."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on fashion   

"I can't forgive my friends for dying; I don't find these vanishing acts of theirs at all amusing."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on friends and friendship   

"The old know what they want; the young are sad and bewildered."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on generations   

"There are two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want; and, after that, to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on goals
4 fans of this quote   

"Those who set out to serve both God and Mammon soon discover that there isn't a God."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on god   

"How awful to reflect that what people say of us is true!"

Smith, Logan Pearsall on gossip   

"Happiness is a wine of the rarest vintage, and seems insipid to a vulgar taste."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on happiness   

"When they come downstairs from their Ivory Towers, idealists are very apt to walk straight into the gutter."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on ideals and idealism   

"What joy can the years bring half so sweet as the unhappiness they've taken away?"

Smith, Logan Pearsall on joy   

"If you are losing your leisure, look out! You are losing your soul."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on leisure
3 fans of this quote   

"If you want to be thought a liar, always tell the truth."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on lies and lying   

"There is one thing that matters -- to set a chime of words tinkling in the minds of a few fastidious people."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on life   

"We need two kinds of acquaintances, one to complain to, while to the others we boast."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on acquaintance
4 fans of this quote   

"The mere process of growing old together will make the slightest acquaintance seem a bosom friend."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on acquaintance   

"Those who talk on the razor-edge of double-meanings pluck the rarest blooms from the precipice on either side."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on life   

"Thank Heaven, the sun has gone in, and I don't have to go out and enjoy it."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on night
3 fans of this quote   

"The indefatigable pursuit of an unattainable perfection --even though nothing more than the pounding of an old piano --is what alone gives a meaning to our life on this unavailing star."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on perfection   

"The vitality of a new movement in Art must be gauged by the fury it arouses."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on art   

"What pursuit is more elegant than that of collecting the ignominies of our nature and transfixing them for show, each on the bright pin of a polished phrase?"

Smith, Logan Pearsall on autobiography   

"There is more felicity on the far side of baldness than young men can possibly imagine."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on baldness   

"That we should practice what we preach is generally admitted; but anyone who preaches what he and his hearers practice must incur the gravest moral disapprobation."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on preachers and preaching   

"The wretchedness of being rich is that you live with rich people. To suppose, as we all suppose, that we could be rich and not behave as the rich behave, is like supposing that we could drink all day and stay sober."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on riches   

"Most people sell their souls, and live with a good conscience on the proceeds."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on soul   

"How it infuriates a bigot, when he is forced to drag out his dark convictions!"

Smith, Logan Pearsall on bigotry   

"A best-seller is the golden touch of mediocre talent."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on books - bestsellers   

"Then I though of reading -- the nice and subtle happiness of reading ... this joy not dulled by age, this polite and unpunishable vice, this selfish, serene, lifelong intoxication."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on books - reading   

"People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on books - reading
4 fans of this quote   

"Charming people live up to the very edge of their charm, and behave as outrageously as the world lets them."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on charm   

"The test of a vocation is the love of the drudgery it involves."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on vocation   

"What I like in a good author isn't what he says, but what he whispers."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on writers and writing   

"Whiskey has killed more men than bullets, but most men would rather be full of whiskey than bullets. What I like in a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on writers and writing
3 fans of this quote   

"The denunciation of the young is a necessary part of the hygiene of older people, and greatly assists the circulation of their blood."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on youth   

"Don't let young people tell you their aspirations; when they drop them they will drop you."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on youth   

"Don't laugh at youth for his affectations; he is only trying on one face after another to find his own."

Smith, Logan Pearsall on youth   

"What's more enchanting than the voices of young people, when you can't hear what they say?"

Smith, Logan Pearsall on children