Cool Quotes

The forces of safety are afoot in the land. I, for one, believe it is a conspiracy—a conspiracy of Safety Nazis shouting "Sieg Health" and seeking to trammel freedom, liberty, and large noisy parties. The Safety Nazis advocate gun control, vigorous exercise, and health foods. The result can only be a disarmed, exhausted, and half-starved population ready to acquiesce to dictatorship of some kind.

The worst of all public dangers is the committee of public safety.

The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.

Said

The more said, the less done.

Least said, soonest mended.

Sailor

Seamen are the nearest to death and the farthest from God.

The life of a sailor is very unhealthy.

Saint

Many of the insights of the saint stem from his experience as a sinner.

Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited.

Saint and Martyr rule from the tomb.

All are not saints that go to church.

The history of the saints is mainly the history of insane people.

The worst of madmen is a saint run mad.

Salary

If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

Salesmanship

Don’t sell the steak; sell the sizzle. It is the sizzle that sells the steak and not the cow, although the cow is, of course, mighty important.

Saloon

The saloon is the poor man's club.

Salt

Salt is white and pure,—there is something holy in salt.

Meat without salt is fit only for dogs.

Salutation

Hail, Emperor, those who are about to die salute you. (Ave, Imperator, morituri te salutant).

Samuel Johnson

I observed he [Samuel Johnson] poured a large quantity of it [wine] into a glass, and swallowed it greedily. Everything about his character and manners was forcible and violent; there never was any moderation; many a day did he fast, many a year did he refrain from wine; but when he did eat, it was voraciously; when he did drink wine, it was copiously. He could practise abstinence, but not temperance.

[Samuel Johnson] was unsentimental about the past, disturbed by the present, and apprehensive for the future.

The vacuity of life had so struck upon the mind of Mr Johnson that it became by repeated impression his favourite hypothesis, and the general tenor of his reasonings commonly ended in that.

He has made a chasm, which not only nothing can fill up, but which nothing has a tendency to fill up. [Samuel] Johnson is dead. Let us go to the next best:—there is nobody; no man can be said to put you in mind of Johnson.

His [Samuel Johnson's] person was large, robust, I may say approaching to the gigantic, and grown unwieldy from corpulency.

There is no arguing with Johnson: for if his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the butt end of it.

[To Dr. Johnson:] If you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales.

The freedom with which Dr Johnson condemns whatever he disapproves is astonishing.

Pomposo, insolent and loud,
Vain idol of a scribbling crowd,
Whose cursory flattery is the tool
Of every fawning, flattering fool;
Who wit with jealous eye surveys,
And sickens at another's praise; …
Who to increase his native strength
Draws words six syllables in length,
With which, assisted with a frown,
By way of club, he knocks us down.

I can now look back upon threescore and four years, in which little has been done, and little has been enjoyed; a life diversified by misery, spent part in the sluggishness of penury, and part under the violence of pain, in gloomy discontent or importunate distress.

Johnson deals so much in tribal tautology, or, the fault of repeating the same sense in three different phrases, that I believe it would be possible, taking the ground-work for all three, to make one of his Ramblers into three different papers, that should all have exactly the same purport and meaning, but in different phrases.

Here lies poor Johnson. Reader! have a care,
Tread light, lest you rouse a sleeping bear.
Religious, moral, gen'rous and humane,
He was, but self-conceited, rude, and vain:
Ill-bred, and overbearing in dispute,
A scholar and a Christian, yet a brute.

All his [Johnson's] books are written in a learned language, in a language which nobody hears from his mother or his nurse, in a language in which nobody ever quarrels, or drives bargains, or makes love, in a language in which nobody ever thinks.

I have always considered him (Johnson) to be, by nature, one of our great English souls. A strong and noble man; so much left undeveloped in him to the last: in a kindlier element what might he not have been, —poet, priest, sovereign, ruler!

San Diego

San Diego didn't look like the kind of town where people get born.

San Francisco

The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.

San Francisco is a mad city—inhabited for the most part by perfectly insane people, whose women are of a remarkable beauty.

Sanctions

Sanctions rarely work: they damage, infuriate and embitter but they do not deter or frustrate an act of aggression.

Sarcasm

Sarcasm I now see to be, in general, the language of the Devil; for which reason I have long since as good as renounced it.

Sarcasm [is] the language of the Devil.

Never laugh when you're being sarcastic. It will ruin the effect.

Satan

For Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do.

Satire

Satire should, like a polished razor keen,
Wound with a touch that's scarcely felt or seen.

In the present state of the world it is difficult not to write satire.

Satire will always be unpleasant to those that deserve it.

I love not the satiric Muse:
No man on earth would I abuse;
Nor with empoison'd verses grieve
The most offending son of Eve.
It hardens man to see his name
Exposed to public mirth or shame;
And rouses, as it spoils his rest,
The baser passions of his breast.

The finest satire is the one in which ridicule is combined with so little malice and so much conviction that it forces a laugh even from those it hits.

The satirist holds a place half-way between the preacher and the wit. He has the purpose of the first and uses the weapons of the second. He must both hate and love.

Satisfaction

I die without remorse, as I have lived without guilt.

So long as the great majority of men are not deprived of either property or honour, they are satisfied. (Qualunque volta alle universalità degli nomini non si toglie nè roba nè onore, vivono contenti.)

God alone is satisfied with what He is and can proclaim: "I am what I am." Unlike God, man strives with all his might to be what he is not. He incessantly proclaims: "I am what I am not."

Savage

When all is said and done our resemblances to the savage are still far more numerous than our differences from him.

Scandal

Scandal is but amusing ourselves with the faults, foibles, follies and reputations of our friends.

It must be that scandals come, but woe to him by whom the scandal cometh.

Scapegoat

What country in the world today engages in the most extreme anti-Semitic persecution? The Soviet Union. It’s not an accident, because if you have a society with concentrated power, if you have a collectivist society, it’s going to be in a position to exercise the preferences and prejudices of its rulers. Moreover, it’s going to have an incentive to do so, because it’s going to need a scapegoat and it will choose some group like the Jews or the blacks to be the scapegoat.

Scar

The defects and faults in the mind are like wounds in the body. After all imaginable care has been taken to heal them up, still there will be a scar left behind.

(Les défauts de l'âme sont comme les blessures du corps: quelque soin qu'on prenne de les guérir, la cicatrice paraît toujours, et elles sont à tout moment en danger de se rouvrir.)

He jests at scars that never felt a wound.

Schadenfreude

Never find your delight in another's misfortune.

I am convinced that we have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pains of others.

Scholar

Thus the man of learning is often resigned, almost by his own consent, to languor and pain; and while in the prosecution of his studies he suffers the weariness of labour, is subject by his course of life to the maladies of idleness.

We must distinguish between a man of polite learning and a mere scholar: the first is a gentleman and what a gentleman should be; the last is a mere book-case, a bundle of letters, a head stuffed with the jargon of languages, a man that understands every body but is understood by no body.

There mark what ills the scholar's life assail,
Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail.

The true test of any scholar's work is not what his contemporaries say, but what happens to his work in the next 25 or 50 years. And the thing that I will really be proud of is if some of the work I have done is still cited in the text books long after I am gone.

A mere scholar, who knows nothing but books, must be ignorant even of them.

Every scholar is surrounded by wiser men than he.

School

But this interlude of school makes a sombre grey patch upon the chart of my journey. It was an unending spell of worries that did not then seem petty, of toil uncheered by fruition; a time of discomfort, restriction and purposeless monotony.

All my contemporaries and even younger boys seemed in every way better adapted to the conditions of our little world [in school]. They were far better both at the games and at the lessons. It is not pleasant to feel oneself so completely outclassed and left behind at the very beginning of the race.

Good gracious, you've got to educate him first. You can't expect a boy to be vicious till he's been to a good school.

School Segregation

Sailer’s Law of School Segregation and Diversity: Some schools have too high of a percentage of blacks and thus the blacks suffer from segregation which causes them to suffer low test scores and high suspension rates, while some schools have too low of a percentage of blacks and thus the blacks suffer from lack of diversity which causes them to suffer low test scores and high suspension rates. No school has exactly the right percentage to keep blacks from suffering low test scores and high suspension rates.

Schoolmaster

One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters.

Schubert, Franz

My compositions spring from my sorrows. Those that give the world the greatest delight were born of my deepest griefs.

Science

An old Jewish man reads about Einstein's theory of relativity in the newspaper and asks his scientist grandson to explain it to him.

"Well, Zayda, it's sort of like this. Einstein says that if you're having your teeth drilled without Novocain, a minute seems like an hour. But if you're sitting with a beautiful woman on your lap, an hour seems like a minute."

The old man considers this profound bit of thinking for a moment and says, "And from this he makes a living?"

Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won't work.

I can't believe that God plays dice with the universe.

If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German, and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German, and Germany will declare that I am a Jew.

Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.

Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone.

Science is built of facts the way a house is built of bricks; but an accumulation of facts is no more a science than a pile of bricks is a house.

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

There's a mighty big difference between good, sound reasons and reasons that sound good.

No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.

If I have been able to see farther than others, it was because I stood on the shoulders of giants.

Perfection [in design] is achieved not when there is nothing more to add, but rather when there is nothing more to take away.

Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.

There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.

The great tragedy of Science—the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.

The answer to unethical science is not to give up on ethics, but rather to pursue ethical science.

Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths.

Post-Normal Science is where facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent.

The most important scientific revolutions all include, as their only common feature, the dethronement of human arrogance from one pedestal after another of previous convictions about our centrality in the cosmos.

This isn't right. This isn't even wrong.

[In] the post-Enlightenment world, science [has] taken the place of magic, miracles, and superstition.

Modern science and industry [can] turn the luxuries of one generation into the necessities of the next.

There is no democracy in physics. We can't say that some second-rate guy has as much right to opinion as Fermi.

Even those to whom Providence hath allotted greater strength of understanding, can expect only to improve a single science. In every other part of learning, they must be content to follow opinions, which they are not able to examine; and, even in that which they claim as peculiarly their own, can seldom add more than some small particle of knowledge, to the hereditary stock devolved to them from ancient times, the collective labour of a thousand intellects.

The Dark Ages may return, the Stone Age may return on the gleaming wings of Science, and what might now shower immeasurable material blessings upon mankind, may even bring about its total destruction. Beware, I say; time may be short.

As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action arise, human science is at a loss.

In science, we must be interested in things, not in persons.

In science the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to the man to whom the idea first occurs.

When Columbus promised a new hemisphere, he was told that this hemisphere could not exist; & when he discovered it, it was claimed that it had been known for a long time.

(Lorsque Colombo avait promis un nouvel hémisphère, on lui avait soutenu que cet hémisphère ne pouvait exister; & quand il l’eut découvert, on prétendit qu’il avait été connu depuis long-temps.)

Science is one thing, wisdom is another. Science is an edged tool, with which men play like children, and cut their own fingers.

The grand aim of all science [is] to cover the greatest number of empirical facts by logical deduction from the smallest possible number of hypotheses or axioms.

With five free parameters, a theorist could fit the profile of an elephant.

Science has lost its virgin purity, has become dogmatic instead of seeking for enlightenment and has gradually fallen into the hands of the traders.

The importance of a scientific work can be measured by the number of previous publications it makes it superfluous to read.

In the fields of observation chance favors only the prepared mind.

Men who have excessive faith in their theories or ideas are not only ill-prepared for making discoveries; they also make very poor observations. Of necessity, they observe with a preconceived idea, and when they devise an experiment, they can see, in its results, only a confirmation of their theory. In this way, they distort observation and often neglect very important facts because they do not further their aim.

All science is either physics or stamp collecting.

It is a good morning exercise for a research scientist to discard a pet hypothesis every day before breakfast. It keeps him young.

In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable: and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality.

The scientific mind does not so much provide the right answers as ask the right questions.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool.

I shall certainly admit a system as empirical or scientific only if it is capable of being tested by experience. These considerations suggest that not the verifiability but the falsifiability of a system is to be taken as a criterion of demarcation It must be possible for an empirical scientific system to be refuted by experience.

If science produces no better fruits than tyranny, murder, rapine and destitution of national morality, I would rather wish our country to be ignorant, honest and estimable, as our neighboring savages are.

Science moves, but slowly, slowly, creeping on from point to point.

In science the important thing is to modify and change one's ideas as science advances.

Science has promised us truth—an understanding of such relationships as our minds can grasp; it has never promised us either peace or happiness.

What is called science today consists of a haphazard heap of information, united by nothing, often utterly unnecessary, and not only failing to present one unquestionable truth, but as often as not containing the grossest errors, today put forward as truths, and tomorrow overthrown.

I hate and fear science because of my conviction that, for long to come if not for ever, it will be the remorseless enemy of mankind. I see it destroying all simplicity and gentleness of life, all the beauty of the world; I see it restoring barbarism under a mask of civilization: I see it darkening men's minds and hardening their hearts.

The extraordinary development of modern science may be her undoing. Specialism, now a necessity, has fragmented the specialities themselves in a way that makes the outlook hazardous. The workers lose all sense of proportion in a maze of minutiae.

Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination.

Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.

Through seas of knowledge we our course advance,
Discov'ring still new worlds of ignorance;
And these discov'ries make us all confess
That sublunary science is but guess.

Science Fiction

Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not.

The function of science fiction is not only to predict the future, but to prevent it.

Science and Religion

We should endow neither [science nor religion]; we should treat them as we treat conservatism and liberalism, encouraging both, so that they may keep watch upon one another, and letting them go in and out of power with the popular vote concerning them.

Scientist

Mark all mathematical heads which be only and wholly bent on these sciences, how solitary they be themselves, how unfit to live with others, and how unapt to serve the world.

The priest persuades humble people to endure their hard lot; the politician urges them to rebel against it; and the scientist thinks of a method that does away with the hard lot altogether.

Professors in every branch of the sciences prefer their own theories to truth: the reason is that their theories are private property, but the truth is common stock.

It is in the darker areas of science that great men win recognition; they are distinguished by ideas which light up phenomena hitherto obscure, and so carry science forward.

Scold

A frank scold is a devil of the feminine gender; a serpent perpetually hissing, and spitting of venom; a composition of ill-nature and clamor. You may call her animated gunpowder, a walking Mount Etna that is always belching forth flames of sulphur, or a real Purgatory, more to be dreaded in this world than the pope's imaginary hothouse in the next.

Scorn

We shall find no fiend in Hell can match the fury of a disappointed woman,—scorned, slighted, dismissed without a parting pang.

Scotchman

The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to England!

Scotland

A land of meanness, sophistry, and mist.

I wonder'd not when I was told
The venal Scot his country sold:
I rather very much admire
How he could ever find a buyer.

Scotsman

Much may be made of a Scotchman, if he be caught young.

I have been trying all my life to like Scotchmen, and am obliged to desist from the experiment in despair. … Is he orthodox—he has no doubts. Is he an infidel—he has none either. Between the affirmative and the negative there is no borderland with him. His taste never fluctuates. His morality never abates. He cannot compromise, or understand middle actions. There can be but a right and a wrong.

Scratching

Scratching is bad, because it begins with pleasure and ends with pain.

Scripture

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

He had been earnestly exhorting them to come and listen to the Word of God: "Well," they said, "if you will tap a good barrel of beer for us, we'll come with all our hearts and hear you."

I am so great an enemy to the second book of the Maccabees, and to Esther, that I wish they had not come to us at all, for they have too many heathen unnaturalities. The Jews much more esteemed the book of Esther than any of the prophets; though they were forbidden to read it before they had attained the age of thirty, by reason of the mystic matters it contains.

You cannot name any example in any heathen author but I will better it in Scripture.

Scrutamini scripturas [Let us look at the scriptures]. These two words have undone the world.

Sea

There is nothing so desperately monotonous as the sea, and I no longer wonder at the cruelty of pirates.

He that will learn to pray, let him go to sea.

I find the sea-life an acquired taste, like that for tomatoes and olives. The confinement, cold, motion, noise, and odor are not to be dispensed with.

Seasickness

The only cure for seasickness is to sit on the shady side of an old brick church in the country.

Season

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

Spring is the season of gaiety, and winter of terrour.

This distinction of seasons is produced only by imagination operating on luxury. To temperance every day is bright, and every hour is propitious to diligence. He that shall resolutely excite his faculties, or exert his virtues, will soon make himself superior to the seasons, and may set at defiance the morning mist, and the evening damp, the blasts of the east, and the clouds of the south.

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land.

If the parts of time were not variously coloured, we should never discern their departure or succession, but should live thoughtless of the past, and careless of the future, without will, and perhaps without power, to compute the periods of life, or to compare the time which is already lost with that which may probably remain.

Second Coming

It is clear from the New Testament that they all expected the Second Coming in their own lifetime. And, worse still, they had a reason, and one which you will find very embarrassing. Their Master had told them so. He shared, and indeed created, their delusion. He said in so many words, "this generation shall not pass till all these things be done." And he was wrong. He clearly knew no more about the end of the world than anyone else. It is certainly the most embarrassing verse in the Bible.

Secret

It is wise not to seek a Secret, and Honest not to reveal it.

To tell our own secrets is generally folly, but that folly is without guilt; to communicate those with which we are intrusted is always treachery, and treachery for the most part combined with folly.

Without this limitation [on keeping a secret] confidence must run on without end, the second person may tell the secret to the third, upon the same principle as he received it from the first, and a third may hand it forward to a fourth, till at last it is told in the round of friendship to them from whom it was the first intention to conceal it.

The whole doctrine, as well as practice of secrecy, is so perplexing and dangerous, that next to him who is compelled to trust, I think him unhappy who is chosen to be trusted; for he is often involved in scruples without the liberty of calling in the help of any other understanding.

As every one is pleased with imagining that he knows something not yet commonly divulged, secret history easily gains credit; but it is for the most part believed only while it circulates in whispers; and when once it is openly told, is openly confuted.

I know that's a secret, for it's whispered every where.

Secrets with girls, like loaded guns with boys,
Are never valued till they make a noise.

For secrets are edged tools,
And must be kept from children and from fools.

How can we expect others to keep our secrets if we cannot keep them ourselves? (Comment prétendons-nous qu'un autre puisse garder notre secret, si nous ne pouvons le garder nous-mêmes?)

If you would wish another to keep your secret, first keep it yourself.

I have play'd the fool, the gross fool, to believe
The bosom of a friend would hold a secret
Mine own could not contain.

A man keeps a secret of another better than he keeps his own. A woman, on the contrary, keeps her own better than that of another.

If you would keep your secret from an enemy, tell it not to a friend.

The only secret a woman can keep is the one she doesn't know.

Everyone has his secrets.

Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.

Sect

In America the taint of sectarianism lies broad upon the land. The nation is sectarian, rather than Christian.

Security

Security is mostly superstition. It does not exist in nature.

Seduction

But seduction … isn't making someone do what they don't want to do. Seduction is enticing someone into doing what they secretly want to do already.

Be cautious in listening to the addresses of men. Art thou pleased with smiles and flattering words? Remember that man often smiles and flatters most when he would betray thee.

Self

There is nothing noble about being superior to some other men. The true nobility is in being superior to your previous self.

There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.

To know oneself, one should assert oneself.

There is nothing in the world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person.

Only the shallow know themselves.

There are some days when I think I'm going to die from an overdose of satisfaction.

We run fastest and farthest when we run from ourselves.

My life is one long escape from myself.

Man can never escape from himself.

Self-Absorption

There will always be a part, and always a very large part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate pain, and eagerness for the nearest good.

Self-Accusation

The thorns which I have reap'd are of the tree
I planted; they have torn me, and I bleed.

Self-Awareness

To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are.

Self-Command

No one is free who commands not himself.

In vain he seeketh others to suppress
Who hath not learned himself first to subdue.

Self-Confidence

Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.

Some men are just as firmly convinced of what they think as others are of what they know.

Self-Control

Every observer, however superficial, has remarked that in many men the love of pleasures is the Ruling Passion of their youth, and the love of money that of their advanced years. However this be, it is not proper to dwell too long on the resistless power and despotic authority of this tyrant of the soul, lest the reader should, as it is very natural, take the present inclination, however destructive to society or himself, for the Ruling Passion, and forbear to struggle when he despairs to conquer.

Self-Criticism

There is another man within me that's angry with me, rebukes, commands, and dastards me.

Self-Deception

But, however we may labour for our own deception, truth, though unwelcome, will sometimes intrude upon the mind.

And now employ the remnant of my wit
To make myself believe that all is well,
While with a feeling skill I paint my hell.

Nothing is so easy as to deceive one's self.

Self-Defense

The life of a state is like that of a man. A man has the right to kill in self-defense, and a state has the right to make war for self-preservation.

Self-Delusion

When we have once obtained an acknowledged superiority over our acquaintances, imagination and desire easily extend it over the rest of mankind, and if no accident forces us into new emulations, we grow old, and die in admiration of ourselves.

Self-Denial

Self-denial is not a virtue; it is only the effect of prudence on rascality.

Self-Deprecation

He who blames himself takes a by-road to praise; and, like the rower, turns his back to the place whither he desires to go.

Self-Destruction

When the beginnings of self-destruction enter the heart it seems no bigger than a grain of sand.

Self-Discipline

He that would govern others, first should be
The master of himself.

Great numbers who quarrel with their condition, have wanted not the power but the will to obtain a better state.

Those who cannot govern themselves, must be governed.

No man, whose appetites are his masters, can perform the duties of his nature with strictness and regularity; he that would be superior to external influences must first become superior to his own passions.

It is time to get back to basics: to self-discipline and respect for the law, to consideration for others, to accepting responsibility for yourself and your family, and not shuffling it off on the state.

Self-Discovery

The nearer we approach to the goal of life, the better we begin to understand the true value of our existence, and the real weight of our opinions.

Self-Dispraise

A man should be careful never to tell tales of himself to his own disadvantage. People may be amused and laugh at the time, but they will be remembered and brought against him upon some subsequent occasion.

Self-Esteem

I think high self-esteem is overrated. A little low self-esteem is actually quite good … Maybe you're not the best, so you should work a little harder.

He that is pleased with himself, easily imagines that he shall please others.

The individual on his own is stable only so long as he is possessed of self-esteem. The maintenance of self-esteem is a continuous task which taxes all of the individual's powers and inner resources. We have to prove our worth and justify our existence anew each day.

Self-Government

There are very few so foolish that they had not rather govern themselves than be governed by others.

Self-Hatred

The remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbor as ourselves: we do unto others as we do unto ourselves. We hate others when we hate ourselves. We are tolerant toward others when we tolerate ourselves. We forgive others when we forgive ourselves. We are prone to sacrifice others when we are ready to sacrifice ourselves.

It is not love of self but hatred of self which is at the root of the troubles that afflict our world.

Self-Help

God lends a helping hand to the man who tries hard.

The gods help him who helps himself.

We are told what fine things would happen if every one of us would go and do something for the welfare of somebody else; but why not contemplate also the immense gain which would ensue if everybody would do something for himself?

God gives the nuts, but he does not crack them.

Self-Importance

Self-importance is our greatest enemy. Think about it—what weakens us is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of our fellowmen. Our self-importance requires that we spend most of our lives offended by someone.

Self-Improvement

Be at war with your vices,
At peace with your neighbors,
And let every New Year,
find you a better man.

When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world. But I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my country. When I found I couldn't change my country, I began to focus on my town. However, I discovered that I couldn't change the town, and so as I grew older, I tried to change my family. Now, as an old man, I realize the only one I can change is myself, but I've come to recognize that if long ago I had started with myself, then I could have made an impact on my family. And my family and I could have made an impact on our town. And that, in turn, could have changed the country and we could all, indeed, have changed the world.

Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better.

Self-Interest

Look round the habitable world! how few
Know their own good; or knowing it, pursue.

Self-interest speaks all sorts of tongues and plays all sorts of characters, even that of disinterestedness. (L'intérêt parle toutes sortes de langues, et joue toutes sortes de personnages, même celui de désintéressé.)

I conceive that when a man deliberates whether he shall do a thing or not do it, he does nothing else but consider whether it be better for himself to do it or not to do it.

'Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger.

The world is governed by self-interest only.

Self-Knowledge

I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should.

[Every] errour in human conduct must arise from ignorance in ourselves, either perpetual or temporary; and happen either because we do not know what is best and fittest, or because our knowledge is at the time of action not present to the mind.

He knows the universe, and himself he does not know.

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of mankind is man.

This counsel [to know oneself] has been often given with serious dignity, and often received with appearance of conviction; but, as very few can search deep into their own minds without meeting what they wish to hide from themselves, scarcely any man persists in cultivating such disagreeable acquaintance, but draws the veil again between his eyes and his heart, leaves his passions and appetites as he found them, and advises others to look into themselves.

I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well.

I frankly admit to not knowing who I am. This is why I refuse to buy clothes that will tell people who I want them to think I am.

There is a sort of man who pays no attention to his good actions, but is tormented by his bad ones. This is the type that most often writes about himself.

Thales was asked what was most difficult to man; he answered: "To know one's self."

Retire into thyself, and thou wilt blush to find how little is there.

Although men are accused for not knowing their own weakness, yet, perhaps, as few know their own strength. It is in men as in soils, where sometimes there is a vein of gold which the owner knows not of.

The first step to self-knowledge is self-distrust.

Man is a darkened being; he knows not whence he comes, nor whither he goes; he knows little of the world, and least of himself. I know not myself, and God forbid I should!

He who knows himself best esteems himself least.

Self-Loathing

The dupe of friendship, and the fool of love; have I not reason to hate and to despise myself? Indeed I do; and chiefly for not having hated and despised the world enough.

Self-Love

Self-love is the greatest of all flatterers. (L'amour-propre est le plus grand de tous les flatteurs.)

Self-love is often rather arrogant than blind; it does not hide our faults from ourselves, but persuades us that they escape the notice of others, and disposes us to resent censures lest we should confess them to be just.

He who begins by loving Christianity better than Truth will proceed by loving his own sect or church better than Christianity, and end by loving himself better than all.

He fell in love with himself at first sight and it is a passion to which he has always remained faithful.

Self-love seems so often unrequited.

Self-love is not so vile a sin
As self-neglecting.

Self-Made

He is a self-made man, and worships his creator.

Self-Perception

I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

Self-Pity

I never saw a wild thing
Sorry for itself.

I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself.

Self-Preservation

Self-preservation is the first law of nature.

Self-Reflection

Must I hold a candle to my shames?

For such is the inequality of our corporeal to our intellectual faculties, that we contrive in minutes what we execute in years, and the soul often stands an idle spectator of the labour of the hands, and expedition of the feet.

It [self-reflection] is, indeed, of so great use, that without it we should always be to begin life, be seduced for ever by the same allurements, and misled by the same fallacies.

Let not sleep fall upon thy eyes till thou hast thrice reviewed the transactions of the past day. Where have I turned aside from rectitude? What have I been doing? What have I left undone, which I ought to have done?

One should look long and carefully at oneself before one considers judging others.

(On doit se regarder soi-même, un fort long temps,
Avant que de songer à condamner les gens.)

Self-Reliance

Goe not for every griefe to the physitian, nor for every quarrell to the lawyer, nor for every thirst to the pot.

Whate'er your lot may be,
Paddle your own canoe.

Self-Respect

No man who is occupied in doing a very difficult thing, and doing it very well, ever loses his self-respect.

Self-Revelation

When a man is attempting to describe another person's character, he may be right or he may be wrong; but in one thing he will always succeed, that is, in describing himself.

Self-Righteousness

We do not make people humble and meek when we show them their guilt and cause them to be ashamed of themselves. We are more likely to stir their arrogance and rouse in them a reckless aggressiveness. Self-righteousness is a loud din raised to drown the voice of guilt within us.

Self-Satisfaction

While all complain of our ignorance and error, everyone exempts himself.

Fortunate people never correct themselves. They always fancy they are in the right as long as fortune supports their ill conduct.

No one is ever satisfied with his fortune or dissatisfied with his understanding.

Only madmen and fools are pleased with themselves; no wise man is good enough for his own satisfaction.

Self-Taught

He that was only taught by himself had a fool to his master.

Selfie

They [selfies] are this horrible thing where you are distorted. The chin is too big, the head is too small. No, this is electronic masturbation.

Selfishness

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.

I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle.

Next to the very young, I suppose the very old are the most selfish.

Sensation

O for a life of sensations rather than of thoughts!

Sense

Take care of the sense and the sounds will take care of themselves.

Where sense is wanting,
Everything is wanting.

We rarely find that people have good sense unless they agree with us.

We hardly find any persons of good sense save those who agree with us. (Nous ne trouvons guère de gens de bon sens, que ceux qui sont de notre avis.)

He is a man of sense who does not grieve for what he has not, but rejoices in what he has.

It is a dangerous thing for a man to have more sense than his fellow-citizens.

Good sense is at the bottom of everything: virtue, genius, wit, talent and taste.

Sentimentalist

A sentimentalist is simply one who desires to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it.

Separation

In every parting there is an image of death.

Serenity

Serenity of mind and calmness of thought are a better enjoyment than anything without us.

Serfdom

Better to abolish serfdom from above than to wait till it begins to abolish itself from below.

Seriousness

They that [are] serious in ridiculous matters [will] be ridiculous in serious affairs.

I am more and more convinced that taking life over-seriously is a frivolous thing. There is an affected self-dramatizing in the brooding over one's prospects and destiny. The trifling attitude of an Ecclesiastes is essentially sober and serious. It is in closer touch with the so-called eternal truths than are the most penetrating metaphysical probing and the most sensitive poetic insights.

The most important point is—and remains—not to take oneself seriously.

I find we are growing serious, and then we are in great danger of being dull.

Sermon

I would not have preachers torment their hearers, and detain them with long and tedious preaching, for the delight of hearing vanishes therewith, and the preachers hurt themselves.

Serpent

It was precisely because the serpent, at that time, was the most beautiful of creatures, that Satan selected it for his work, for the devil likes beauty, knowing that beauty attracts men unto evil.

Servant

I would not tempt my servant to betray me by trusting him too far.

Seventy-five

My diseases are an asthma and a dropsy, and what is less curable, seventy-five.

Sex

The big difference between sex for money and sex for free is that sex for money usually costs a lot less.

There are three possible parts to a date, of which at least two must be offered: entertainment, food, and affection. It is customary to begin a series of dates with a great deal of entertainment, a moderate amount of food, and the merest suggestion of affection. As the amount of affection increases, the entertainment can be reduced proportionately. When the affection is the entertainment, we no longer call it dating. Under no circumstances can the food be omitted.

The daughter-in-law of Pythagoras said that a woman who goes to bed with a man ought to lay aside her modesty with her skirt, and put it on again with her petticoat.

Of all sexual aberrations, chastity is the strangest.

Marriage has many pains but celibacy has no pleasures.

They made love as though they were an endangered species.

The physical union of the sexes … only intensifies man's sense of solitude.

As a child of eight Mr. Trout had once kissed a girl of six under the mistletoe at a Christmas party, but there his sex life had come to abrupt halt.

Ducking for apples—change one letter and it's the story of my life.

Literature is mostly about having sex and not much about having children. Life is the other way around.

Women can sleep with whoever they want;
Men have to sleep with whoever will let them.

A man on a date wonders if he'll get lucky. The woman already knows.

You don't get married to get sex. Getting married to get sex is like buying a 747 to get free peanuts.

I know nothing about sex because I was always married.

Golf and sex are about the only things you can enjoy without being good at.

Men want sex. If men ruled the world, they could get sex anywhere, anytime. Restaurants would give you sex instead of breath mints on the way out. Gas stations would give sex with every fill-up. Banks would give sex to anyone who opened a checking account.

Lie back and think of England.

After all, [female genital mutilation is] a key pillar of institutional misogyny in Islam: its entire purpose is to deny women sexual pleasure. True, a lot of us hapless western men find we deny women sexual pleasure without even trying, but we don't demand genital mutilation to guarantee it. On such slender distinctions does civilization rest.

I'll come and make love to you at five o'clock. If I'm late start without me.

You'll have to ask somebody older than me.

What men call gallantry, and gods adultery,
Is much more common where the climate's sultry.

She broke her marriage vows; she tried to sleep with me.

He may be the best lover in the world, but what do you do the other twenty-two hours of the day?

Women need a reason to have sex, men just need a place.

Men don't realize that if we're sleeping with them on the first date, we're probably not interested in seeing them again either.

I regret to say that we of the FBI are powerless to act in cases of oral-genital intimacy, unless it has in some way obstructed interstate commerce.

What's the worst thing about oral sex? The view.

What's a promiscuous person? It's usually someone who is getting more sex than you are.

Many years ago I chased a woman for almost two years, only to discover that her tastes were exactly like mine: we both were crazy about girls.

It's so long since I've had sex I've forgotten who ties up whom.

Why don't you come up sometime, and see me?

Is sex dirty? Only if it's done right.

A fast word about oral contraception. I asked a girl to go to bed with me and she said 'no'.

On bisexuality: It immediately doubles your chances for a date on Saturday night.

Every creature is sad after coitus. (Post coitum omne animal triste.)

Your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.

The pleasure [of sex] is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable.

I have never yet seen anyone whose desire to build up his moral power was as strong as sexual desire.

The sexual life of adult women is a "dark continent" for psychology.

I am still of opinion that only two topics can be of the least interest to a serious and studious mood—sex and the dead.

Very few men and women who have had a conventional upbringing have learnt to feel decently about sex and marriage. Their education has taught them that deceitfulness and lying are considered virtues by parents and teachers; that sexual relations, even within marriage, are more or less disgusting, and that in propagating the species men are yielding to their animal nature while women are submitting to a painful duty.

My own belief is that there is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror.

Women complain about sex more often than men. Their gripes fall into two major categories: (1) Not enough. (2) Too much.

Shakespeare

We fix our eyes upon his graces, and turn them from his deformities, and endure in him what we should in another loathe or despise.

When he describes anything you more than see it; you feel it.

It was most injudicious in [Samuel] Johnson to select Shakespeare as one of his principal authorities [for his Dictionary]. Play-writers, in describing low scenes and vulgar characters, use low language, language unfit for decent company; and their ribaldry has corrupted our speech, as well as the public morals.

If we wish to know the force of human genius we should read Shakespeare. If we wish to see the insignificance of human learning we may study his commentators.

I believe Shakespeare was not a whit more intelligible in his own day than he is now to an educated man, except for a few local allusions of no consequence. He is of no age nor of any religion, or party, or profession. The body and substance of his works came out of the unfathomable depths of his own oceanic mind: his observation and reading, which was considerable, supplied him with the drapery of his figures.

Shame

Shame, above any other passion, propagates itself.

Life is easy to a man who has no shame.

In shame there is no comfort, but to be beyond all bounds of shame.

I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.

Whilst shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart.

So long as there is shame there is hope for virtue.

Shelley, P. B.

He [Shelley] had a fire in his eye, a fever in his blood, a maggot in his brain, a hectic flutter in his speech, which mark out the philosophic fanatic.

Sheridan, Richard

Sherry is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity, Sir, is not in Nature.

Ship

No man will be a sailor who has contrivance to get himself into a jail …. There is, in a gaol, better air, better company, better conveniency of every kind; and a ship has the additional disadvantage of being in danger …. Being in a ship is being in a jail with the chance of being drowned.

Shopkeeping

A man who finds it painful to smile should not open a shop.

Shrew

Every man can rule a shrew save he that hath her.

Shy

Once bitten, twice shy.

Shyness

Shy and proud men are more liable than any others to fall into the hands of parasites and creatures of low character. For in the intimacies which are formed by shy men, they do not choose, but are chosen.

Sickness

The sick in soul insist that it is humanity that is sick, and they are the surgeons to operate on it. They want to turn the world into a sickroom. And once they get humanity strapped to the operating table, they operate on it with an ax.

Siesta

Mad dogs and Englishmen
Go out in the midday sun.
The Japanese don't care to,
The Chinese wouldn't dare to,
The Hindus and Argentines
Sleep firmly from twelve to one,
But Englishmen detest a siesta.

Sigh

Words may be false and full of art,
Sighs are the natural language of the heart.

Sight

'Tis always better to see with one's own eyes than with those of other people.

Sign

By this sign thou wilt conquer. (In hoc signo vinces.)

Silence

Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness.

Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent,
and discerning if he holds his tongue.

I think the first virtue is to restrain the tongue; he approaches nearest to gods who knows how to be silent, even though he is in the right.

Silence is the perfectest herald of joy:
I were but little happy, if I could say how much.

It is always observable that silence propagates itself, and that the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find any thing to say.

Silence is the virtue of fools. (Silentium, stultorum virtus.)

The eternal silence of these infinite spaces terrifies me.

Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as Time.

I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching.

Silence means consent.

Speech is silver, but silence is golden.

I regret often that I have spoken; never that I have been silent.

God has given to man a cloak whereby he can, conceal his ignorance, and in this cloak he can enwrap himself at any moment, for it always lies near his hand. This cloak is silence.

More have repented speech than silence.

He that hears much and speaks not at all shall be welcome both in bower and hall.

Silent people are dangerous.

The world would be happier if men had the same capacity to be silent that they have to speak.

Great souls endure silently.

Thought works in silence, so does virtue. One might erect statues to silence.

He who knows nothing else knows enough if he knows when to be silent.

Keep quiet and people will think you a philosopher.

Silk

Whenas in silks my Julia goes,
Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows
That liquefaction of her clothes.

Simplicity

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.

All the greatest things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: Freedom; Justice; Honour; Duty; Mercy; Hope.

In products of the human mind, simplicity marks the end of a process of refining, while complexity marks a primitive stage. Michelangelo's definition of art as the purgation of superfluities suggests that the creative effort consists largely in the elimination of that which complicates and confuses a pattern

There is a certain majesty in simplicity which is far above all the quaintness of wit.

A refined simplicity is the characteristic of all high bred deportment, in every country.

Sin

Few love to hear the sins they love to act.

All sin tends to be addictive, and the terminal point of addiction is what is called damnation.

With love for mankind and hatred of sins. [Often quoted as 'Love the sinner but hate the sin.']

(Cum dilectione hominum et odio vitiorum.)

"Sins," he said. "Well, what did he say about sin?"

"He was against it."

As creeping ivy clings to wood or stone,
And hides the ruin that it feeds upon,
So sophistry, cleaves close to, and protects
Sin's rotten trunk, concealing its defects.

You think sin in the beginning full sweet,
Which in the end causeth the soul to weep,
When the body lieth in clay.

Old sins cast long shadows.

Sins become more subtle as you grow older. You commit sins of despair rather than lust.

If Jupiter were to hurl a thunderbolt as often as men sin, he would soon have no thunderbolts left to hurl.

Other men's sins are before our eyes; our own are behind our back.

We sin from two causes: either from not seeing what we ought to do, or from not doing what we see ought to be done.

Indeed, sometimes I do repent
And pardon do obtain,
But yet, alas, incontinent,
I fall to sin again.

More and greater sins are committed when people are alone than when they are in society. In solitary places the Devil has opportunity to mislead people. But whosoever is in honest company is ashamed to sin, or at least has no occasion for it.

He that falls into sin is a man; that grieves at it, is a saint; that boasteth of it, is a devil.

Sin pulled angels out of Heaven, pulls men down to Hell, and overthroweth kingdoms.

The sin lieth in the scandal.

Sins are indispensable to every society organized on an ecclesiastical basis; they are the only reliable weapons of power; the priest lives upon sins; it is necessary to him that there be "sinning."

Sincerity

A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.

The shocking truth is that, while insincerity may be fatal to good writing, sincerity, of itself, never taught anyone to write well. It is a moral virtue, not a literary talent.

Sincerity is an openness of heart; we find it in very few people; what we usually see is only an artful dissimulation to win the confidence of others. (La sincérité est une ouverture de coeur. On la trouve en fort peu de gens; et celle que l'on voit d'ordinaire n'est qu'une fine dissimulation pour attirer la confiance des autres.)

The value of an idea has nothing whatever to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it.

Singing

The singing of a man cast away on a desolate island, might be as appropriately considered an evidence of his contentment and happiness, as the singing of a slave. Sorrow and desolation have their songs, as well as joy and peace. Slaves sing more to make themselves happy, than to express their happiness.

The exercises of singing is delightful to nature, and good to preserve the health of man. It doth strengthen all parts of the breast, and doth open the pipes.

Singularity

Singularity is almost invariably a clue. The more featureless and commonplace a crime is, the more difficult is it to bring it home.

Sinner

Every one of us is a sinner. We are men, not gods.

Sir Isaac Newton

Nature and Nature’s laws lay hid in night: God said, Let Newton be! and all was light.

I am persuaded that, had Sir Isaac Newton applied to poetry, he would have made a very fine epic poem.

Sister

Never praise a sister to a sister, in the hope of your compliments reaching the proper ears, and so preparing the way for you later on. Sisters are women first, and sisters afterwards; and you will find that you do yourself harm.

Never praise a sister to a sister, in the hope of your compliments reaching the proper ears.

Sixty

What tutor shall we find for a child of sixty years old?

After a man passes sixty, his mischief is mainly in his head.

Skeptic

At the age of five I had become a skeptic and began to sense that any happiness that came my way might be the prelude to some grim cosmic joke.

I am too much of a sceptic to deny the possibility of anything.

A skeptic has no notion of conscience, no relish for virtue, nor is under any moral restraints from hope or fear. Such a one has nothing to do but to consult his ease, and gratify his vanity, and fill his pocket.

Hume, and other skeptical innovators, are vain men, and will gratify themselves at any expense. Truth will not afford sufficient food for their vanity, so they have betaken themselves to error. Truth is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.

Skepticism

Skepticism, like chastity, should not be relinquished too readily.

The improver of natural knowledge absolutely refuses to acknowledge authority, as such. For him, skepticism is the highest of duties, blind faith the one unpardonable sin.

With most people, doubt about one thing is simply blind belief in another.

Skepticism means, not intellectual doubt alone, but moral doubt.

While it is the summit of human wisdom to learn the limit of our faculties, it may be wise to recollect that we have no more right to make denials than to put forth affirmatives about what lies beyond that limit.

Skill

Whatever is done skilfully appears to be done with ease.

Sky

The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.

It is remarkable how few people seem to derive any pleasure from the beauty of the sky.

Slander

Slander injures three: the slanderer, the person who hears the slander, and the person slandered.

Slander rends in pieces the very heart and vital. parts of charity: it makes an evil man party, and witness, and judge, and executioner of the innocent.

Whoever robs a woman of her reputation despoils a poor defenseless creature of all that makes her valuable, turns her beauty into loathsomeness, and leaves her friendless, abandoned and undone.

Slang

Slang is a language that rolls up its sleeves, spits on its hands and goes to work.

Slave

I am tired of ruling over slaves.

Slave-trade

It is to be hoped that by expressing a national disapprobation of this trade we may destroy it, and make ourselves free from reproaches, and our posterity from the imbecility ever attendant on a country filled with slaves.

Slavery

Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils.

When … you have succeeded in dehumanizing the Negro; when you have put him down and made it forever impossible for him to be but as the beasts of the field; when you have extinguished his soul and placed him where the ray of hope is blown out in darkness like that which broods over the spirits of the damned, are you quite sure that the demon you have roused will not turn and rend you?

Slavery they can have anywhere. It is a weed that grows in every soil.

Slavery is now no where more patiently endured, than in countries once inhabited by the zealots of liberty.

It must be agreed that in most ages many countries have had part of their inhabitants in a state of slavery; yet it may be doubted whether slavery can ever be supposed the natural condition of man. It is impossible not to conceive that men in their original state were equal; and very difficult to imagine how one would be subjected to another but by violent compulsion. An individual may, indeed, forfeit his liberty by a crime; but he cannot by that crime forfeit the liberty of his children.

That execrable sum of all villainies, commonly called the Slave Trade.

I have always thought that all men should be free; but if any should be slaves, it should be first those who desire it for themselves, and secondly those who desire it for others. Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.

No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.

We have the wolf by the ears; and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.

Slavery is as ancient as war, and war as human nature.

I never mean, unless some particular circumstance should compel me to it, to possess another slave by purchase, it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery in this country may be abolished by law.

If you put a chain around the neck of a slave, the other end fastens itself around your own.

If the Negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me that "all men are created equal," and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man's making a slave of another.

This is a world of compensations, and he who would be no slave must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves, and, under a just God, they cannot long retain it.

By the law of slavery, man, created in the image of God, is divested of the human character, and declared to be a mere chattel.

If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.

I never knew a man who wished himself to be a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself.

I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.

Sleep

Shake off this downy sleep, death’s counterfeit.

Whilst Adam slept, Eve from his side arose:
Strange his first sleep should be his last repose.

Sleep is sweet to the labouring man.

He that would thrive
Must rise at five;
He that hath thriven
May lie till seven.

In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.

Some say that gleams of a remoter world
Visit the soul in sleep—that death is slumber,
And that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber
Of those who wake and live.

Untroubled night they say gives counsell best.

Up, lad: when the journey's over
There'll be time enough to sleep.

I never sleep ‘cause sleep is the cousin of death.

Alas, what pleasure can two lovers find in sleep?

Six hours sleep for a man, seven for a woman, and eight for a fool.

What is sleep but the image of cold death?

O sleep, thou ape of death!

Immoderate sleep is rust to the soul.

Sleep's but a short death; death's but a longer sleep.

If you sleep till noon you have no right to complain that the days are short.

Thou hast been called, O sleep! the friend of woe;
But 'tis the happy who have called thee so.

There is only one thing people like that is good for them: a good night's sleep.

The slothful man is the beggar's brother.

Sloth

Diligence overcomes Difficulties, Sloth makes them.

Almost every occupation, however inconvenient or formidable, is happier and safer than a life of sloth.

I am overcome by my own amazing sloth … Can you please forgive me and believe that it is really because I want to do something well that I don't do it at all?

Thus Belial with words clothed in reason's garb
Counselled ignoble ease, and peaceful sloth,
Not peace.

We make a pretext of difficulty to excuse our sloth.

Small

Small minds are hurt by the smallest things. (Les petits esprits sont blessés des plus petites choses.)

Smoking

I have made it a rule never to smoke more than one cigar at a time.

To cease smoking is the easiest thing I ever did. I ought to know because I've done it a thousand times.

A custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the lungs, and in the black, stinking fume thereof, nearest resembling the horrible Stygian smoke of the pit that is bottomless.

Snail

How ingenious an animal is a snail. When it encounters a bad neighbor it takes up its house and moves away.

Sober

And he that will go to bed sober,
Falls with the leaf still in October.

No verse can give pleasure for long, nor last, that is written by drinkers of water.

(Nulla placere diu nec vivere carmina possunt
Quae scribuntur aquae potoribus.)

Sobriety

The gods love the sober-minded.

Soccer

The nice aspect about football is that, if things go wrong, it's the manager who gets the blame.

To say that these men paid their shillings to watch twenty-two hirelings kick a ball is merely to say that a violin is wood and catgut, that Hamlet is so much paper and ink. For a shilling the Bruddersford United AFC offered you Conflict and Art.

Social Darwinism

[Social Darwinism] is the most influential misconception in history, since it produced the Marxism of Capital, the imperialism of Joe Chamberlain, and the racialism of Adolf Hitler.

Darwin's notion of the survival of the fittest was a key element both in the Marxist concept of class warfare and of the racial philosophies which shaped Hitlerism.

Social Engineering

Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good. In area after area—crime, education, housing, race relations—the situation has gotten worse after the bright new theories were put into operation. The amazing thing is that this history of failure and disaster has neither discouraged the social engineers nor discredited them.

My point is that you cannot force social change at a speed that it cannot go. Social change is evolutionary, not revolutionary. Deep social change takes time.

Social engineering has been the salient delusion and the greatest curse of the modern age.

Social engineering is the creation of millenarian intellectuals who believe they can refashion the universe by the light of their unaided reason.

[The man of system] seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board.

Social Justice

I am certain, however, that nothing has done so much to destroy the juridical safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice.

Social Science

If any student of social science comes to appreciate the case of the Forgotten Man, he will become an unflinching advocate of strict scientific thinking in sociology, and a hard-hearted skeptic as regards any scheme of social amelioration. He will always want to know, Who and where is the Forgotten Man in this case, who will have to pay for it all?

Social Security

I say we scrap the current [Social Security] system and replace it with a system wherein you add your name to the bottom of a list, and the you send some money to the person at the top of the list, and then you … Oh, wait that IS our current system.

Social Security is a combination of a bad tax system with a bad way of distributing welfare.

The difference between Social Security and earlier arrangements is that Social Security is compulsory and impersonal—earlier arrangements were voluntary and personal. Moral responsibility is an individual matter, not a social matter. Children helped their parents out of love or duty. They now contribute to the support of someone else’s parents out of compulsion and fear. The earlier transfers strengthened the bonds of the family; the compulsory transfers weaken them.

Socialism

To cure the British disease with socialism was like trying to cure leukemia with leeches.

Marxian Socialism must always remain a portent to the historians of Opinion—how a doctrine so illogical and so dull can have exercised so powerful and enduring an influence over the minds of men, and, through them, the events of history.

[In the Soviet Union,] they pretend to pay us and we pretend to work.

Give people plenty and security, and they will fall into spiritual torpor.

The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples' money.

[Socialists claim] that we reject fraternity, solidarity, organization, and association; and they brand us with the name of individualists. We can assure them that what we repudiate is not natural organization, but forced organization. It is not free association, but the forms of association that they would impose upon us. It is not spontaneous fraternity, but legal fraternity. It is not providential solidarity, but artificial solidarity, which is only an unjust displacement of responsibility. Socialism … confounds Government and society.

Socialism is the anti-Semitism of intellectuals.

The chief difference between free capitalism and State socialism seems to be this: that under the former a man pursues his own advantage openly, frankly and honestly, whereas under the latter he does so hypocritically and under false pretenses.

Let them [Socialists] abandon the utter fallacy, the grotesque, erroneous, fatal blunder of believing that by limiting the enterprise of man, by riveting the shackles of a false equality … they will increase the well-being of the world.

There can be no doubt that Socialism is inseparably interwoven with Totalitarianism and the abject worship of the State. It is not alone that property, in all its form, is struck at, but that liberty, in all its form, is challenged by the fundamental conceptions of Socialism.

You may try to destroy wealth, and find that all you have done is to increase poverty.

Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy.

[A] society which is socialist cannot also be democratic, in the sense of guaranteeing individual freedom.

Spending by government currently amounts to about 45 percent of national income. By that test, government owns 45 percent of the means of production that produce the national income. The U.S. is now 45 percent socialist.

After the fall of communism, everybody in the world agreed that socialism was a failure. Everybody in the world, more or less, agreed that capitalism was a success. And every capitalist country in the world apparently deduced from that what the West needed was more socialism.

We are a poor country and we opted for socialist policies, but to build a socialist society you have to have a developed society.

To the ordinary working man, the sort you would meet in any pub on Saturday night, Socialism does not mean much more than better wages and shorter hours and nobody bossing you about.

Slavery comes to life again: the state an assemblage of slaves without personal liberty—that is Socialism.

All Socialism involves slavery.

Socialist

Among our Socialist opponents there is great confusion. Some of them regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Only a handful see it for what it really is—the strong and willing horse that pulls the whole cart along.

The typical Socialist is … a prim little man with a white-collar job, usually a secret teetotaller and often with vegetarian leanings, with a history of Nonconformity behind him, and, above all, with a social position which he has no intention of forfeiting.

Socialists, Communists, and Nihilists strive to uproot the foundations of civilized society.

Society

Society in its full sense … is never an entity separable from the individuals who compose it.

There is no such thing as society: there are individual men and women, and there are families.

But a society that has nothing to die for has nothing to live for.

To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father's has acquires too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily7 the first principle of association—'the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.'

The form was still the same, but the animating health and vigor were fled.

Stop chasing [Facebook] likes and start doing more likable things.

Society cannot subsist but by the power, first of making laws, and then of enforcing them.

'Tis in cells and corners that the wicked wretches, the monks and nuns, lead shameful lives. But openly, and among people, a man must live decently and honestly.

Society is no comfort
To one not sociable.

He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.

Every state of society is as luxurious as it can be. Men always take the best they can get.

The social state is at once so natural, so necessary, and so habitual to man, that … he never conceives himself otherwise than as a member of a body.

The prosperity of a people is proportionate to the number of hands and minds usefully employed. To the community, sedition is a fever, corruption is a gangrene, and idleness an atrophy. Whatever body, and whatever society, wastes more than it acquires, must gradually decay; and every being that continues to be fed, and ceases to labour, takes away something from the publick stock.

Society doesn't have values. People have values.

The most dangerous creation of any society is that man who has nothing to lose.

Social stability is the product of an equilibrium between a vigorous majority and violent minorities.

In society the man of sense always yields first. Thus the wisest are led by the most foolish and bizarre. We study their foibles, their humors and their caprices. We adapt ourselves to them, and avoid knocking our heads against them.

As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it [society] becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.

There is
One great society alone on earth:
The noble living and the noble dead.

It is not from top to bottom that societies die; it is from bottom to top.

Society differs from nature in having a definite moral object.

Society has come to be man's dearest possession. Pure air is good, but no one wants to breathe it alone. Independence is good, but isolation is too heavy a price to pay for it.

Society is a madhouse whose wardens are the officials and police.

Socrates

The character of Socrates does not rise upon me. The more I read about him, the less I wonder that they poisoned him.

Socratic Method

The Socratic manner is not a game at which two can play.

Soldier

The patient and active virtues of a soldier are insensibly nursed in the habits and discipline of a pastoral life.

For a soldier I listed [enlisted], to grow great in fame,
And be shot at for sixpence a-day.

Old soldiers never die,
They simply fade away.

Soldiers fight and die to advance the wealth and luxury of the great, and they are called masters of the world without having a sod to call their own.

I hate that heady and adventurous crew
That by death only seek to get a living,
Make scars their beauty and count loss of limbs
The commendation of a proper man.

I know not how, but martial men are given to love. I think it is, but as they are given to wine; for perils commonly ask to be paid in pleasures.

If my soldiers were to begin to think, not one would remain in the ranks.

In order to have good soldiers, a nation must always be at war.

A modern general has said that the best troops would be as follows: an Irishman half drunk, a Scotchman half starved, and an Englishman with his belly full.

I don't know what effect these men will have on the enemy, but, by God, they frighten me.

The blood of the soldier makes the glory of the general.

A soldier has a hard life, and but little consideration.

A clergyman, or a doctor, or a lawyer feels himself no whit disgraced if he reaches the end of his worldly labors without special note or honor. But to a soldier or a sailor such indifference to his merit is wormwood. It is the bane of the profession. Nine men out of ten who go into it must live discontented, and die disappointed.

I know that there must be soldiers; but as to every separate soldier I regret that he should be one of them.

Soldiers ought to fear their general more than their enemy.

Solitary

A solitary man is either a brute or an angel.

Solitude

Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all—
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life's gall.

How did you enjoy yourself with these people? Answer: very much, almost as much as I do when alone.

Man may indeed preserve his existence in solitude, but can enjoy it only in society.

When Eve, in paradise, walked by herself, the devil deceived her. In solitary places are committed murders, robberies, adulteries, etc.; for in solitude the devil has place and occasion to mislead people.

He forgot, in the vehemence of desire, that solitude and quiet owe their pleasures to those miseries (vexations), which he was so studious to obviate.

I feel like one,
Who treads alone
Some banquet hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled,
Whose garlands dead,
And all but he departed.

There are some days when solitude, for a person of my age, is an intoxicating wine that makes you drunk with freedom, other days when it’s a bitter tonic, and still other days when it’s a poison that makes you bang your head on the wall.

It's so wonderful to shut out the world for a few hours. Rest, peace, silence, solitude. You would think they were luxuries that only the very rich can afford, and yet they cost nothing. Strange that they should be so hard to come by.

In solitude
What happiness? who can enjoy alone,
Or all enjoying, what contentment find?

Little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth. For a crowd is not company; and faces are but a gallery of pictures; and talk but a tinkling cymbal where there is no love.

If a man be a coxcomb solitude is his best school, and if he be a fool it is his best sanctuary.

The happiest of all lives is a busy solitude.

Solitude excludes pleasure, and does not always secure peace.

I could bear sickness better if I were relieved from solitude.

Solitude should teach us how to die.

I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.

The thoughtful soul to solitude retires.

[Solitude is] a good place to visit but a poor place to stay.

Solvency

Solvency is entirely a matter of temperament and not of income.

Somalia

Somalia is so bad that making a mess improves the place.

Son

He who causes his father's heart to bleed
Will one day have a son to avenge the deed.

Beat your son every day; you may not know why, but he will.

A son can bear with equanimity the loss of his father, but the loss of his inheritance may drive him to despair.

Son-in-law

He who is fortunate in a son-in-law finds a son; he who is unfortunate loses a daughter.

Song

The most despairing songs are the loveliest of all, I know immortal ones composed only of tears.

Let me make the songs of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws.

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

I cannot sing the old songs sang long years ago,
For heart and voice would fail me, and foolish tears would flow.

Sonnet

A sonnet is a moment’s monument—
Memorial from the soul’s eternity
To one dead deathless hour.

Sorrow

But for sorrow there is no remedy provided by nature; it is often occasioned by accidents irreparable, and dwells upon objects that have lost or changed their existence; it requires what it cannot hope, that the laws of the universe should be repealed; that the dead should return, or the past should be recalled.

Sorrow is a kind of rust of the soul, which every new idea contributes in its passage to scour away. It is the putrefaction of stagnant life, and is remedied by exercise and motion.

I have much need of entertainment, spiritless, infirm, sleepless, and solitary, looking back with sorrow and forward with terrour.

There is no greater sorrow
Than to be mindful of the happy time
In misery.

Sorrow is properly that state of the mind in which our desires are fixed upon the past, without looking forward to the future, an incessant wish that something were otherwise than it has been, a tormenting and harassing want of some enjoyment or possession which we have lost, and which no endeavours can possibly regain.

An habitual sadness seizes upon the soul …

The safe and general antidote against sorrow is employment.

How oft in vain the son of Theseus said,
The stormy sorrows be with patience laid;
Nor are thy fortunes to be wept alone;
Weigh others’ woes, and learn to bear thy own.

(Quoties flenti Theseius heros
Siste modum, dixit, neque enim fortuna querenda
Sola tua est, similes aliorum respice casus,
Mitius ista feres.)

One acquainted with pain understands how cruel a traveling companion sorrow is for someone with few friends at his side.

Pleasure of love lasts only a moment, sorrow of love lasts all life long.

And if I laugh at any mortal thing,
'Tis that I may not weep.

How small and selfish is sorrow. But it bangs one about until one is senseless.

The truth is that it is not the sins of the fathers that descend unto the third generation, but the sorrows of the mothers.

It is wrong to sorrow without ceasing.

It is good to grow wise by sorrow.

It is folly to tear one's hair in sorrow, as if grief could be assuaged by baldness.

When sorrow is asleep wake it not.

Sorrow is a disease in which every patient must treat himself.

Our joys as winged dreams do fly,
Why then should sorrow last?

The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal, every other affliction to forget; but this wound we consider it a duty to keep open, this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude.

Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and oftentimes we call a man cold when he is only sad.

O sorrow, wilt thou live with me
No casual mistress, but a wife,
My bosom-friend and half of life?

Great sorrows are silent.

When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions.

Soul

Coddle the body and you harm the soul.

The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mold …. The same reason that makes us bicker with a neighbor creates a war between princes.

Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me?

What can you ever really know of other people's souls—of their temptations, their opportunities, their struggles? One soul in the whole creation you do know: and it is the only one whose fate is placed in your hands. If there is a God, you are, in a sense, alone with Him.

You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.

I forget who it was that recommended men for their soul's good to do each day two things they disliked: it was a wise man, and it is a precept that I have followed scrupulously; for every day I have got up and I have gone to bed.

Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not a single one of the many sciences in which we surpass the Blackfoot Indians throws the smallest light on the state of the soul after the animal life is extinct.

Hang there like fruit, my soul,
Till the tree die.

Source

If there is but little water in the stream, it is the fault, not of the channel, but of the source.

Sovereign

Such was the unhappy condition of the Roman emperors, that, whatever might be their conduct, their fate was commonly the same. A life of pleasure or virtue, of severity or mildness, of indolence or glory, alike led to an untimely grave; and almost every reign is closed by the same disgusting repetition of treason and murder.

Alas! the republic has lost a useful servant, and the rashness of an hour has destroyed the services of many years. You know not, the misery of sovereign power; a sword is perpetually suspended over our head. We dread our very guards, we distrust our companions. The choice of action or of repose is no longer in our disposition, nor is there any age, or character, or conduct, that can protect us from the censure of envy. In thus exalting me to the throne, you have doomed me to a life of cares, and to an untimely fate.

[If] the exercise of justice is the most important duty, the indulgence of mercy is the most exquisite pleasure, of a sovereign.

The usual disease of princes, grasping covetousness, had made them suspicious and quarrelsome neighbors.

Pyrrhus revived this image [of Alexander the Great] by the fire and vigor of his movements in the field of battle; the rest only mimicked the hero, whose title they assumed, in their demeanor, and in the trappings and state of royalty.

[The] day of his inauguration was the last day of his happiness.

The Romans derided [Marius's] indolence; they soon bewailed his activity.

For my own part, I adhere to the maxim of antiquity, that the throne is a glorious sepulchre.

To maintain the harmony of authority and obedience, to chastise the proud, to protect the weak, to reward the deserving, to banish vice and idleness from his dominions, to secure the traveller and merchant, to restrain the depredations of the soldier, to cherish the labors of the husbandman, to encourage industry and learning, and, by an equal and moderate assessment, to increase the revenue, without increasing the taxes, are indeed the duties of a prince.

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

To know nor faith, nor love nor law; to be
Omnipotent but friendless is to reign.

Soviet Union

These were people who believed everything about the Soviet Union was perfect, but they were bringing their own toilet paper.

Space

Space isn't remote at all. It's only an hour's drive away if your car could go straight upwards.

Space … is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.

Spain

Whoever wishes to be well acquainted with the morbid anatomy of governments, whoever wishes to know how great states may be made feeble and wretched, should study the history of Spain.

Spaniard

Honor to a Spaniard, no matter how dishonest, is as real a thing as water, wine, or olive oil. There is honor among pickpockets and honor among whores. It is simply that the standards differ.

We Spaniards have no morals. One cannot live without morality! But we do live without it.

Sparrow

Once upon a time, there was a non-conforming sparrow who decided not to fly south for the winter. However, soon after the weather turned cold, the sparrow changed his mind and reluctantly started to fly south. After a short time, ice began to form his on his wings and he fell to earth in a barnyard almost frozen. A cow passed by and crapped on this little bird and the sparrow thought it was the end, but the manure warmed him and defrosted his wings. Warm and happy the little sparrow began to sing. Just then, a large Tom cat came by and, hearing the chirping, investigated the sounds. As Old Tom cleared away the manure, he found the chirping bird and promptly ate him.

There are three morals to this story:

Everyone who shits on you is not necessarily your enemy.
Everyone who gets you out of shit is not necessarily your friend.
If you are warm and happy in a pile of shit, keep your mouth shut.

Speaking

Hear much; speak little.

When you have nothing to say, say nothing.

He cannot speak well that cannot hold his tongue.

Special Interest

The essence of the problem is that once we begin to allow exceptions for special interests, we move from a system of private arrangements to a political system where everyone’s freedom is limited and government becomes a matter of trying to balance those interests. Nobody really wins under these terms.

Specialist

No man can be a pure specialist without being in the strict sense an idiot.

Species

It is the preservation of the species, not of individuals, which appears to be the design of Deity throughout the whole of nature.

Speech

It is a great misfortune neither to have enough wit to talk well nor enough judgment to be silent.

10 persons who speak make more noise than 10,000 who are silent.

Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.

Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing.

The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech.

I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.

It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.

Let thy speech be better than silence, or be silent.

[He] possessed that vehemence of speech, which seldom fails to impart the persuasion of the soul.

Once a word has been allowed to escape, it cannot be recalled.

Most men with any convictions in a confused and complicated age have had the almost uncanny sensation of shouting at people that a mad dog is loose or the house is on fire, to be met merely with puzzled and painfully respectful expressions, as if the remark were a learned citation in Greek or Hebrew.

Do not praise anyone before he speaks, for this is the way people are tested.

More have repented speech then silence.

Surely human affairs would be far happier if the power in men to be silent were the same as that to speak. But experience more than sufficiently teaches that men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues.

The true use of speech is not so much to express our wants as to conceal them.

Speech is civilization itself. The word, even the most contradictory word, preserves contact—it is silence which isolates.

Speech is the mirror of the soul; as a man speaks, so he is.

Speech was given to the ordinary sort of men whereby to communicate their mind, but to wise men whereby to conceal it.

Write with the learned, but speak [or pronounce] with the vulgar.

I pay attention only to what people say. I have little interest in what they think.

Spelling

Let all the foreign tongues alone
Till you can spell and read your own.

I don't see any use in spelling a word right, and never did. I mean I don't see any use in having a uniform and arbitrary way of spelling words. We might as well make all our clothes alike and cook all dishes alike.

Spendthrift

In squandering wealth was his peculiar art:
Nothing went unrewarded, but desert.
Beggared by fools, whom still he found too late:
He had his jest, and they had his estate.

Spirit

Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you do call for them?

Where men are forbidden to honor a king they honor millionaires, athletes, or film-stars instead—even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served—deny it food and it will gobble poison.

Spite

I am ignorant, sir, of your motives or provocations; I only know, that you have acted like a man who cuts off his right hand with his left.

Spitting

A good sailor spits to leeward.

Sport

As I emphatically disbelieve in seeing Harvard or any other college turn out mollycoddles instead of vigorous men, I may add that I do not in the least object to a sport because it is rough.

Sports

Some [soccer] players suffer four or five fatal injuries per game. That's how tough they are.

Rockne wanted nothing but "bad losers." Good losers get into the habit of losing.

It's never just a game when you're winning.

In America, it is sport that is the opiate of the masses.

Sportsmanship

What I admire most in any man is a serene spirit, a steady freedom from moral indignation, and all-embracing tolerance—in brief, what is commonly called sportsmanship.

Spouse

Spouse, n. Someone who'll stand by you through all the trouble you wouldn't have had if you'd stayed single.

I don't like those men who claim that their wife is their best friend. I think spouses should tolerate each other and occasionally have sex.

I don't like those men who claim that their wife is their best friend. My wife doesn't even crack the top 25.

Spring

The variegated verdure of the fields and woods, the succession of grateful odours, the voice of pleasure pouring out its notes on every side, with the gladness apparently conceived by every animal, from the growth of his food, and the clemency of the weather, throw over the whole earth an air of gaiety, significantly expressed by the smile of nature.

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If winter comes, can spring be far behind?

In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.

In those vernal seasons of the year, when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against nature not to go out, and see her riches, and partake in her rejoicing with heaven and earth.

When a poet mentions the Spring we know that the zephyrs are about to whisper, that the groves are to recover their verdure, the linnets to warble forth their notes of love, and the flocks and herds to frisk over vales painted with flowers.

Spring makes everything young again, save man.

Spy

What do you think spies are: priests, saints, and martyrs? They’re a squalid procession of vain fools, traitors too, yes; pansies, sadists and drunkards, people who play cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten lives. Do you think they sit like monks in London balancing rights and wrongs?

St. Jerom

The stories of Paul, Hilarion, and Malchus, by [St. Jerom], are admirably told: and the only defect of these pleasing compositions is the want of truth and common sense.

St. Peter

It is a thing not to be believed that St Peter ever was at Rome.

Stability

There is this special biologist word we use for 'stable'. It is 'dead'.

Stage

The mimes are our instructors in infamy, and each spectator delights to see repeated on the stage what he has done at home, or to hear what he may do on his return. Adultery is learnt while it is seen.

Stalinism

Stanley Baldwin

It was the voice of the new England: uncomfortable with greatness, wary of excellence, indifferent to challenges abroad … an appropriate debut for this evangelist of political mediocrity.

Star

The stars are golden fruit upon a tree
All out of reach.

Stardom

I don't want to be a star—most of the ones I know are too unhappy.

State

A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.

For every state, from the smallest to the largest, the principle of enlargement is the fundamental law of life.

The body politic, like the human body, begins to die from its birth, and bears in itself the causes of its destruction.

States, like men, have their growth, their manhood, their decrepitude, their decay.

A State which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes, will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished.

States are as the men are; they grow out of human characters.

States are great engines moving slowly.

Honest mediocrity is the most suitable condition for states; riches lead to softness and corruption.

A thousand years scarce serve to form a state;
An hour may lay it in the dust.

The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual crime.

The state is force incarnate. Worse, it is the silly parading of force. It never seeks to prevail by persuasion. Whenever it thrusts its finger into anything it does so in the most unfriendly way. Its essence is command and compulsion.

When all the fine phrases are stripped away, it appears that the state is only a group of men with human interests, passions, and desires, or, worse yet, the state is only an obscure clerk hidden in some corner of a governmental bureau. In either case the assumption of superhuman wisdom and virtue is proved false.

A state from which religion is banished can never be well governed.

Wherever there is a force in human society the problem is to use it and regulate it; to get the use and prevent the abuse of it. The state is no exception; on the contrary, it is the chief illustration.

Statesman

The first requirement of a statesman is that he be dull.

Woe to the statesman who does not find a reason for war that will hold water when the war is over.

Statist

The end-game for statists is very obvious. If you expand the bureaucratic class and you expand the dependent class, you can put together a permanent electoral majority.

Statistics

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable.

He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp posts for support rather than illumination.

If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment.

Steele, Richard

A rake among scholars, and a scholar among rakes.

Stepmother

A good stepmother is as rare as a white raven.

Stone

We read a good deal about stones in the Scriptures. Monument & stumps of the memorials are set up of stones; men are stoned to death; the figurative seed falls in stony places; and no wonder that stones should so largely figure in the Bible. Judea is one accumulation of stones.

Story

Never tell a story because it is true: tell it because it is a good story.

No story comes from nowhere; new stories are born from old—it is the new combinations that make them new.

Stranger

The separation of the Arabs from the rest of mankind has accustomed them to confound the ideas of stranger and enemy.

Listen up, if someone is being nice to you, and you don't know them, run away. No one is nice to you just to be nice to you, and if they are, well, they can go take their pleasant ass somewhere else.

We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know, because they have never deceived us.

Whoever you are—I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.

Strategy

Short-term thinking drives out long-term strategy.

Straw Man

He raises phantoms of absurdity, and then drives them away. He cures diseases that were never felt.

Strength

The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.

Too often the strong, silent man is silent only because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent.

Struggle

The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle …. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.

The struggle to reach the top is itself enough to fulfill the heart of man. One must believe that Sisyphus is happy.

I often compare myself to a poor old woman, who, having no bellows, lays herself down on her heart, and with her mouth endeavours to blow up into a faint blaze a little handful of sticks, half green, half dry, in order to warm a mess of pottage, that, after all her pains, hardly keeps life and soul together.

Study

This, she says, is the consequence of female study: girls grow too wise to be advised, and too stubborn to be commanded.

To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules is the humor [folly] of a scholar.

Stupidity

Never attribute to malice that which can adequately be explained by stupidity.

A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.

Remember, when you are dead, you do not know you are dead. It is painful only for others. The same applies when you are stupid. (La mort, c'est un peu comme la connerie. Le mort, lui, il ne sait pas qu'il est mort. Ce sont les autres qui sont tristes. Le con, c'est pareil.)

Sherry is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity, Sir, is not in Nature.

The trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed.

With stupidity the gods themselves struggle in vain. (Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.)

Style

Every thought can be expressed in a number of different ways: and style is the art of expressing a given thought in the most beautiful words and rhythms of words … thus by the power of style, what was nonsense becomes ineffably beautiful.

Sublime

From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step.

The sublime and the ridiculous are often so nearly related, that it is difficult to class them separately. One step above the sublime, makes the ridiculous; and one step above the ridiculous, makes the sublime again.

Subservience

Orders can be benign or malign, but the habit of obeying them can become ingrained.

Success

It is not enough to succeed, a friend must fail.

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.

Lose as if you like it; win as if you were used to it.

Success is a journey, not a destination.

Anybody can sympathize with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathize with a friend's success.

Eighty percent of success is showing up.

Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose.

It is sobering to consider that when Mozart was my age he had already been dead for a year.

Be nice to people on your way up because you'll meet 'em on your way down.

The world is divided into people who do things and people who get the credit. Try, if you can, to belong to the first class. There's far less competition.

It is difficult to soar like an eagle when you are surrounded by turkeys.

It matters not whether you win or lose: what matters is whether I win or lose.

There are two kinds of success: initial and ultimate. To act by half-measures, with a lack of conviction miscalled "caution," is to run the greatest risks and lose the prize.

In the real world, very smart people fail and mediocre people rise. Part of what makes people fail or succeed are skills that have nothing to do with IQ.

'Tis not in mortals to command success,
But we'll do more, Sempronius; we'll deserve it.

It is well known that a vital ingredient of success is not knowing that what you're attempting can't be done.

Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.

Success is relative: It is what we can make of the mess we have made of things.

Success depends on three things: who says it, what he says, how he says it; and of these three things, what he says is the least important.

The moral flabbiness born of the exclusive worship of the bitch-goddess SUCCESS. That—with the squalid cash interpretation put on the word success—is our national disease.

Now that I’ve grown old, I realize that for most of us it is not enough to have achieved personal success. One’s best friend must also have failed.

To succeed in the world we do everything we can to appear successful already. (Pour s'établir dans le monde, on fait tout ce que l'on peut pour y paraître établi.)

Success and Failure

The theory seems to be that so long as a man is a failure he is one of God's chillun, but that as soon as he has any luck he owes it to the Devil.

It's a good habit to trumpet your failures and be quiet about your successes.

The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant and kind. Failure makes people bitter and cruel.

Suffering

The sufferings that fate inflicts on us should be borne with patience, what enemies inflict with manly courage.

To live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering.

Great souls suffer in silence.

Life isn't finished for us yet! We're going to live! … Maybe, if we wait a little longer, we shall find out why we live, why we suffer.

If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.

Deep, unspeakable suffering may well be called a baptism, a regeneration, the initiation into a new state.

Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering.

It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.

Rulers have no authority from God to do mischief.

We learn resignation not by our own suffering, but by the suffering of others.

Suicide

When we have lost everything, including hope, life becomes a disgrace and death a duty.

Unhappy men! If you are thus weary of your lives, is it so difficult for you to find ropes and precipices?

The criminal penalties [for suicide] are the production of a later and darker age.

Yet the civilians have always respected the natural right of a citizen to dispose of his life.

If I had the use of my body I would throw it out of the window.

I don't like standing near the edge of a platform when an express train is passing through. I like to stand right back and if possible to get a pillar between me and the train. I don't like to stand by the side of a ship and look down into the water. A second's action would end everything. A few drops of desperation.

The gallows in my garden, people say,
Is new and neat and adequately tall.
I tie the noose on in a knowing way
As one that knots his necktie for a ball;
But just as all the neighbours—on the wall—
Are drawing a long breath to shout 'Hurray!'
The strangest whim has seized me … After all
I think I will not hang myself today.

The thought of suicide is a great consolation: by means of it one gets successfully through many a bad night.

Now, we know that life is only a stage to play the fool upon as long as the part amuses us. There was one more convenience lacking to modern comfort; a decent easy way to quit that stage; the back stairs to liberty; or, as I said this moment, Death’s private door. This … is supplied by the Suicide Club.

Dear World, I am leaving you because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck.

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.

Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

It's illegal to kill yourself in a quick and painless way, but if you do it slowly over a few decades—say by not exercising—that's called laziness, not suicide, and it's completely legal. You might even get credit for being jolly or get a job as a TV chef on a cable network.

We cannot tear out a single page of our life, but we can throw the book in the fire. (Nous ne pouvons arracher une seule page de notre vie, mais nous pouvons jeter le livre au feu.)

Sumptuary Law

It is the highest impertinence and presumption in kings and ministers to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expense, either by sumptuary laws or by prohibiting the importation of foreign luxuries. They are themselves always, and without any exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society.

Sunday

[Sunday] should be different from another day. People may walk, but not throw stones at birds. There may be relaxation, but there should be no levity.

Superficial

The writers who have undertaken the task of reconciling mankind to their present state, … frequently remind us that we judge too hastily of good and evil, that we view only the superfices of life, and determine of the whole by a very small part; and that in the condition of men it frequently happens, that grief and anxiety lie hid under the golden robes of prosperity, and the gloom of calamity is cheered by secret radiations of hope and comfort; as in the works of nature the bog is sometimes covered with flowers, and the mine concealed in the barren crags.

Superfluity

Whether we can afford it or no, we must have superfluities.

Superfluous

The superfluous is very necessary.

Superstition

A superstition is a premature explanation that overstays its time.

Fear has been the original parent of superstition, and every new calamity urges trembling mortals to deprecate the wrath of their invisible enemies.

Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.

Supervision

The ratio between supervisory and producing personnel is always highest where the intellectuals are in power. In a Communist country it takes half the population to supervise the other half.

Supper

For my part now, I consider supper as a turnpike through which one must pass, in order to get to bed.

Suppression

Everybody knows there is no fineness or accuracy of suppression; if you hold down one thing, you hold down the adjoining.

Surprise

Zounds! I was never so bethump'd with words
Since I first call'd my brother's father dad.

Surprises are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable.

Surroundings

There are animals that borrow their colour from the neighbouring body, and consequently vary their hue as they happen to change their place. In like manner it ought to be the endeavour of every man to derive his reflections from the objects about him; for it is to no purpose that he alters his position, if his attention continues fixed to the same point. The mind should be kept open to the access of every new idea, and so far disengaged from the predominance of particular thoughts, as easily to accommodate itself to occasional entertainment.

Survival

The fox knows many things—the hedgehog one big one.

Suspense

The suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.

Suspicion

As it is necessary not to invite robbery by supineness, so it is our duty not to suppress tenderness by suspicion; it is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

Cool Quotes - S

Sadness

Safety