To be brief is almost a condition of being inspired.
- George Santayana

It is possible to be a master in false philosophy, easier, in fact, than to be a master in the truth, because a false philosophy can be made as simple and consistent as one pleases.
- George Santayana

Chaos is a name for any order that produces confusion in our minds.
- George Santayana

The Bible is literature, not dogma.
- George Santayana

To knock a thing down, especially if it is cocked at an arrogant angle, is a deep delight of the blood.
- George Santayana

It takes patience to appreciate domestic bliss; volatile spirits prefer unhappiness.
- George Santayana

Society is like the air, necessary to breathe but insufficient to live on.
- George Santayana

Character is the basis of happiness and happiness the sanction of character.
- George Santayana

Those who speak most of progress measure it by quantity and not by quality.
- George Santayana

It is veneer, rouge, aestheticism, art museums, new theaters, etc. that make America impotent. The good things are football, kindness, and jazz bands.
- George Santayana

Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.
- George Santayana

Knowledge is not eating, and we cannot expect to devour and possess what we mean. Knowledge is recognition of something absent; it is a salutation, not an embrace.
- George Santayana

child educated only at school is an uneducated child.
- George Santayana

It is easier to make a saint out of a libertine than out of a prig.
- George Santayana

Philosophers are very severe towards other philosophers because they expect too much.
- George Santayana

There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.
- George Santayana

Skepticism, like chastity, should not be relinquished too readily.
- George Santayana

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
- George Santayana

Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness.
- George Santayana

Each religion, by the help of more or less myth, which it takes more or less seriously, proposes some method of fortifying the human soul and enabling it to make its peace with its destiny.
- George Santayana

Many possessions, if they do not make a man better, are at least expected to make his children happier; and this pathetic hope is behind many exertions.
- George Santayana

Do not have evil-doers for friends, do not have low people for friends: have virtuous people for friends, have for friends the best of men.
- George Santayana

Language is like money, without which specific relative values may well exist and be felt, but cannot be reduced to a common denominator.
- George Santayana

Music is a means of giving form to our inner feelings, without attaching them to events or objects in the world.
- George Santayana

To know what people really think, pay regard to what they do, rather than what they say.
- George Santayana

By nature’s kindly disposition most questions which it is beyond a man’s power to answer do not occur to him at all.
- George Santayana

Nothing is inherently and invincibly young except spirit. And spirit can enter a human being perhaps better in the quiet of old age and dwell there more undisturbed than in the turmoil of adventure.
- George Santayana

Prayer, among sane people, has never superseded practical efforts to secure the desired end.
- George Santayana

To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.
- George Santayana

Science is nothing but developed perception, interpreted intent, common sense rounded out and minutely articulated.
- George Santayana

Nothing is really so poor and melancholy as art that is interested in itself and not in its subject.
- George Santayana

Religion in its humility restores man to his only dignity, the courage to live by grace.
- George Santayana

Oaths are the fossils of piety.
- George Santayana

The Bible is a wonderful source of inspiration for those who don’t understand it.
- George Santayana

Sanity is a madness put to good use.
- George Santayana

The body is an instrument, the mind its function, the witness and reward of its operation.
- George Santayana

When men and women agree, it is only in their conclusions; their reasons are always different.
- George Santayana

Wisdom comes by disillusionment.
- George Santayana

Periods of tranquillity are seldom prolific of creative achievement. Mankind has to be stirred up.
- George Santayana

Nothing so much enhances a good as to make sacrifices for it.
- George Santayana

Knowledge is recognition of something absent; it is a salutation, not an embrace.
- George Santayana

To delight in war is a merit in the soldier, a dangerous quality in the captain, and a positive crime in the statesman.
- George Santayana

One’s friends are that part of the human race with which one can be human.
- George Santayana

Let a man once overcome his selfish terror at his own infinitude, and his infinitude is, in one sense, overcome.
- George Santayana

Nonsense is so good only because common sense is so limited.
- George Santayana

Our character…is an omen of our destiny, and the more integrity we have and keep, the simpler and nobler that destiny is likely to be.
- George Santayana

It is always pleasant to be urged to do something on the ground that one can do it well.
- George Santayana

Life is not a spectacle or a feast; it is a predicament.
- George Santayana

Oxford, the paradise of dead philosophies.
- George Santayana

Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.
- George Santayana

There is a kind of courtesy in skepticism. It would be an offense against polite conventions to press our doubts too far.
- George Santayana

Parents lend children their experience and a vicarious memory; children endow their parents with a vicarious immortality.
- George Santayana

Only the dead have seen the end of the war.
- George Santayana

Nothing can so pierce the soul as the uttermost sigh of the body.
- George Santayana

A man’s feet should be planted in his country, but his eyes should survey the world.
- George Santayana

That fear first created the gods is perhaps as true as anything so brief could be on so great a subject.
- George Santayana

Perhaps the only true dignity of man is his capacity to despise himself.
- George Santayana

Theory helps us to bear our ignorance of facts.
- George Santayana

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
- Henry David Thoreau

What is the use of a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?
- Henry David Thoreau

Front yards are not made to walk in, but, at most, through, and you could go in the back way.
- Henry David Thoreau

In what concerns you much, do not think that you have companions: know that you are alone in the world.
- Henry David Thoreau

Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.
- Henry David Thoreau

Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mould myself.
- Henry David Thoreau

Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions. Who shall say what prospect life offers to another?
- Henry David Thoreau

Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.
- Henry David Thoreau

Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.
- Henry David Thoreau

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.
- Henry David Thoreau

I have seen how the foundations of the world are laid, and I have not the least doubt that it will stand a good while.
- Henry David Thoreau

Most are engaged in business the greater part of their lives, because the soul abhors a vacuum and they have not discovered any continuous employment for man’s nobler faculties.
- Henry David Thoreau

Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?
- Henry David Thoreau

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is in prison.
- Henry David Thoreau

How many things there are concerning which we might well deliberate whether we had better know them.
- Henry David Thoreau

Generally speaking, a howling wilderness does not howl: it is the imagination of the traveler that does the howling.
- Henry David Thoreau

Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.
- Henry David Thoreau

My friend is one… who take me for what I am.
- Henry David Thoreau

Friends… they cherish one another’s hopes. They are kind to one another’s dreams.
- Henry David Thoreau

The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.
- Henry David Thoreau

Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.
- Henry David Thoreau

In my afternoon walk I would fain forget all my morning occupations and my obligations to society.
- Henry David Thoreau

Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could not doubt, I should not believe.
- Henry David Thoreau

Men have become the tools of their tools.
- Henry David Thoreau

Cultivate the habit of early rising. It is unwise to keep the head long on a level with the feet.
- Henry David Thoreau

Thaw with her gentle persuasion is more powerful than Thor with his hammer. The one melts, the other breaks into pieces.
- Henry David Thoreau

I say beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.
- Henry David Thoreau

Every man is the builder of a temple called his body.
- Henry David Thoreau

Before printing was discovered, a century was equal to a thousand years.
- Henry David Thoreau

Our moments of inspiration are not lost though we have no particular poem to show for them; for those experiences have left an indelible impression, and we are ever and anon reminded of them.
- Henry David Thoreau

Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.
- Henry David Thoreau

Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.
- Henry David Thoreau

Some are reputed sick and some are not. It often happens that the sicker man is the nurse to the sounder.
- Henry David Thoreau

Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.
- Henry David Thoreau

Men have a respect for scholarship and learning greatly out of proportion to the use they commonly serve.
- Henry David Thoreau

Alas! how little does the memory of these human inhabitants enhance the beauty of the landscape!
- Henry David Thoreau

Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.
- Henry David Thoreau

Faith never makes a confession.
- Henry David Thoreau

People do not like to think. If one thinks, one must reach conclusions. Conclusions are not always pleasant.
- Helen Keller

What I am looking for is not out there, it is in me.
- Helen Keller

I can see, and that is why I can be happy, in what you call the dark, but which to me is golden. I can see a God-made world, not a manmade world.
- Helen Keller

Knowledge is love and light and vision.
- Helen Keller

All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming.
- Helen Keller

We can do anything we want to do if we stick to it long enough.
- Helen Keller

Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.
- Helen Keller

Keep your face to the sunshine and you will never see the shadow.
- Helen Keller

Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.
- Helen Keller

Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.
- Helen Keller

There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.
- Helen Keller

What I am looking for is not “out there”, it is in me.
- Helen Keller

Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.
- Helen Keller

Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought!
- Helen Keller

To me a lush carpet of pine needles or spongy grass is more welcome than the most luxurious Persian rug.
- Helen Keller

When one door of happiness closes, another opens.
- Helen Keller

As selfishness and complaint pervert the mind, so love with its joy clears and sharpens the vision.
- Helen Keller

The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight, but has no vision.
- Helen Keller

My share of the work may be limited, but the fact that it is work makes it precious.
- Helen Keller

Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years you have lived.
- Helen Keller

As the eagle was killed by the arrow winged with his own feather, so the hand of the world is wounded by its own skill.
- Helen Keller

The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of tiny pushes of each honest worker.
- Helen Keller

We may have found a cure for most evils; but we have found no remedy for the worst of them all, the apathy of human beings.
- Helen Keller

Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.
- Helen Keller

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature.
- Helen Keller

One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.
- Helen Keller

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved.
- Helen Keller

So long as the memory of certain beloved friends lives in my heart, I shall say that life is good.
- Helen Keller

I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.
- Helen Keller

While they were saying among themselves it cannot be done, it was done.
- Helen Keller

Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light.
- Helen Keller

College isn’t the place to go for ideas.
- Helen Keller

Life is an exciting business, and most exciting when it is lived for others.
- Helen Keller

Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in this world.
- Helen Keller

What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.
- Helen Keller

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.
- Helen Keller

Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there’s a difference for me, you know. Because in that other room I shall be able to see.
- Helen Keller

We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world.
- Helen Keller

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature…. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.
- Helen Keller

What a blind person needs is not a teacher but another self.
- Helen Keller

Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn whatever state I am in, therein to be content
- Helen Keller

I do not want the peace which passeth understanding, I want the understanding which bringeth peace.
- Helen Keller

The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, they must be felt with the heart.
- Helen Keller

A brave man dead, not even though you hate him.
- Sophocles

I see the state of all of us who live, nothing more than phantoms or a weightless shadow.
- Sophocles

Do not grieve yourself too much for those you hate, nor yet forget them utterly.
- Sophocles

Now I see that going out into the testing ground of men it is the tongue and not the deed that wins the day.
- Sophocles

There is no sense in crying over spilt milk. Why bewail what is done and cannot be recalled?
- Sophocles

Men should pledge themselves to nothing; for reflection makes a liar of their resolution.
- Sophocles

Men may know many things by seeing; but no prophet can see before the event, nor what end waits for him.
- Sophocles

If we are to keep our democracy, there must be one commandment: “Thou shalt not ration justice.”
- Sophocles

Nobody has a more sacred obligation to obey the law than those who make the law.
- Sophocles

You should not consider a man’s age but his acts.
- Sophocles

Ignorant men don’t know what good they hold in their hands until they’ve flung it away.
- Sophocles

The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.
- Sophocles

It is a painful thing to look at your own trouble and know that you yourself, and no one else, has made it.
- Sophocles

For death is not the worst, but when one wants to die and is not able even to have that.
- Sophocles

There is no witness so terrible, no accuser so powerful as conscience which dwells within us.
- Sophocles

Alas, how quickly the gratitude owed to the dead flows off, how quick to be proved a deceiver.
- Sophocles

Time alone reveals the just man; but you might discern a bad man in a single day.
- Sophocles

For those whose wit becomes the mother of villainy, those it educates to be evil in all things.
- Sophocles

Hush! Check those words. Do not cure ill with ill and make your pain still heavier than it is.
- Sophocles

Whoever understands how to do a kindness when he fares well would be a friend better than any possession.
- Sophocles

You win the victory when you yield to friends.
- Sophocles

A soul that is kind and intends justice discovers more than any sophist.
- Sophocles

To give birth is a fearsome thing; there is no hating the child one has borne even when injured by it.
- Sophocles

For the wretched one night is like a thousand; for someone faring well death is just one more night.
- Sophocles

If you have done terrible things, you must endure terrible things; for thus the sacred light of injustice shines bright.
- Sophocles

Whoever grows angry amid troubles applies a drug worse than the disease and is a physician unskilled about misfortunes.
- Sophocles

Bear up, my child, bear up; Zeus who oversees and directs all things is still mighty in heaven.
- Sophocles

If you were to offer a thirsty man all wisdom, you would not please him more than if you gave him a drink.
- Sophocles

Those whose life is long still strive for gain, and for all mortals all things take second place to money.
- Sophocles

Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labour the body.
- Seneca

All art is an imitation of nature.
- Seneca

Life without the courage for death is slavery.
- Seneca

If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.
- Seneca

Be silent as to services you have rendered, but speak of favors you have received.
- Seneca

Not to feel one’s misfortunes is not human, not to bear them is not manly.
- Seneca

He will live ill who does not know how to die well.
- Seneca

We most often go astray on a well trodden and much frequented road.
- Seneca

An unpopular rule is never long maintained.
- Seneca

It is the sign of a weak mind to be unable to bear wealth.
- Seneca

Delay not; swift the flight of fortune’s greatest favors.
- Seneca

He who spares the wicked injures the good.
- Seneca

Nothing deters a good man from doing what is honorable.
- Seneca

I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.
- Seneca

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.
- Seneca

Desultory reading is delightful, but to be beneficial, our reading must be carefully directed.
- Seneca

He who boasts of his ancestry is praising the deeds of another.
- Seneca

As was his language so was his life.
- Seneca

The first step towards amendment is the recognition of error.
- Seneca

Fate rules the affairs of mankind with no recognizable order.
- Seneca

The most onerous slavery is to be a slave to oneself.
- Seneca

Where the speech is corrupted, the mind is also.
- Seneca

Enjoy present pleasures in such a way as not to injure future ones.
- Seneca

Let tears flow of their own accord: their flowing is not inconsistent with inward peace and harmony.
- Seneca

Be not too hasty either with praise or blame; speak always as though you were giving evidence before the judgment-seat of the Gods.
- Seneca

It should be our care not so much to live a long life as a satisfactory one.
- Seneca

Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.
- Seneca

I shudder when relating it.
- Virgil

None but himself can be his parallel.
- Virgil

Trust one who has gone through it.
- Virgil

We can’t all do everything.
- Virgil

From my example learn to be just, and not to despise the gods.
- Virgil

The hour is ripe, and yonder lies the way.
- Virgil

She nourishes the poison in her veins and is consumed by a secret fire.
- Virgil

Here’s Death! twitching my ear: “Live,” says he, “for I’m coming.
- Virgil

O accursed hunger of gold, to what dost thou not compel human hearts!
- Virgil

Trust not to much to appearances.
- Virgil

For they can conquer who believe they can.
- Virgil

The flocks fear the wolf, the crops the storm, and the trees the wind.
- Virgil

Accursed thirst for gold! what dost thou not compel mortals to do?
- Virgil

The goose gabbles amid the melodious swans.
- Virgil

Who asks whether the enemy were defeated by strategy or valor?
- Virgil

Do not yield to misfortunes, but advance more boldly to meet them, as your fortune permits you.
- Virgil

Look with favour upon a bold beginning.
- Virgil

O tyrant love, to what do you not drive the hearts of men.
- Virgil

Trust one who has tried.
- Virgil

Even virtue is fairer when it appears in a beautiful person.
- Virgil

Your descendants shall gather your fruits.
- Virgil

Too happy would you be, did ye but know your own advantages!
- Virgil

Believe one who has proved it. Believe an expert.
- Virgil

One man excels in eloquence, another in arms.
- Virgil

Praise a large domain, cultivate a small estate.
- Virgil

She acquires momentum as she advances.
- Virgil

Every kind of fortune is to be overcome by bearing it.
- Virgil

Love begets love, love knows no rules, this is same for all.
- Virgil

Romans, never forget that government is your medium! Be this your art:-to practice men in habit of peace, generosity to the conquered, and firmness against aggressors.
- Virgil

All our sweetest hours fly fastest.
- Virgil

Yield not to calamity, but face her boldly.
- Virgil

Love conquers all things; let us too surrender to Love.
- Virgil

The descent to the infernal regions is easy enough, but to retrace one’s steps, and reach the air above, there’s the rub.
- Virgil

Fear is proof of a degenerate mind.
- Virgil

Cease to think that the decrees of the gods can be changed by prayers.
- Virgil

Happy is he who can trace effects to their causes.
- Virgil

Let us go singing as far as we go: the road will be less tedious.
- Virgil

To have died once is enough.
- Virgil

You have endured worse things; God will grant an end even to these.
- Virgil

A fault is fostered by concealment.
- Virgil

Practice and thought might gradually forge many an art.
- Virgil

Whatever it is, I fear Greeks even when they bring gifts.
- Virgil

Time is flying, never to return.
- Virgil

Myself acquainted with misfortune, I learn to help the unfortunate.
- Virgil

- Virgil

Let not our proposal be disregarded on the score of our youth.
- Virgil

A snake lurks in the grass.
- Virgil

Knowing sorrow well, I learn to succor the distressed.
- Virgil

Time bears away all things.
- Virgil

Persevere and preserve yourselves for better circumstances.
- Virgil

Mind moves matter.
- Virgil

It never troubles the wolf how many the sheep may be.
- Virgil

Age steals away all things, even the mind.
- Virgil

My advice to you is get married: if you find a good wife you’ll be happy; if not, you’ll become a philosopher.
- Socrates

Do not be angry with me if I tell you the truth.
- Socrates

I pray thee, O God that I may be beautiful within.
- Socrates

A husband is what’s left of the lover after the nerve has been extracted.
- Socrates

He is a man of courage who does not run away, but remains at his post and fights against the enemy.
- Socrates

Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.
- Socrates

Envy is the ulcer of the soul.
- Socrates

Wind buffs up empty bladders; opinion, fools.
- Socrates

Having the fewest wants, I am nearest to the gods.
- Socrates

A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.
- Socrates

I was really too honest a man to be a politician and live.
- Socrates

Beauty is the bait which with delight allures man to enlarge his kind.
- Socrates

False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.
- Socrates

Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers.
- Socrates

If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it.
- Socrates

Get not your friends by bare compliments, but by giving them sensible tokens of your love.
- Socrates

Thou shouldst eat to live; not live to eat.
- Socrates

Wisdom begins in wonder.
- Socrates

Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty.
- Socrates

The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.
- Socrates

Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.
- Socrates

The fewer our wants, the nearer we resemble the gods.
- Socrates

All men’s souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine.
- Socrates

Death may be the greatest of all human blessings.
- Socrates

Be of good cheer about death and know this as a truth– that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death.
- Socrates

The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.
- Socrates

Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.
- Socrates

There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.
- Socrates

Beware the barrenness of a busy life.
- Socrates

He is the richest who is content with the least.
- Socrates

Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions; but those who kindly reprove thy faults.
- Socrates

From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.
- Socrates

I was afraid that by observing objects with my eyes and trying to comprehend them with each of my other senses I might blind my soul altogether.
- Socrates

The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways – I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows.
- Socrates

I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.
- Socrates

One thing only I know, and that is that I know nothing.
- Socrates

As to marriage or celibacy, let a man take which course he will, he will be sure to repent.
- Socrates

The nearest way to glory is to strive to be what you wish to be thought to be.
- Socrates

To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.
- Socrates

Remember what is unbecoming to do is also unbecoming to speak of.
- Socrates

How often events, by chance, and unexpectedly, came to pass, which you had not dared even to hope for!
- Terence

You’re a wise person if you can easily direct your attention to what ever needs it.
- Terence

A word to the wise is sufficient.
- Terence

We are all of us the worse for too much liberty.
- Terence

The strictest justice is sometimes the greatest injustice.
- Terence

What a grand thing it is to be clever and have common sense.
- Terence

There is nothing so easy but that it becomes difficult when you do it reluctantly.
- Terence

As a person is so must you humor them.
- Terence

You can take a chance with any man who pays his bills on time.
- Terence

Fortune favors the brave.
- Terence

As you cannot do what you wish, you should wish what you can do.
- Terence

I am a man, and whatever concerns humanity is of interest to me.
- Terence

Charity begins at home.
- Terence

What harsh judges fathers are to all young men!
- Terence

You believe easily that which you hope for earnestly.
- Terence

That is true wisdom, to know how to alter one’s mind when occasion demands it.
- Terence

I take it to be a principle rule of life, not to be too much addicted to any one thing.
- Terence

What is done let us leave alone.
- Terence

Children should be led into the right paths, not by severity, but by persuasion.
- Terence

Human nature is so constituted, that all see and judge better in the affairs of other men than in their own.
- Terence

In fact, nothing is said that has not been said before.
- Terence

Words gain credibility by deed.
- Terence

Extreme law is often extreme injustice.
- Terence

Where there’s life, there’s hope.
- Terence

Nowadays those are rewarded who make right appear wrong.
- Terence

This I consider to be a valuable principle in life: Do no thing in excess.
- Terence

For nowaday deference gets you friends, honesty gets you hated.
- Terence

While the mind is in doubt it is driven this way and that by a slight impulse.
- Terence

They who love dancing too much seem to have more brains in their feet than in their head.
- Terence

To touch a sore is to renew one’s grief.
- Terence

I bid him look into the lives of men as though into a mirror, and from others to take an example for himself.
- Terence

She ne’er was really charming till she died.
- Terence

Many a time from a bad beginning great friendships have sprung up.
- Terence

There is a demand in these days for men who can make wrong appear right.
- Terence

For you to ask advice on the rules of love is no better than to ask advice on the rules of madness.
- Terence

None of us is ever satisfied with what we are.
- Terence

Perhaps believing in good design is like believing in God, it makes you an optimist.
- Terence

We can not play innocents abroad in a world that is not innocent.
- Ronald Reagan

The greatest security for Israel is to create new Egypts.
- Ronald Reagan

One way to make sure crime doesn’t pay would be to let the government run it.
- Ronald Reagan

Today we have done what we had to do. If necessary, we shall do it again.
- Ronald Reagan

Let us not forget who we are. Drug abuse is a repudiation of everything America is.
- Ronald Reagan

The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.
- Ronald Reagan

Peace is not the absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means.
- Ronald Reagan

Violence has been Nicaragua’s most important export to the world.
- Ronald Reagan

Going to college offered me the chance to play football for four more years.
- Ronald Reagan

Let us be sure that those who come after will say of us in our time, that in our time we did everything that could be done. We finished the race; we kept them free; we kept the faith.
- Ronald Reagan

The problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that government spends too much.
- Ronald Reagan

Coersion, after all, merely captures man. Freedom captivates him.
- Ronald Reagan

When you can’t make them see the light, make them feel the heat.
- Ronald Reagan

Freedom is one of the deepest and noblest aspirations of the human spirit.
- Ronald Reagan

A tree’s a tree. How many more do you need to look at?
- Ronald Reagan

I’ve often said there’s nothing better for the inside of a man than the outside of a horse.
- Ronald Reagan

One picture is worth 1,000 denials.
- Ronald Reagan

While I take inspiration from the past, like most Americans, I live for the future.
- Ronald Reagan

No mother would ever willingly sacrifice her sons for territorial gain, for economic advantage, for ideology.
- Ronald Reagan

Heroes may not be braver than anyone else. They’re just braver five minutes longer.
- Ronald Reagan

I’ve never been able to understand why a Republican contributor is a ‘fat cat’ and a Democratic contributor of the same amount of money is a ‘public-spirited philanthropist’.
- Ronald Reagan

We are never defeated unless we give up on God.
- Ronald Reagan

No matter what time it is, wake me, even if it’s in the middle of a Cabinet meeting.
- Ronald Reagan

Today we did what we had to do. They counted on America to be passive. They counted wrong.
- Ronald Reagan

Within the covers of the Bible are the answers for all the problems men face.
- Ronald Reagan

Government’s first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.
- Ronald Reagan

A people free to choose will always choose peace.
- Ronald Reagan

Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged.
- Ronald Reagan

Today, if you invent a better mousetrap, the government comes along with a better mouse.
- Ronald Reagan

Without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure.
- Ronald Reagan

History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.
- Ronald Reagan

It’s true hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take the chance?
- Ronald Reagan

Unemployment insurance is a pre-paid vacation for freeloaders.
- Ronald Reagan

How can a president not be an actor?
- Ronald Reagan

Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
- Ronald Reagan

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.
- Ronald Reagan

Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them.
- Ronald Reagan

Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement.
- Ronald Reagan

It’s silly talking about how many years we will have to spend in the jungles of Vietnam when we could pave the whole country and put parking stripes on it and still be home by Christmas.
- Ronald Reagan

You can tell alot about a fellow’s character by his way of eating jellybeans.
- Ronald Reagan

Abortion is advocated only by persons who have themselves been born.
- Ronald Reagan

Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.
- Ronald Reagan

Beauty is something wonderful and strange that the artist fashions out of the chaos of the world in the torment of his soul.
- W. Somerset Maugham

People ask for criticism, but they only want praise.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Charm and nothing but charm at last grows a little tiresome. It’s a relief then to deal with a man who isn’t quite so delightful but a little more sincere.
- W. Somerset Maugham

One can be very much in love with a woman without wishing to spend the rest of one’s life with her.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Common sense and good nature will do a lot to make the pilgrimage of life not too difficult.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.
- W. Somerset Maugham

We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.
- W. Somerset Maugham

American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in their butlers.
- W. Somerset Maugham

In the country the darkness of night is friendly and familiar, but in a city, with its blaze of lights, it is unnatural, hostile and menacing. It is like a monstrous vulture that hovers, biding its time.
- W. Somerset Maugham

You learn more quickly under the guidance of experienced teachers. You waste a lot of time going down blind alleys if you have no one to lead you.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Considering how foolishly people act and how pleasantly they prattle, perhaps it would be better for the world if they talked more and did less.
- W. Somerset Maugham

I’ll give you my opinion of the human race in a nutshell… their heart’s in the right place, but their head is a thoroughly inefficient organ.
- W. Somerset Maugham

A man ought to work. That’s what he’s here for. That’s how he contributes to the welfare of the community.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Unfortunately sometimes one can’t do what one thinks is right without making someone else unhappy.
- W. Somerset Maugham

A God that can be understood is no God. Who can explain the Infinite in words?
- W. Somerset Maugham

Women are often under the impression that men are much more madly in love with them than they really are.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Marriage is a very good thing, but I think it’s a mistake to make a habit out of it.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Impropriety is the soul of wit.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Tolerance is another word for indifference.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. It is like the perfume of a rose: you can smell it and that is all.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequence than to have a really affectionate mother.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Love is what happens to a man and woman who don’t know each other.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Follow your inclinations with due regard to the policeman round the corner.
- W. Somerset Maugham

One cannot find peace in work or in pleasure, in the world or in a convent, but only in one’s soul.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.
- W. Somerset Maugham

You know, of course, that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct.
- W. Somerset Maugham

I’m not only my spirit buy my body, and who can decide how much I, my individual self, am conditioned by the accident of my body? Would Byron have been Byron but for his club foot, or Dostoyevsky Dostoyevsky without his epilepsy?
- W. Somerset Maugham

A man marries to have a home, but also because he doesn’t want to be bothered with sex and all that sort of thing.
- W. Somerset Maugham

When you’re eighteen your emotions are violent, but they’re not durable.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Habits in writing as in life are only useful if they are broken as soon as they cease to be advantageous.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Death doesn’t affect the living because it has not happened yet. Death doesn’t concern the dead because they have ceased to exist.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Men have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradicable.
- W. Somerset Maugham

A woman may be as wicked as she likes, but if she isn’t pretty it won’t do her much good.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Only a mediocre person is always at his best.
- W. Somerset Maugham

In Hollywood, the women are all peaches. It makes one long for an apple occasionally.
- W. Somerset Maugham

To write simply is as difficult as to be good.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Men seek but one thing in life – their pleasure.
- W. Somerset Maugham

If you want to eat well in England, eat three breakfasts.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Women’s hearts are like old china, none the worse for a break or two.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.
- W. Somerset Maugham

We didn’t think much in the air corps of a fellow who wangled a cushy job out of his C.O. by buttering him up. It was hard for me to believe that God thought much of a man who tried to wangle salvation by fulsome flattery. I should have thought the worship most pleasing to him was to do your best according to your lights.
- W. Somerset Maugham

Love is only a dirty trick played on us to achieve continuation of the species.
- W. Somerset Maugham