“One should never listen. To listen is a sign of indifference to one's hearers.”
Thoughtful feeling
Thoughtful Quotes — page 51 of 303
“Nobody, I think, ought to read poetry, or look at pictures or statues, who cannot find a great deal more in them than the poet or artist has actually expressed. Their highest merit is suggestiveness.”
“Children ask better questions than adults. "May I have a cookie?" "Why is the sky blue?" and "What does a cow say?" are far more likely to elicit a cheerful response than "Where's your manuscript?" "Why haven't you called?" and "Who's your lawyer?"”
“I do my intellectual work inside myself, and once I am with my fellow creatures it is more or less a matter of indifference to me whether or not they are intelligent as long as they are kind, sincere, etc.”
“So what do people see when they read that well-behaved women rarely make history? Do they imagine good-time girls in stiletto heels or do-good girls carrying clipboards and passing petitions? Do they envision an out-of-control hobbyist or a single mother taking down a drunk in a bar? I suspect that it depends on where they stand themselves.”
“Some questions don't have answers, which is a terribly difficult lesson to learn.”
“Do not look at the faults of what others have done or not done; observe what you yourself have done or not done.”
“The past is a rich resource on which we can draw in order to make decisions for the future, but it does not dictate our choices. We should look back at the past and select what is good, and leave behind what is bad.”
“So many people are so busy being busy that they don’t spend time on the foundation of their life.”
“There are as many opinions as there are experts.”
“The true nature of mankind comes down to a simple question: 'Do we teach children how to be good or how to be bad?'”
“The long silences need to be loved, perhaps more than the words which arrive to describe them in time.”
“You have to keep cracking yourself open or you become a parody of yourself.”
“Ask no questions and you'll hear no lies.”
“Should not every apartment in which man dwells be lofty enough to create some obscurity overhead, where flickering shadows may play at evening about the rafters?”
“What we do is never understood, but always merely praised or blamed.”
“If any of you would bring judgment the unfaithful wife, let him also weight the heart of her husband in scales, and measure his soul with measurements.”
“It is my private life which no one knows anything about, nor ever will. It needs more than half my time if it is to be a success.”
“Most of us seldom take the trouble to think. It is a troublesome and fatiguing process and often leads to uncomfortable conclusions. But crises and deadlocks when they occur have at least this advantage, that they force us to think.”
“We have to be realistic about what the state can afford, and put an end to abuses of the system that cost millions.”