A thing of beauty is a joy forever: its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness.
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,' - that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?
He ne'er is crowned with immortality Who fears to follow where airy voices lead.
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter.
Here lies one whose name was writ in water.
I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affections, and the truth of imagination.
I am in that temper that if I were under water I would scarcely kick to come to the top.
I have been astonished that men could die martyrs for religion - I have shuddered at it. I shudder no more - I could be martyred for my religion - Love is my religion - I could die for that.
I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks, your loveliness and the hour of my death. O that I could have possession of them both in the same minute.
I love you the more in that I believe you had liked me for my own sake and for nothing else.
I will give you a definition of a proud man: he is a man who has neither vanity nor wisdom one filled with hatreds cannot be vain, neither can he be wise.
I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest.
It appears to me that almost any man may like the spider spin from his own inwards his own airy citadel.
Land and sea, weakness and decline are great separators, but death is the great divorcer for ever.
Love is my religion - I could die for it.
Much have I traveled in the realms of gold, and many goodly states and kingdoms seen.
My imagination is a monastery and I am its monk.
Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced.
Now a soft kiss - Aye, by that kiss, I vow an endless bliss.
Philosophy will clip an angel's wings.
Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one's soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself, but with its subject.
Poetry should surprise by a fine excess and not by singularity, it should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.
Poetry should... should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance.
Praise or blame has but a momentary effect on the man whose love of beauty in the abstract makes him a severe critic on his own works.
Scenery is fine - but human nature is finer.
The excellency of every art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeable evaporate.
The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts.
The poetry of the earth is never dead.
The Public - a thing I cannot help looking upon as an enemy, and which I cannot address without feelings of hostility.
There is an electric fire in human nature tending to purify - so that among these human creatures there is continually some birth of new heroism. The pity is that we must wonder at it, as we should at finding a pearl in rubbish.
There is not a fiercer hell than the failure in a great object.
There is nothing stable in the world; uproar's your only music.
Though a quarrel in the streets is a thing to be hated, the energies displayed in it are fine; the commonest man shows a grace in his quarrel.
What the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth.
With a great poet the sense of Beauty overcomes every other consideration, or rather obliterates all consideration.
You are always new, The last of your kisses was ever the sweetest.
You speak of Lord Byron and me; there is this great difference between us. He describes what he sees I describe what I imagine. Mine is the hardest task.
Friday, April 9, 2010
Karl Marx
A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing. But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties.
A specter is haunting Europe - the specter of communism.
Anyone who knows anything of history knows that great social changes are impossible without feminine upheaval. Social progress can be measured exactly by the social position of the fair sex, the ugly ones included.
Art is always and everywhere the secret confession, and at the same time the immortal movement of its time.
Capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.
Capital is money, capital is commodities. By virtue of it being value, it has acquired the occult ability to add value to itself. It brings forth living offspring, or, at the least, lays golden eggs.
Capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the laborer, unless under compulsion from society.
Capitalist production, therefore, develops technology, and the combining together of various processes into a social whole, only by sapping the original sources of all wealth - the soil and the labourer.
Democracy is the road to socialism.
Experience praises the most happy the one who made the most people happy.
For the bureaucrat, the world is a mere object to be manipulated by him.
From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.
Greek philosophy seems to have met with something with which a good tragedy is not supposed to meet, namely, a dull ending.
History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.
History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.
I am not a Marxist.
In a higher phase of communist society... only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be fully left behind and society inscribe on its banners: from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.
In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality.
It is absolutely impossible to transcend the laws of nature. What can change in historically different circumstances is only the form in which these laws expose themselves.
It is not history which uses men as a means of achieving - as if it were an individual person - its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.
Landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed.
Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workingmen of all countries, unite!
Machines were, it may be said, the weapon employed by the capitalists to quell the revolt of specialized labor.
Medicine heals doubts as well as diseases.
Men's ideas are the most direct emanations of their material state.
Natural science will in time incorporate into itself the science of man, just as the science of man will incorporate into itself natural science: there will be one science.
Necessity is blind until it becomes conscious. Freedom is the consciousness of necessity.
Nothing can have value without being an object of utility.
On a level plain, simple mounds look like hills; and the insipid flatness of our present bourgeoisie is to be measured by the altitude of its great intellects.
Reason has always existed, but not always in a reasonable form.
Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand.
Religion is the opium of the masses.
Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
Revolutions are the locomotives of history.
Sell a man a fish, he eats for a day, teach a man how to fish, you ruin a wonderful business opportunity.
Social progress can be measured by the social position of the female sex.
Society does not consist of individuals but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand.
The country that is more developed industrially only shows, to the less developed, the image of its own future.
The development of civilization and industry in general has always shown itself so active in the destruction of forests that everything that has been done for their conservation and production is completely insignificant in comparison.
The English have all the material requisites for the revolution. What they lack is the spirit of generalization and revolutionary ardour.
The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion.
The history of all previous societies has been the history of class struggles.
The human being is in the most literal sense a political animal, not merely a gregarious animal, but an animal which can individuate itself only in the midst of society.
The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.
The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism.
The more the division of labor and the application of machinery extend, the more does competition extend among the workers, the more do their wages shrink together.
The only antidote to mental suffering is physical pain.
The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.
The product of mental labor - science - always stands far below its value, because the labor-time necessary to reproduce it has no relation at all to the labor-time required for its original production.
The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.
The rich will do anything for the poor but get off their backs.
The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.
The theory of Communism may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all private property.
The worker of the world has nothing to lose, but their chains, workers of the world unite.
The writer may very well serve a movement of history as its mouthpiece, but he cannot of course create it.
The writer must earn money in order to be able to live and to write, but he must by no means live and write for the purpose of making money.
There is a specter haunting Europe, the specter of Communism.
We should not say that one man's hour is worth another man's hour, but rather that one man during an hour is worth just as much as another man during an hour. Time is everything, man is nothing: he is at the most time's carcass.
While the miser is merely a capitalist gone mad, the capitalist is a rational miser.
Without doubt, machinery has greatly increased the number of well-to-do idlers.
Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains.
A specter is haunting Europe - the specter of communism.
Anyone who knows anything of history knows that great social changes are impossible without feminine upheaval. Social progress can be measured exactly by the social position of the fair sex, the ugly ones included.
Art is always and everywhere the secret confession, and at the same time the immortal movement of its time.
Capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks.
Capital is money, capital is commodities. By virtue of it being value, it has acquired the occult ability to add value to itself. It brings forth living offspring, or, at the least, lays golden eggs.
Capital is reckless of the health or length of life of the laborer, unless under compulsion from society.
Capitalist production, therefore, develops technology, and the combining together of various processes into a social whole, only by sapping the original sources of all wealth - the soil and the labourer.
Democracy is the road to socialism.
Experience praises the most happy the one who made the most people happy.
For the bureaucrat, the world is a mere object to be manipulated by him.
From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.
Greek philosophy seems to have met with something with which a good tragedy is not supposed to meet, namely, a dull ending.
History does nothing; it does not possess immense riches, it does not fight battles. It is men, real, living, who do all this.
History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.
I am not a Marxist.
In a higher phase of communist society... only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be fully left behind and society inscribe on its banners: from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.
In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality.
It is absolutely impossible to transcend the laws of nature. What can change in historically different circumstances is only the form in which these laws expose themselves.
It is not history which uses men as a means of achieving - as if it were an individual person - its own ends. History is nothing but the activity of men in pursuit of their ends.
Landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed.
Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workingmen of all countries, unite!
Machines were, it may be said, the weapon employed by the capitalists to quell the revolt of specialized labor.
Medicine heals doubts as well as diseases.
Men's ideas are the most direct emanations of their material state.
Natural science will in time incorporate into itself the science of man, just as the science of man will incorporate into itself natural science: there will be one science.
Necessity is blind until it becomes conscious. Freedom is the consciousness of necessity.
Nothing can have value without being an object of utility.
On a level plain, simple mounds look like hills; and the insipid flatness of our present bourgeoisie is to be measured by the altitude of its great intellects.
Reason has always existed, but not always in a reasonable form.
Religion is the impotence of the human mind to deal with occurrences it cannot understand.
Religion is the opium of the masses.
Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
Revolutions are the locomotives of history.
Sell a man a fish, he eats for a day, teach a man how to fish, you ruin a wonderful business opportunity.
Social progress can be measured by the social position of the female sex.
Society does not consist of individuals but expresses the sum of interrelations, the relations within which these individuals stand.
The country that is more developed industrially only shows, to the less developed, the image of its own future.
The development of civilization and industry in general has always shown itself so active in the destruction of forests that everything that has been done for their conservation and production is completely insignificant in comparison.
The English have all the material requisites for the revolution. What they lack is the spirit of generalization and revolutionary ardour.
The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion.
The history of all previous societies has been the history of class struggles.
The human being is in the most literal sense a political animal, not merely a gregarious animal, but an animal which can individuate itself only in the midst of society.
The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.
The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism.
The more the division of labor and the application of machinery extend, the more does competition extend among the workers, the more do their wages shrink together.
The only antidote to mental suffering is physical pain.
The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them.
The product of mental labor - science - always stands far below its value, because the labor-time necessary to reproduce it has no relation at all to the labor-time required for its original production.
The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.
The rich will do anything for the poor but get off their backs.
The ruling ideas of each age have ever been the ideas of its ruling class.
The theory of Communism may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all private property.
The worker of the world has nothing to lose, but their chains, workers of the world unite.
The writer may very well serve a movement of history as its mouthpiece, but he cannot of course create it.
The writer must earn money in order to be able to live and to write, but he must by no means live and write for the purpose of making money.
There is a specter haunting Europe, the specter of Communism.
We should not say that one man's hour is worth another man's hour, but rather that one man during an hour is worth just as much as another man during an hour. Time is everything, man is nothing: he is at the most time's carcass.
While the miser is merely a capitalist gone mad, the capitalist is a rational miser.
Without doubt, machinery has greatly increased the number of well-to-do idlers.
Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose but your chains.
Abraham Lincoln
A friend is one who has the same enemies as you have.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
A woman is the only thing I am afraid of that I know will not hurt me.
All I am, or can be, I owe to my angel mother.
All my life I have tried to pluck a thistle and plant a flower wherever the flower would grow in thought and mind.
All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.
Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose - and you allow him to make war at pleasure.
Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.
Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.
As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.
As our case is new, we must think and act anew.
Avoid popularity if you would have peace.
Ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors to bullets.
Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.
Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new at all.
Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.
Die when I may, I want it said by those who knew me best that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.
Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. As a peacemaker the lawyer has superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.
Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.
Don't worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition.
Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say for one that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem.
Every one desires to live long, but no one would be old.
Everybody likes a compliment.
Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
God must love the common man, he made so many of them.
Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.
He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.
He who molds the public sentiment... makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to make.
Hold on with a bulldog grip, and chew and choke as much as possible.
How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.
I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.
I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.
I can make more generals, but horses cost money.
I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.
I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end... I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me.
I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends.
I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.
I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.
I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.
I don't like that man. I must get to know him better.
I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.
I hope to stand firm enough to not go backward, and yet not go forward fast enough to wreck the country's cause.
I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him.
I never had a policy; I have just tried to do my very best each and every day.
I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.
I walk slowly, but I never walk backward.
I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.
I was losing interest in politics, when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again. What I have done since then is pretty well known.
I will prepare and some day my chance will come.
I'm a slow walker, but I never walk back.
If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six hours sharpening my ax.
If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business.
If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?
If once you forfeit the confidence of your fellow-citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem.
If there is anything that a man can do well, I say let him do it. Give him a chance.
If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.
If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.
If you call a tail a leg, how many legs has a dog? Five? No, calling a tail a leg don't make it a leg.
If you look for the bad in people expecting to find it, you surely will.
Important principles may, and must, be inflexible.
In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong.
In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.
It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.
It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt.
Knavery and flattery are blood relations.
Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.
Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.
Lets have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.
Marriage is neither heaven nor hell, it is simply purgatory.
Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.
My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth.
My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
Never stir up litigation. A worse man can scarcely be found than one who does this.
No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.
No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent.
No matter how much cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.
Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.
People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be.
Public opinion in this country is everything.
Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.
Republicans are for both the man and the dollar, but in case of conflict the man before the dollar.
Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.
Some day I shall be President.
Some single mind must be master, else there will be no agreement in anything.
Stand with anybody that stands right, stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.
Surely God would not have created such a being as man, with an ability to grasp the infinite, to exist only for a day! No, no, man was made for immortality.
Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.
That some achieve great success, is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.
The assertion that "all men are created equal" was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain and it was placed in the Declaration not for that, but for future use.
The ballot is stronger than the bullet.
The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.
The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend.
The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.
The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.
The highest art is always the most religious, and the greatest artist is always a devout person.
The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is why he makes so many of them.
The people themselves, and not their servants, can safely reverse their own deliberate decisions.
The people will save their government, if the government itself will allow them.
The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.
The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.
The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty.
The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who'll get me a book I ain't read.
The time comes upon every public man when it is best for him to keep his lips closed.
The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself in every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him.
There is another old poet whose name I do not now remember who said, "Truth is the daughter of Time."
There is nothing true anywhere, The true is nowhere to be seen; If you say you see the true, This seeing is not the true one.
These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert, to fleece the people.
These men ask for just the same thing, fairness, and fairness only. This, so far as in my power, they, and all others, shall have.
Abraham Lincoln
Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.
Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
To give victory to the right, not bloody bullets, but peaceful ballots only, are necessary.
To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.
To stand in silence when they should be protesting makes cowards out of men.
Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.
Abraham Lincoln
We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.
We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.
What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself.
Whatever you are, be a good one.
When I am getting ready to reason with a man, I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself and what I am going to say and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.
When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion.
When I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees.
When you have got an elephant by the hind legs and he is trying to run away, it's best to let him run.
Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
With Malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds.
With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.
With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die.
You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man's initiative and independence.
You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.
You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
A woman is the only thing I am afraid of that I know will not hurt me.
All I am, or can be, I owe to my angel mother.
All my life I have tried to pluck a thistle and plant a flower wherever the flower would grow in thought and mind.
All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.
Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose - and you allow him to make war at pleasure.
Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.
Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.
As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.
As our case is new, we must think and act anew.
Avoid popularity if you would have peace.
Ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors to bullets.
Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.
Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new at all.
Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.
Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.
Die when I may, I want it said by those who knew me best that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.
Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. As a peacemaker the lawyer has superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.
Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.
Don't worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition.
Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say for one that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem.
Every one desires to live long, but no one would be old.
Everybody likes a compliment.
Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
God must love the common man, he made so many of them.
Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.
He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.
He who molds the public sentiment... makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to make.
Hold on with a bulldog grip, and chew and choke as much as possible.
How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.
I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.
I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.
I can make more generals, but horses cost money.
I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.
I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end... I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside of me.
I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends.
I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.
I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep on doing so until the end.
I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.
I don't like that man. I must get to know him better.
I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.
I hope to stand firm enough to not go backward, and yet not go forward fast enough to wreck the country's cause.
I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him.
I never had a policy; I have just tried to do my very best each and every day.
I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.
I walk slowly, but I never walk backward.
I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.
I was losing interest in politics, when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again. What I have done since then is pretty well known.
I will prepare and some day my chance will come.
I'm a slow walker, but I never walk back.
If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six hours sharpening my ax.
If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business.
If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?
If once you forfeit the confidence of your fellow-citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem.
If there is anything that a man can do well, I say let him do it. Give him a chance.
If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.
If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.
If you call a tail a leg, how many legs has a dog? Five? No, calling a tail a leg don't make it a leg.
If you look for the bad in people expecting to find it, you surely will.
Important principles may, and must, be inflexible.
In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong.
In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.
It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.
It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt.
Knavery and flattery are blood relations.
Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.
Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.
Lets have faith that right makes might; and in that faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.
Marriage is neither heaven nor hell, it is simply purgatory.
Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.
My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth.
My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
Never stir up litigation. A worse man can scarcely be found than one who does this.
No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.
No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent.
No matter how much cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.
Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.
People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be.
Public opinion in this country is everything.
Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.
Republicans are for both the man and the dollar, but in case of conflict the man before the dollar.
Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.
Some day I shall be President.
Some single mind must be master, else there will be no agreement in anything.
Stand with anybody that stands right, stand with him while he is right and part with him when he goes wrong.
Surely God would not have created such a being as man, with an ability to grasp the infinite, to exist only for a day! No, no, man was made for immortality.
Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.
That some achieve great success, is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.
The assertion that "all men are created equal" was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain and it was placed in the Declaration not for that, but for future use.
The ballot is stronger than the bullet.
The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.
The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend.
The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.
The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.
The highest art is always the most religious, and the greatest artist is always a devout person.
The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is why he makes so many of them.
The people themselves, and not their servants, can safely reverse their own deliberate decisions.
The people will save their government, if the government itself will allow them.
The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.
The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.
The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty.
The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who'll get me a book I ain't read.
The time comes upon every public man when it is best for him to keep his lips closed.
The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself in every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him.
There is another old poet whose name I do not now remember who said, "Truth is the daughter of Time."
There is nothing true anywhere, The true is nowhere to be seen; If you say you see the true, This seeing is not the true one.
These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert, to fleece the people.
These men ask for just the same thing, fairness, and fairness only. This, so far as in my power, they, and all others, shall have.
Abraham Lincoln
Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or exercise their revolutionary right to overthrow it.
Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
To give victory to the right, not bloody bullets, but peaceful ballots only, are necessary.
To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.
To stand in silence when they should be protesting makes cowards out of men.
Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.
Abraham Lincoln
We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.
We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.
What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself.
Whatever you are, be a good one.
When I am getting ready to reason with a man, I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself and what I am going to say and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.
When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion.
When I hear a man preach, I like to see him act as if he were fighting bees.
When you have got an elephant by the hind legs and he is trying to run away, it's best to let him run.
Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
With Malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds.
With public sentiment, nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.
With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh I should die.
You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man's initiative and independence.
You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.
You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.
Charlie Chaplin
A day without laughter is a day wasted.
A man's true character comes out when he's drunk.
A tramp, a gentleman, a poet, a dreamer, a lonely fellow, always hopeful of romance and adventure.
Actors search for rejection. If they don't get it they reject themselves.
All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl.
All my pictures are built around the idea of getting in trouble and so giving me the chance to be desperately serious in my attempt to appear as a normal little gentleman.
Brunettes are troublemakers. They're worse than the Jews.
Despair is a narcotic. It lulls the mind into indifference.
Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people.
Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself.
I am at peace with God. My conflict is with Man.
I am for people. I can't help it.
I do not have much patience with a thing of beauty that must be explained to be understood. If it does need additional interpretation by someone other than the creator, then I question whether it has fulfilled its purpose.
I don't believe that the public knows what it wants; this is the conclusion that I have drawn from my career.
I had no idea of the character. But the moment I was dressed, the clothes and the make-up made me feel the person he was. I began to know him, and by the time I walked onto the stage he was fully born.
I have no further use for America. I wouldn't go back there if Jesus Christ was President.
I remain just one thing, and one thing only, and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician.
I suppose that's one of the ironies of life doing the wrong thing at the right moment.
I thought I would dress in baggy pants, big shoes, a cane and a derby hat. everything a contradiction: the pants baggy, the coat tight, the hat small and the shoes large.
I went into the business for the money, and the art grew out of it. If people are disillusioned by that remark, I can't help it. It's the truth.
I'd sooner be called a successful crook than a destitute monarch.
In the end, everything is a gag.
Laughter is the tonic, the relief, the surcease for pain.
Life could be wonderful if people would leave you alone.
Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.
Man as an individual is a genius. But men in the mass form the headless monster, a great, brutish idiot that goes where prodded.
Movies are a fad. Audiences really want to see live actors on a stage.
Nothing is permanent in this wicked world - not even our troubles.
Remember, you can always stoop and pick up nothing.
That is why, no matter how desperate the predicament is, I am always very much in earnest about clutching my cane, straightening my derby hat and fixing my tie, even though I have just landed on my head.
The glamour of it all! New York! America!
The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.
The saddest thing I can imagine is to get used to luxury.
This is a ruthless world and one must be ruthless to cope with it.
To help a friend in need is easy, but to give him your time is not always opportune.
To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain, and play with it!
We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery.
We might as well die as to go on living like this.
We think too much and feel too little.
What do you want a meaning for? Life is a desire, not a meaning.
Why should poetry have to make sense?
Words are cheap. The biggest thing you can say is 'elephant'.
A man's true character comes out when he's drunk.
A tramp, a gentleman, a poet, a dreamer, a lonely fellow, always hopeful of romance and adventure.
Actors search for rejection. If they don't get it they reject themselves.
All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman and a pretty girl.
All my pictures are built around the idea of getting in trouble and so giving me the chance to be desperately serious in my attempt to appear as a normal little gentleman.
Brunettes are troublemakers. They're worse than the Jews.
Despair is a narcotic. It lulls the mind into indifference.
Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people.
Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself.
I am at peace with God. My conflict is with Man.
I am for people. I can't help it.
I do not have much patience with a thing of beauty that must be explained to be understood. If it does need additional interpretation by someone other than the creator, then I question whether it has fulfilled its purpose.
I don't believe that the public knows what it wants; this is the conclusion that I have drawn from my career.
I had no idea of the character. But the moment I was dressed, the clothes and the make-up made me feel the person he was. I began to know him, and by the time I walked onto the stage he was fully born.
I have no further use for America. I wouldn't go back there if Jesus Christ was President.
I remain just one thing, and one thing only, and that is a clown. It places me on a far higher plane than any politician.
I suppose that's one of the ironies of life doing the wrong thing at the right moment.
I thought I would dress in baggy pants, big shoes, a cane and a derby hat. everything a contradiction: the pants baggy, the coat tight, the hat small and the shoes large.
I went into the business for the money, and the art grew out of it. If people are disillusioned by that remark, I can't help it. It's the truth.
I'd sooner be called a successful crook than a destitute monarch.
In the end, everything is a gag.
Laughter is the tonic, the relief, the surcease for pain.
Life could be wonderful if people would leave you alone.
Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.
Man as an individual is a genius. But men in the mass form the headless monster, a great, brutish idiot that goes where prodded.
Movies are a fad. Audiences really want to see live actors on a stage.
Nothing is permanent in this wicked world - not even our troubles.
Remember, you can always stoop and pick up nothing.
That is why, no matter how desperate the predicament is, I am always very much in earnest about clutching my cane, straightening my derby hat and fixing my tie, even though I have just landed on my head.
The glamour of it all! New York! America!
The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.
The saddest thing I can imagine is to get used to luxury.
This is a ruthless world and one must be ruthless to cope with it.
To help a friend in need is easy, but to give him your time is not always opportune.
To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain, and play with it!
We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery.
We might as well die as to go on living like this.
We think too much and feel too little.
What do you want a meaning for? Life is a desire, not a meaning.
Why should poetry have to make sense?
Words are cheap. The biggest thing you can say is 'elephant'.
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