Touchstones Quotes

• Dreams are the touchstones of our character.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Love, Graduation, Dream

  Henry David Thoreau (2013). “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers”, p.238, Courier Corporation

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• The ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the other nor of the self: the ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.

  David Whyte

  Journey, Sight, Self

  FaceBook post by David Whyte from Apr 29, 2013

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• The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as poetry.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Excellence, Exaltation

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.229, Routledge

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• Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.

  Barack Obama

  Law, Transparency, Presidency

  "Malkin: Hypocritical Dems Using 'Squirrel Politics' to Distract from Obama's Shady Cronies". nation.foxnews.com. July 12, 2012.

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• The ultimate touchstone of constitutionality is the Constitution itself, and not what we have said about it.

  Felix Frankfurter

  Libertarian Party, Liberty, Constitution

  "Graves v. New York ex rel. O'Keefe, 306 U.S. 466". U.S. Supreme Court case, supreme.justia.com. March 27, 1939.

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• No matter how much time passes, no matter what takes place in the interim, there are some things we can never assign to oblivion, memories we can never rub away.

  Haruki Murakami

  Memories, Matter, Oblivion

  Haruki Murakami (2011). “Kafka On The Shore”, p.104, Random House

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• 

  If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined...

  Henry David Thoreau

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  "Walden". Book by Henry David Thoreau, 1854.

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• For honesty coupled to beauty, is to have honey a sauce to sugar.

  William Shakespeare

  Honesty, Sugar, Honey

  1599-1600 Touchstone toAudrey. AsYou Like It, act 3, sc.3, l.26-7.

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• When I was at home I was in a better place

  William Shakespeare

  Home, Better Place

  'As You Like It' (1599) act 2, sc. 4, l. [16]

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• We that are true lovers run into strange capers.

  William Shakespeare

  Love, Running, Strange

  'As You Like It' (1599) act 2, sc. 4, l. [53]

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• The truest poetry is the most feigning.

  William Shakespeare

  Poetry Is, Feigning, Truest

  William Shakespeare (1832). “Hamlet, and As you like it, a specimen of a new ed. of Shakespeare [by T. Caldecott]. by T. Caldecott”

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• Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Love, Life, Dream

  Henry David Thoreau, Jeffrey S. Cramer (2007). “I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau”, p.170, Yale University Press

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• And so, from hour to hour, we ripe and ripe.
  And then, from hour to hour, we rot and rot;
  And thereby hangs a tale.

  William Shakespeare

  Life, You Like It, Hours

  'As You Like It' (1599) act 2, sc. 7, l. 26

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• We that are true lovers run into strange capers; but as all is mortal in nature, so is all nature in love mortal in folly.

  William Shakespeare

  Running, Stupidity, Strange

  William Shakespeare, James Boswell, Alexander Pope, Edward Capell, Samuel Johnson (1821). “The plays and poems of William Shakspeare”, p.393

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• And, looking on it with lack-lustre eye,
  Says very wisely, "It is ten o'clock:
  Thus we may see," quoth he, "how the world wags."

  William Shakespeare

  Time, Eye, World

  William Shakespeare, Michael Hattaway (2009). “As You Like It”, p.133, Cambridge University Press

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• The more pity, that fools may not speak wisely what wise men do foolishly.

  William Shakespeare

  Wise, Funny Inspirational, Memorable

  William Shakespeare (1836). “The works of Shakespeare”, p.196

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• And then he drew a dial from his poke, And looking with lack-lustre eye, Says very wisely, 'It is ten o'clock: Thus we may see', Quoth he, 'how the world wags: 'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine, And after one hour more 'twill be eleven; And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe, And then from hour to hour we rot and rot.

  William Shakespeare

  Eye, World, May

  William Shakespeare (2010). “As You Like It”, p.47, Palgrave Macmillan

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• Liberty without Learning is always in peril and Learning without Liberty is always in vain.

  John F. Kennedy

  Education, Freedom, Learning

  Vanderbilt University 90th Anniversary Convocation Address, delivered 18 May 1963, Vanderbilt University Stadium, Nashville Tennessee

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• One of the goals of life is to try and be in touch with one's most personal themes-the values, the ideas, styles, colors that are the touchstones of one's own individual life, its real texture and substance.

  Gloria Vanderbilt

  Life, Real, Color

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• The season of love is the carnival of egoism and it brings a touchstone to our natures.

  George Meredith

  Love, Carnivals, Egoism

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• the touchstone of a free act - from the decision to get out of bed in the morning or take a walk in the afternoon to the highest resolutions by which we bind ourselves for the future - is always that we know that we could also have left undone what we actually did.

  Hannah Arendt

  Morning, Freedom, Decision

  Hannah Arendt (1978). “Willing”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt P

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• Most things are forgotten over time. Even the war itself, the life-and-death struggle people went through, is now like something from the distant past. We're so caught up in our everyday lives that events of the past, like ancient stars that have burned out, are no longer in orbit around our minds. There are just too many things we have to think about every day, too many new things we have to learn. New styles, new information, new technology, new terminology ... But still, no matter how much time passes, no matter what takes place in the interim, there are some things we can never assign to oblivion, memories we can never rub away. They remain with us forever, like a touchstone. And for me, what happened in the woods that day is one of these.

  Haruki Murakami

  Memories, War, Struggle

  "Kafka on the Shore". Book by Haruki Murakami, 2002.

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• Back when I was in theater school, trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life, 'Sweeney Todd' was a huge touchstone for me, my favorite musical for sure.

  Eric McCormack

  School, Musical, Trying

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• I'd come home from school alone with those teenage blues and I'd put on Frank Sinatra's It was a very good year. Here was this mature man singing about the cycle of his life, and as a kid I felt the emotions of it already. It has since been a touchstone for me whenever I want to experiment musically.

  Iggy Pop

  Inspirational, Teenage, Kids

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• Panics, in some cases, have their uses; they produce as much good as hurt. Their duration is always short; the mind soon grows through them and acquires a firmer habit than before. But their peculiar advantage is, that they are the touchstone of sincerity and hypocrisy, and bring things and men to light, which might have lain forever undiscovered.

  Thomas Paine

  Hurt, Men, Light

  Thomas Paine (1819). “The American Crisis”, p.12

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