Art is a reality, not a definition; inasmuch as it approaches a reality, it approaches perfection, and inasmuch as it approaches a mere definition, it is imperfect and untrue.
Abstainer, n. A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others.
If we had had more time for discussion we should probably have made a great many more mistakes.
Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who cannot attain it in anything.
Most works of art, like most wines, ought to be consumed in the district of their fabrication.
Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it.
Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.
A sober man may become a drunkard through being a coward. A brave man may become a coward through being a drunkard.
Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.
The search for truth is more precious than its possession.
The family that prays together stays together.
An optimist is the human personification of spring.
Wisdom is better than wit, and in the long run will certainly have the laugh on her side.
We should try to be the parents of our future rather than the offspring of our past.
A dirty joke is a sort of mental rebellion.
A sincere diplomat is like dry water or wooden iron.
Love means the body, the soul, the life, the entire being. We feel love as we feel the warmth of our blood, we breathe love as we breathe air, we hold it in ourselves as we hold our thoughts. Nothing more exists for us.
By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he's wrong.
Philosophy triumphs easily over past and future evils; but present evils triumph over it.
Every man is born as many men and dies as a single one.
I see the triumph of good over evil as a manifestation of the error-correcting process of evolution.
Human reason is by nature architectonic.
Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.
Even if we accept, as the basic tenet of true democracy, that one moron is equal to one genius, is it necessary to go a further step and hold that two morons are better than one genius?
The laughter of man is more terrible than his tears, and takes more forms - hollow, heartless, mirthless, maniacal.
Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.
Lives based on having are less free than lives based either on doing or on being.
It doesn't matter who you vote for, the government always gets in.
People can have the Model T in any colour - so long as it's black.
Death and taxes and childbirth! There's never any convenient time for any of them.
We all are born mad. Some remain so.
You should read books like you take medicine, by advice, and not by advertisement.
Television is bubble gum for the eyes.
Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength.
A book is a version of the world. If you do not like it, ignore it; or offer your own version in return.
The heart is blind; but love is not blind. None of the gods is so discriminating.
Writers are as jealous as pigeons.
My first car was painted red down one side and blue down the other to confuse witnesses in case of an accident.
Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.
The biggest mistake is believing there is one right way to listen, to talk, to have a conversation - or a relationship.
There is the known and there is the unknown. In between are The Doors.
Always be nice to those younger than you, because they are the ones who will be writing about you.
And I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity in the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.
You get old only when you start having more memories than dreams.
In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?
Conscience: keeps more people awake than coffee.
When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece.
