Quote collection
358 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Nobody grasped you by the shoulder while there was still time. Now the clay of which you were shaped has dried and hardened, and naught in you will ever awaken the sleeping musician, the poet, the asronomer that possibly inhabited you in the beginning."
"To be a man is to feel that one's own stone contributes to building the edifice of the world."
"When I opened my eyes I saw nothing but the pool of nocturnal sky, for I was lying on my back with out-stretched arms, face to face with that hatchery of stars. Only half awake, still unaware that those depths were sky, having no roof between those depths and me, no branches to screen them, no root to cling to, I was seized with vertigo and felt myself as if flung forth and plunging downward like a diver."
"A goal without a pan is just a wish."
"One cannot build life from refrigerators, politics, credit statements and crossword puzzles. That is impossible. Nor can one exist for any length of time without poetry, without color, without love."
"In giving you are throwing a bridge across the chasm of your solitude."
"The flower you single out is a rejection of all other flowers; nevertheless, only on these terms is it beautiful."
"The dignity of the individual demands that he be not reduced to vassalage by the largesse of others."
"Transport of the mails, transport of the human voice, transport of flickering pictures-in this century as in others our highest accomplishments still have the single aim of bringing men together."
"More wisdom is latent in things as they are than in all the words men use."
"Water, thou hast no taste, no color, no odor; canst not be defined, art relished while ever mysterious. Not necessary to life, but rather life itself, thou fillest us with a gratification that exceeds the delight of the senses."
"One runs the risk of weeping a little, if one lets himself be tamed."
"Behind all seen things lies something vaster; everything is but a path, a portal or a window opening on something other than iteself."
"To grasp the meaning of the world of today we use a language created to express the world of yesterday. The life of the past seems to us nearer our true natures, but only for the reason that it is nearer our language."
"There is nothing that can equal the treasure of so many shared memories."
"Using an artful tool does not make one a dry technician. It seems to me that people that are anxious about our technical advancement, confuse means and ends. Naturally a person that only works for material gain will not harvest something that is worth living for. But the machine is not an end in itself. The airplane is not an end. It is a tool. Just like the plough."
"Aimer, ce n'est point nous regarder l'un l'autre, mais regarder ensemble dans la meme direction. English Translation: To love is not to look at each other, But to look together in the same direction."
"* if someone loves a flower, of which just one single blossom grows, in all the millions of stars, it is enough to make him happy just to look at the stars."
"We say nothing essential about the cathedral when we speak of its stones. We say nothing essential about Man when we seek to define him by the qualities of men."
"A man has many parts, he is virtually everything, and you are free to select in him that part which pleases you."