Literature Quotes - Page 8

• Fail, and your friends feel superior. Succeed, and they feel resentful.

  Mason Cooley

  Succeed, Failing, Feels

  6 Copy quote

• Progress and reaction have both turned out to be swindles. Seemingly, there is nothing left but quietism - robbing reality of its terrors by simply submitting to it.

  George Orwell

  Reality, Progress, Slavery

  George Orwell (1970). “A Collection of Essays”, p.250, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• In psychoanalysis, only the fee is exactly what it seems to be.

  Mason Cooley

  Fees, Psychoanalysis, Seems

  7 Copy quote

• Lexicographer: a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words.

  Samuel Johnson

  Lexicographer, Dictionary, Tracing

  Samuel Johnson, John Walker (1835). “Johnson's English Dictionary”, p.559

  31 Copy quote

  Show source

• There's no doubt that scientific training helps many authors to write better science fiction. And yet, several of the very best were English majors who could not parse a differential equation to save their lives.

  David Brin

  Writing, Doubt, Training

  8 Copy quote

• Most people regard getting their way as a matter of simple justice.

  Mason Cooley

  Simple, People, Justice

  4 Copy quote

• A mere literary man is a dull man; a man who is solely a man of business is a selfish man; but when literature and commerce are united, they make a respectable man.

  Samuel Johnson

  Respect, Selfish, Men

  Samuel Johnson (1836). “Johnsoniana: Or, Supplement to Boswell: Being Anecdotes and Sayings of Dr. Johnson”, p.416

  54 Copy quote

  Show source

• The first is the law, the last prerogative.

  John Dryden

  Law, Lasts, Firsts

  7 Copy quote

• Self-righteous people can talk themselves into forgetting they are part of a civilization. They can then feed on that culture, bringing it down. It's happened many times in the past. It could happen to us.

  David Brin

  Past, Self, Civilization

  10 Copy quote

• True politeness consists in being easy one's self, and in making every one about one as easy as one can.

  Alexander Pope

  Self, Easy, Courtesy

  "Familiar Short Sayings of Great Men". Book by Samuel Arthur Bent, p. 451, 1887.

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• Talk about yourself as much as you like, but do not expect others to listen.

  Mason Cooley

  About Yourself

  4 Copy quote

• Mind and body obstruct one another's pleasures.

  Mason Cooley

  Mind, Body, Pleasure

  7 Copy quote

• Opportunity knocks, but doesn't always answer to its name.

  Mason Cooley

  Opportunity, Names, Answers

  7 Copy quote

• People before the public live an imagined life in the thought of others, and flourish or feel faint as their self outside themselves grows bright or dwindles in that mirror.

  Logan Pearsall Smith

  Mirrors, Self, People

  Logan Pearsall Smith (1931). “Afterthoughts”

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• Either be wholly slaves or wholly free.

  John Dryden

  Slave

  'The Hind and the Panther' (1687) pt. 2, l. 285

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Toil is man's allotment; toil of brain, or toil of hands, or a grief that's more than either, the grief and sin of idleness.

  Herman Melville

  Work, Grief, Men

  Herman Melville (2012). “Mardi: And A Voyage Thither (Annotated Complete Edition)”, p.153, Jazzybee Verlag

  88 Copy quote

  Show source

• Buy good books, and read them; the best books are the commonest, and the last editions are always the best, if the editors are not blockheads.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Book, Reading, Editors

  Lord Chesterfield, David Roberts (2008). “Lord Chesterfield's Letters”, p.201, Oxford University Press

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• But it is a delightful challenge to try to depict interesting aliens.

  David Brin

  Interesting, Challenges, Trying

  5 Copy quote

• Philosophy, astronomy, and politics were marked at zero, I remember. Botany variable, geology profound as regards the mud stains from any region within fifty miles of town, chemistry eccentric, anatomy unsystematic, sensational literature and crime records unique, violin player, boxer, swordsman, lawyer, and self-poisoner by cocaine and tobacco.

  Arthur Conan Doyle

  Education, Zero, Philosophy

  Arthur Conan Doyle, Scott McKowen (2004). “The Adventures and the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes”, p.117, Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Eternity eludes us, even as a thought.

  Mason Cooley

  Elude Us, Elude, Eternity

  4 Copy quote

• Folly always knows the answer.

  Mason Cooley

  Answers, Folly, Knows

  8 Copy quote

• Many gloat over their own troubles.

  Mason Cooley

  Trouble

  8 Copy quote

• The shades of respectability begin to close about the greying head.

  Mason Cooley

  Shade, Respectability

  7 Copy quote

• Self-reform is the only kind that works.

  Mason Cooley

  Self, Reform, Kind

  4 Copy quote

• Hatred observes with more care than love does.

  Mason Cooley

  Hatred, Doe, Care

  4 Copy quote