Epigrams Quotes

• What is an epigram? A dwarfish whole, its body brevity, and wit its soul.

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  Book, Beer, Soul

  'Epigram' (1802)

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is only one thing in life worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.

  Oscar Wilde

  Funny, Humor, Things In Life

  The Picture of Dorian Gray ch. 1 (1891) See Behan 3; Modern Proverbs 71

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• Hold infinity in the palm of your hand.

  William Blake

  Nature, Flower, Eternity Of Life

  'Auguries of Innocence' (c.1803) l. 1

  44 Copy quote

  Show source

• All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his.

  Oscar Wilde

  Funny, Mothers Day, Mom

  The Importance of Being Earnest act 1 (1895). The same lines appear, as a dialogue between Lord Illingworth and Mrs. Allonby, in A Woman of No Importance, act 2 (1893).

  54 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.

  Mark Twain

  Inspirational, Motivational, Positive

  Pudd'nhead Wilson ch. 12, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" (1894)

  151 Copy quote

  Show source

• The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.

  Mark Twain

  Inspirational, Funny, Humorous

  Mark Twain (2014). “Mark Twain on Common Sense: Timeless Advice and Words of Wisdom from America's Most-Revered Humorist”, p.13, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

  92 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything.

  Oscar Wilde

  Funny, Happy Birthday, Growing Up

  "Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young" (1894)

  91 Copy quote

  Show source

• We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

  Oscar Wilde

  Inspirational, Funny, Positive

  Lady Windermere's Fan act 3 (1892)

  167 Copy quote

  Show source

• Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.

  Mark Twain

  Inspirational, Funny, Life

  Pudd'nhead Wilson ch. 6, "Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar" (1894)

  92 Copy quote

  Show source

• The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.

  Mark Twain

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Education

  Mark Twain (2015). “The Prince and the Pauper (StoneHenge Classics)”, p.154, StoneHenge Classics

  55 Copy quote

  Show source

• Morality is simply the attitude we adopt towards people whom we personally dislike.

  Oscar Wilde

  Inspirational, Funny, Inspiring

  An Ideal Husband act 2 (1895)

  50 Copy quote

  Show source

• Conceal a flaw, and the world will imagine the worst.

  Martial

  Caring, World, Caregivers

  "Epigrams" by Martial, III, 42, c. 80 - 104 AD.

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• The truth is rarely pure and never simple.

  Oscar Wilde

  Love, Inspirational, Positive

  The Importance of Being Earnest act 1 (1895)

  93 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  To see a world in a grain of sand
  And a heaven in a wild flower,
  Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
  And eternity in an hour.

  William Blake

  Inspirational, Happiness, Peace

  'Auguries of Innocence' (c.1803) l. 1

  363 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Inspirational, Motivational, Leadership

  178 Copy quote

• A joke is an epigram on the death of a feeling.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Funny Life, Feelings, Jokes

  Human, All Too Human vol. 2, pt. 1, sec. 202 (1878) (translation by R. J. Hollingdale)

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Work is the curse of the drinking classes.

  Oscar Wilde

  Funny, Witty, Work

  Quoted in Frank Harris, Oscar Wilde: His Life and Confessions (1916)

  67 Copy quote

  Show source

• Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

  Oscar Wilde

  Book, Writing, Reading Literature

  The Picture of Dorian Gray preface (1891)

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• To see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wildflower.

  William Blake

  Nature, Flower, Eternity Of Life

  "Auguries of Innocence" l. 1 (ca. 1803)

  114 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written.

  Oscar Wilde

  Book, Reading, Writing

  The Picture of Dorian Gray preface (1891)

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• The art of newspaper paragraphing is to stroke a platitude until it purrs like an epigram.

  Don Marquis

  Art, Literature, Newspapers

  In E. Anthony O Rare Don Marquis (1962) p. 354

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• I am mistaken if a single epigram included fails to preserve at least some faint thrill of the emotion through which it had to pass before the Muse's lips let it fall, with however exquisite deliberation.

  Arthur Quiller-Couch

  Fall, Thrill, Lips

  "The Oxford Book of English Verse". Book edited by Arthur Quiller-Couch, Introduction, 1900.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• I summed up all systems in a phrase, and all existence in an epigram.

  Oscar Wilde

  Phrases, Existence

  Letter to Alfred Douglas, Jan. - Mar. 1897

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Victorian society was homogeneous without being homogenized. It was, to paraphrase the epigram about Parliament, a society of extreme eccentrics who agreed so well that they could afford to differ.

  Kenneth Rexroth

  Parliament, Wells, Paraphrase

  Kenneth Rexroth, Bradford Morrow (1989). “More Classics Revisited”, p.120, New Directions Publishing

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• You can cram a truth into an epigram - the truth, never.

  Norman Douglas

  Truth

  7 Copy quote