Ability
Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability.
BACON, FRANCIS
I don’t know much about his ability, but he’s got a very good beside manner.
DU MAURIER, GEORGE LOUIS PALMELLA BUSSON
It is better to be able neither to read nor write than to be able to do nothing else.
HAZLITT, WILLIAM
A child should always say what’s true.
And speak when he is spoken to,
And behave mannerly at table:
At least as far as he is able.
STEVENSON, ROBERT LOUIS
Natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study.
Francis Bacon
No amount of ability if of the slightest avail without honour.
Andrew Carnegie
I add this also, that natural ability without education has often raised man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.
Cicero
Ability hits the mark where presumption overshoots and diffidence falls short.
Nicholas of Cusa
There is something that is much more scarce, something finer far, something rarer than ability. It is the ability to recognize ability.
Rlbert Green Hubbard
Better be proficient in one art than a smatterer in a hundred.
Japanese Proverb
A man who qualifies himself well for his calling, never fails of employment.
Thomas Jefferson
It is a great ability to be able to conceal one’s ability.
Trancois De La Rochefoucauld
They are able because they think they are able.
Vergil
Absence
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.
FROST, ROBERT LEE
Watch the wall, my darling, while Gentlemen go by!
KIPLING, RUDYARD
We shall meet, but we shall miss him,
There will be one vacant chair.
WASHBURN, HENRY STEVENSON
Absence makes the heart grow fonder.
BAYLY, THOMAS HAYNES
Out of sight, out of mind.
Homer
Greater things are believed of those who are absent.
Tacitus
Action
The great end of life is not knowledge but action.
HUXLEY, THOMAS HENRY
But two are walking apart for ever,
And wave their hands for a mute farewell.
INGELOW, JEAN
Nothing to do but work,
Nothing to eat but food,
Nothing to wear but clothes
To keep one from going nude.
KING, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
The greatest pleasure I know, is to do a good action by stealth and to have it found out by accident.
LAMB, CHARLES
Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing,
Only a signal shown and a distant voice in the darkness.
So on the ocean of life we pass and speak one another,
Only a look and a voice; then darkness again and a silence.
LONGFELLOW
To stroke a platidude unitl it purrs like an epigram.
MARQUIS, DONALD ROBERT PERRY
The devil turned precisian!
MASSINGER, PHILIP
When her mother tends her before the laughing mirror,
Tying up her laces, looping up her hair.
MEREDITH, GEORGE
Their fatal hands no second stroke intend.
MILTON, JOHN
A pampered menial forced me from the door.
MOSS, THOMAS
I really do not see the signal! (Telescope to his blind eye)
NELSON, VISCOUNT
Look, with what courteous action
It waves you to a more removed ground.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
Things and actions are what they are, and the consequences of them will be what they will be, why then should we desire to be deceived?
BUTLER, JOSEPH
Actions speak louder than words.
Premchand
Brave actions never wat a trumpet.
Fuller THOMAS
A man’s action is only a picture book of his creed.
EMERSON RALPH
A rolling stone can gather no mass.
PUBLILIUSSYRUS
Look, with what courteous action
It waves you to a more removed ground.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet, and blossom in their dust.
SHIRLEY, JAMES
Do not overlook negative actions merely because they are small; however small a spark may be, it can burn down a haystack as big as a mountain.
The Buddha
The great end of life is not knowledge, but action.
Proverb
adversity
A man I am crossed with adversity.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
A wretched soul, bruised with adversity.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
The virtue of prosperity is temperance; the virtue of adversity is fortitude…..
Francis Bacon
Adversity is the first path to truth.
George Gordon, Lord Byron
Friendship, of itself a holy tie,
Is made more sacred by adversity.
John Dryden
In time of prosperity friends will be plenty;
In time of adversity not one in twenty.
James Howell
The flower that follows the sun does so even in cloudy days.
Robert Leighton
Who hath not known ill fortune, never knew himself or his own virtue.
David Mallet
In adversity a man is saved by hope.
Manander
Trial is the true test of mortal men.
Pindar
In the day of prosperity be joyful, by in the day of adversity consider.
Ecclesiastes
A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity
Proverb
Adventure
To die will be an awfully big adventure.
BARRIE, SIR JAMES MATTHEW
He that complies against his will
Is of his own opinion still.
BUTLER, SAMUEL
Adventures are to the adventurous.
DISRAELI, BENJAMIN
All our adventures were by the fire-side, and all our migrations from the blue bed to the brown.
GOLDSMITH, OLIVER
Advice
But let the good prevail
AESCHYLUS
What we must look for here is, first,
Religious and moral principles:
Secondly, gentlemanly conduct;
Thirdly, intellectual ability.
ARNOLD, THOMAS
Wait and see.
ASQUITH, HERBERT, HENRY
It is better to wear out than to rust out.
CUMBERLAND, RICHARD
It is only the first step which is troublesome.
DEFFAND, MARIE ANNE DE
You know my methods. Apply them.
DOYLE, SIR ARTHUR CONAN
Remember that time is money.
FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN
Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty.
GIBBON, EDWARD
I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors.
THOREAU, HENRY DAVID
Be somewhat scanter of your maiden presence.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
How hard it is for women to keep counsel.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
Put money in thy purse.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.
THOREAU, HENRY DAVID
The worst men often give the best advice.
Philip James Bailey
A fool sometimes gives weighty advice.
Nicholas Boileau
Unasked advice is a trespass on sacred privacy.
Henry Stanley Haskins
Whatever advice you give, be short.
Horace
Advice is offensive, because it shows us that we are known to others as well as to ourselves.
Samuel Johnson
Never advise anyone, only the wise profit by it.
Publilius Syrus
The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never on any use to oneself.
Oscar Wilde
Age
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
BINYON, ROBERT LAURENCE
Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle;
Old Age a regret.
DISRAELI, BENJAMIN
The people’s prayer, the glad diviner’s theme,
The young men’s vision, and the old men’s dream!
DRYDEN, JOHN
The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,
For talking age and whispering lovers made.
GOLDSMITH, OLIVER
What find you better or more honourable than age? Take the preheminence of it in everything; in an old friend, in old wine, in an old pedigree.
MARMION, SHACKERLEY
Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold.
MILTON, JOHN
Unrespited,unpitied, unreprived,
Ages of hopeless end.
MILTON, JOHN
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
He was not of an age, but for all time.
JHONSON, BEN
You cannot call it love; for at your age
The hey-day in the blood is tame, it’s humble
And waits upon the judgement.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
How many ages hence
Shall this our lofty scene be acted over
In starts unborn and accents yet unknown!
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
The choice and master spirits of this age.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
Every man over forty is a scoundrel.
SHAW, GEORGE BERNARD
Now he belongs to the ages.
STANTON, EDWIN Mc MASTERS
A fool at forty is a fool indeed.
YOUNG, EDWARD
You live in the age of interdependence. Borders can’t count for much or stop much, good of bad anymore.
Bill Clinton
He lives long that lives till all are weary of him.
Henry George Bohn
Let age approve of youth,
And death complete the same.
Robert Browning
Young men think old men are fools, but old men know young men are fools.
George Chapman
A man is as old as he’s feeling
A woman as old as she looks.
Mortimer Collins
Folly in youth is sin, in old age is madness.
Samuel Daniel
A woman is as old as she looks to a man that likes to look at her.
Finley Peer Dunne
Forty is the old age of youth;
Fifty is the youth of old age.
Victor Hugo
It was near a miracle to see an old man silent, since talking is the disease of age.
Ben Jonson
Nobody loves life like an old man.
Sophocles
To love is natural in a young man, shame in an old one.
Pblilius Syrus
Agriculture
Strange to the world, he wore a bashful look,
The fields his study, Nature was his book.
BLOOMFIELD, ROBERT
We plough the fields, and scatter
The good seed on the land,
But it is fed and watered
By God’s almighty hand.
CAMPBELL, JANE MONTGOMERY
Earth is so kind, that just tickle her with a hoe and she laughs with a harvest.
JERROLD, DOUGLAS WILLIAM
Man has only a thin layer of soil between himslef and starvation.
Bard of Cincinnati
Alcohol
If all be true that I do think,
There are five reasons we should drink:
Good wine- a friend- or being dry-
Or lest we should be by and by-
Or any other reason why.
ALDRICH, HENRY
Water, water, everywhere. Nor any drop to drink.
COLERIDGE, SAMUEL TAYLOR
Did you ever hear of Captain Wattle?
He was all for love, and a little for the bottle.
DIBDIN, CHARLES
Who comes here?
A Grenadier.
What does he want?
A pot of beer.
DICKENS, CHARLES
We can drink till all look blue.
FORD, JOHN
They who drink beer will think beer.
IRVING, WASHINGTON
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk.
KEATS, JOHN
Come, come, good wine is a good familiar creature, if it be well used.
SHAW, GEORGE BERNARD
I’m only a beer teetotaller, not a champagne teetotaller.
SHAW, GEORGE BERNARD
Drink, pretty creature, drink!
WORDSWORTH, WILLIAM
At the third cup, wine drinks the man.
Hokekyo Sho
I believe, if we take habitual drunkards as a class, their heads and their hearts will bear an advantageous comparison with those of any other class.
Abraham Lincoln
Ambition
Oh! he is mad, is he ? Then I wish he would bite some other of my generals.
GEORGE II, KING
I do not want to be a fly;
I want to be a worm !
GILMAN, CHAROLTTE PERKINS STETSON
Sir, we know our will is free, and there’s an end on it.
JOHNSON, SAMUEL
I shall dine late; but the dining-room will be well lighted, the guests few and select.
LANDOR, WALTER SAVAGE
I do like a little bit of butter to my bread.
MILNE, ALAN ALEXANDER
Thus let me live, unseen, unknown
Thus unlamented let me die,
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lie.
POPE, ALEXANDER
Ambitions first sprung from your blest abodes,
The glorious fault of angels and of gods.
POPE, ALEXANDER
Could I come near your beauty with my nails,
I’d set my ten commandments in your face.
WILLIAM SHAKESPeARe
I must become a borrower of the night
For a dark hour or twain.
WILLIAM SHAKESPeAre
I shall be like that tree, I shall die at the top.
SWIFT, JONATHAN
Whatever a man prays for, he prays for a miracle. Every prayer reduces itself to this; ‘Great God, grant that twice two be not four.’
TURGENEV, IVAN SERGEIEVITCH
The slave has but one master; the man of ambition has as many as there are people useful to his fortune.
Jean De La Bruyere
All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind.
Joseph Conrad
A man without ambition is like a woman without beauty.
Frank Harris
Ambition and suspicion always go together.
George Chirstopher Lichtenberg
Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled by great ambitions.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Ambition is a vice, but it may be the father of virtue.
Quintilian
The very susbtance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.
Shakespeare
America
Good Americans, when they die, go to Paris.
APPLETON, THOMAS GOLD
I am not a Virginian, but an American.
HENRY, PATRICK
I was born an American; I will live an American; I shall die an American.
WEBSTER, DANIEL
America is the country where you buy a lifetime supply of aspirin for one dollar and use it up in two weeks.
John Barrymore
I am willing to love all mankind, except an American.
Samuel Johnson
The Americans, like the English, probably make love worse than any other race.
Walt Whitman
Anger
What ever is begun in anger ends in shame.
M. K. GANDHI
Anger is a short madness.
HORACE
Anger begins with folly and ends with repentance.
Henry George Bohn
When anger rises, think of the consequences.
Confucius
Beware the fury of a patient man.
John Dryden
Anger and folly walk cheek by jowl;
Repentance treads on both their heels.
Benjamin Franklin
Let anger’s fire be slow to burn.
George Herbert
The best answer to anger is silence.
German Proverb
A soft answer turneth away wrath; but grievous words stir up anger.
Proverb
He best keeps from anger who remembers that God is always looking upon him.
Plato
Violence in the voice is often only the death rattle of reason in the throat.
John Frederick Boyes
Two things a man should never be angry at; what he can help, and what he cannot help.
Mahatma Gandhi
Angels
Like those of angels, short and far between.
BLAIR, ROBERT
The Angel of Death has been abroad throughout the land; you may almost hear the beating of his wings.
BRIGHT, JOHN
The question is this; Is man an ape or an angel? My lord, I am on the side of the angels.
DISRAELI, BENJAMIN
A ministering angel shall my sister be.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
Curse his better angel from his side and fall to reprobation.
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
Animals
Animals are such agreeable friends they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.
EDWARDS, RICHARD
If you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales.
GOLDSMITH, OLIVER
To my way of thinking there’s something wrong, or missing with any person who hasn’t got a soft spot in their heart for an animal of some kind.
Will James
Art
All things are artificial, for nature is the art of God.
BROWNE, SIR THOMAS
There is an art of reading, as well as an art of thinking, and an art of writing.
D’ ISRAELI, ISSAC
The art of pleasing consists in being pleased.
HAZLITT, WILLIAM
Life is short and art is long.
HIPPOCRATES
The inglorious arts of peace.
MARVELL, ANDREW
Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts
And eloquence.
MILTON, JOHN
Acting is therefore the lowest of the arts, if it is an art at all.
MOORE, GEORGE
Like the dew on the mountain,
Like the foam on the river,
Like the bubble on the fountain
Thou art gone, and for ever!
SCOTT, SIR WALTER, BARONET
Though this be madness, yet there is method in it.
WILLIAM SHAKESPeare
All art is quite useless.
WILDE, OSCAR
All things are artificial, for nature is the art of God.
BROWNE, SIR THOMAS
Engraving, then, is, in brief terms, the art of scratch.
RUSKIN, JOHN
Never judge a work of art by its defects.
Washington Allston
An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.
Jean Cocteau
In life beauty perishes, but not in art.
Leonardo Da Vinci
Art is the stored honey of the human soul gathered on wings of misery and travail.
Theodore Dreiser
Great art is the contempt of a great man for small art.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Rules and models destroy genius and art.
William Hazlitt
Art is nothing more than the shadow of humanity.
Henry James
The artist is the only man who knows what to do with beauty.
Jean Rostand
An artist may visit a museum, but only a pedant can live there.
George Santayana
Art is not a handicraft; it is the transmission of feeling the artist has experienced.
Leo Tolstoy
Autumn
No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace.
As I have seen in one autumnal face.
DONNE, JOHN
Autumn wins you best by this, its mute
Appeal to sympathy for its decay.
Robert Browning
All-cheering plenty, with her flowing horn,
Led yellow Autumn, wreath’d with nodding corn.
Robert Burns
The melancholy days are come
The saddest of the year,
Of wailing winds, and naked woods,
And meadows brown and sear.
William Cullen Bryant
Dread autumn, harvest-season of the Goddess of Death.
Horace
A solemn land of long-fulfilled desires
Is this and year by year the self-same fires
Burn in the trees.
Mary Webb
Avarice
Avarice, the spur of industry.
HUME, DAVID
Acting is therefore the lowest of the arts, if it is an art at all.
MOORE, GEORGE
I am rich beyond the dreams of avarice.
MOORE, EDWARD
Be not penny-wise; riches have wings, and sometimes they fly away of themselves, sometimes they must be set flying to bring in more.
Francis Bacon
If you would abolish avarice, you must abolish its mother, luxury.
Cicero
It is sheer madness to live in want in order to be wealthy when you die.
Juvenal
The beautiful eyes of my money-box!
He speaks of it as a lover of his mistress.
Moliere
They are greedy dogs which can never have enough.
Unknown
