Over 40,000 Famous Quotes Sorted By Topic and Author

Periods of tranquility are seldom prolific of creative achievement. Mankind has to be stirred up.

Without adventure civilization is in full decay.

If a dog jumps in your lap, it is because he is fond of you; but if a cat does the same thing, it is because your lap is warmer

The power of God is the worship He inspires. That religion is strong which in its ritual and its modes of thought evokes an apprehension of the commanding vision. The worship of God is not a rule of safety: it is an adventure of the spirit, a flight after the unattainable. The death of religion comes with the repression of the high hope of adventure.

Commemoration of Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury, 1099 Apart from God every activity is merely a passing whiff of insignificance.

Common sense is genius in homespun.

Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking of them.

True courage is not the brutal force of vulgar heroes, but the firm resolve of virtue and reason.

But you can catch yourself entertaining habitually certain ideas and setting others aside; and that, I think, is where our personal destinies are largely decided.

The art of progress is to preserve order amid change, and to preserve change amid order. Life refuses to be embalmed alive.

In formal logic, a contradiction is the signal of defeat: but in the evolution of real knowledge, it marks the first step in progress toward victory.

Spoken language is merely a series of squeaks.

Life is an offensive, directed against the repetitious mechanisms of the universe.

The art of progress is to preserve order amid change, and to preserve change amid order. Life refuses to be embalmed alive.

The total absence of humor from the Bible is one of the most singular things in all literature.

Seek simplicity, and distrust it.

Speech is human nature itself, with none of the artificiality of written language.

One main factor in the upward trend of animal life has been the power of wandering.

There are no whole truths. All truths are half truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil.

The deepest definition of youth is life as yet untouched by tragedy.