The tragedy of life is not so much what men suffer, but rather what they miss.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
(Attributed)
Beautiful it is to see and understand that no worth, known or unknown, can die even in this earth. The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green; it flows and flows, it joins itself with other veins and veinlets; one day, it will start forth as a visible perennial well.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) Scottish essayist and historian
“Varnhagen von Ense’s Memoirs,” London and Westminster Review, No. 62 (1838-12)
(Source)
A review of three books involving Lady Rahel Varnhagen von Ense.
Take away my people, but leave my factories, and soon grass will grow on the factory floors. Take away my factories, but leave my people, and soon we will have a new and better factory.
Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) American industrialist and philanthropist
(Attributed)
Don’t be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones will tend to take care of themselves.
Dale Carnegie (1888-1955) American writer, lecturer
(Attributed)
As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.
Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) American industrialist and philanthropist
(Attributed)
Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain — and most fools do.
Dale Carnegie (1888-1955) American writer, lecturer
How to Win Friends and Influence People, Part 1, ch. 1 (1936)
(Source)
Also attributed to Ben Franklin; this may be due to the preceding paragraph quoting Franklin.
Fear doesn’t exist anywhere except in the mind.
Dale Carnegie (1888-1955) American writer, lecturer
(Attributed)
One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon — instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today.
Dale Carnegie (1888-1955) American writer, lecturer
(Attributed)
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t put the past together again. So let’s remember: Don’t try to saw sawdust.
Dale Carnegie (1888-1955) American writer, lecturer
How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1944)
1. Don’t, don’t nag.
2. Don’t try to make your partner over.
3. Don’t criticize.
4. Give honest appreciation.
5. Pay little attentions.
6. Be courteous.
7. Read a good book on the sexual side of marriage.Dale Carnegie (1888-1955) American writer, lecturer
How to Win Friends and Influence People, “Seven Rules for Making Your Home Life Happier” (1936)
You can make more friends in two months by becoming more interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get people interested in you.
Dale Carnegie (1888-1955) American writer, lecturer
(Attributed)
The most important thing in life is not simply to capitalize on your gains. Any fool can do that. The important thing is to profit from your losses. That requires intelligence, and makes the difference between a man of sense and a fool.
Dale Carnegie (1888-1955) American writer, lecturer
(Attributed)
I got wht I have now through knowing the right time to tell terrible people when to go to hell.
Leslie Caron (b. 1931) French dancer and actress
(Attributed)
You have to walk carefully in the beginning of love; the running across fields into your lover’s arms can only come later when you’re sure they won’t laugh if you trip.
Jonathan Carroll (b. 1949) American writer
Outside the Dog Museum (1991)
Marriage is a lot like life, only with more fun parts …. The only secret is showing up every day with an open heart.
Jon Carroll (b. 1943) American journalist
San Francisco Chronicle, “New Ideas on the Culture War” (6 Jul. 1999)
“The horror of that moment,” the King went on, “I shall never, never forget!”
“You will, though,” the Queen said, “if you don’t make a memorandum of it.”Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) English writer and mathematician [pseud. of Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson]
Through the Looking Glass (1872)
“Tut, tut, child,” said the Duchess. “Everything’s got a moral if only you can find it.”
Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) English writer and mathematician [pseud. of Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson]
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865)
I don’t think they play at all fairly, and they all quarrel so dreadfully one can’t hear oneself speak — and they don’t seem to have any rules in particular; at least, if there are, nobody attends to them — and you’ve no idea how confusing it is
Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) English writer and mathematician [pseud. of Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson]
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865)
One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. “Which road do I take?” she asked.
“Where do you want to go?” was his response.
“I don’t know,” Alice answered.
“Then,” said the cat, “it doesn’t matter.”Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) English writer and mathematician [pseud. of Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson]
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865)
I am amazed at radio DJ’s today. I am firmly convinced that AM on my radio stands for Absolute Moron. I will not begin to tell you what FM stands for.
Jasper Carrott (b. 1945) English comedian [b. Bob Davies]
(Attributed)
If it weren’t for Philo T. Farnsworth, inventor of television, we’d still be eating frozen radio dinners.
Johnny Carson (1925-2005) American talk show host
(Attributed)
As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life — so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls.
Matt Cartmill (b. 1943) American biological anthropologist
(Attributed)
If biologists don’t want to see the theory of evolution evicted from the public schools because of its religious content, they need to accept the limitations of science and stop trying to draw vast, cosmic conclusions from the plain facts of evolution. Humility isn’t just a cardinal virtue in Christian doctrine; it’s also a virtue in the practice of science.
Matt Cartmill (b. 1943) American biological anthropologist
Duke Magazine, “Contemplating a Cosmic Convergence” (Jul. 2000)
http://www.dukemagazine.duke.edu/alumni/dm29/cosmic.html
How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these.
George Washington Carver (1864?-1943) American chemist, educator
Address in New York City (1923)
Don’t be vain because you happen to have talent. You are not responsible for that; it was not of your doing. What you do with your talent is what matters.
Pablo Casals (1876-1973) Spanish cellist, conductor, composer
“Salute to Life” (1969)
Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.
M. Kathleen Casey (contemp.) American sociologist
(Attributed)
CAPRICE: Wait a minute! Wait. Wait. I’m having a thought. Oh yes. Oh yes. I’m going to have a thought. It’s coming. It’s coming. … It’s gone.
Jim Cash (1940-2000) American screenwriter
Dick Tracy (1990)
In great attempts, it is glorious even to fail.
Cassius Longinus (c. 86-42 BC) Roman general and tyrannicide [Gaius Cassius Longinus]
(Attributed)
Man is free, but not if he does not believe it.
Giovanni Giacamo Casanova de Seingalt (1725-1798) Italian adventurer, libertine, autobiographer
(Attributed)
We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.
Carlos Casteneda (1931-1999) Peruvian-American writer, mystic, anthropologist
The Teachings of Don Juan (1968)
Also attributed to Journey to Ixtlan (1972).
Any path is only a path, and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you… Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think is necessary. Then ask yourself, and yourself alone, one question … Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn’t it is of no use.
Carlos Casteneda (1931-1999) Peruvian-American writer, mystic, anthropologist
The Teachings of Don Juan (1968)
Modern man has left the realm of the unknown and the mysterious, and has settled down in the realm of the functional. He has turned his back to the world of the foreboding and the exulting and has welcomed the world of boredom.
Carlos Casteneda (1931-1999) Peruvian-American writer, mystic, anthropologist
The Fire from Within (1984)
The fruits of forcing consciences are: if they die rather than recant, you are murderers; if they recant, they lie and their soul perishes.
Sebastian Castellio (1515-1563) Savoyard teacher, theologian, preacher [Sebastien Châtaillon]
Advice to a Desolate France (1562)
Why is our age still in darkness? Instead of working toward the golden age, we dispute, spilling the blood of the weakest. What is more absurd, we do it in Christ’s name who said to turn the other cheek, return good for evil and leave the weeds in the wheat field until the harvest.
Sebastian Castellio (1515-1563) Savoyard teacher, theologian, preacher [Sebastien Châtaillon]
Latin Bible, Preface (1551)
To kill a man is not to defend a doctrine, but to kill a man.
Sebastian Castellio (1515-1563) Savoyard teacher, theologian, preacher [Sebastien Châtaillon]
Contra Libellum Calvini (1554)
on John Calvin's role in execution of Servetus
I shall be an autocrat: that’s my trade. And the good Lord will forgive me: that’s his.
[Moi, je serai autocrate: c’est mon metier. Et le bon Dieu me pardonnnera: c’est son metier.]
Catherine II (1762-1796) Russian empress [Catherine the Great; b. Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst]
(Attributed)
I may be kindly, I am ordinarily gentle, but in my line of business I am obliged to will terribly what I will at all.
Catherine II (1762-1796) Russian empress [Catherine the Great; b. Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst]
Letter to Baron F. M. Grimm (1878)
I praise loudly, I blame softly.
Catherine II (1762-1796) Russian empress [Catherine the Great; b. Sophie of Anhalt-Zerbst]
Letter (23 Aug. 1794)
After I’m dead I’d rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one.
Cato the Elder (234-149 BC) Roman politician and orator [Marcus Portius Cato]
(Attributed)
in Plutarch, Parallel Lives, "Marcus Cato," ch. 19, sec. 4
The best way to keep good acts in memory is to refresh them with new.
Cato the Elder (234-149 BC) Roman politician and orator [Marcus Portius Cato]
(Attributed)
attributed in Bacon's Apothegms, #247
There’s so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets?
Dick Cavett (b. 1936) American writer and critic
(Attributed)
on TV violence
I can pardon everyone’s mistakes but my own.
Cato the Elder (234-149 BC) Roman politician and orator [Marcus Portius Cato]
(Attributed)
As long as people will accept crap, it will be financially profitable to dispense it.
Dick Cavett (b. 1936) American writer and critic
Playboy, interview by Harold Ramis (Mar. 1971)
Tell me what company thou keepst, and I’ll tell thee what thou art.
Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) Spanish novelist
Don Quixote, Part 2, Book 3, ch. 23 (1615)
Those two fatal words, Mine and Thine.
Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) Spanish novelist
Don Quixote, Part 1, Book 2, ch. 11 (1605) [tr. Motteux & Ozell (1743)]
(Source)
Alt trans.:
- "Oh happy age, which our first parents called the age of gold! not because gold, so much adored in this iron-age, was then easily purchased, but because those two fatal words, mine and thine, were distinctions unknown to the people of those fortunate times." [Full version of the above]
- "Happy the age, happy the time, to which the ancients gave the name of golden, not because in that fortunate age the gold so coveted in this our iron one was gained without toil, but because they that lived in it knew not the two words 'mine' and 'thine'!" [tr. Ormsby (1885)]
- "Happy age, and happy days were those, to which the ancients gave the name of golden; not, that gold, which in these our iron-times, is so much esteemed, was to be acquired without trouble, in that fortunate period; but, because people then, were ignorant of those two words MINE and THINE." [tr. Smollett (1976), as Part 1, Book 1, ch. 3]
The brave man carves out his fortune, and every man is the son of his own works.
Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) Spanish novelist
Don Quixote, Part 1, Book 1, ch. 4 (1605)
The real value of freedom is not to the minority that wants to talk, but to the majority, that does not want to listen.
Zechariah Chafee, Jr. (1855-1987) American legal scholar, libertarian
The Blessings of Liberty (1956)
The law isn’t justice. It’s a very imperfect mechanism. If you press exactly the right buttons and are also lucky, justice may show up in the answer. A mechanism is all the law was ever intended to be.
Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) American novelist
The Long Goodbye (1953)
Fashion passes, style remains.
Coco Chanel (1883-1971) French dress designer [Gabrielle Chanel]
(Attributed)
It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window.
Raymond Chandler (1888-1959) American novelist
Farewell, My Lovely, ch. 13 (1940)
A market is the combined behavior of thousands of people responding to information, misinformation and whim.
Kenneth Chang (contemp.) American journalist
(Attributed)
How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone.
Coco Chanel (1883-1971) French dress designer [Gabrielle Chanel]
This Week (20 Aug. 1961)
Every human being is intended to have a character of his own; to be what no others are, and to do what no other can do.
William E. Channing (1780-1842) American moralist, author, cleric, Unitarian theologian
(Attributed)
Neutral men are the devil’s allies.
The final delusion is the belief that one has lost all delusions.
Maurice Chapelain (1906-1992) French writer
Main courante (1957)
We may draw good out of evil; we must not do evil, that good may come.
Maria Weston Chapman (1806-1885) American abolitionist, editor
“How Can I Help to Abolish Slavery,” speech, New York (1855)
Old truths must be constantly re-stated if they are not to be forgotten. To Homer, the dawn was “rosy-fingered”; to Shakespeare, it was “in russet mantle clad”; to Housman, “the ship of sunrise burning”. The scientist can explain exactly why the sky looks as it does in the early morning, the physiologist why we perceive as we do. Yet no one suggests that there is no dawn at all, or that its appearance has changed over the centuries, or that any one of these percipients was mad or deceitful. Why should our knowledge of the Creator be less capable of variety and development than our knowledge of any aspect of Creation?
Raymond Chapman (1924-2013) English author, academic [pseud. Simon Nash]
The Ruined Tower (1961)
I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse.
Charles V (1500-1558) Holy Roman Emperor
(Attributed)
Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it is the only one you have.
Émile-Auguste Chartier (1868-1951) French philosopher, journalist, pacifist (a.k.a. Alain)
Propos sur la eligion, No. 74 (1938)
When he said we were trying to make a fool of him, I could only murmur that the Creator had beat us to it.
Ilka Chase (1905-1978) American actress, writer
(Attributed)
quoted in Cooper & Hartman, "Mrs. Crankhurst" (1980); http://www.bartleby.com/66/29/11429.html
Democracy is not an easy form of government, because it is never final; it is a living, changing organism, with a continuous shifting and adjusting of balance between individual freedom and general order.
Ilka Chase (1905-1978) American actress, writer
Past Imperfect (1942)
ANONYMOUS ACTRESS: I enjoyed your book. Who wrote it for you?
CHASE: Darling, I’m so glad you liked it. Who read it to you?Ilka Chase (1905-1978) American actress, writer
(Attributed)
Regarding her autobiography, Past Imperfect (1942)
The theater is a baffling business, and a shockingly wasteful one when you consider that people who have proven their worth, who have appeared in or been responsible for successful plays, who have given outstanding performances, can still, in the full tide of their energy, be forced, through lack of opportunity, to sit idle season after season, their enthusiasm, their morale, their very talent dwindling to slow gray death. Of finances we will not even speak; it is too sad a tale.
Ilka Chase (1905-1978) American actress, writer
Past Imperfect (1942)
You can always spot a well-informed man — his views are the same as yours.
Ilka Chase (1905-1978) American actress, writer
(Attributed)
One is not superior merely because one sees the world as odious.
François-René de Chateaubriand (1768-1848) French writer, politican, diplomat
(Attributed)
Man is what he believes.
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860-1904) Russian playwright and writer
(Attributed)
You will not become a saint through other people’s sins.
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860-1904) Russian playwright and writer
(Attributed)
We fret ourselves to reform life, in order that posterity may be happy, and posterity will say as usual: “In the past it used to be better, the present is worse than the past.”
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860-1904) Russian playwright and writer
Notebooks
Nothing better forges a bond of love, friendship or respect than common hatred toward something.
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860-1904) Russian playwright and writer
Notebooks, Notebook I, vol. 17, p. 52,
http://www.bartleby.com/66/57/11757.html
He was a rationalist, but he had to confess that he liked the ringing of church bells.
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860-1904) Russian playwright and writer
Notebooks
Any idiot can face a crisis, it is the day-to-day living that wears you out.
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860-1904) Russian playwright and writer
(Attributed)
I bid you strike at the passions; and if you do, you too will prevail. If you can once engage people’s pride, love, pity, ambition (or whichever is their prevailing passion) on your side, you need not fear what their reason can do against you.
Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773) English statesman, wit [Philip Dormer Stanhope]
Letter to his son, #105 (8 Feb 1746)
(Source)
Young men are apt to think themselves wise enough, as drunken men are apt to think themselves sober enough. They look upon spirit to be a much better thing than experience, which they call coldness. They are but half mistaken; for though spirit without experience is dangerous, experience without spirit is languid and defective.
Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773) English statesman, wit [Philip Dormer Stanhope]
Letter to his son, #298 (15 Jan 1758)
(Source)
Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket; and do not pull it out and strike it, merely to show that you have one. If you are asked what o’clock it is, tell it; but do not proclaim it hourly and unasked, like the watchman.
Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773) English statesman, wit [Philip Dormer Stanhope]
Letter to his son, #142 (22 Feb 1748)
(Source)
Aim at perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable; however, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer it than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as unattainable.
Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773) English statesman, wit [Philip Dormer Stanhope]
Letter to his son, #226 (24 May 1750)
(Source)
Either a good or a bad reputation outruns and gets before people wherever they go.
Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773) English statesman, wit [Philip Dormer Stanhope]
Letter to Solomon Dayrolles (23 Dec 1848)
(Source)
I recommend to you to take care of the minutes; for hours will take care of themselves.
Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773) English statesman, wit [Philip Dormer Stanhope]
Letter to his son, #131 (6 Nov 1747)
(Source)
Good manners are the settled medium of social, as specie is of commercial, life; returns are equally expected for both.
Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773) English statesman, wit [Philip Dormer Stanhope]
Letter to his son, #304 (25 Dec 1758)
(Source)
It is the test of a good religion whether you can make a joke about it.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English journalist and writer
(Attributed)
The dispute that goes on between Macbeth and his wife about the murder of Duncan is almost word for word a dispute which goes on at any suburban breakfast table about something else. It is merely a matter of changing ‘Infirm of purpose, give me the daggers’ into ‘Infirm of purpose, give me the postage stamps.’
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English journalist and writer
Chesterton on Shakespeare
ed. Dorothy Collins (1972)
A man has been lucky in marrying the women he loves. But he is luckier in loving the woman he marries.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English journalist and writer
Brave New Family
ed. Alvaro de Silva (1990)
Truth, of course, must of necessity be stranger than fiction, for we have made fiction to suit ourselves.
If you look at a thing nine hundred and ninety-nine times, you are perfectly safe; if you look at it the thousandth time, you are in frightful danger of seeing it for the first time.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English journalist and writer
The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1906)
We’re all really dependent in nearly everything, and we all make a fuss about being independent in something.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English journalist and writer
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1922)
Bowing down in blind credulity, as is my custom, before mere authority and the tradition of the elders, superstitiously swallowing a story I could not test at the time by experiment or private judgment, I am firmly of the opinion that I was born on the 29th of May, 1874, on Campden Hill, Kensington ….
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English journalist and writer
Autobiography (1936)
JACKSON: Truth is one’s own conception of things.
CHESTERTON: The Big Blunder. All thought is an attempt to discover if one’s own conception is true or not.Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English journalist and writer
Platitudes Undone
commentary on Holbrook Jackson's Platitudes in the Making (1997)
“My Country, right or wrong” is a thing no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, “My mother, drunk or sober.”
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English journalist and writer
The Defendant, ch. 16 “A Defence of Patriotism”
(Source)
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English journalist and writer
A Short History of England (1917)
For religion all men are equal, as all pennies are equal, because the only value in any of them is that they bear the image of the king.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English journalist and writer
(Attributed)
Never invoke the gods unless you really want them to appear. It annoys them very much.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English journalist and writer
(Attributed)
The new school of art and thought does indeed wear an air of audacity, and breaks out everywhere into blasphemies, as if it required any courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English journalist and writer
G.F. Watts (1906)
The obvious effect of frivolous divorce will be frivolous marriage. If people can be separated for no reason they will feel it all the easier to be united for no reason.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English journalist and writer
The Superstition of Divorce (1920)
We are learning to do a great many clever things. … The next great task will be to learn not to do them.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English journalist and writer
Varied Types (1908)
The one really rousing thing about human history is that, whether or no the proceedings go right, at any rate, the prophecies always go wrong. The promises are never fulfilled and the threats are never fulfilled. Even when good things do happen, they are never the good things that were guaranteed. And even when bad things happen, they are never the bad things that were inevitable. You may be quite certain that, if an old pessimist says the country is going to the dogs, it will go to any other animals except the dogs; if it be to the dromedaries or even the dragons. … It was as if one weather prophet confidently predicted blazing sunshine and the other was equally certain of blinding fog; and they were both buried in a beautiful snow-storm and lay, fortunately dead, under a clear and starry sky.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English journalist and writer
The Illustrated London News, column (17 April 1926)
Religious liberty might be supposed to mean that everybody is free to discuss religion. In practice it means that hardly anybody is allowed to mention it.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English journalist and writer
Autobiography (1936)
Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English journalist and writer
What’s Wrong with the World (1910)
If seeds in the black earth can turn into such beautiful roses, what might not the heart of man become in its long journey toward the stars?
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English journalist and writer
(Attributed)
America has never been quite normal.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English journalist and writer
Sidelights on New London and Newer York (1932)
This man’s spiritual power has been precisely this, that he has distinguished between custom and creed. He has broken the conventions, but he has kept the commandments.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English journalist and writer
Manalive (1912)
The whole order of things is as outrageous as any miracle which could presume to violate it.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) English journalist and writer
(Attributed)