May Quotes - Page 20

• As citizens, we understand that it is not about what America may do for us. It's about what can be done by us, together.

  Barack Obama

  Graduation, America, Together

  Commencement Address at Ohio State University, abcnewsradioonline.com. May 5, 2013.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is in virtue of his own desires and curiosities that any man continues to exist with even patience, that he is charmed by the look of things and people, and that he wakens every morning with a renewed appetite for work and pleasure. Desire and curiosity are the two eyes through which he sees the world in the most enchanted colours...and the man may squander his estate and come to beggary, but if he keeps these two amulets he is still rich in the possibilities of pleasure.

  Robert Louis Stevenson

  Happiness, Morning, Eye

  Robert Louis Stevenson (1926). “Virginibus Puerisque ; And, Across the Plains”

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Idleness is often covered by turbulence and hurry. He that neglects his known duty and real employment naturally endeavours to crowd his mind with something that may bar out the remembrance of his own folly, and does any thing but what he ought to do with eager diligence, that he may keep himself in his own favour.

  Samuel Johnson

  Happiness, Real, Remembrance

  Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Fundamental happiness depends more than anything else upon what may be called a friendly interest in persons and things.

  Bertrand Russell

  Happiness, Friendly, Fundamentals

  Bertrand Russell (2012). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.107, Routledge

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• What wisdom, what warning can prevail against gladness? There is no law so strong that a little gladness may not transgress.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Happiness, Strong, Law

  Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.103, Courier Corporation

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• May you live as long as you are fit to live, but no longer, or, may you rather die before you cease to be fit to live than after!

  Lord Chesterfield

  Health, Blessing, Long

  Lord Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope Earl of Chesterfield (1855). “The Works of Lord Chesterfield: Including His Letters to His Son, Etc : to which is Prefixed, an Original Life of the Author”, p.313

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• History may defeat the Christ but it nevertheless points to him as the law of life.

  Reinhold Niebuhr

  Law, History, Defeat

  4 Copy quote

• In a word, we may gather out of History a policy no less wise than I eternal; by the comparison and application of other mens fore-passed miseries with our own like errours and ill-deservings.

  Walter Raleigh

  Wise, History, Misery

  Sir Walter Raleigh (1687). “The History of the World, in Five Books”, p.3

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• No opinion can be trusted; even the facts may be nothing but a printer's error.

  William Carlos Williams

  Errors, History, Facts

  William Carlos Williams (1956). “In the American Grain”, p.190, New Directions Publishing

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• History ... may be regarded as an artificial extension and : broadening of our memories and may be used to overcome the natural bewilderment of all unfamiliar situations.

  James Harvey Robinson

  Memories, History, Overcoming

  James Harvey Robinson (1912). “The New History: Essays Illustrating the Modern Historical Outlook”

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Whosoever in writing a modern history shall follow the truth too near the heels it may haply strike out his teeth.

  Walter Raleigh

  Writing, History, Teeth

  'The History of the World' (1614) preface

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• The women of this country ought be enlightened in regard to the laws under which they live, that they may no longer publish their degradation by declaring themselves satisfied with their present position, nor their ignorance, by asserting that they have all the rights they want.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Country, Women, Ignorance

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan Brownell Anthony, Ann Dexter Gordon (1997). “The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: In the school of anti-slavery, 1840 to 1866”, p.77, Rutgers University Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Let us be patient with one another,
  And even patient with ourselves.
  We have a long, long way to go.
  So let us hasten along the road,
  The road of human tenderness and generosity.
  Groping, we may find one another's hands in the dark.

  Emily Greene Balch

  Dark, Hands, Long

  9 Copy quote

• Faithfulness to the truth of history involves far more than a research, however patient and scrupulous, into special facts. Such facts may be detailed with the most minute exactness, and yet the narrative, taken as a whole, may be unmeaning or untrue. The narrator must seek to imbue himself with the life and spirit of the time. He must study events in their bearings near and remote; in the character, habits, and manners of those who took part in them. He must himself be, as it were, a sharer or a spectator of the action he describes.

  Francis Parkman

  Taken, Character, History

  Francis Parkman, David Levin (1983). “France and England in North America: Pioneers of France in the New World. The Jesuits of North America in the seventeenth century. La Salle and the discovery of the Great West. The old régime in Canada”, p.16, Library of America

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Everything must be recaptured and relocated in the general framework of history, so that despite the difficulties, the fundamental paradoxes and contradictions, we may respect the unity of history which is also the unity of life.

  Fernand Braudel

  Inspirational, Motivational, History

  Fernand Braudel (1982). “On History”, p.16, University of Chicago Press

  32 Copy quote

  Show source

• Yet the true friend of the people should see that they be not too poor, for extreme povery lowers the character of the democracy; measures therefore should be taken which will give them lasting prosperity; and as this is equally the interest of all classes, the proceeds of the public revenues should be accumulated and distributed among its poor, if possible, in such quantities as may enable them to purchase a little farm, or, at any rate, make a beginning in trade or husbandry.

  Aristotle

  True Friend, Taken, Character

  Aristotle, William David Ross (1955). “Works”

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Instead of exhorting you to augment your charity, I will rather utter an exhortation, or at least a supplication, that you may not abuse your charity by misapplying it.

  Cotton Mather

  Abuse, Charity, Philanthropy

  Cotton Mather (1820). “Magnalia Christi Americana: Or, The Ecclesiastical History of New-England, from Its First Planting in the Year 1620, Unto the Year of Our Lord, 1698”, p.94

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• If we do anything to further the kingdom of God, we may expect to find what Christ found on that road abuse, indifference, injustice, misunderstanding, trouble of some kind. Take it. Why not? To that you were called.

  Elisabeth Elliot

  Women, History, Abuse

  Elisabeth Elliot (2004). “A Lamp unto My Feet: The Bible's Light for Your Daily Walk”, p.189, Gospel Light Publications

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• In war, whichever side may call itself the victor, there are no winners, but all are losers.

  Neville Chamberlain

  War, History, Sides

  Speech at Kettering, 3 July 1938, in The Times 4 July 1938

  84 Copy quote

  Show source

• A man's hope measures his civilization. The attainability of the hope measures, or may measure, the civilization of his nation and time.

  Ezra Pound

  Hope, Men, Civilization

  Ezra Pound (1952). “Guide to Kulchur”, p.144, New Directions Publishing

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• What reinforcement we may gain from hope;
  If not, what resolution from despair.

  John Milton

  Hope, Despair, Gains

  'Paradise Lost' (1667) bk. 1, l. 190

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• Let no one despair, even though in the darkest night the last star of hope may disappear.

  Friedrich Schiller

  Hope, Stars, Night

  "Oberon" by Friedrich Schiller, I. 27,

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Where there is discord may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. Where there is despair, may we bring hope.

  Francis of Assisi

  Hope, Truth, Errors

  42 Copy quote

• Hope is a pleasant acquaintance, but an unsafe friend, not the man for your banker, though he may do for a traveling companion.

  Thomas Chandler Haliburton

  Hope, Men, Bankers

  6 Copy quote

• That's part of our policy, is not to be taken seriously because I think our opposition, whoever they may be in all their manifest forms, don't know how to handle humour.

  John Lennon

  Taken, Humor, Thinking

  Interview with David Wigg on BBC Radio-One program "Scene and Heard", May 8, 1969.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source