text:
John Keats

John Keats (October 31, 1795 – February 23, 1821) was one of the principal poets of the English Romantic movement.

Quotes

And doubly sweet a brotherhood in song.
 * Sweet are the pleasures that to verse belong,
 * "To George Felton Mathew" (November 1815)

Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep''', And each imagin'd pinnacle and steep Of godlike hardship tells me I must die Like a sick Eagle looking at the sky.
 * '''My spirit is too weak — mortality
 * "On Seeing the Elgin Marbles" (1817)

Too happy, happy tree, Thy branches ne'er remember Their green felicity.
 * In drear-nighted December,
 * "In drear-nighted December' (1817), st. 1

Writh'd not of passed joy? The feel of not to feel it, When there is none to heal it, Nor numbed sense to steel it, Was never said in rhyme.
 * But were there ever any
 * "Stanzas", st. 3

Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell Gluts twice ten thousand Caverns, till the spell Of Hecate leaves them their old shadowy sound.
 * It keeps eternal whisperings around
 * "On the Sea" (1817)

Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain, Before high piled books, in charact'ry, Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain; When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance; And when I feel, fair creature of an hour! That I shall never look upon thee more, Never have relish in the faery power Of unreflecting love! — then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.
 * When I have fears that I may cease to be
 * "When I have fears that I may cease to be" (1817)

The flower will bloom another year.''' Weep no more! O weep no more! Young buds sleep in the root's white core.
 * '''Shed no tear! O shed no tear!
 * "Faery Songs", I (1818)

Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold And in the icy silence of the tomb, So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights That thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood So in my veins red life might stream again, And thou be conscience-calm'd — see here it is — I hold it towards you.
 * This living hand, now warm and capable
 * "This living hand" (1819)

Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching with eternal lids apart, Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth's human shores.
 * Bright star! would I were stedfast as thou art-
 * "Bright Star" (1819)

But those to whom the miseries of the world Are misery, and will not let them rest.
 * None can usurp this height...
 * "The Fall of Hyperion: A Dream" (1819), Canto I, l. 147

The husk of natural objects opens quite To the core; and every secret essence there Reveals the elements of good and fair; Making him see, where Learning hath no light.
 * To his sight
 * "The Poet," London Magazine (Oct 1821)

 * Here lies one whose name was writ in water.
 * Epitaph for himself (1821)

 * My chest of books divide amongst my friends.
 * Keats' last poem which doubled as his last will and testament

Along the reedy stream; a half-heard strain, Full of sweet desolation—balmy pain.
 * Nought but a lovely sighing of the wind
 * I stood tip-toe upon a little Hill; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

 * The sweet converse of an innocent mind.
 * Sonnet, To Solitude; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Sweet voice, sweet lips, soft hand, and softer breast.
 * The day is gone, and all its sweets are gone!
 * Sonnet, The Day is gone; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Letters (1817–1820)

 * I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the heart's affections and the truth of imagination — what the imagination seizes as beauty must be truth — whether it existed before or not.
 * Letter to Benjamin Bailey (November 22, 1817)

 * The imagination may be compared to Adam's dream — he awoke and found it truth.
 * Letter to Benjamin Bailey (November 22, 1817)

 * O for a life of Sensations rather than of Thoughts!
 * Letter to Benjamin Bailey (November 22, 1817)

 * I scarcely remember counting upon happiness — I look not for it if it be not in the present hour — nothing startles me beyond the moment. The setting sun will always set me to rights, or if a sparrow come before my Window I take part in its existence and pick about the gravel.
 * Letter to Benjamin Bailey (November 22, 1817)

 * The excellency of every art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeables evaporate, from their being in close relationship with beauty and truth.
 * Letter to G. and F. Keats (December 21, 1817)

 * At once it struck me what quality went to form a man of achievement, especially in literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously — I mean negative capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.
 * Letter to George and Thomas Keats (December 22, 1817)

 * They will explain themselves — as all poems should do without any comment.
 * Letter to George Keats (1818)

 * Works of genius are the first things in this world.
 * Letter to G. and F. Keats (January 13, 1818)

 * Nothing is finer for the purposes of great productions than a very gradual ripening of the intellectual powers.
 * Letter to his brother, (January 23, 1818)

 * 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.
 * Letter to John Hamilton Reynolds (February 3, 1818)

 * We hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us — and if we do not agree, seems to put its hand in its breeches pocket. Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one's soul, and does not startle or amaze with itself, but with its subject.
 * Letter to John Hamilton Reynolds (February 3, 1818)

 * Many have original minds who do not think it — they are led away by custom — Now it appears to me that almost any man may like the spider spin from his own inwards his own citadel.
 * Letter to John Hamilton Reynolds (February 19, 1818)

 * In Poetry I have a few axioms, and you will see how far I am from their centre. I think 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 — Its touches of Beauty should never be halfway thereby making the reader breathless instead of content: the rise, the progress, the setting of imagery should like the Sun come natural to him — shine over him and set soberly although in magnificence leaving him in the luxury of twilight — but it is easier to think what Poetry should be than to write it — and this leads me on to another axiom. That if Poetry comes not as naturally as the leaves to a tree it had better not come at all.
 * Letter to John Taylor (February 27, 1818)

 * Scenery is fine — but human nature is finer.
 * Letter to Benjamin Bailey (March 13, 1818)

 * Every mental pursuit takes its reality and worth from the ardour of the pursuer.
 * Letter to Benjamin Bailey (March 13, 1818)

 * Axioms in philosophy are not axioms until they are proved upon our pulses: we read fine things but never feel them to the full until we have gone the same steps as the author.
 * Letter to John Hamilton Reynolds (May 3, 1818)

 * I compare human life to a large mansion of many apartments, two of which I can only describe, the doors of the rest being as yet shut upon me.
 * Letter to John Hamilton Reynolds (May 3, 1818)

 * I am certain I have not a right feeling towards women - at this moment I am striving to be just to them, but I cannot. Is it because they fall so far beneath my boyish imagination? When I was a schoolboy I thought a fair woman a pure Goddess; my mind was a soft nest in which some one of them slept, though she knew it not.
 * Letter to Benjamin Bailey (July 18, 1818)

 * There is an awful warmth about my heart like a load of immortality.
 * Letter to John Hamilton Reynolds (September 22, 1818)

 * I begin to get a little acquainted with my own strength and weakness. 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.
 * Letter to James Hessey (October 9, 1818)

 * I have written independently without Judgment. I may write independently, and with Judgment, hereafter. The Genius of Poetry must work out its own salvation in a man: It cannot be matured by law and precept, but by sensation and watchfulness in itself — That which is creative must create itself — In Endymion, I leaped headlong into the sea, and thereby have become better acquainted with the Soundings, the quicksands, and the rocks, than if I had stayed upon the green shore, and piped a, silly pipe, and took tea and comfortable advice. I was never afraid of failure; for I would sooner fail than not be among the greatest.
 * Letter to James Hessey (October 9, 1818)

 * I think I shall be among the English Poets after my death.
 * Letter to George and Georgiana Keats (October 14, 1818)

 * The poetical character... is not itself — it has no self — it is every thing and nothing — It has no character — it enjoys light and shade; it lives in gusto, be it fair or foul, high or low, rich or poor, mean or elevated. — It has as much delight in conceiving an Iago as an Imogen. What shocks the virtuous philospher, delights the camelion poet.
 * Letter to Richard Woodhouse (October 27, 1818)

 * A poet is the most unpoetical of anything in existence; because he has no identity — he is continually informing — and filling some other body.
 * Letter to Richard Woodhouse (October 27, 1818)

 * A man's life of any worth is a continual allegory — and very few eyes can see the mystery of life — a life like the Scriptures, figurative... Lord Byron cuts a figure, but he is not figurative. Shakespeare led a life of allegory: his works are the comments on it.
 * Letter to George and Georgiana Keats (February 14 - May 3, 1819)

 * Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced — Even a proverb is no proverb to you till your Life has illustrated it.
 * Letter to George and Georgiana Keats (February 14-May 3, 1819)

 * I myself am pursuing the same instinctive course as the veriest human animal you can think of — I am, however young, writing at random — straining at particles of light in the midst of a great darkness — without knowing the bearing of any one assertion, of any one opinion. Yet may I not in this be free from sin?
 * Letter to George and Georgiana Keats (March 19, 1819)

 * Call the world if you please "The vale of soul-making."
 * Letter to George and Georgiana Keats (April 21, 1819)

 * 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.
 * To Fanny Brawne (July 25, 1819)

 * I have nothing to speak of but my self-and what can I say but what I feel
 * Letter to John Hamilton Reynolds (August 24, 1819)

 * Some think I have lost that poetical ardour and fire 'tis said I once had- the fact is, perhaps I have; but, instead of that, I hope I shall substitute a more thoughtful and quiet power.
 * Letter to George Keats (September 21, 1819)

 * I have been astonished that Men could die Martyrs for religion – I have shudder’d at it – I shudder no more – I could be martyr’d for my Religion – Love is my religion – I could die for that – I could die for you. My Creed is Love and you are its only tenet.
 * To Fanny Brawne (13 October 1820)

 * "If I should die," said I to myself, "I have left no immortal work behind me — nothing to make my friends proud of my memory — but I have loved the principle of beauty in all things, and if I had had time I would have made myself remembered."
 * To Fanny Brawne (c. February 1820)

 * You are always new. The last of your kisses was ever the sweetest; the last smile the brightest; the last movement the gracefullest.
 * Letter to Fanny Brawne (March 1820)

 * You might curb your magnanimity, and be more of an artist, and load every rift of your subject with ore.
 * Letter to Percy Bysshe Shelley (August 1820)

 * I can scarcely bid you good-bye, even in a letter. I always made an awkward bow. God bless you!
 * Letter to Charles Armitage Brown (November 30, 1820)

Poems (1817)
The air was cooling, and so very still, That the sweet buds which with a modest pride Pull droopingly, in slanting curve aside, Their scantly leaved, and finely tapering stems, Had not yet lost those starry diadems Caught from the early sobbing of the morn.
 * I stood tip-toe upon a little hill,
 * "I Stood Tiptoe", l. 1

A little noiseless noise among the leaves, Born of the very sigh that silence heaves.
 * And then there crept
 * "I Stood Tiptoe", l. 10

Ye ardent marigolds!
 * Open afresh your round of starry folds,
 * "I Stood Tiptoe", l. 47

To where the hurrying freshnesses aye preach A natural sermon o'er their pebbly beds; Where swarms of minnows show their little heads, Staying their wavy bodies ’gainst the streams, To taste the luxury of sunny beams Temper’d with coolness.
 * Why, you might read two sonnets, ere they reach
 * "I Stood Tiptoe", l. 72

From low hung branches; little space they stop; But sip, and twitter, and their feathers sleek; Then off at once, as in a wanton freak: Or perhaps, to show their black, and golden wings Pausing upon their yellow flutterings.
 * Sometimes goldfinches one by one will drop
 * "I Stood Tiptoe", l. 87

Inconstant, childish, proud, and full of fancies.
 * Woman! when I behold thee flippant, vain,
 * "Woman! When I Behold Thee Flippant, Vain", st. 1

’Tis very sweet to look into the fair And open face of heaven.
 * To one who has been long in city pent,
 * "Sonnet. To One Who Has Been Long in City Pent"

That falls through the clear ether silently.
 * E’en like the passage of an angel’s tear
 * "Sonnet. To One Who Has Been Long in City Pent"

And many goodly states and kingdoms seen; Round many western islands have I been Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.''' Oft of one wide expanse had I been told That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne, Yet did I never breathe its pure serene Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold: Then felt I like some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken; Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific, and all his men Look'd at each other with a wild surmise, Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
 * '''Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
 * "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer"

Upon the forehead of the age to come; These, these will give the world another heart, And other pulses. Hear ye not the hum Of mighty workings in a distant mart? Listen awhile ye nations, and be dumb.
 * And other spirits there are standing apart
 * "Sonnet. Addressed to the Same" (Benjamin Robert Haydon)

 * The poetry of earth is never dead.
 * "Sonnet. On the Grasshopper and the Cricket"

A fragile dew-drop on its perilous way From a tree's summit.
 * Stop and consider! life is but a day;
 * "Sleep and Poetry", st. 5

Myself in poesy; so I may do the deed That my own soul has to itself decreed.
 * O for ten years, that I may overwhelm
 * "Sleep and Poetry", st. 6

Of light is poesy; ’tis the supreme of power; ’Tis might half slumb’ring on its own right arm.
 * A drainless shower
 * "Sleep and Poetry", st. 11

Is like a fallen angel: trees uptorn, Darkness, and worms, and shrouds, and sepulchres Delight it; for it feeds upon the burrs, And thorns of life; forgetting the great end Of poesy, that it should be a friend To sooth the cares, and lift the thoughts of man.
 * But strength alone though of the Muses born
 * "Sleep and Poetry", st. 11

Endymion (1818)

 * Full text online

 * There is not a fiercer hell than the failure in a great object.
 * Preface

 * The imagination of a boy is healthy, and the mature imagination of a man is healthy; but there is a space of life between, in which the soul is in a ferment, the character undecided, the way of life uncertain, the ambition thicksighted: thence proceeds mawkishness, and the thousand bitters which those men I speak of must necessarily taste in going over the following pages.
 * Preface

Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness'''; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
 * '''A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
 * Bk. I, l. 1

Some shape of beauty moves away the pall From our dark spirits.'''
 * '''In spite of all,
 * Bk. I, l. 11

We have imagined for the mighty dead; All lovely tales that we have heard or read: An endless fountain of immortal drink, Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.
 * And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
 * Bk. I, l. 20

For one short hour; no, even as the trees That whisper round a temple become soon Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon, The passion poesy, glories infinite, Haunt us till they become a cheering light Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast, That, '''whether there be shine, or gloom o'ercast, They alway must be with us, or we die.'''
 * Nor do we merely feel these essences
 * Bk. I, l. 25

That broodest o'er the troubled sea of the mind Till it is hush'd and smooth!
 * O magic sleep! O comfortable bird,
 * Bk. I, l. 453

Rocked me to patience.
 * Time, that aged nurse,
 * Bk. I, l. 705

Our ready minds to fellowship divine, A fellowship with essence; till we shine, Full alchemiz'd, and free of space. Behold The clear religion of heaven!'''
 * '''Wherein lies happiness? In that which becks
 * Bk. I, l. 777

Round every spot where trod Apollo's foot'''; Bronze clarions awake, and faintly bruit, Where long ago a giant battle was; And, from the turf, a lullaby doth pass In every place where infant Orpheus slept. '''Feel we these things? — that moment have we stept Into a sort of oneness, and our state Is like a floating spirit's.''' But there are Richer entanglements, enthralments far More self-destroying, leading, by degrees, To the chief intensity: '''the crown of these Is made of love and friendship, and sits high Upon the forehead of humanity.'''
 * '''Ghosts of melodious prophesyings rave
 * Bk. I, l. 789

To brood so long upon one luxury, Unless it did, though fearfully, espy A hope beyond the shadow of a dream.
 * My restless spirit never could endure
 * Bk. I, l. 854

Clings cruelly to us.
 * Pleasure is oft a visitant; but pain
 * Bk. I, l. 906

With immortality, who fears to follow Where airy voices lead.'''
 * '''He ne'er is crown'd
 * Bk. II, l. 211

Of love, that fairest joys give most unrest.
 * 'Tis the pest
 * Bk. II, l. 365

I bade good-morrow, And thought to leave her far away behind; But cheerly, cheerly, She loves me dearly; She is so constant to me, and so kind: I would deceive her And so leave her, But ah! she is so constant and so kind.
 * To Sorrow
 * Bk. IV, l. 173

 * So many, and so many, and such glee.
 * Bk. IV

La Belle Dame sans Merci (1819)

 * Full text online

Alone and palely loitering? The sedge has wither'd from the lake, And no birds sing.
 * O, what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
 * Stanza I

Full beautiful — a faery's child, Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild.
 * I met a lady in the meads,
 * Stanza IV

And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; She look'd at me as she did love, And made sweet moan.
 * I made a garland for her head,
 * Stanza V

Pale warriors, death-pale were they all; They cried- "La Belle Dame sans Merci Hath thee in thrall!"
 * I saw pale kings and princes too,
 * Stanza X

Hyperion: A Fragment (1819)

 * Full text online

Far sunken from the healthy breath of morn, Far from the fiery noon, and eve's one star, Sat gray-hair'd Saturn, quiet as a stone, Still as the silence round about his lair; Forest on forest hung about his head Like cloud on cloud.
 * Deep in the shady sadness of a vale
 * Bk. I, l. 1

 * That large utterance of the early gods!
 * Bk. I

Those green-rob'd senators of mighty woods, Tall oaks, branch-charmed by the earnest stars, Dream, and so dream all night without a stir, Save from one gradual solitary gust Which comes upon the silence, and dies off, As if the ebbing air had but one wave.
 * As when, upon a tranced summer-night,
 * Bk. I, l. 72

 * The days of peace and slumberous calm are fled.
 * Bk. II

And to envisage circumstance, all calm, That is the top of sovereignty.'''
 * '''For to bear all naked truths,
 * Bk. II, l. 203

 * Knowledge enormous makes a God of me.
 * Bk. III, l. 113

Poems (1820)
But weep, and weep, that they were born so fair?
 * And for her eyes: what could such eyes do there
 * "Lamia", Pt. I, l. 61

Is — Love, forgive us! — cinders, ashes, dust.
 * Love in a hut, with water and a crust,
 * "Lamia", Pt. II, l. 1

We know her woof, her texture; she is given In the dull catalogue of common things. Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings, Conquer all mysteries by rule and line, Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine — Unweave a rainbow, as it erewhile made The tender-person'd Lamia melt into a shade.
 * There was an awful rainbow once in heaven:
 * "Lamia", Pt. II, l. 229

“To steal my Basil-pot away from me.”
 * “For cruel ’tis,” said she,
 * "Isabella; or, The Pot of Basil", st. 62

Upon the midnight hours
 * So let me be thy choir, and make a moan
 * "Ode to Psyche", st. 3

That shadowy thought can win, A bright torch, and a casement ope at night, To let the warm Love in!
 * And there shall be for thee all soft delight
 * "Ode to Psyche", st. 5

Pleasure never is at home.
 * Ever let the Fancy roam,
 * "Fancy", l. 1

Ye have left your souls on earth! Have ye souls in heaven too, Double-lived in regions new?
 * Bards of Passion and of Mirth,
 * "Ode", The Fair Maid of the Inn

What Elysium have ye known, Happy field or mossy cavern, Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?
 * Souls of Poets dead and gone,
 * "Lines on the Mermaid Tavern", l. 1–4

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run'''; To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the ground, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease, For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
 * '''Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
 * "To Autumn", st. 1

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep, Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers.
 * Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
 * "To Autumn", st. 2

Among the river sallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies.
 * Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
 * "To Autumn", st. 3

Wolfs-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine; Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss'd By nightshade.
 * No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist
 * "Ode on Melancholy", st. 1

Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud, That fosters the droop-headed flowers all, And hides the green hill in an April shroud; Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose.
 * But when the melancholy fit shall fall
 * "Ode on Melancholy", st. 2

And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh, Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips. Ay, in the very temple of Delight Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine, Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine; His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, And be among her cloudy trophies hung.
 * She dwells with Beauty — Beauty that must die;
 * "Ode on Melancholy", st. 3

The Eve of St. Agnes

 * The Eve of St. Agnes

The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold; The hare limp'd trembling through the frozen grass, And silent was the flock in woolly fold.
 * St. Agnes' Eve — Ah, bitter chill it was!
 * Stanza 1

Flatter'd to tears this aged man and poor.
 * Music's golden tongue
 * Stanza 3

 * The silver snarling trumpets 'gan to chide.
 * Stanza 4

 * The music, yearning like a God in pain.
 * Stanza 7

 * Asleep in lap of legends old.
 * Stanza 15

Flushing his brow, and in his pained heart Made purple riot.
 * Sudden a thought came like a full-blown rose,
 * Stanza 16

 * A poor, weak, palsy-stricken, churchyard thing.
 * Stanza 18

Her throat in vain, and die, heart-stifled, in her dell.
 * As though a tongueless nightingale should swell
 * Stanza 23

And threw warm gules on Madeline's fair breast, As down she knelt for heaven's grace and boon; Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest.
 * Full on this casement shone the wintry moon,
 * Stanza 25

Loosens her fragrant bodice; by degrees Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees.
 * Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one;
 * Stanza 26

 * As though a rose should shut and be a bud again.
 * Stanza 27

In blanched linen, smooth, and lavender'd.
 * And still she slept an azure-lidded sleep,
 * Stanza 30

 * And lucent syrops, tinct with cinnamon.
 * Stanza 30

In Provence call'd "La belle dame sans mercy."
 * He play'd an ancient ditty long since mute,
 * Stanza 33

For there were sleeping dragons all around, At glaring watch, perhaps, with ready spears — Down the wide stairs a darkling way they found. — In all the house was heard no human sound. A chain-droop'd lamp was flickering by each door; The arras, rich with horseman, hawk, and hound, Flutter'd in the besieging wind's uproar; And the long carpets rose along the gusty floor.
 * She hurried at his words, beset with fears,
 * Stanza 40

These lovers fled away into the storm.
 * And they are gone: ay, ages long ago
 * Stanza 42

Ode to a Nightingale

 * Written in May 1819 - Full text online

My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness, — That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
 * My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
 * Stanza 1

Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth.''' Tasting of Flora and the country green, Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth! O for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth.
 * '''O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
 * Stanza 2

What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs.
 * Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
 * Stanza 3

 * Already with thee! tender is the night.
 * Stanza 4

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet.
 * I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
 * Stanza 5

The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.
 * And mid-May's eldest child,
 * Stanza 5

I have been half in love with easeful Death''', Call'd him soft names in many a musèd rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy! Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain — To thy high requiem become a sod.
 * '''Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
 * Stanza 6

No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown''': Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that oft-times hath Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
 * '''Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
 * Stanza 7

To toil me back from thee to my sole self!
 * Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
 * Stanza 8

Fled is that music: — Do I wake or sleep?'''
 * '''Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
 * Stanza 8

Ode on a Grecian Urn

 * Written in May 1819 - Full text online

Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme: What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape? Of deities or mortals, or of both, In Tempe or the dales of Arcady? '''What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?'''
 * Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
 * Stanza 1

Are sweeter: therefore, ye soft pipes, play on; Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd, Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone.''' Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss, Though winning near the goal — yet, do not grieve; She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
 * '''Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
 * Stanza 2

To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies, And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
 * Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
 * Stanza 4

As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral! When old age shall this generation waste, Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, '''"Beauty is truth, truth beauty," — that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'''
 * Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
 * Stanza 5. The final lines of this poem have been rendered in various ways in different editions, some placing the entire last two lines within quotation marks, others only the statement "Beauty is truth, truth beauty," and others without any quotation marks. The poet's final intentions upon the matter before his death are unclear.

Quotes about Keats

 * The other people that I was simply made for were the Romantic poets. Shelley, in particular, and Keats.
 * Paula Gunn Allen Interview in Survival This Way: Interviews with American Indian Poets by Joseph Bruchac (1987)

 * What harm he has done in English Poetry. As Browning is a man with a moderate gift passionately desiring movement and fulness, and obtaining but a confused multitudinousness, so Keats with a very high gift, is yet also consumed by this desire; and cannot produce the truly living and moving, as his conscience keeps telling him. They will not be patient neither understand that they must begin with an Idea of the world in order not be prevailed over by the world's multitudinousness: or if they cannot get that, at least with isolated ideas: and all other things shall (perhaps) be added unto them.
 * Matthew Arnold, Letter to Arthur Clough, 1848/9, in John Keats: The Critical Heritage, ed. G.M. Matthews (1995)

 * [On Monckton Milne's Life of Keats] An attempt to make us eat dead dog by exquisite currying and cooking [...] The kind of man that Keats was gets ever more horrible to me. Forces of hunger for every pleasure of every kind, and want of all other force -- that is a combination! Such a structure of soul, it would once have been very evident, was a chosen 'Vessel of Hell' [...]
 * Thomas Carlyle, in J.A. Froude, Thomas Carlyle: A History of His Life in London, 1834 - 1881 (1884)

 * Here are Johnny Keats's piss a-bed poetry [...] There is such trash of Keats and the like upon my tables, that I am ashamed to look at them [...] No more Keats, I entreat: flay him alive; if some of you don't I must skin him myself: there is no bearing the driveling idiotism of the Mankin.
 * The Edinburgh praises Jack Keats or Ketch, or whatever his names are [...] why, his is the Onanism of Poetry -- something like the pleasure an Italian fiddler extracted out of being suspended daily by a Street Walker in Drury Lane. This went on for some weeks: at last the Girl went to get a pint of Gin -- met another, chatted too long, and Cornelli was hanged outright before she returned. Such like is the trash they praise, and such will be the end of the outstretched poesy of this miserable Self-polluter of the human mind.
 * Mr Keats, whose poetry you enquire after, appears to me what I have already said: such writing is a sort of mental masturbation -- he is always frigging his Imagination. I don't mean he is indecent, but viciously soliciting his ideas into a state, which is neither poetry nor anything else but a Bedlam vision produced by raw pork and opium.
 * Lord Byron, Letters to John Murray, 12 August - 9 September 1820, in The Routledge Literary Sourcebook on the Poems of John Keats, ed. J. Strachan (2003)

 * My indignation at Mr. Keats's depreciation of Pope has hardly permitted me to do justice to his own genius, which, malgre all the fantastic fopperies of his style, was undoubtedly of great promise. His fragment of Hyperion seems actually inspired by the Titans, and is as sublime as Aeschylus. He is a loss to our literature.
 * Lord Byron, 12 November 1821

 * Keats, entirely a stranger to error, could believe that the nightingale enchanting him was the same one Ruth heard amid the alien corn of Bethlehem in Judah; Stevenson posits a single bird that consumes the centuries: "the nightingale that devours time." Schopenhauer — impassioned, lucid Schopenhauer — provides a reason: the pure corporeal immediacy in which animals live, oblivious to death and memory. He then adds, not without a smile: Whoever hears me assert that the grey cat playing just now in the yard is the same one that did jumps and tricks there five hundred years ago will think whatever he likes of me, but it is a stranger form of madness to imagine that the present-day cat is fundamentally an entirely different one.
 * Jorge Luis Borges in "A History of Eternity" as translated in Selected Non-Fictions Vol. 1, (1999), edited by Eliot Weinberger

 * In the latter part of that year's summer [1817] I first saw him. It was on the Hampstead road that we were introduced to each other.... ...in that interview of a minute I inwardly desired his acquaintanceship, if not his friendship... He was small in stature, well proportioned, compact in form, and, though thin, rather muscular; — one of the many who prove that manliness is distinct from height and bulk. There is no magic equal to that of an ingenuous countenance, and I never beheld any human being's so ingenuous as his. His full fine eyes were lustrously intellectual, and beaming (at that time!) with hope and joy. It has been remarked that the most faulty feature was his mouth; and, at intervals, it was so. But, whenever he spoke, or was, in any way, excited, the expression of the lips was so varied and delicate, that they might be called handsome.
 * Charles Armitage Brown, Life of John Keats, p. 44

 * A very odd young man, but good-tempered, and good-hearted, and very clever indeed.
 * Mrs. Maria Dilke, quoted in ‘Papers of a Critic’, by Sir Charles Dilke, I, p. 8

 * I also liked the Romantic poets. Wordsworth, Keats, Burns and Blake were some of my favourites. There was something about their rebellious spirit against the evils of industrialization that moved me. Of course now, some of their pessimism, mysticism and limited critical realist visions make me quite uncomfortable.
 * Micere Githae Mugo in Talking with African Writers by Jane Wilkinson

 * Keats was in childhood not attached to books. His penchant was for fighting. He would fight any one – morning, noon, and night, his brother among the rest. It was meat and drink to him. Jennings their sailor relation was always in the thoughts of the brothers, and they determined to keep up the family reputation for courage; George in a passive manner; John and Tom more fiercely. The favourites of John were few; after they were known to fight readily he seemed to prefer them for a sort of grotesque and buffoon humour. I recollect at this moment his delight at the extraordinary gesticulations and pranks of a boy named Wade who was celebrated for this.... He was a boy whom any one from his extraordinary vivacity and personal beauty might easily fancy would become great — but rather in some military capacity than in literature.
 * Edward Holmes, a fellow pupil at Clarke's School in Enfield

He never attached much consequence to his own studies in medicine, and indeed looked upon the medical career as the career by which to live in a workaday world, without being certain that he could keep up the strain of it. He nevertheless had a consciousness of his own powers, and even of his own greatness, though it might never be recognised.... Poetry was to his mind the zenith of all his aspirations: the only thing worthy the attention of superior minds: so he thought: all other pursuits were mean and tame. He had no idea of fame or greatness but as it was connected with the pursuits of poetry, or the attainment of poetical excellence.... He was gentlemanly in his manners and when he condescended to talk upon other subjects he was agreeable and intelligent. He was quick and apt at learning, when he chose to give his attention to any subject. He was a steady quiet and well behaved person, never inclined to pursuits of a low or vicious character.
 * He was called by his fellow students 'little Keats,' being at his full growth no more than five feet high.... In a room, he was always at the window, peering into space, so that the windowseat was spoken of by his comrades as Keats's place.... In the lecture room he seemed to sit apart and to be absorbed in something else, as if the subject suggested thoughts to him which were not practically connected with it. He was often in the subject and out of it, in a dreamy way.
 * Henry Stephens, a fellow student at Guy's Hospital

 * He was under the middle height; and his lower limbs were small in comparison with the upper, but neat and well-turned. His shoulders were very broad for his size; he had a face, in which energy and sensibility were remarkably mixed-up, an eager power checked and made patient by ill-health. Every feature was at once strongly cut, and delicately alive. If there was any faulty expression, it was in the mouth, which was not without something of a character of pugnacity... The head was a particular puzzle for the phrenologist, being remarkably small in the skull; a singularity he has in common with Lord Byron and Mr Shelley, none of whose hats I could get on.
 * Leigh Hunt, "Mr. Keats"

 * And don't you remember Keats proposing 'Confusion to the memory of Newton' and upon your insisting on an explanation before you drank it, his saying, 'Because he destroyed the poetry of the rainbow by reducing it to a prism? Ah, my dear old friend, you and I shall never see such days again!
 * Benjamin Haydon, Autobiography and Memoirs

 * I remember... his first introduction to Mr. Haydon; and when in the course of conversation that great artist asked him, "if he did not love his country," how the blood rushed to his cheeks and the tears to his eyes, at his energetic reply. His love of freedom was ardent and grand.
 * Charles Cowden Clarke, article in the Morning Chronicle (27 July 1821)

 * He is studying closely, recovering his Latin, going to learn Greek, and seems altogether more rational than usual — but he is such a man of fits and starts he is not much to be depended on. Still he thinks of nothing but poetry as his being's end and aim, and sometime or other he will, I doubt not, do something valuable.
 * James Augustus Hessey to John Taylor, (16 September 1818), as quoted by Edmund Blunden in Keats's Publisher, p. 56

 * He, who is gone, was one of the very kindest friends I possessed, and yet he was not kinder perhaps to me, than to others. His intense mind and powerful feelings would, I truly believe, have done the world some service, had his life been spared — but he was of too sensitive a nature — and thus he was destroyed!
 * John Hamilton Reynolds

 * [Keats] was the very soul of courage and manliness, and as much like the holy Ghost as Johnny Keats.
 * George Keats

 * When somebody expressed his surprise to Shelley, that Keats, who was not very conversant with the Greek language, could write so finely and classically of their gods and goddesses, Shelley replied “He was a Greek.”
 * Richard H. Horne, A New Spirit of the Age (1844)

 * think: poems fixed this landscape: Blake, Donne, Keats
 * Collected Poems of Muriel Rukeyser

 * With Wordsworth, mortality is often just under the surface, as it was with Keats, another child of his time, who believed, because of the Enlightenment, that we are material beings in a material universe and that we must just accept that fate. We are mortal, but with no divine shoulder to lean on, and we will never understand the deepest truths, which, contrary to all the protestations of the Enlightenment, neither reason nor science can reach. Keats had a tragic sense of life. He is recognizably a Romantic; there is no Enlightenment Utopia waiting for him.
 * Brian L. Silver, The Ascent of Science (1998)

 * I’d happily just be someone Keats’s epitaph describes: “Here lies one whose name was writ in water.”
 * Rebecca Solnit interview (2018)

after fact and reason." I was drawn to this idea because so much of what I experienced as a kid, teen, and young man seemed shrouded in mystery.
 * I have a lifelong love for John Keats, the greatest of the English Romantic poets who lived during the nineteenth century. His uncanny ability to create beauty with words touched my soul. I was still quite young when I read the letter Keats sent to his brother in 1817. In it, he wrote about "negative capability," which he explained as the quality "when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching
 * Cornel West Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud, A Memoir (2009)

title: John Keats


text:
Steven Wright

Steven Alexander Wright (born December 6, 1955) is an Academy Award winning American comedian, writer and actor, known for his bizarre comic style and morose stage persona.

Catchphrase

 * [unenthusiastically at the beginning of every show in response to audience applause] "Thanks."

I Have A Pony (1985)

 * I recently went to the hardware store and I bought some used paint... it was in a shape of a house. I also bought some batteries, but they weren't included, so I had to buy them again.
 * I was once walking through the forest alone. A tree fell right in front of me, and I didn't hear a thing.
 * I have a large seashell collection which I keep scattered on the beaches all over the world. Maybe you've seen it.
 * Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect.
 * When I first read the dictionary, I thought it was a long poem about everything.

Steven Wright Special (1985)

 * I went to a museum where they had all the heads and arms from the statues that are in all the other museums.
 * Everywhere is walking distance if you've got the time.
 * Sometimes you cannot hear me, it's because sometimes I'm in parentheses.
 * I bought some powdered water, but I don't know what to add.
 * A lot of people are afraid of heights; not me, I'm afraid of widths.
 * I woke up one morning, [my girlfriend] asked me if I slept good. I said, "No, I made a few mistakes."
 * I saw six men kicking and punching the mother-in-law. My neighbour said 'Are you going to help?' I said 'No, Six should be enough.'

When the Leaves Blow Away (2006) / I Still Have a Pony (2007)

 * I wish the first word I ever said was the word "quote," so right before I die I could say "unquote."

 * Lots of my friends have babies, but I don't have any babies. But I have lots of friends; babies don't have any friends. They all have those baby-monitors so they can hear the baby from the other room, which I consider a form of wiretapping. One day there's gonna be a really smart baby who makes a fake recording of some fake baby noises... gonna crawl out of the window and go to Italy.

 * I need one of those baby-monitors for my subconscious to my consciousness so I can know what the hell I'm really thinking about.

 * Sometimes I talk to myself fluently in languages I'm unfamiliar with... just to screw with my subconscious.

 * It's a good thing a lot of people speak foreign languages, otherwise those people would have no one to talk to.

 * They say you're not supposed to put metal in a microwave oven... They're right.

 * I bought a new camera. It's very advanced. You don't even need it.

 * I have a paper cut from writing my suicide note. [sighs] It's a start...

 * In school they told me "Practice makes perfect." And then they told me "Nobody's perfect," so then I stopped practicing.

 * I'm addicted to placebos. I could quit, but it wouldn't matter.

 * I tried to hang myself with bungie cords. I kept almost dying.

Interviews

 * About five years ago, somebody showed me some web sites that had my material all over them, and I thought that was fascinating. One reason was, I'd never seen my jokes written one right after another like that. I write on drawing paper—I don't even like lines on the paper—so I have notebooks all over the place with handwritten pieces of my act in them. So to see it go by, all typed out neatly, was like, "Wow." And then two or three years ago, someone showed me a site, and half of it that said I wrote it, I didn't write. Recently, I saw one, and I didn't write any of it. What's disturbing is that with a few of these jokes, I wish I had thought of them. A giant amount of them, I'm embarrassed that people think I thought of them, because some are really bad.

Attributed

 * Steven had a great line. They were askin' us "What's it like as a comedian in front of 80,000 people?" And Steven said "If you're swimming in the ocean, it doesn't matter how deep the water is. All you can do is swim."
 * Jerry Seinfeld, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee: Season 3: Episode 1 (2014)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Steven Wright


text:
Talk:Linus Torvalds

Marcod'Itri, why did you remove the Attributed quote about lawyers? Do you know for a fact that he did not say this, or that someone else said it? Nanobug 21:14, 9 Sep 2003 (UTC)

 * I did extensive google and google groups search and not only I could not find an attribution, but I could not find the quote either, so I'm not sure that the words you reported are correct. Given that this quote is supposed to have been said less than one month ago, I believe that it should not be readded unless it can be verified. Marcod'Itri 11:52, 11 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Fair enough. But just for clarification, I didn't add it. It was 68.99.6.161 on August 31. Nanobug 20:05, 11 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I removed the link to Linux in the bottom of the page, as it redirected to this article again (and therefore essentially was a link from one article, to itself). Niffux 08:35, 4 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I love the quote about Linux being so fast that it can do an infinite loop in under 5 seconds. Sorry... don't know where the link to prove it is...

According to the linux journal: "Linux does endless loops in six seconds" and other amazing comments were overheard at the First Dutch International Symposium on Linux.--62.163.141.159 22:44, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Some once-Sourced quotes moved to Unsourced
As part of my cleanup of the page, I moved several quotes from the "Sourced" section to the "Unsourced" section. Generally, these were quotes with a dead link, but some, such as those linked to KernelTrap, were moved because they don't provide a direct link to the message. Feel free to restore any of these when valid primary source information can be located. —LrdChaos 20:09, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I just moved two more quotes, added by 80.63.213.182, from Sourced to Unsourced, even in the fact of a URL. Why? Because the URL doesn't provide enough information for me to consider it a source. I assume that, from the title given in the cite template, that it was a post to the linux-kernel mailing list, but the linked page doesn't provide a To: or any other header to give that information. —LrdChaos 20:47, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

My name is Linus, and I am your god.
That quote can be added in "sourced", just look at "Just for Fun" (or google print...), Linus says himself he said that.

Linux section?
Since Linux redirects to Linus Torvalds, should we split the main section into quotes by/about Linus Torvalds, and a Linux section containing quotes (by others) about Linux? Then Linux could redirect to Linus Torvalds --DavidBiesack 12:38, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

Let's organize it?
That's a lot of quotes, unh? Wouldn't be great if someone divides them by subject?

If nobody will blame me today, I'll do it. I just want to discuss w/ everybody BEFORE do it.

189.34.107.52 12:44, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

To Polister
Sorry, I thought it was vandalism. And yes, I know this site allows those words, but I thought it was vandalism. I apologize. - Arbok 22:38, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

git
We will hereby start scouring the net for people who say git is hard to understand and use, and just kill them. They clearly are just polluting the gene pool. http://www.spinics.net/lists/git/msg01343.html

title: Talk:Linus Torvalds


text:
Jonathan Katz

Jonathan Paul Katz (born December 1, 1946) is an American comedian/actor/voice actor who is best known for his starring role in the animated sitcom Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist.

Attributed

 * What she doesn't say is just as important as what she does say -- but there's so much more of it. I think from now on I'm going to stick to what she actually does say because I don't have that kind of time.
 * (On Silence)
 * Appears on TPCN

 * I hate going to funerals because I'm not a mourning person.
 * Interview on Late Night with Conan O'Brien

title: Jonathan Katz


text:
Ray Romano

Raymond Albert "Ray" Romano (born December 21, 1957) is an actor and comedian.

Quotes

 * I'd rather be in Las Vegas 104 degrees than New York 90 degrees, you know why? Legalized prostitution. In any weather that takes the edge off.
 * as "Patient #3" to Dr. Katz in Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist

 * Living with kids is like living in a frat house... everything's broken, nobody sleeps, and there's alot of throwing up
 * on Everybody Loves Raymond''

title: Ray Romano


text:
Harrison Ford

Harrison Ford (born 13 July 1942) is an American actor. He has been a leading man in films of several genres and is regarded as an American cultural icon. His films have grossed more than $5.4 billion in North America and more than $9.3 billion worldwide,> making him the seventh-highest-grossing actor in North America. He is the recipient of various accolades, including the w;AFI Life Achievement Award in 2000, the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2002, an Honorary César in 2010 and an Honorary Palme d'Or in 2023 in addition to an Academy Award nomination.

Quotes

 * Speaking about his Irish/Jewish/Russian ancestors, Harrison Ford said that he is “Irish as a person but I feel Jewish as an actor.”
 * Pravda 18 Nov 2005

 * The simplest answer is probably the most truthful: After two years of sitting on my ass during COVID, and waiting quite a few years for Indiana Jones to start, I had not done as much work as I wanted to and I wanted to do different things. So [Shrinking] came along, and then, very quickly after that, 1923 came along. I took the job without a script on both of them, on faith that the people who created the projects were going to deliver me a good script. I really didn’t realize how much work 1923 was going to be, and I absolutely feel it’s worth it. I’m excited to do another season of both.
 * Harrison Ford on his interview at Holywood reporter (8 February 2023)

Barbara Walters interview (1997)

 * ABC Special Report : Barbra Walters Interview (24 March 1997)

 * I just don't understand the need to name something "the best" or more better than something else. Saying one thing is better than another, one performance is better than another performance — there can't be a contest in this area. I don't understand that.

 * I wouldn't be doing this interview if I didn't like you.

 * I am in show business. I don't, for a minute, ever forget that this is a business that I'm involved in, and it plays by business' rules.

 * I don't think I have something that's pronounceable as a philosophy. ... When it was fashionable to say, "May the Force be with you," I always said, "Force yourself." ... I'll say again then, "The Force is within you. Force yourself."

"Harrison Ford Has Stories to Tell", Esquire (2023)

 * "Harrison Ford Has Stories to Tell", Esquire (May 31, 2023)

 * Flying is the tension between freedom and responsibility. The obligation on every flight is to ensure the safety of the people aboard. It's serious. And I continually have to meet the standards. And: it's the third dimension! We're living the two dimensional life here on the ground. When you get up there and you see the third dimension - that's what's so exciting about these kids, the Young Eagles. You fly 'em over their house and it's the first time they really know where they live.

 * It is a bit of a shock to discover that there are things that a writer can bring to a script that you recognize as a shadow of your own experience. You don’t necessarily actively draw on some specific thing that happened to you—but it’s in the bank, and you want to spend it.

 * I can tell you this: If I’d been less successful, I’d probably be a better parent.

 * Which I still get shit about from my wife, like I don’t take mental health seriously. I do take mental health seriously. I was trying to say, as I explained to her: It’s that I accommodate all of the flaws that people go to psychiatrists to accommodate, because I accept my flaws. I accept my flaws and my failures—I don’t accept them, I own them. And certainly the more constant gardener is the better parent, and I’ve been out of town, up my own ass, for most of my life.
 * About the Hollywood Reporter interview and its headline ‘I know who the fuck I am.’

title: Harrison Ford


text:
Henry Williamson

Henry Williamson (1 December 1895 – 13 August 1977) was an English soldier, naturalist, farmer and ruralist writer known for his natural history and social history novels.

Quotes

 * Men, single and in couples, shuffling past them, answering no questions. Tin hats on back of heads, and no tin hats, tin hats with splinter-ragged sandbag-coverings; men without rifles, haggard, bloodshot-eyed, slouching past in loose file, slouching on anywhere, anyhow, staggering under rifles and equipment, some with jaws sagging, puttees coiled mud-balled around ankles, feet in shapeless mud boots, swelled beyond feeling, men slouching on beyond fatigue and hope, on and on and on. GS waggons with loads of sleeping bodies. Stretcher-bearers plodding desperate-faced. Men slavering and rolling their bare-teethed heads, slobbering and blowing, blasting brightness behind their eye-balls, supported by listless cripples.
 * The Patriot's Progress: Being the Vicissitudes of Pte. John Bullock (1930), pp. 97-98

 * With the dried blood stiff on my temples I climbed the hill, cursing the satanic way of men, yet knowing myself vile, for they had not known what they were doing, but I betrayed an innocent; and the tears— weak, whiskey tears— would not wash from my brow the blood of a little brother.
 *  The Village Book (1930) – after a killing of a badger by villagers.

title: Henry Williamson


text:
Talk:Dan Quayle

Note, both of the quotes with sources I have personally witnessed. -- Cimon Avaro.
 * To clarify the above comment in case other quotes with sources are added, it is referring to: "My National Guard unit..." and "We have a firm commitment...". Nanobug 19:23, 11 Sep 2003 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with this one.
Folks quote this one pejoratively, but I believe it is a perfectly logical, well spoken statement.

"I have been asked who caused the riots and the killing in LA, my answer has been direct & simple: Who is to blame for the riots? The rioters are to blame. Who is to blame for the killings? The killers are to blame."

He's talking about an almost lost concept called "Personal responsibility"!

--TecBrat 15:28, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Clarification on an edit 1/4/2006
Rather than continue to muck up the history section, I'll explain here:

On 1/4/2006 I edited this article without logging in. That caused me to be identified by IP only. I attempted to correct that, and typed the wrong year (As is common for many folks in January.) in my note.

So, to be clear. The edit entered 1/4/2006 adding a dispute with a link to Snopes.com was done by this editor, TecBrat.

--TecBrat 09:10, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Dan Quayle, beach bum?
What's with all the quotes from Hawaii? You've got the one that is about Hawaii, which is verified, then a couple weeks later he's speaking to the United Negro College Fund (located in Virginia), then a couple weeks after that he's in Hawaii, then he's in Hawaii in August, and in December he's in Hawaii again. I think I'll move the last three to the "attributed" section pending clearer verification. w:User:WillOakland 08:22, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Why is this page not protected and Barack Obama's is?
This is an example of intellectual dishonesty. Most of these quotes would not pass muster, according to the decision to leave out Barack Obama's Special Olympic quote by one of the editors of the Barack Obama page:

How about you give a reason why that quote shouldnt be included on this page. The fact that it is not flattering to President Obama is not sufficient to exclude it. --Henrybaker 06:43, 22 March 2009 (UTC) If it was flattering to Obama, it still wouldn't merit inclusion in my opinion. If Obama went on the Tonight Show and recited his grocery list, some people would find things there to praise and others to criticize, but it wouldn't be quoteworthy. Wikiquote:Quotability sets forth a number of factors to be weighed in determining whether either deserves a place in this compendium. These include: Is the quote itself particularly witty, pithy, wise, eloquent, or poignant? Is the author of the quote notable? If so, are they very notable, moderately notable, barely notable? Are they notable as a source of quotes (i.e., as a poet, pundit, or Yogi Berra)? Is the quote itself independently well known (as with proverbs and certain well-reported comments)? Is the subject of the quote a notable subject? Is it about a broad theme of the human experience such as Love, Justice, or Loneliness? Or is it about a narrow or mundane topic, like porcupines, lunch meat, or that new car smell? If the quote is about another person, is that other person highly notable? Has the quote stood the test of time? Is the quote verifiably sourced? The quote at issue here fails the first, fourth, and fifth factors utterly. Certainly it is not inherently memorable if considered apart from the author. The topic is bowling, which is mundane (or, arguably, the Special Olympics, which is a narrow topic). Per the Quotability guidelines, "any quote made within the past ten years will be scrutinized under the presumption that it is not inherently quotable". If we include everything said by a notable person simply because that person is notable, then we would for example transcribe every word of Shakespeare's plays, duplicating the function of Wikisource while drowning truly poignant comments and notable observations in a sea of chaff. I note that we include Obama's heavily criticized "they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion" remark, which is far more unflattering to Obama than the bowling comment, but which is also (unlike the bowling comment) relevant to his role in society, as a policymaker explicitly addressing things such as guns and religion. BD2412 T 07:16, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

If that page is protected, then so should this one. If the quotes (gaffes) over there are not considered worthy of Wikiquote, then why are these? Eschudy

 * Many forms of conscious and unconcious dishonesty and hypocrisy abound among many people, but to target the fact that this page is not currently protected as somehow an example of that seems more than a little extreme. Pages are protected according to the level of vandalism which tends to be occurring on them. Obama as current president, currently is a subject of massive attention and the page is likely to be a target of much vandalism. You specify one quote which was not included after it's removal from Obama's page. Frankly it seems to have been a quote most people were not all that interested in discussing or including. Personally, I have no strong objections to the quote in question either being included or removed, for even though it is not one I find particularly notable, obviously many others seem to think it was. I am not interested in having anyone on any of these pages being presented in entirely flattering or entirely damning ways, but neither is it anyone's obligation here to be more interested or involved in any particular page or issue than they choose to be. The omission of that quote simply seems to be a case of no one objecting strongly enough to a short list of rationale for it being removed (which I, being a bit more "inclusionist" than some, would personally say is somewhat flawed, no matter how earnest and well motivated). In regard to semi-protecting this page: I perceive no strong need for it at this point. Vandalism of Quayle's page has never approached the level that occurs upon that of a current president. ~ Kalki 07:22, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

title: Talk:Dan Quayle


text:
W. Somerset Maugham

William Somerset Maugham (25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965) was an English playwright, novelist, and short story writer; often published as simply W. Somerset Maugham.

Quotes

 * Do you know that conversation is one of the greatest pleasures in life? But it wants leisure.
 * The Trembling of a Leaf (1921), ch. 3

 * The tragedy of love is indifference.
 * The Trembling of a Leaf, ch. 4

 * She gathered herself together. No one could describe the scorn of her expression or the contemptuous hatred she put into her answer. "You men! You filthy dirty pigs! You're all the same, all of you. Pigs! Pigs!"
 * "Sadie Thompson" in Altogether - Rain (1934)

 * If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.
 * Strictly Personal, ch. 31 (1941)

 * The isn't only a sunny place for shady people.
 * Strictly Personal, p. 156 (Doubleday, Doran and co., inc., 1941)

 * He knew that women appreciated neither irony nor sarcasm, but simple jokes and funny stories. He was amply provided with both.
 * Then and Now : A Novel (1946), p. 136

 * Now the world in general doesn't know what to make of originality; it is startled out of its comfortable habits of thought, and its first reaction is one of anger.
 * Great Novelists and Their Novels (1948)

 * The trouble with our younger authors is that they are all in the sixties.
 * As quoted in "Sayings of the Week" in The Observer (14 October 1951)

 * It is unsafe to take your reader for more of a fool than he is.
 * Ten Novels and Their Authors (1954)

 * Money is like a sixth sense - and you can't make use of the other five without it.
 * The New York Times Magazine (October 18, 1958)

 * What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one's faculties, mental and physical, but the burden of one's memories.
 * Points of View (1959) Ch. 1

 * What has influenced my life more than any other single thing has been my stammer. Had I not stammered I would probably... have gone to Cambridge as my brothers did, perhaps have become a don and every now and then published a dreary book about French literature.
 * Newsweek (23 May 1960)

 * Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.
 * Quoted in Conversations with Willie (1978) by Robin Maugham

 * To eat well in England, you should have a breakfast three times a day.
 * Quoted in Somerset Maugham (1980) by Ted Morgan

 * Money is the string with which a sardonic destiny directs the motions of its puppets.
 * Quoted in Somerset Maugham (1980) by Ted Morgan

 * My own belief is that there is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror.
 * Quoted in Somerset Maugham (1980) by Ted Morgan

 * A soul is a troublesome possession, and when man developed it he lost the Garden of Eden.
 * Red (1921)

 * I hate people who play bridge as though they were at a funeral and knew their feet were getting wet.
 * Said in 1921. Quoted in The Guinness Dictionary of Sports Quotations (1990), p. 75

 * Observing these people I am no longer surprised that there is such a scarcity of domestic servants back home.
 * Said in an uncharacteristically loud voice after being refused entry to the premier British expatriate club in Singapore in 1960. Quoted in Robert Calder, Willie (1989), p. 361

Of Human Bondage (1915)

 * He had doubts about the utility of examination on subjects which had been crammed for the occasion. He wanted common sense.
 * Ch. 10

 * You know, there are two good things in life, freedom of thought and freedom of action.
 * Ch. 23

 * It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched, for they are full of the truthless ideals which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real they are bruised and wounded.
 * Ch. 29

 * Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.
 * Ch. 39

 * Art... is merely the refuge which the ingenious have invented, when they were supplied with food and women, to escape the tediousness of life.
 * Ch. 42

 * I do not confer praise or blame: I accept. I am the measure of all things. I am the centre of the world.
 * Ch. 45

 * Men seek but one thing in life — their pleasure.
 * Ch. 45

 * People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise.
 * Ch. 50

 * There is nothing so degrading as the constant anxiety about one's means of livelihood...Money is like a sixth sense without which you cannot make a complete use of the other five.
 * Ch. 51

 * You will hear people say that poverty is the best spur to the artist. They have never felt the iron of it in their flesh. They do not know how mean it makes you. It exposes you to endless humiliation, it cuts your wings, it eats into your soul like a cancer. It is not wealth one asks for, but just enough to preserve one's dignity, to work unhampered, to be generous, frank, and independent.
 * Ch. 51

 * It is cruel to discover one's mediocrity only when it is too late.
 * Ch. 51

 * I daresay one profits more by the mistakes one makes off one's own bat than by doing the right thing on somebody's else advice.
 * Ch. 52

 * Follow your inclinations with due regard to the policeman round the corner.
 * Ch. 53

 * There was an immeasurable distance between the quick and the dead: they did not seem to belong to the same species; and it was strange to think that but a little while before they had spoken and moved and eaten and laughed.
 * Ch. 54

 * Of course it was cause and effect, but in the necessity with which follows the other lay all tragedy of life.
 * Ch. 65

 * Life wouldn't be worth living if I worried over the future as well as the present. When things are at their worst I find something always happens.
 * Ch. 66

 * When I read a book I seem to read it with my eyes only, but now and then I come across a passage, perhaps only a phrase, which has a meaning for me, and it becomes part of me.
 * Ch. 67

 * It's no use crying over spilt milk, because all of the forces of the universe were bent on spilling it.
 * Ch. 68

 * But when all was said the important thing was to love rather than to be loved.
 * Ch. 70

 * There's always one who loves and one who lets himself be loved.
 * Ch. 71

 * It's asking a great deal that things should appeal to your reason as well as your sense of the aesthetic.
 * Ch. 88

 * He was always seeking for a meaning in life, and here it seemed to him that a meaning was offered; but it was obscure and vague. He was profoundly troubled. He saw what looked like the truth as by flashes of lightning on a dark, stormy night you might see a mountain range. He seemed to see that a man need not leave his life to chance, but that his will was powerful; he seemed to see that self-control might be as passionate and as active as the surrender to passion; he seemed to see that the inward life might be as manifold, as varied, as rich with experience, as the life of one who conquered realms and explored unknown lands.
 * Ch. 88

 * The rain fell alike upon the just and upon the unjust, and for nothing was there a why and a wherefore.
 * Ch. 106

 * D'you call life a bad job? Never! We've had our ups and downs, we've had our struggles, we've always been poor, but it's been worth it, ay, worth it a hundred times I say when I look round at my children.
 * Ch. 108

 * He had heard people speak contemptuously of money: he wondered if they had ever tried to do without it.
 * Ch. 116

 * It might be that to surrender to happiness was to accept defeat, but it was a defeat better than many victories.
 * Ch. 122

The Moon and Sixpence (1919)

 * Page numbers used in this section are from the Penguin Classics edition (1993) ISBN 0140185976

 * The modern clergyman has acquired in his study of the science which I believe is called exegesis an astonishing facility for explaining things away.
 * Ch. 1, p. 8

 * I forget who it was that recommended men for their soul's good to do each day two things they disliked: it was a wise man, and it is a precept that I have followed scrupulously; for every day I have got up and I have gone to bed.
 * Ch. 2, p. 11

 * Impropriety is the soul of wit.
 * Ch. 4, p. 17

 * I reflected, while I chatted with the woman I had been asked to ‘take in’, that civilized man practises a strange ingenuity in wasting on tedious exercises the brief span of his life.
 * Ch. 6, p. 22

 * I did not then know the besetting sin of woman, the passion to discuss her private affairs with anyone who is willing to listen.
 * Ch. 8, p. 31

 * I had not yet learnt how contradictory is human nature; I did not know how much pose there is in the sincere, how much baseness in the noble, or how much goodness in the reprobate.
 * Ch. 11, p. 39

 * Conscience is the guardian in the individual of the rules which the community has evolved for its own preservation.
 * Ch. 14, p. 54

 * Whatever anguish she suffered she concealed. She saw shrewdly that the world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willingly avoids the sight of distress.
 * Ch. 16, p. 61

 * She was making money. But she could not get over the idea that to earn her living was somewhat undignified, and she was inclined to remind you that she was a lady by birth.
 * Ch. 17, p. 63

 * It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.
 * Ch. 17, p. 64

 * I don't think of the past. The only thing that matters is the everlasting present.
 * Ch. 21, p. 79

 * Life isn't long enough for love and art.
 * Ch. 21, p. 80

 * The poignancy which all beauty has.
 * Ch. 23, p. 87

 * I am a little shy of any assumption of moral indignation. There is always in it an element of self-satisfaction which makes it awkward to anyone who has a sense of humour.
 * Ch. 32, p. 116

 * One of the falsest of proverbs is that you must lie on the bed that you have made. The experience of life shows that people are constantly doing things which must lead to disaster, and yet by some chance manage to evade the result of their folly.
 * Ch. 33, p. 119

 * We must go through life so inconspicuously that Fate does not notice us.
 * Ch. 38, p. 129

 * The writer is more concerned to know than to judge.
 * Ch. 41, p. 140

 * “A woman can forgive a man for the harm he does her,” he said, “but she can never forgive him for the sacrifices he makes on her account.”
 * Ch. 41, p. 142

 * Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem.
 * Ch. 42, p. 147

 * Self-doubt, which is the artist's bitterest enemy.
 * Ch. 43, p. 153

 * But who can fathom the subtleties of the human heart? Certainly not those who expect from it only decorous sentiments and normal emotions.
 * Ch. 43, p. 154

 * He made one laugh sometimes by speaking the truth, but this is a form of humour which gains its force only by its unusualness; it would cease to amuse if it were commonly practised.
 * Ch. 44, p. 157

 * Perhaps some deep-rooted atavism urges the wanderer back to lands which his ancestors left in the dim beginnings of history.
 * Ch. 50, p. 1??

 * Men are always the same. Fear makes them cruel.
 * Ch. 55, p. 204

 * Tahiti is very far away, and I knew that I should never see it again. A chapter of my life was closed, and I felt a little nearer to inevitable death.
 * Ch. 58, p. 213

Great Novelists and Their Novels

 * Both these men are in love with Natasha, Count Rostov's younger daughter, and in her Tolstoy has created the most delightful girl in fiction. Nothing is so difficult as to portray a young girl who is at once charming and interesting. Generally the young girls of fiction are colorless (Amelia in Vanity Fair), priggish (Fanny in Mansfield Park), too clever by half (Constantia Durham in The Egoist), or little geese (Dora in David Copperfield), silly flirts or innocent beyound belief. It is understandable that they should be an awkward subject for the novelist to deal with, for at that tender age the personality is undeveloped. Similarly a painter can only make a face interesting when the vicissitudes of life, thought, love and suffering have given it character. In the portrait of a girl the best he can do is to represent the charm and beauty of youth. But Natasha is entirely natural. She is sweet, sensitive, and sympathetic, willful, childish, womanly already, idealistic, quick-tempered, warm-hearted, headstrong, capricious and in everything enchanting. Tolstoy created many women and they are wonderfully true to life, but never another who wins the affection of the reader as does Natasha.
 * Leo Tolstoy and War and Peace

Cakes and Ale: Or, The Skeleton in the Cupboard (1930)

 * It's no good trying to keep up old friendships. It's painful for both sides. The fact is, one grows out of people, and the only thing is to face it.
 * p. 14

 * Hypocrisy is the most difficult and nerve-racking vice that any man can pursue; it needs an unceasing vigilance and a rare detachment of spirit. It cannot, like adultery or gluttony, be practised at spare moments; it is a whole-time job.
 * p. 15

 * Beauty is an ecstasy; it is as simple as hunger. There is really nothing to be said about it. It is like the perfume of a rose: you can smell it and that is all.
 * p. 140.

 * ...you know what the critics are. If you tell the truth they only say you're cynical and it does an author no good to get a reputation for cynicism.
 * p. 137

 * It's very hard to be a gentleman and a writer.
 * p. 157

 * ...when you are young you take the kindness people show you as your right...
 * p. 166

 * The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes...
 * p. 184

The Gentleman in the Parlour (1930)

 * There is no silence in the East.
 * p. ?

 * Mandalay has its name; the falling cadence of the lovely word has gathered about itself the chiaroscuro of romance.
 * p. ?

 * The Chinese are the aristocracy of the East.
 * p. ?

 * They are like a face full of character that intrigues and excites you, but that on closer acquaintance you discover is merely the mask of a vulgar soul. Such is Tourane.
 * Of Tourane, now Da Nang, Vietnam. p. ?
 * Chambers Dictionary of Great Quotations (2015), p. 582

The Summing Up (1938)

 * Page numbers in this section are from the first edition by Doubleday, Doran & Co.

 * I would sooner read a time-table or a catalogue than nothing at all. ... They are much more entertaining than half the novels that are written.
 * p. 1

 * There is a sort of man who pays no attention to his good actions, but is tormented by his bad ones. This is the type that most often writes about himself.
 * Ch. 4, p. 11

 * There is only one thing about which I am certain, and this is that there is very little about which one can be certain.
 * Ch. 5, p. 12-13

 * I have not been afraid of excess: excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.
 * p. 48

 * ...the future will one day be the present and will seem as unimportant as the present does now.
 * p. 51

 * ...we learn resignation not by our own suffering, but by the suffering of others.
 * p. 64

 * You are not angry with people when you laugh at them. Humour teaches tolerance, and the humorist, with a smile and perhaps a sigh, is more likely to shrug his shoulders than to condemn.
 * p. 67

 * I do not believe they are right who say that the defects of famous men should be ignored. I think it is better that we should know them. Then, though we are conscious of having faults as glaring as theirs, we can believe that that is no hindrance to our achieving also something of their virtues.
 * p. 71

 * The artist produces for the liberation of his soul. It is his nature to create as it is the nature of water to run down the hill.
 * p. 185

 * Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young.
 * p. 164

 * ... habits in writing as in life are only useful if they are broken as soon as they cease to be advantageous.
 * p. 182

 * The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant and kind. Failure makes people bitter and cruel.
 * p. 182

 * I'll give you my opinion of the human race in a nutshell... their heart's in the right place, but their head is a thoroughly inefficient organ.
 * p. 206

 * I have been forced to conclude from this that we know our friends by their defects rather than by their merits.
 * p. 214

 * It is salutary to train oneself to be no more affected by censure than by praise...
 * p. 223

 * The great critic ... must be a philosopher, for from philosophy he will learn serenity, impartiality, and the transitoriness of human things.
 * p. 223

 * Tradition is a guide and not a jailer.
 * p. 223

 * There is no explanation for evil. It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the order of the universe. To ignore it is childish, to bewail it senseless.
 * p. 285

 * Old age has its pleasures, which, though different, are not less than the pleasures of youth.
 * p. 290

 * Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they would take too long.
 * p. 290

 * Perfection is a trifle dull. It is not the least of life's ironies that this, which we all aim at, is better not quite achieved.
 * p. 297

 * We are not the same persons this year as last ; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.
 * p. 306

 * Every production of an artist should be the expression of an adventure of his soul.
 * p. 310

 * By the time I was twenty-four I had constructed a complete system of philosophy. It rested on two principles: The Relativity of Things and The Circumferentiality of Man. I have since discovered that the first was not a very original discovery. It may be that the other was profound, but though I have racked my brains I cannot for the life of me remember what it was.
 * section 66

Christmas Holiday (1939)

 * "Aren't you missing a lot of fun? You know, one's young for such a little while."
 * Ch. 2 - p.43 [Page numbers per the Pan Books 1978 edition. This was also made into movie.]

 * "It's so wonderful to shut out the world for a few hours. Rest, peace, silence, solitude. You would think they were luxuries that only the very rich can afford, and yet they cost nothing. Strange that they should be so hard to come by."
 * Ch. 4 - p.79

 * "God? What has God to do with it? Do you suppose I can look at the misery in which the vast majority of the people live in the world and believe in God? Do you suppose I believe in God who let the Bolsheviks kill my poor, simple father? Do you know what I think? I think God has been dead for millions upon millions of years. I think when he took infinity and set in motion the process that has resulted in the universe, he died, and for ages and ages men have sought and worshipped a being who ceased to exist in the act of making existence possible for them." He wondered if there was anything in what she said, this woman with her tragic history and miserable life, that God had died when he created the wide world; and was he lying dead on some vast mountain range on a dead star or was he absorbed into the universe he caused to be?
 * Ch. 5 - p.131, 132

 * "You know, a thing that has always struck me is people's fiendish eagerness to give anyone away. They pretend it's public spirit, I don't believe a word of it; I don't believe it's even, as a rule anyway, the desire for notoriety; I believe it's just due to the baseness of human nature that gets a kick out of injuring others. There's a whole mass of people who can't wait if they have the chance of doing down someone who's trying to get away with anything."
 * Ch. 6 - p.154

 * The world he knew, the peaceful happy world of the surface, was like a pretty lake in which were reflected the dappled clouds and the willows that grew on its bank, where carefree boys paddled their canoes and the girls with them trailed their fingers in the soft water. It was terrifying to think that below, just below, dangerous weeds waved tentacles to ensnare you and all manner of strange, horrible things, poisonous snakes, fish with murderous jaws, waged an unceasing and hidden warfare.
 * Ch. 7 - p.163

 * It was too sweeping a judgement to be satisfactory; the idea dawned in Charley's mind that perhaps men were more complicated than he had imagined, and if you just said that a man was this or that you couldn't get very far.
 * Ch. 7 - p.164

 * "Stunning, isn't it?" he said then, giving her arm an affectionate pressure. "Yes, it's all right. What business is it of yours?" Charley turned his head sharply. No one had ever asked him a question like that about a picture before. "What on earth d'you mean? It's one of the great portraits of the world. Titian, you know." "I daresay. But what's it got to do with you?" Charley didn't quite know what to say. "Well, it's a very fine picture and it's beautifully painted. Of course it doesn't tell a story if that's what you mean." "No, I don't," she smiled. "I don't suppose it's got anything to do with me really." "Then why should you bother about it?"
 * Ch. 8 - p.192-193

 * It was like one of those comedies where the sets are good and the clothes pretty, where the dialogue is clever and the acting competent, so that you pass an agreeable evening, but a week later cannot remember a thing about it.
 * Ch. 8 - p.203

 * It looked as though the people we thought we knew best carried secrets that they didn't even know themselves. Charley had a sudden inkling that human beings were infinitely mysterious. The fact was that you knew nothing about anybody.
 * Ch. 9 - p.213

 * "I'm beginning to think it's very hard to know what to believe in this world."
 * Ch. 9 - p.239

 * "I don't believe in the god of the Christians who gave his son in order to save mankind. That's a myth. But why should it have arisen if it didn't express some deep-seated intuition in men? I don't know what I believe, because it's instinctive, and how can you describe an instinct with words? I have an instinct that the power that rules us, human beings, animals and things, is a dark and cruel power and that everything has to be paid for, a power that demands an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, and that though we may writhe and squirm we have to submit, for the power is ourselves."
 * Ch. 9 - p.240

 * In point of fact, however, they were much more anxious to tell him about their doings than to listen to his.
 * Ch. 10 - p.247

The Razor's Edge (1943)

 * Passion is destructive; if it does not destroy, it dies.

 * Nothing in the world is permanent, and we're foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we're still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it. If change is of the essence of existence one would have thought it only sensible to make it the premise of our philosophy.

 * I thought I should be a fool to allow work to interfere with a delight in the passing moment that I might never enjoy again so fully.

 * He was the kind of man with whom one would have hesitated to pass a lonely evening, but with whom one might cheerfully have looked forward to spending six months.

 * It may be that if I lead the life I've planned for myself it may affect others; the effect may be no greater than the ripple caused by a stone thrown in a pond, but one ripple causes another.

 * Almost all the people who have had most effect on me I seem to have met by chance.

 * Don't you know? Because American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in their butlers.

 * Things don't get any easier by putting them off.

 * He found himself now in the agreeable situation of being able to do what was best for others and at the same time what was convenient to himself.

 * There are men who are possessed by an urge so strong to do some particular thing that they can't help themselves, they've got to do it. They're prepared to sacrifice everything to satisfy their yearning.

 * Women are always glad to listen when you discourse upon love...

 * Passion doesn't count the cost. ... Passion is destructive.

 * '''In art honesty is not only the best but the only policy.

 * Religion is...a conspiracy of...priests to gain control over the people...

 * The sad Don Quixote of a worthless purpose.

 * A god that can be understood is not a god.

A Writer's Notebook (1946)

 * Page numbers used in this section are from the first general edition by Country Life Press (1949)

 * Considering how foolishly people act and how pleasantly they prattle, perhaps it would be better for the world if they talked more and did less.
 * "1892", p. 1

 * The love that lasts longest is the love that is never returned.
 * p. 13

 * Anyone can tell the truth, but only very few of us can make epigrams.
 * "1896", p. 17

 * Men have an extraordinarily erroneous opinion of their position in nature; and the error is ineradicable.
 * "1896", p. 20

 * Few misfortunes can befall a boy which bring worse consequences than to have a really affectionate mother.
 * "1896", p. 28

 * There is no object to life. To nature nothing matters but the continuation of the species.
 * p. 38. Maugham says something similar in The Summing up, Ch 22: "Love was only the dirty trick nature played on us to achieve the continuation of the species"

 * In the country the darkness of night is friendly and familiar, but in a city, with its blaze of lights, it is unnatural, hostile and menacing. It is like a monstrous vulture that hovers, biding its time.
 * p. 48

 * There are men whose sense of humour is so ill developed that they still bear a grudge against Copernicus because he dethroned them from the central position in the universe. They feel it a personal affront that they can no longer consider themselves the pivot upon which turns the whole of created things.
 * "1901", p. 66

 * What mean and cruel things men can do for the love of God.
 * "1901", p. 67

 * If forty million people say a foolish thing it does not become a wise one, but the wise man is foolish to give them the lie.
 * "1901", p. 76. Sometimes misquoted as "If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing". Sometimes misattributed to Bertrand Russell or Anatole France

 * She plunged into a sea of platitudes, and with the powerful breast stroke of a channel swimmer made her confident way towards the white cliffs of the obvious.
 * p. 189

 * Things were easier for the old novelists who saw people all of a piece. Speaking generally, their heroes were good through and through, their villains wholly bad.
 * "1922", p. 196

 * It was not till quite late in life that I discovered how easy it is to say: "I don't know."
 * p. 258

 * I made up my mind long ago that life was too short to do anything for myself that I could pay others to do for me.
 * "1941", p. 336

 * Sentimentality is only sentiment that rubs you up the wrong way.
 * "1941"

 * At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.
 * Unidentified page

Short stories

 * "You bloody fool, you've killed the wrong man."
 * The Hairless Mexican (1927)

 * She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit...
 * Revised with quotation in the 1931 compilation Six Stories Written in the First Person Singular.
 * Often misattributed to George Bernard Shaw or Oscar Wilde
 * Often misattributed to George Bernard Shaw or Oscar Wilde

 * Now it is a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best you very often get it...
 * The Mixture As Before (1940) "The Treasure"

 * Marriage is a very good thing, but I think it's a mistake to make a habit out of it.
 * '"The Treasure"

Collected short stories 1

 * He loved her so passionately he wanted her to be one soul and one body with him; and he was conscious that here, with those deep roots attaching her to the native life, she would always keep something from him.
 * "The pool", p. 123

 * He had a bitter pain in his heart, for he knew that she was still a stranger to him and his hungry love was destined ever to remain unsatisfied.
 * "The pool", p. 127

 * I held my breath, for to me there is nothing more awe-inspiring than when a man discovers to you the nakedness of his soul.
 * "The pool", p. 140

 * It is very natural that clever young men should be rather odious. They are conscious of gifts that they do not know how to use. They are exasperated with the world that will not recognize their merit. They have something to give, and no hand is stretched out to receive it. They are impatient for the fame they regard as their due.
 * "The voice of the turtle", p. 250

 * Bob Forestier had pretended for so many years to be a gentleman that in the end, forgetting that it was all a fake, he had found himself driven to act as in that stupid, conventional brain of his he thought a gentleman must act. No longer knowing the difference between sham and real, he had sacrificed his life to a spurious heroism.
 * "The lion's skin", p. 283

 * I have always been convinced that if a woman once made up her mind to marry a man nothing but instant flight could save him.
 * "The escape", p. 309

 * [...] the Eternal turned his attention to the three shades who stood humbly and yet hopefully before him. The quick, with so short a time to live, when they talk of themselves, talk too much; but the dead, with eternity before them, are so verbose that only angels could listen to them with civility.
 * "The judgement seat", p. 314

 * 'I sometimes think,' said the Eternal, 'that the stars never shine more brightly than when reflected in the muddy waters of a wayside ditch.'
 * "The judgement seat", p. 316

 * She had a very agreeable smile; it did not light up her face suddenly, but seemed rather to suffuse it by degrees with charm. It hesitated for a moment about her lips and then slowly travelled to those great shining eyes of hers and there softly lingered.
 * "The promise", p. 407

Plays

 * After all, a man marries to have a home, but also because he doesn't want to be bothered with sex and all that sort of thing.
 * Arnold, in The Circle: A Comedy in Three Acts (1921), p. 58-59

 * You can't learn too soon that the most useful thing about a principle is that it can always be sacrificed to expediency.
 * The Circle

 * You can do anything in this world if you are prepared to take the consequences.
 * The Circle

 * When you have loved as she has loved, you grow old beautifully.
 * The Circle

 * It was such a lovely day I thought it was a pity to get up.
 * Our Betters (1923)

 * We have long passed the Victorian Era when asterisks were followed after a certain interval by a baby.
 * The Constant Wife (1927)

 * You know that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct.
 * The Bread-Winner (1930)

 * I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.
 * "Death" in Sheppey, Act III (1933)

Misattributed

 * It seems that the creative faculty and the critical faculty cannot exist together in their highest perfection.
 * Thomas Babington Macaulay, On John Dryden (1828)

 * No gray hairs streak my soul, no grandfatherly fondness there! I shake the world with the might of my voice, and walk—handsome, twentytwoyearold.
 * Vladimir Mayakovsky, The Cloud in Trousers

 * The crown of literature is poetry.
 * Matthew Arnold, Count Leo Tolstoi

 * The essence of the beautiful is unity in variety.
 * Moses Mendelssohn, Briefe über die Empfindungen (1755)

Quotes about Maugham

 * All the way from Maugham and de Maupassant and Chekhov to Ring Lardner the short story has served to portray the characteristics, the habits, the manners, the morals, the emotions of a nation, a whole people.
 * Edna Ferber Introduction, One basket (1947)

 * Then there was Somerset Maugham, a grim figure; rat-eyed; dead man cheeked, unshaven; a criminal I should have said had I met him on a bus.
 * Virginia Woolf, Letter to Vanessa Bell, 2 November 1938, in The Letters of Virginia Woolf, ed. N. Nicolson and J. Trautmann (1975-80)

title: W. Somerset Maugham