Squares quotes

Squares

657 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.

657 quotes
Claude Monet
Claude Monet Painter

"When you go out to paint, try to forget what objects you have before you - a tree, house, a field....Merely think, here is a little square of blue, here an oblong of pink, here a streak of yellow, and paint it just as it looks to you, the exact color and shape, until it gives your own naive impression of the scene before you."

John Adams
John Adams Founding Father, Politician

"The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people, and must be willing to bear the expenses of it. There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the public expense of the people themselves."

Michelle Obama
Michelle Obama Lawyer, Author, First Lady

"We learned about honesty and integrity - that the truth matters... that you don't take shortcuts or play by your own set of rules... and success doesn't count unless you earn it fair and square."

Explore further

Browse quotes that often appear alongside squares — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.

Quote collection

Squares quotes (page 1 of 33)

Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.

David Morrissey Actor, Director
Squares

"Savannah is amazing with the town squares and the hanging moss and the French Colonial houses. It's brutally romantic."

Read quote 58 likes
Cormac McCarthy Novelist, Screenwriter
Squares

"He stood at the window of the empty cafe and watched the activites in the square and he said that it was good that God kept the truths of life from the young as they were starting out or else they'd have no heart to start at all."

Read quote 56 likes
Gautama Buddha Spiritual Teacher
Squares

"Buddha was speaking in a village square one day, when one of the inhabitants started to abuse him. Buddha paused and said to the man, "If you offer me a piece of paper and I refuse to accept it, what happens to the paper?" "Why, it stays with me, of course," the villager replied. Buddha smiled gently, "And that is exactly what I am doing with your abuse," he said. "I am not accepting it, therefore it stays with you.""

Read quote 52 likes
C. S. Lewis Writer, Scholar
Squares

"There is no neutral ground in the universe. Every square inch, every split second is claimed by God, and counterclaimed by Satan."

Read quote 48 likes
Eva Hesse Artist
Squares

"What makes a tight circle or a tight little square box more of an intellectual statement than something done emotionally, I don't know. Art is an essence, a center."

Read quote 37 likes
Bruce Lee Martial Artist, Actor, Director
Squares

"The Western approach to reality is mostly through theory, and theory begins by denying reality - to talk about reality, to go around reality, to catch anything that attracts our sense-intellect and abstract it away from reality itself. Thus philosophy begins by saying that the outside world is not a basic fact, that its existence can be doubted and that every proposition in which the reality of the outside world is affirmed is not an evident proposition but one that needs to be divided, dissected and analyzed. It is to stand consciously aside and try to square a circle."

Read quote 31 likes
Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosopher
Squares

"Ask yourself whether our language is complete--whether it was so before the symbolism of chemistry and the notation of the infinitesimal calculus were incorporated in it; for these are, so to speak, suburbs of our language. (And how many houses or streets does it take before a town begins to be a town?) Our language can be seen as an ancient city: a maze of little streets and squares, of old and new houses, and of houses with additions from various periods; and this surrounded by a multitude of new boroughs with straight regular streets and uniform houses."

Read quote 24 likes
Fyodor Dostoevsky Novelist, Philosopher
Squares

"You see, gentlemen, reason is an excellent thing, there’s no disputing that, but reason is nothing but reason and satisfies only the rational side of man’s nature, while will is a manifestation of the whole life, that is, of the whole human life including reason and all the impulses. And although our life, in this manifestation of it, is often worthless, yet it is life and not simply extracting square roots."

Read quote 23 likes
Theodore Roosevelt Politician, Author
Squares

"Let the watchwords of all our people be the old familiar watchwords of honesty, decency, fair-dealing, and commonsense."... "We must treat each man on his worth and merits as a man. We must see that each is given a square deal, because he is entitled to no more and should receive no less.""The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us."

Read quote 21 likes
Ralph Waldo Emerson Essayist, Philosopher, Poet
Squares

"Shall we then judge a country by the majority, or by the minority? By the minority, surely. 'Tis pedantry to estimate nations by the census, or by square miles of land, or other than by their importance to the mind of the time."

Read quote 19 likes
Vladimir Nabokov Novelist
Squares

"There are teachers and students with square minds who are by nature meant to undergo the fascination of catagories. For them, 'schools' and 'movements' are everything; by painting a group symbol on the brow of mediocrity, they condone their own incomprehension of true genius."

Read quote 18 likes
Isaac Newton Mathematician, Physicist, Astronomer
Squares

"Every particle of matter is attracted by or gravitates to every other particle of matter with a force inversely proportional to the squares of their distances."

Read quote 18 likes
Nick Murray Author and Educator
Squares

"Stocks are a safe bet, but only if you stay invested long enough to ride out the . that squares with the facts, and with the historical record"

Read quote 18 likes
John Steinbeck Novelist, Journalist
Squares

"There used to be a thing or a commodity we put great store by. It was called the People. Find out where the People have gone. I don't mean the square-eyed toothpaste-and-hair-dye people or the new-car-or-bust people, or the success-and-coronary people. Maybe they never existed, but if there ever were the People, that's the commodity the Declaration was talking about, and Mr. Lincoln."

Read quote 18 likes