Official dignity tends to increase in inverse ratio to the importance of the country in which the office is held.
Beyond the Mexique Bay (1934)
Aldous Huxley, English writer and philosopher (1894–1963)
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Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.
Themes and Variations (1950)
Aldous Huxley, English writer and philosopher (1894–1963)
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It is always easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them.
Alfred Adler, Austrian psychologist and psychiatrist (1870–1937)
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Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labour by taking up another.
The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard (1881)
Anatole France, French poet (1844–1924)
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A man’s mind will very generally refuse to make itself up until it be driven and compelled by emergency.
Ayala’s Angel (1881)
Anthony Trollope, English writer (1815–1882)
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I have taken great care not to laugh at human actions, not to weep at them, nor to hate them, but to understand them.
Tractatus Politicus (1677)
Baruch Spinoza, Dutch philosopher (1632–1677)
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Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact.
The Conquest of Happiness (1930)
Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, mathematician, historian, and writer (1872–1970)
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One of the symptoms of approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important, and that to take a holiday would bring all kinds of disaster.
In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays (1935)
Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, mathematician, historian, and writer (1872–1970)
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The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.
Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1962)
Carl Jung, Swiss psychologist (1875–1961)
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The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.
Modern Man in Search of a Soul (1933)
Carl Jung, Swiss psychologist (1875–1961)
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Where we have strong emotions, we’re liable to fool ourselves.
Cosmos (1980)
Carl Sagan, American astronomer and educator (1934–1996)
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My life is spent in a perpetual alternation between two rhythms, the rhythm of attracting people for fear I may be lonely, and the rhythm of trying to get rid of them because I know that I am bored.
The Observer (1948)
CEM Joad, English philosopher (1891–1953)
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Any man may be in good spirits and good temper when he’s well dressed. There ain’t much credit in that.
Martin Chuzzlewit (1844)
Charles Dickens, English writer and social critic (1812–1870)
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Every one says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive.
Mere Christianity (1952)
CS Lewis, British literary scholar and writer (1898–1963)
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Pleasure is a thief to business.
The Complete English Tradesman (1726)
Daniel Defoe, English trader, writer and spy (1660–1731)
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The heart of man is made to reconcile the most glaring contradictions.
Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects (1753)
David Hume, Scottish philosopher (1711–1776)
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Every time you open your wardrobe, you look at your clothes and you wonder what you are going to wear. What you are really saying is, “Who am I going to be today?”
The New Yorker (1995)
Fay Weldon, English feminist and playwright (1931–)
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Everyone thinks his own burden is heavy.
French proverb
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The smyler with the knyf under the cloke.
The Knight’s Tale (1387)
Geoffrey Chaucer, English poet (c. 1343–1400)
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Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.
Adam Bede (1859)
George Eliot, English writer (1819–1880)
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Our actions are like ships which we may watch set out to sea, and not know when or with what cargo they will return to port.
The Bell (1958)
Iris Murdoch, Irish writer (1919–1999)
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The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation … The hand is the cutting edge of the mind.
The Ascent of Man (1973)
Jacob Bronowski, British-Polish mathematician and science historian (1908–1974)
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Only the actions of the just,
Smell sweet and blossom on their dust.
The Contention of Ajax and Ulysses for the Armour of Achilles (1659)
James Shirley, English playwright (1596–1666)
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It isn’t what we say or think that defines us, but what we do.
Sense and Sensibility (1811)
Jane Austen, English writer (1775–1817)
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I was raised to feel that doing nothing was a sin. I had to learn to do nothing.
The Observer (1998)
Jenny Joseph, English poet (1932–2018)
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It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.
Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)
Jerome K Jerome, English writer (1859–1927)
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Deeds, not words shall speak me.
The Lover’s Progress (1647)
John Fletcher, English playwright (1579–1625)
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I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689)
John Locke, English philosopher (1632–1704)
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Word is but wynd; leff woord and tak the dede.
Secrets of Old Philosophers
John Lydgate, English poet (1370–1451)
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The highest reward for a man’s toil is not what he gets for it but what he becomes by it.
John Ruskin, English art critic (1819–1900)
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Action is consolatory. It is the enemy of thought and the friend of flattering illusions.
Nostromo (1904)
Joseph Conrad, Polish-British writer (1857–1924)
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Iron rusts from disuse, stagnant water loses its purity, and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigour of the mind.
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883)
Leonardo da Vinci, Italian polymath (1452–1519)
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Everybody, sooner or later, sits down to a banquet of consequences.
Old Mortality (1884)
Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish writer (1850–1894)
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The only infallible rule we know is, that the man who is always talking about being a gentleman never is one.
Ask Mamma (1858)
RS Surtees, English editor and sporting writer (1805–1864)
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Everyone is more or less mad on one point.
Plain Tales from the Hills (1888)
Rudyard Kipling, English journalist and writer (1865–1936)
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The ordinary acts we practise every day at home are of more importance to the soul than their simplicity might suggest.
Sir Thomas More, English saint and lawyer (1478–1535)
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Terror … often arises from a pervasive sense of disestablishment; that things are in the unmaking.
Danse Macabre (1981)
Stephen King, American writer (1947–)
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Perfection is terrible, it cannot have children.
The Munich Mannequins (1965)
Sylvia Plath, American poet and writer (1932–1963)
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It is part of human nature to hate the man you have hurt.
Agricola (c. 98)
Tacitus, Roman senator and historian (c. 56–120)
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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.
A Writer’s Notebook (1946)
W Somerset Maugham, British playwright (1874–1965)
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It is an undoubted truth, that the less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in. One yawns, one procrastinates, one can do it when one will, and therefore one seldom does it at all.
Lord Chesterfield, British statesman (1694–1773)
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Anything that is worth doing has been done frequently. Things hitherto undone should be given, I suspect, a wide berth.
Mainly on the Air (1946)
Sir Max Beerbohm, English essayist and parodist (1872–1956)
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Truly, when the day of judgment comes, it will not be a question of what we have read, but what we have done.
De Imitatione Christi (c. 1418–1427)
Thomas á Kempis, Dutch-German canon regular and writer (1380–1471)
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Men are rewarded and punished not for what they do, but rather for how their acts are defined. This is why men are more interested in better justifying themselves than in better behaving themselves.
The Second Sin (1973)
Thomas Szasz, American-Hungarian psychiatrist (1920–2012)