May Quotes - Page 32

• If you are ambitious of climbing up to the difficult, and in a manner inaccessible, summit of the Temple of Fame, your surest way is to leave on one hand the narrow path of Poetry, and follow the narrower track of Knight-Errantry, which in a trice may raise you to an imperial throne.

  Miguel de Cervantes

  Knights, Climbing, Hands

  Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1851). “The History of Don Quixote de la Mancha”, p.235

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• Fame, we may understand, is no sure test of merit, but only a probability of such; it is an accident, not a property of man.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Men, Tests, Merit

  Thomas Carlyle (1864). “Critical and Miscellaneous Essays ...”, p.75

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• Over the years I have discovered that ideas come through an intense desire for them; continually desiring, the mind becomes a watchtower on the lookout for incidents that may excite the imagination.

  Charlie Chaplin

  Positive Thinking, Years, Ideas

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• You might find it necessary to 'snap' out of your mental inertia, moving slowly at first, then increasing your speed, until you gain complete control over your will. Be persistent no matter how slowly you may, at first, have to move. With persistence will come success.

  Napoleon Hill

  Moving, Positive Thinking, Persistence

  Napoleon Hill (2007). “The Prosperity Bible: The Greatest Writings of All Time on the Secrets to Wealth and Prosperity”, p.143, Penguin

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• When once a man has made celebrity necessary to his happiness, he has put it in the power of the weakest and most timorous malignity, if not to take away his satisfaction, at least to withhold it. His enemies may indulge their pride by airy negligence and gratify their malice by quiet neutrality.

  Samuel Johnson

  Happiness, Pride, Power

  Samuel Johnson (1827). “The Rambler”, p.224

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• When God lets loose a great thinker on this planet, then all things are at risk. There is not a piece of science but its flank may be turned to-morrow; nor any literary reputation or the so-called eternal names of fame that many not be refused and condemned.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Names, Risk, Pieces

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• We forget cruelty and past betrayal, Heedless of where the next bright bolt may fall.

  Robert Graves

  Betrayal, Fall, Past

  Robert Graves (2013). “Selected Poems”, p.130, Faber & Faber

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• The initial configuration of the universe may have been chosen by God, or it may itself have been determined by the laws of science. In either case, it would seem that everything in the universe would then be determined by evolution according to the laws of science, so it is difficult to see how we can be masters of our fate.

  Stephen Hawking

  Fate, Law, Determined

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• Science is unflinchingly deterministic, and it has begun to force its determinism into morals. On some shining tomorrow a psychoanalyst may be put into the box to prove that perjury is simply a compulsion neurosis, like beating time with the foot at a concert or counting the lampposts along the highway.

  H. L. Mencken

  Feet, Shining, Neurosis

  H. L. Mencken (1924). “Prejudices Fourth Series”

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• The general consent of all that sect is that God (by his foreknowledge, counsel, and wisdom) has no assured election, neither yet any certain reprobation, but that every man may elect or reprobate himself by his own free will, which he has (say they) to do good or evil ... [All these things are] forged by their own brains, and polished by the finest of their wits, when yet in very deed they are but the rotten heresies of ... Pelagius, long ago confuted by Augustine.

  John Knox

  Men, Long Ago, Evil

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• Tis like the birthday of the world,
  When earth was born in bloom;
  The light is made of many dyes,
  The air is all perfume:
  There's crimson buds, and white and blue,
  The very rainbow showers
  Have turned to blossoms where they fell,
  And sown the earth with flowers.

  Thomas Hood

  Spring, Flower, White

  Thomas Hood (1860). “The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood”, p.176

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• I wish to suggest that a man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time well. There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living. All great enterprises are self-supporting. The poet, for instance, must sustain his body by his poetry, as a steam planing-mill feeds its boilers with the shavings it makes. You must get your living by loving.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Life, Hard Work, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.417, Penguin

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• A man may acquire a taste for wine or brandy, and so lose his love for water, but should we not pity him.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wine, Men, Water

  Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.156, Courier Corporation

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• According to Gandhi, the seven sins are wealth without works, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, and politics without principle. Well, Hubert Humphrey may have sinned in the eyes of God, as we all do, but according to those definitions of Gandhi's, it was Hubert Humphrey without sin.

  Jimmy Carter

  Hard Work, Knowledge, Character

  United States. President (1977-1981 : Carter), Jimmy Carter (1978). “Jimmy Carter”

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• After five years' work I allowed myself to speculate on the subject, and drew up some short notes; these I enlarged in 1844 into a sketch of the conclusions, which then seemed to me probable: from that period to the present day I have steadily pursued the same object. I hope that I may be excused for entering on these personal details, as I give them to show that I have not been hasty in coming to a decision.‎

  Charles Darwin

  Hope, Hard Work, Science

  Charles Darwin (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of Charles Darwin (Illustrated)”, p.3038, Delphi Classics

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• I have lived much of my life among molecules. They are good company. I tell my students to try to know molecules, so well that when they have some question involving molecules, they can ask themselves, What would I do if I were that molecule? I tell them, Try to feel like a molecule; and if you work hard, who knows? Some day you may get to feel like a big molecule!

  George Wald

  Hard Work, Knowledge, Science

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• If science has no country, the scientist should have one, and ascribe to it the influence which his works may have in this world.

  Louis Pasteur

  Country, Hard Work, Science

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• We affirm the neutrality of Science ... Science is of no country. ... But if Science has no country, the scientist must keep in mind all that may work towards the glory of his country. In every great scientist will be found a great patriot.

  Louis Pasteur

  Country, Hard Work, Science

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• You may say organize, organize, organize; but there may be so much organization that it will interfere with the work to be done.

  Mark Twain

  Hard Work, Organization, Done

  Mark Twain (2014). “Mark Twain’s Letters & Speeches (Annotated Edition)”, p.1034, Jazzybee Verlag

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• You start in April and cross to the time of May
  One has you as it leaves, one as it comes
  Since the edges of these months are yours and defer
  To you, either of them suits your praises.
  The Circus continues and the theatre's lauded palm,
  Let this song, too, join the Circus spectacle.

  Ovid

  Song, Spring, Theatre

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• Come, I come! ye have called me long,
  I come o'er the mountain with light and song:
  Ye may trace my step o'er the wakening earth,
  By the winds which tell of the violet's birth,
  By the primrose-stars in the shadowy grass,
  By the green leaves, opening as I pass.

  Felicia Hemans

  Song, Stars, Spring

  Felicia Dorothea Browne Hemans (1853). “Poetical Works”, p.125

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• By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
  Their flag to April's breeze unfurled,
  Here once the embattled farmers stood,
  And fired the shot heard round the world.
  The foe long since in silence slept;
  Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
  And Time the ruined bridge has swept
  Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.
  On this green bank, by this soft stream,
  We set to-day a votive stone;
  That memory may their deed redeem,
  When, like our sires, our sons are gone.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Memories, Spring, Sleep

  "Concord Hymn" l. 1 (1837)

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• No Winter lasts forever, no Spring skips its turn. April is a promise that May is bound to keep, and we know it.

  Hal Borland

  Spring, Winter, Garden

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• What is now the foliage moving?
  Air is still, and hush'd the breeze,
  Sultriness, this fullness loving,
  Through the thicket, from the trees.
  Now the eye at once gleams brightly,
  See! the infant band with mirth
  Moves and dances nimbly, lightly,
  As the morning gave it birth,
  Flutt'ring two and two o'er earth.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Morning, Spring, Moving

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “May”

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• The fields are snowbound no longer;
  There are little blue lakes and flags of tenderest green.
  The snow has been caught up into the sky-
  So many white clouds-and the blue of the sky is cold.
  Now the sun walks in the forest,
  He touches the bows and stems with his golden fingers;
  They shiver, and wake from slumber.
  Over the barren branches he shakes his yellow curls.
  Yet is the forest full of the sound of tears....
  A wind dances over the fields.
  Shrill and clear the sound of her waking laughter,
  Yet the little blue lakes tremble
  And the flags of tenderest green bend and quiver.

  Katherine Mansfield

  Laughter, Spring, White

  Katherine Mansfield (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Katherine Mansfield (Illustrated)”, p.703, Delphi Classics

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