Famous aphorisms in English
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"Every man has his price." This is not true. But for every man there exists a bait which he cannot resist swallowing. To win over certain people to something, it is only necessary to give it a gloss of love of humanity, nobility, gentleness, self-sacrifice - and there is nothing you cannot get them to swallow. To their souls, these are the icing, the tidbit; other kinds of souls have others.
Friedrich Nietzsche
... Nature, whose sweet rains fall of just and unjust alike, will have clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and secret valleys in whose silence I may weep undetected. She will hang the night with stars so that I may walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send the wind over my footprints so that none may track me to my hurt: she will cleanse me in great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole.
Oscar Wilde
...my dear boy, no woman is a genius. They are a decorative sex. They never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the triumph of mind over morals.
Oscar Wilde
...the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness, the independence of solitude.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows us that faith proves nothing.
Friedrich Nietzsche
A child is a curly, dimpled lunatic.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want?
Oscar Wilde
A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats.
Benjamin Franklin
A democracy is two wolves and a small lamb voting on what to have for dinner. Freedom under a constitutional republic is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.
Benjamin Franklin
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A friend is one before whom I may think aloud.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A good conscience is a continual Christmas.
Benjamin Franklin
A good intention but fixed and resolute - bent on high and holy ends, we shall find means to them on every side and at every moment; and even obstacles and opposition will but make us "like the fabled specter-ships," which sail the fastest in the very teeth of the wind.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A grand passion is the privelege of people who have nothing to do.
Oscar Wilde
A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
Oscar Wilde
A long life may not be good enough, but a good life is long enough.
Benjamin Franklin
A man builds a fine house; and now he has a master, and a task for life; he is to furnish, watch, show it, and keep it in repair, the rest of his days.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her.
Oscar Wilde
A man makes inferiors his superiors by heat; self-control is the rule.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A man of genius is privileged only as far as he is genius. His dullness is as insupportable as any other dullness.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A man's library is a sort of harem.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over.
Benjamin Franklin
A subject for a great poet would be God's boredom after the seventh day of creation.
Friedrich Nietzsche
A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions--as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all.
Friedrich Nietzsche
A well-tied tie is the first serious step in life.
Oscar Wilde
A woman begins by resisting a man's advances, and ends by blocking his retreat.
Oscar Wilde
A woman who cannot make her mistakes charming, is only a female.
Oscar Wilde
A writer must refuse to allow himself to be transformed into an institution.
Jean-Paul Sartre
A youth is to be regarded with respect. How do you know that his future will not be equal to our present?
Confucius
About foxhunting: The unspeakable chasing the uneatable.
Oscar Wilde
Action is the last refuge of those who cannot dream.
Oscar Wilde
Action: the last resource of those who know not how to dream.
Oscar Wilde
All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their own peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their own peril.
Oscar Wilde
All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling.
Oscar Wilde
All cats are gray in the dark.
Benjamin Franklin
All credibility, all good conscience, all evidence of truth come only from the senses.
Friedrich Nietzsche
All human situations have their inconveniences. We feel those of the present but neither see nor feel those of the future; and hence we often make troublesome changes without amendment, and frequently for the worse.
Benjamin Franklin
All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
All men are in some degree impressed by the face of the world; some men even to delight. This love of beauty is taste. Others have the same love in such success that, not content with admiring, they seek to embody it in new forms. The creation of beauty is art.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
All our progress is an unfolding, like a vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge as the plant has root, bud, and fruit. Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.
Friedrich Nietzsche
All would live long, but none would be old.
Benjamin Franklin
Although the most acute judges of the witches and even the witches themselves, were convinced of the guilt of witchery, the guilt nevertheless was non-existent. It is thus with all guilt.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.
Ernest Hemingway
Always do what you are afraid to do.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
Oscar Wilde
America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.
Oscar Wilde
America has been discovered before, but it has always been hushed up.
Oscar Wilde
America is the land of wide lawns and narrow minds.
Ernest Hemingway
An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.
Benjamin Franklin
An investment in knowledge still yields the best returns.
Benjamin Franklin
And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats,
None knew so well as I:
For he who lives more lives than one
More deaths than one must die.
Oscar Wilde
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
Anybody can be good in the country. There are no temptations there.
Oscar Wilde
Anybody can sympathise with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathise with a friend's success.
Oscar Wilde
Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.
Oscar Wilde
Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing.
Oscar Wilde
Art is the most intense form of individualism that the world has known.
Oscar Wilde
As long as war is regarded as wicked it will always have its fascinations. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.
Oscar Wilde
As soon as there is life there is danger.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
As we grow old…the beauty steals inward.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
At 20 years of age the will reigns, at 30 the wit, at 40 the judgment.
Benjamin Franklin
At the bottom every man knows well enough that he is a unique human being, only once on this earth; and by no extraordinary chance will such a marvelously picturesque piece of diversity in unity as he is, ever be put together a second time.
Friedrich Nietzsche
At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid.
Friedrich Nietzsche
At twilight, nature is not without loveliness, though perhaps its chief use is to illustrate quotations from the poets.
Oscar Wilde
Be civil to all; sociable to many; familiar with few; friend to one; enemy to none.
Benjamin Franklin
Be not ashamed of mistakes and thus make them crimes.
Confucius
Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.
Benjamin Franklin
Beauty is a form of genius--is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation. It is of the great facts in the world like sunlight, or springtime, or the reflection in dark water of that silver shell we call the moon.
Oscar Wilde
Beauty is the wonder of wonders. It is only the shallow people who do not judge by appearances.
Oscar Wilde
Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Before we acquire great power, we must acquire wisdom to use it well.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Being natural is simply a pose.
Oscar Wilde
Being perfectly well-dressed gives a feeling of tranquility that religion is powerless to bestow.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Believe me! The secret of reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from life is to live dangerously!
Friedrich Nietzsche
Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.
Confucius
Beware of the young doctor and the old barber.
Benjamin Franklin
Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Biography lends to death a new terror.
Oscar Wilde
Blessed are the forgetful, for they get the best even of their blunders.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Bore: a man who is never unintentionally rude.
Oscar Wilde
Brothers? Oh, I hate brothers. My older brother just doesn't know when to die, and my younger brothers seem to do nothing but.
Oscar Wilde
But did thee feel the earth move?
Ernest Hemingway
But in modern war you will die like a dog for no good reason.
Ernest Hemingway
But in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.
Benjamin Franklin
But thus do I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!
Friedrich Nietzsche
But what is the difference between literature and journalism?
...Journalism is unreadable and literature is not read. That is all.
Oscar Wilde
By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.
Socrates
By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.
Benjamin Franklin
By nature, men are nearly alike; by practice, they get to be wide apart.
Confucius
By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.
Confucius
Character is higher than intellect... A great soul will be strong to live, as well as to think.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Chastity is the greatest form of perversion.
Oscar Wilde
Children are all foreigners.
Ralph Waldo Emerson