Quotes by Essayists - Page 4

Why should we grope among the dry bones of the past or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
When I want to understand what is happening today or try to decide what will happen tomorrow I look back.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
The past will not tell us what we ought to do but... what we ought to avoid.
José Ortega y Gasset
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
George Santayana
A man's memory may almost become the art of continually varying and misrepresenting his past according to his interest in the present.
George Santayana
To mankind in general Macbeth and Lady Macbeth stand out as the supreme type of all that a host and hostess should not be.
Max Beerbohm
That is the consolation of a little mind you have the fun of changing it without impeding the progress of mankind.
Frank Moore Colby
If a man carefully examines his thoughts he will be surprised to find how much he lives in the future. His well-being is always ahead.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A man builds a fine house and now he has a master and a task for life is to furnish watch show it and keep it in repair the rest of his life.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The future is wider than vision and has no end.
Donald G. Mitchell
The future is a world limited by ourselves-in it we discover only what concerns us.
Maurice Maeterlinck
Summertime oh summertime pattern of life indelible the fade-proof lake the woods unshatterable the pasture with the sweetfern and the juniper forever and ever . . . the cottages with their innocent and tranquil design their tiny docks with the flagpole and the American flag floating against the white clouds in the blue sky the little paths over the roots of the trees leading from camp to camp. This was the American family at play escaping the city heat.
E B White
Cities force growth and make men talkative and entertaining but they make them artificial.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
There is nothing good to be had in the country or if there be they will not let you have it.
William Hazlitt
The axis of the earth sticks out visibly through the centre of each and every town or city.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness natives give it solidity and continuity but the settlers give it passion.
E B White
If the world were merely seductive that would be easy. If it were merely challenging that would be no problem. But I rise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savour) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.
E B White
Words that weep and tears that speak.
Abraham Cowley
To teach is to learn twice.
Joseph Joubert
The first duty of a lecturer- to hand you after an hour's discourse a nugget of pure truth to wrap up between the pages of your notebooks and keep on the mantelpiece for ever.
Virginia Woolf
Talking is like playing on the harp there is as much in laying the hand on the strings to stop their vibrations as in twanging them to bring out their music.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
We all have some taste or other of too ancient a date to admit of our remembering that it was an acquired one.
Charles Lamb
The world is always ready to receive talent with open arms.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
If a person has no delicacy he has you in his power.
William Hazlitt
As to Caesar when he was called upon he gave no testimony against Clodius nor did he affirm that he was certain of any injury done to his bed. He only said "He had divorced Pompeia because the wife of Caesar ought not only to be clear of such a crime but of the very suspicion of it."
Plutarch
Every sweet hath its sour every evil its good.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Of a truth men are mystically united: a mystic bond of brotherhood makes all men one.
Thomas Carlyle
Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man but for one man who can stand prosperity there are a hundred that will stand adversity.
Thomas Carlyle
Out of every fruition of success no matter what comes forth something to make a new effort necessary.
Walt Whitman
The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The reward of the general is not a bigger tent but command.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Abasement degradation is simply the manner of life of the man who has refused to be what it is his duty to be.
José Ortega y Gasset
Nature magically suits a man to his fortunes by making them the fruit of his character.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
How can they say my life is not a success? Have I not for more than sixty years got enough to eat and escaped being eaten?
Logan Pearsall Smith
If you wish success in life make perseverance your bosom friend.
Joseph Addison
What is more mortifying than to feel that you have missed the plum for want of courage to shake the tree?
Logan Pearsall Smith
Whatever you do you need courage. ... To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage which a soldier needs.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A strong passion for any object will ensure success for the desire of the end will point out the means.
William Hazlitt
To burn always with this hard gemlike flame to maintain this ecstasy is success in life.
Walter Pater
The world belongs to the energetic.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. As to methods there may be a million and then some but the principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods ignoring principles is sure to have trouble.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Self-trust is the first secret of success.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
We may fail of our happiness strive we ever so bravely but we are less likely to fail if we measure with judgement our chances and our capabilities.
Agnes Repplier
What is success? To laugh often and much To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends To appreciate beauty To find the best in others To leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child a garden patch or a redeemed social condition To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived That is to have succeeded.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
How can they say my life isn't a success? Have I not for more than sixty years got enough to eat and escaped being eaten?
Logan Pearsall Smith
The habit of doing one's duty drives away fear.
Charles Baudelaire
Too busy with the crowded hour to fear to live or die.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A life of action and danger moderates the dread of death. It not only gives us fortitude to bear pain but teaches us at every step the precarious tenure on which we hold our present being.
William Hazlitt
Do the thing you fear and the death of fear is certain.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The world's great men have not commonly been great scholars nor its great scholars great men.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
We are growing serious and let me tell you that's a very next step to being dull.
Joseph Addison
Neat not gaudy.
Charles Lamb
Hitch your wagon to a star.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
It is in games that many men discover their paradise.
Robert Lynd
Excite the soul and the weather and the town and your condition in the world all disappear the world itself loses its solidity nothing remains but the soul and the Divine Presence in which it lives.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
I hate all sports as rabidly as a person who likes sports hates common sense.
H.L. Mencken
Speech is silvern silence is golden.
Thomas Carlyle
Speak what you think today in words as hard as cannon balls and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again though it contradict everything you said today.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Speak clearly if you speak at all Carve every word before you let it fall.
Oliver Wendell Holmes