And what should they know of England who only England know?

I reckon there’s more things told than are true,
And more things true than are told!

They copied all they could follow but they couldn’t copy my mind.

It is characteristic of the unlearned that they are forever proposing something which is old, and because it has recently come to their attention, supposing it to be new.

Many think of liberal arts education as a broad education, but in fact it is a high education. We understand things to be arranged in a hierarchy.

When the shameless meet the spineless, the shameless win.

We can’t talk our way out of problems we behaved our way into.

Time is the most valuable coin in your life. You and you alone will determine how that coin will be spent. Be careful that you do not let other people spend it for you.

The tragedy begins, not when there is misunderstanding about words, but when silence is not understood.

An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.

Take the book, my friend, and read your eyes out, you will never find there what I find.

Read first the best books. The important thing for you is not how much you know, but the quality of what you know.

Men do not differ much about what things they will call evil; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable.

Integrity is one of those words which many people keep in that desk drawer labeled “too hard.”

Humility does not mean that you think less of yourself. It means that you think of yourself less.

Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error.

When I make a mistake, it’s a beaut.

The trouble with most of us is that we would sooner be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.

There is only one quality worse than hardness of heart, and that is softness of head.

Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time.

The only way to enjoy life is to work. Work is much more fun than fun.

Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn’t the work he is supposed to be doing at the moment.

The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.

Resolve to be honest at all events; and if in your judgment you cannot be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a lawyer. Choose some other occupation, rather than one in the choosing of which you do, in advance, consent to be a knave.

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing.

A professional is someone who can do his best work when he doesn’t feel like it.

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists of the elimination of nonessentials.

Less is more.

“The pursuit of truth” rightly implies that a gap exists between ourselves and truth. But what’s hidden and evasive? Is it we or truth? Maybe it is we who evade truth’s quest for us.

Now in creative thought common sense is a bad master. Its sole criterion for judgment is that the new ideas shall look like the old ones. In other words it can only act by suppressing originality.

Experience is the great teacher; unfortunately, experience leaves mental scars, and scar tissue contracts.

Geniuses are the luckiest of mortals because what they must do is the same as what they most want to do.

Decision is a sharp knife that cuts clean and straight. Indecision is a dull one that hacks and tears and leaves ragged edges behind.

Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside them was superior to circumstance.

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.

THOUGHTS BECOME WORDS.
WORDS BECOME ACTIONS.
ACTIONS BECOME CHARACTER.
CHARACTER IS EVERYTHING.

Life is action and passion; therefore it is required of a man that he should share the action and passion of his time at the peril of being judged not to have lived.

There probably ought to be a word falling between envy and admiration, as there ought to be a word that falls between talent and genius. Yet there isn’t. The language is inept.

Capitalism, like the gods, apparently enjoys a good joke, and one of its recurrent recent jokes is that of richly rewarding its most furious detractors.

If you happen to be an intellectual, you are what you quote.

FINIS CORONAT OPUS. The end crowns the work.

NOTES