Over 40,000 Famous Quotes Sorted By Topic and Author

There is no human reason why a child should not admire and emulate his teacher's ability to do sums, rather than the village bum's ability to whittle sticks and smoke cigarettes. The reason why the child does not is plain enough -- the bum has put himself on an equality with him and the teacher has not.

The authority of those who teach is often an obstacle to those who want to learn.

How is it that little children are so intelligent and men so stupid? It must be education that does it.

The advantage of a classical education is that it enables you to despise the wealth which it prevents you from achieving.

University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.

A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.

Truth must necessarily be stranger than fiction, for fiction is the creation of the human mind and therefore congenial to it.

If the radiance of a thousand sunsWere to burst at once into the skyThat would be like the splendor of the Mighty one --I am become Death,The shatterer of Worlds. - Bhagavad Gita.

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever!A farewell, and then forever!Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.Who shall say that Fortune grieves him,While the star of hope she leaves him?Me, nae cheerful twinkle lights me,Dark despair around benights me. - Ae Fond Kiss.

And He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. - Isaiah 2:4.

Accuse not nature, she hath done her part;Do thou but thine, and be not diffidentOf wisdom, she deserts thee not, if thouDismiss not her, when most thou needest her nigh,By attributing overmuch to thingsLess excellent, as thou thyself perceivest. - Paradise Lost.

What passing bells for these who die as cattle?Only the monstrous anger of the guns.Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattleCan patter out their hasty orisons. - Anthem for Doomed Youth.

If thou shouldst never see my face again,Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayerThan this world dreams of. - The Passing of Arthur.

I hold it true,what'er befall;I feel it, when I sorrow most;'Tis better to have loved and lostThan never to have loved at all. - In Memoriam.

Do not trust the horse, Trojans! Whatever it is, I fear the Greeks, even though they bring gifts. - Aeneid, The.

Poetry is an orphan of silence. The words never quite equal the experience behind them.

When a man can observe himself suffering and is able, later, to describe what he's gone through, it means he was born for literature.

A great literature is chiefly the product of inquiring minds in revolt against the immovable certainties of the nation.

All literature is political.

The poets did well to conjoin music and medicine, because the office of medicine is but to tune the curious harp of man's body.