Please Quotes - Page 17

• Change generally pleases the rich.
  [Lat., Plerumque gratae divitibus vices.]

  Horace

  Change, Vices, Rich

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• Fiction intended to please, should resemble truth as much as possible.

  Horace

  Fiction, Should

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• I am very anxious to please the public, particularly as it lives and lets live.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Anxious

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• A man may twist as he pleases, and do what he pleases, but he inevitably comes back to the track to which nature has destined him.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Men, Track, Twists

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1849). “The auto-biography of Goethe: Truth and poetry: from my life”, p.114

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• There is no greater enemy to those who would please than expectation.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Expectations, Enemy, Greater

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• I commend you, Postumus, for kissing me with only half your lip; you may, however, if you please, withhold even the half of this half. Are you inclined to grant me a boon still greater, and even inexpressible? Keep this whole half entirely to yourself, Postumus.

  Martial

  Kissing, Half, May

  Martial (1871). “The Epigrams of Martial”, p.91

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• I believe that man to be wretched whom none can please.

  Martial

  Believe, Men, Unhappiness

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• The motives of the best actions will not bear too strict an inquiry. It is allowed that the cause of most actions, good or bad, may be resolved into the love of ourselves; but the self-love of some men inclines them to please others, and the self-love of others is wholly employed in pleasing themselves. This makes the great distinction between virtue and vice.

  Jonathan Swift

  Men, Self, May

  Jonathan Swift, Thomas Roscoe (1843). “The Works of Jonathan Swift ...: Containing Interesting and Valuable Papers, Not Hitherto Published ... With Memoir of the Author”, p.305

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• Fortune moulds and circumscribes human affairs as she pleases.
  [Lat., Fortuna humana fingit artatque ut lubet.]

  Plautus

  Affair, Fortune, Mould

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• That least pleases us which is most urged on us.

  Plautus

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• Gracefulness cannot subsist without ease; delicacy is not debility; nor must a woman be sick in order to please. Infirmity, and sickness may excite our pity, but desire and pleasure require the bloom and vigor of health.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Order, Sick, Grace

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1783). “Emilius and Sophia: Or, A New System of Education”, p.186

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• It is not every man that can afford to wear a shabby coat; and worldly wisdom dictates to her disciples the propriety of dressing somewhat beyond their means, but of living somewhat within them,--for every one, sees how we dress, but none see how we live, except we choose to let them. But the truly great are, by universal suffrage, exempted from these trammels, an may live or dress as they please.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Mean, Men, Dresses

  Charles Caleb Colton (1832). “Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.121

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• Nothing is so great an adversary to those who make it their business to please as expectation.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Expectations, Anticipation, Adversaries

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• He who writes distichs, wishes, I suppose, to please by brevity. But, tell me, of what avail is their brevity, when there is a whose book full of them?

  Martial

  Book, Writing, Wish

  Martial (1871). “The Epigrams of Martial”, p.362

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• A coquette is one that is never to be persuaded out of the passion she has to please, nor out of a good opinion of her own beauty: time and years she regards as things that only wrinkle and decay other women, forgetting that age is written in the face, and that the same dress which became her when she was young now only makes her look older.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Passion, Wrinkles, Years

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• Some young people do not sufficiently understand the advantages of natural charms, and how much they would gain by trusting to them entirely. They weaken these gifts of heaven, so rare and fragile, by affected manners and an awkward imitation. Their tones and their gait are borrowed; they study their attitudes before the glass until they have lost all trace of natural manner, and, with all their pains, they please but little.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Pain, Attitude, Glasses

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• If words are to change their meanings, as assuredly they are, let each user of language make such changes as please himself, put up his own suggestions, and let the best win.

  Rose Macaulay

  Winning, Suggestions, Language

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• We must suit the flattery to the mind and taste of the recipient. We do not put essences into hogsheads, nor porter into phials. Delicate minds may be disgusted by compliments that would please a grosser intellect; as some fine ladies who would be shocked at the idea of a dram will not refuse a liqueur.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Essence, Ideas, Mind

  Charles Caleb Colton (1821). “Lacon: or, Many things in few words”, p.190

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• O Lord, you know what is best for me. Let this or that be done, as you please. Give what you will, how much you will, and when you will.

  Thomas a Kempis

  Giving, Done, Lord

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• It is a sure evidence of a good book if it pleases us more and more as we grow older.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Book, Evidence, Grows

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• Golden volumes! richest treasures,
  Objects of delicious pleasures!
  You my eyes rejoicing please,
  You my hand in rapture seize!
  Brilliant wits and musing sages,
  Lights who beam'd through many ages!
  Left to your conscious leaves their story,
  And dared to trust you with their glory;
  And now their hope of fame achiev'd,
  Dear volumes! you have not deceived!

  Isaac D'Israeli

  Book, Eye, Light

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• What can that man fear who takes care to please a Being that is able to crush all his adversaries?

  Joseph Addison

  Crush, Fear, Men

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• The Graces sought some holy ground,
  Whose sight should ever please;
  And in their search the soul they found
  Of Aristophanes.

  Plato

  Holy Ground, Sight, Grace

  Plato, Benjamin Jowett (1972). “The Republic”

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• The wild life of today is not ours to do with as we please. The original stock was given to us in trust for the benefit both of the present and the future. We must render an accounting of this trust to those who come after us.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Wild Life, Camping, Benefits

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• I personally have never trusted museums. ... It is because museums, broadly speaking, live off of the art and artifacts of others, often art and artifacts that have been obtained by dubious means. But they also manipulate whatever it is they present to the public; hence, until Judy Chicago, in the 1970s ... few women artists were hung in any major museum. Indian artists? Artifacts only, please. Black artists? Something musical, maybe? And so forth.

  Alice Walker

  Art, Mean, Museums

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