Signposts and Junctions

The Quotes: Other Voices, Other Thoughts

My Favorite Quotations from Literature, Poetry, Politics, Science, and the Arts

(Started December 2007 - Last Updated July 2008)

In the mountains the shortest way is from peak to peak: but for that one must have long legs. -Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)

The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience. -Emily Dickinson, poet (1830-1886)

But tonight, the lion of contentment has placed a warm heavy paw on my chest. -Billy Collins, poet (1941-)

As for the men in power, they are so anxious to establish the myth of infallibility that they do their utmost to ignore truth. -Boris Pasternak, writer (1890-1960)

An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does the truth become error because nobody will see it. -Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)

Neither great poverty nor great riches will hear reason. -Henry Fielding, author (1707-1754)

One cannot conceive of grander burial than that which mighty mountains bend, crack and shatter to make. Or a nobler tomb than the great upper basin of Denali. -Hudson Stuck, archdeacon, climber (1865-1920)

In those parts of the world where learning and science have prevailed, miracles have ceased; but in those parts of it as are barbarous and ignorant, miracles are still in vogue. -Ethan Allen, revolutionary (1738-1789)

I cannot conceive otherwise than that He, the Infinite Father, expects or requires no worship or praise from us, but that He is even infinitely above it. -Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)

A sect or party is an elegant incognito devised to save a man from the vexation of thinking. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)

What do we have in common with the rosebud, which trembles because a drop of dew lies on it? -Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)

I scrub the long floorboards in the kitchen, repeating the motions of other women who have lived in this house. And when I find a long gray hair floating in the pail, I feel my life added to theirs. -Jane Kenyon, poet (1947-1995)

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. -Albert Einstein, scientist (1879-1955)

I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia. -Woody Allen, actor, writer, director (1935-)

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall. -William Shakespeare, poet, playwright (1564-1616)

When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions. -William Shakespeare, poet, playwright (1564-1616)

Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it do singe yourself. -William Shakespeare, poet, playwright (1564-1616)

I try to take care and be gentle to them. Words and eggs must be handled with care. Once broken they are impossible things to repair. -Anne Sexton, poet (1928-1974)

Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such. -Henry Miller, writer (1891-1980)

Living apart and at peace with myself, I came to realize more vividly the meaning of the doctrine of acceptance. To refrain from giving advice, to refrain from meddling in the affairs of others, to refrain, even though the motives be the highest, from tampering with another's way of life - so simple, yet so difficult for an active spirit. Hands off! -Henry Miller, writer (1891-1980)

I had become, with the approach of night, once more aware of loneliness and time - those two companions without whom no journey can yield us anything. -Lawrence Durell, writer, poet (1912-1990)

Before they're plumbers or writers or taxi drivers or unemployed or journalists, before everything else, men are men. Whether heterosexual or homosexual. The only difference is that some of them remind you of it as soon as you meet them, and others wait for a little while. -Marguerite Duras, writer (1914-1996)

The woman is the home. That's where she used to be, and that's where she still is. You might ask me, What if a man tries to be part of the home - will the woman let him? I answer yes. Because then he becomes one of the children. -Marguerite Duras, writer (1914-1996)

Everything you do closes a door somewhere ahead of you. -Cormac McCarthy, writer (1933-)

Whose hand soever lanced their tender hearts, thy head, all indirectly, gave direction: no doubt the murderous knife was dull and blunt till it was whetted on thy stone-hard heart, to revel in the entrails of my lambs. -William Shakespeare, poet, playwright (1564-1616)

He prayeth best who loveth best, all things both great and small. -Samuel Taylor Coleridge, writer, poet (1772-1834)

A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it. -Oscar Wilde, writer, poet (1854-1900)

Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night? -Jack Kerouac, writer, poet (1922-1969)

Mankind is like dogs, not gods - as long as you don't get mad they'll bite you - but stay mad and you'll never be bitten. Dogs don't respect humility and sorrow. -Jack Kerouac, writer, poet (1922-1969)

The sky hides the night behind it, and shelters the people beneath from the horror that lies above. -Paul Bowles, writer, composer (1910-1999)

I've never had a problem with drugs. I've had problems with the police. -Keith Richards, musician, songwriter (1943-)

The Stones in a club is still the ultimate rush. -Keith Richards, musician, songwriter (1943-)

I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell. -William Tecumseh Sherman, soldier (1820-1891)

I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious and sacrifice and the expression in vain. We had heard them, sometimes standing in the rain almost out of earshot, so that only the shouted words came through, and had read them, on proclamations that were slapped up by billposters over other proclamations, now for a long time, and I had seen nothing sacred, and the things that were glorious had no glory and the sacrifices were like the stockyards at Chicago if nothing was done with the meat except to bury it. -Ernest Hemingway, writer (1899-1961)

***

Some keep the Sabbath going to church, I keep it staying at home, with a bobolink for a chorister, and an orchard for a dome. -Emily Dickinson, poet (1830-1886)

These things happen. . .the soul's bliss and suffering are bound together like the grasses. -Jane Kenyon, poet (1947-1995)

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. –Anais Nin, writer (1903-1977)

Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing. –Sylvia Plath, poet, writer (1932-1963)

Kiss me and you will see how important I am. –Sylvia Plath, poet, writer (1932-1963)

But what is Hope? Nothing but the paint on the face of Existence; the least touch of truth rubs it off, and then we see what a hollow-cheeked harlot we have got hold of. –Lord Byron, poet (1788-1824)

Whenever you hear a man speak of his love for his country, it is a sign that he expects to be paid for it. -HL Mencken, writer, critic, journalist (1880-1956)

A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married. -HL Mencken, writer, critic, journalist (1880-1956)

One must pay dearly for immortality: one has to die several times while still alive. -Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)

“They are Man's,” said the Spirit, looking down upon them. “And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.” Charles Dickens, writer (1812-1870)

Now is the winter of our discontent. -William Shakespeare, poet, playwright (1564-1616)

Faith which does not doubt is dead faith. -Miguel de Unamuno, writer (1864-1936)

Society is like a stew. If you don't keep it stirred up you get a lot of scum on the top. -Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927-1989)

I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. -Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)

We are such stuff as dreams are made on, rounded with a little sleep. -William Shakespeare, poet, playwright (1564-1616)

For money you can have everything it is said. No that is not true. You Can buy food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; soft beds, but not sleep; knowledge but not intelligence; glitter, but not comfort; fun, but not pleasure; acquaintances, but not friendship; servants, but not faithfulness; grey hair, but not honor; quiet days, but not peace. The shell of all things you can get for money. But not the kernel. That Cannot be had for money. -Arne Garborg, writer (1851-1924)

You can live a lifetime and at the end, know more about other people than you know about yourself. -Beryl Markham, writer, pilot (1902-1986)

Cry "Havoc," and let slip the dogs of war. -William Shakespeare, poet, playwright (1564-1616)

Need is not quite belief. -Anne Sexton, poet (1928-1974)

Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. -William Shakespeare, poet, playwright (1564-1616)

Myths can't be translated as they did in their ancient soil. We can only find our own meaning in our own time. –Margaret Atwood, writer (1939-)

A divorce is like an amputation: you survive it, but there's less of you. –Margaret Atwood, writer (1939-)

(February 2008)

Writing the last page of the first draft is the most enjoyable moment in writing. It's one of the most enjoyable moments in life, period. –Nicholas Sparks, author (1965- )

No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country. -Alexis de Tocqueville, statesman and historian (1805-1859)

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and hence clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. -HL Mencken, writer, critic, journalist (1880-1956)

Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, thirst that is unquenchable? -Kahlil Gibran, mystic, poet, and artist (1883-1931)

Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. -Elie Wiesel, writer, Nobel laureate (1928-)

Another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise. –Margaret Atwood, writer (1939-)

The disappointed one speaks. I searched for great human beings; I always found only the apes of their ideals. -Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)

The formula of my happiness: a yes, a no, a straight line, a goal. -Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)

The Mencken Creed
I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind - that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overcome by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking.

I believe that no discovery of fact, however trivial, can be wholly useless to the race, and that no trumpeting of falsehood, however virtuous in intent, can be anything but vicious.

I believe that all government is evil, in that all government must necessarily make war upon liberty.

I believe that the evidence for immortality is no better than the evidence of witches, and deserves no more respect.

I believe in the complete freedom of thought and speech.

I believe in the capacity of man to conquer his world, and to find out what it is made of, and how it is run.

I believe in the reality of progress.

I believe that it is better to tell the truth than to lie. I believe that it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe that it is better to know than be ignorant.
-HL Mencken, writer, critic, journalist (1880-1956)

The violence and obscenity are left unadulterated, as manifestation of the mystery and pain which ever accompanies the act of creation. –Anais Nin, writer (1903-1977)

When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow. –Anais Nin, writer (1903-1977)

O rose, who dares to name thee?
No longer roseate now, nor soft, nor sweet,
But pale, and hard, and dry, as stubblewheat,--
Kept seven years in a drawer, thy titles shame thee. –Elizabeth Barrett Browning , poet (1806-1861)

In war, truth is the first casualty. -Aeschylus, Greek dramatist (525BC-456BC)

Sea of stretch'd ground-swells,
Sea breathing broad and convulsive breaths,
Sea of the brine of life and of unshovell'd yet always-ready graves,
Howler and scooper of storms, capricious and dainty sea,
I am integral with you, I too am of one phase and of all phases.
-Walt Whitman, poet (1819-1892)

A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books. -Walt Whitman, poet (1819-1892)

I am as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best. -Walt Whitman, poet (1819-1892)

I am for those who believe in loose delights, I share the midnight orgies of young men, I dance with the dancers and drink with the drinkers. -Walt Whitman, poet (1819-1892)

Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes. -Walt Whitman, poet (1819-1892)

All great things are simple, and many can be expressed in single words: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope. –Winston Churchill, British statesman (1874-1965)

I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals. Winston Churchill, British statesman (1874-1965)

Dwell in possibility. -Emily Dickinson, poet (1830-1886)

Celebrity is the chastisement of merit and the punishment of talent. -Emily Dickinson, poet (1830-1886)

It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish. -Aeschylus, Greek dramatist (525BC-456BC)

There's just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away. -Jane Kenyon, poet (1947-1995)

Going on from there was the bravest thing he ever did. The tremendous things that happened afterwards were as nothing compared to it. He fought the real battle in the tunnel alone, before he ever saw the vast danger that lay in wait. -J.R.R.Tolkien, writer (1892-1973)

Everything up there was spooky, and it would have been that way even if there had been no war. You were in a place where you didn’t belong, where things were glimpsed for which you would have to pay and where things went un-glimpsed for which you would also have to pay, a place where they didn’t play with the mystery but killed you straight off for trespassing. The towns had names that laid a quick, chilly touch on your bones: Kontum, Dak Mak Lop, Dak Roman Peng, Poli Klang, Buon Blech, Pleiku, Pleime, Plei Vi Drin. Just moving through those towns or being based somewhere above them spaced you out, and every time I’d have that vision of myself lying dead somewhere, it was always up there, in the Highlands. –Michael Herr, writer (1940-)

One strange feeling, which I remember clearly, was a powerful link with the slain, particularly those that had fallen within the past hour or two. There was so much death around that life seemed almost indecent. Some men’s uniforms were soaked with gobs of blood. The ground was sodden with it. I killed, too. –William Manchester, historian, biographer (1922-2004)

(March 2008)

When the oak is felled the whole forest echoes with its fall, but a hundred acorns are sown in silence by an unnoticed breeze. -Thomas Carlyle, historian and essayist (1795-1881)

“You dont have to worry. Nobody else is coming.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’m in charge of who is coming and who is not.” -Cormac McCarthy, writer (1933-)

I have no enemies. I dont permit such a thing. -Cormac McCarthy, writer (1933-)

I remember when Daddy retired Momma told him: I said for better or for worse but I didn’t say nothin about lunch. -Cormac McCarthy, writer (1933-)

People may say what they like about the decay of Christianity; the religious system that produced green Chartreuse can never really die. –Hugh Hector Munro, writer (1870-1916)

What did the Caspian see?. –Hugh Hector Munro, writer (1870-1916)

(May 2008)

The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers. –M Scott Peck, psychiatrist and author (1936-2005)

The louder he talks of honour, the faster we count our spoons. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)

Since when do we have to agree with people to defend them from injustice? -Lillian Hellman, playwright (1905-1984)

Right now I'm having amnesia and deja vu at the same time. I think I've forgotten this before. -Steven Wright, comedian (1955-)

Having been unable to strengthen justice, we have justified strength. -Blaise Pascal, philosopher and mathematician (1623-1662)

Men are idolaters, and want something to look at and kiss and hug, or throw themselves down before; they always did, they always will; and if you don't make it of wood, you must make it of words. -Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., poet, novelist, essayist, and physician (1809-1894)

And your very flesh shall be a great poem. -Walt Whitman, poet (1819-1892)

The answers you get from literature depend on the questions you pose. –Margaret Atwood, writer (1939-)

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man. -William Shakespeare, poet, playwright (1564-1616)

And what is the potential man, after all? Is he not the sum of all that is human? Divine, in other words? -Henry Miller, writer (1891-1980)

Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself. -Henry Miller, writer (1891-1980)

He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher. -Walt Whitman, poet (1819-1892)

I was almost persuaded to be a Christian. I thought I never again could be thoughtless and worldly. But I soon forgot my morning prayer or else it was irksome to me. One by one my old habits returned and I cared less for religion than ever. -Emily Dickinson, poet (1830-1886)

The world allured me & in an unguarded moment I listened to her siren voice. From that moment I seemed to lose interest in heavenly things. Friends reasoned with me & told me of the danger I was in. I felt my danger & was alarmed, but I had rambled too far to return & ever since my heart has been growing harder. -Emily Dickinson, poet (1830-1886)

I do not wish women to have power over men; but over themselves. –Mary Shelley, writer (1797-1851)

First our pleasures die
and then our hopes, and then our fears
and when these are dead, the debt is due dust claims dust
and we die too. –Percy Bysshe Shelley, poet (1792-1822)

Guard your roving thoughts with a jealous care, for speech is but the dialer of thoughts, and every fool can plainly read in your words what is the hour of your thoughts. –Alfred Lord Tennyson, poet (1809-1892)

A lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies. –Alfred Lord Tennyson, poet (1809-1892)

There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds. –Alfred Lord Tennyson, poet (1809-1892)

Survivors would have us believe in a brilliance
here, some bolt of truth forking across the water,
an ultimate Light before all the lights go out,
dawning on you with all its megalithic tonnage.
But if something does flash before your eyes
as you go under, it will probably be a fish,

a quick blur of curved silver darting away,
having nothing to do with your life or your death.
The tide will take you, or the lake will accept it all
as you sink toward the weedy disarray of the bottom,
leaving behind what you have already forgotten,
the surface, now overrun with the high travel of clouds. -Billy Collins, poet (1941-)

A poem begins with a lump in the throat, a home-sickness or a love-sickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where the emotion has found its thought and the thought has found the words. –Robert Frost, poet (1874-1963)

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense. –Robert Frost, poet (1874-1963)

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. –Robert Frost, poet (1874-1963)

There is wisdom in turning as often as possible from the familiar to the unfamiliar: it keeps the mind nimble, it kills prejudice, and it fosters humor. -George Santayana, philosopher (1863-1952)

It has always seemed absurd to suppose that a god would choose for his companions, during all eternity, the dear souls whose highest and only ambition is to obey. -Robert Green Ingersoll, lawyer and orator (1833-1899)

(June 2008)

The living are soft and yielding; the dead are rigid and stiff. Living plants are flexible and tender; the dead are brittle and dry. -Lao Tzu, philosopher (6th century BCE)

I am no more lonely than a single mullein or dandelion in a pasture, or a bean leaf, or sorrel, or a horse-fly, or a bumblebee. I am no more lonely than the Mill Brook, or a weathercock, or the north star, or the south wind, or an April shower, or a January thaw, or the first spider in a new house. -Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)

It is an ironic habit of human beings to run faster when we have lost our way. -Rollo May, psychologist (1909-1994)

Silent gratitude isn't much use to anyone. -Gladys Browyn Stern, writer (1890-1973)

Politeness is the art of choosing among your thoughts. -Madame de Stael, writer (1766-1817)

One of the indictments of civilizations is that happiness and intelligence are so rarely found in the same person. -William Feather, author, editor and publisher (1889-1981)

They were so strong in their beliefs that there came a time when it hardly mattered what exactly those beliefs were; they all fused into a single stubbornness. -Louise Erdrich, author (b. 1954)

Night has come; now all fountains speak more loudly. And my soul too is a fountain.
Night has come; only now all the songs of lovers awaken. And my soul too is the song of a lover.
Something unstilled, unstillable is within me; it wants to be voiced. A craving for love is within me; it speaks the language of love.
Light am I; ah, that I were night! But this is my loneliness that I am girt with light. Ah, that I were dark and nocturnal! How I would suck at the breasts of light! -Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)

(July 2008)

Moby-Dick (1)

Call me Ishmael.

Reality outran apprehension; Captain Ahab stood upon his quarter-deck.

The warmly cool, clear, ringing, perfumed, overflowing, redundant days, were as crystal goblets of Persian sherbet, heaped up--flaked up, with rose-water snow.

Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death.

“Avast!”

Anyway there’s something on his mind, as sure as there must be something on a deck when it cracks.

A white whale—did ye mark that, man? Look ye—there’s something special in the wind. Stand by for it, Flask. Ahab has that that’s bloody on his mind.

Oh, Ahab! What shall be grand in thee; it must be plucked at from the skies, and dived for in the deep, and featured in the unbodied air!

“D’ye mark him, Flask?” whispered Stubb; “the chick that’s in him pecks at the shell. ‘Twill soon be out.”

…and he fan-tails like a split jib in a squall.

Hark ye yet again,--the little lower layer. All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event--in the living act, the undoubted deed—there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there’s naught beyond. But ‘tis enough.

God hunt us all, if we do not hunt Moby-Dick to his death.

…declaring Moby-Dick not only ubiquitous but immortal (for immortality is but ubiquity in time)…

-Herman Melville, writer (1819-1891)

Only enemies speak the truth; friends and lovers lie endlessly, caught in the web of duty. -Stephen King, novelist (1947-)

Profits, like sausages... are esteemed most by those who know least about what goes into them. -Alvin Toffler, futurist and author (1928-)

After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, and so on - have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear - what remains? Nature remains. -Walt Whitman, poet (1819-1892)

Wisdom is not finally tested in the schools, Wisdom cannot be pass'd from one having it to another not having it, Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof. -Walt Whitman, poet (1819-1892)

We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give. –Winston Churchill, British statesman (1874-1965)

Have you learned the lessons only of those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you? Have you not learned great lessons from those who braced themselves against you, and disputed passage with you? -Walt Whitman, poet (1819-1892)

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done; / The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won. -Walt Whitman, poet (1819-1892)