smile quotes and sayings

Plants are the young of the world, vessels of health and vigor; but they grope ever upward towards consciousness; the trees are imperfect men, and seem to bemoan their imprisonment, rooted in the ground. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, Second Series, 1844



Bring the past only if you are going to build from it. ~Domenico Cieri Estrada



Even when the polls are open to all, Negroes have shown themselves too slow to exercise their voting privileges. There must be a concerted effort on the part of Negro leaders to arouse their people from their apathetic indifference.... In the past, apathy was a moral failure. Today, it is a form of moral and political suicide. ~Martin Luther King, Jr.



If one looks closely enough, one can see angels in every piece of art. ~Terri Guillemets



You are fastened to them and cannot understand how, because they are not fastened to you. ~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin



I don't have to look up my family tree, because I know that I'm the sap. ~Fred Allen



Striving for excellence motivates you; striving for perfection is demoralizing. ~Harriet Braiker



Our historic imagination is at best slightly developed. We generalise and idealise the past egregiously. We set up little toys to stand as symbols for centuries and the complicated lives of countless individuals. ~John Dewey, Characters and Events



Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop to look around once in a while you could miss it. ~From the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop to look around once in a while you could miss it. ~From the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off



Oratory is the power to talk people out of their sober and natural opinions. ~Joseph Chatfield



If one could make alive again for other people some cobwebbed skein of old dead intrigues and breathe breath and character into dead names and stiff portraits. That is history to me! ~George Macaulay Trevelyan



A woman can look both moral and exciting... if she also looks as if it was quite a struggle. ~Edna Ferber



It's like, at the end, there's this surprise quiz: am I proud of me? I gave my life to become the person I am right now! Was it worth what I paid? ~Richard Bach



History is merely gossip. ~Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan



From within or from behind, a light shines through us upon things, and makes us aware that we are nothing, but the light is all. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson



Men's natures are alike; it is their habits that separate them. ~Confucius, Analects



It is not flesh and blood but the heart which makes us fathers and sons. ~Johann Schiller



In marriage there are no manners to keep up, and beneath the wildest accusations no real criticism. Each is familiar with that ancient child in the other who may erupt again.... We are not ridiculous to ourselves. We are ageless. That is the luxury of the wedding ring. ~Enid Bagnold, Autobiography, 1969



Joel Siegel: "Yes.... Gilda Radner... said this in her book. What cancer does is, it forces you to focus, to prioritize, and you learn what's important. I mean, I don't sweat the small stuff. I used to get angry at cab drivers. It's not worth it.... And when somebody says you have cancer, you realize it's all small stuff. And what Gilda said is, if it weren't for the downside, everyone would want to have it. But there is a downside."



Statistics are human beings with the tears wiped off. ~Paul Brodeur, Outrageous Misconduct