Quotes, maxims and aphorisms - Buboquote.com

There is nothing softer and weaker than water,
And yet there is nothing better for attacking hard and strong things.

Laozi /

water

To the sick, while there is life there is hope.

Marcus Tullius Cicero /

Tolerance gives us spiritual insight, which is as far from fanaticism as north pole is from the south.

Mahatma Gandhi /

tolerance

The eye, which is called the window of the soul, is the principal means by which the central sense can most completely and abundantly appreciate the infinite works of nature; and the ear is the second, which acquires dignity by hearing of the things the eye has seen.

Leonardo da Vinci /

nature

While poverty persists, there is no true freedom.

Nelson Mandela /

The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is truly free. First, society begins by trying to beat you up. If this fails, they try to poison you. If this fails too, they finish by loading honors on your head.

The poet never asks for admiration; he wants to be believed.

Poet

One must be a living man and a posthumous artist.

Jean Cocteau - Le Coq et l’Arlequin /

artist

If anyone can be considered the greatest writer who ever lived, it is Shakespeare.

writing

After the writer’s death, reading his journal is like receiving a long letter.

death

When we least expect it, life sets us a challenge to test our courage and willingness to change; at such a moment, there is no point in pretending that nothing has happened or in saying that we are not ready. The challenge will not wait. Life does not look back.

A beautiful line of verse has twelve feet, and two wings.

wings

A just king must be the first to observe those laws that he has himself prescribed.

Giovanni Boccaccio - The Decameron /

The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful. And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord.

Edward Gibbon - The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire /

It is human nature to want to exchange ideas, and I believe that, at bottom, every artist wants no more than to tell the world what he has to say. I have sometimes heard painters say that they paint 'for themselves': but I think they would soon have painted their fill if they lived on a desert island.

artist

It's the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary; only wise men are able to understand them.

What I will be remembered for are the Foundation Trilogy and the Three Laws of Robotics.

law

Gandhi rejects the Adam Smith notion of human nature as motivated by self-interest and brute needs and returns us to our spiritual dimension with its impulses for nonviolence, justice and equality.He exposes the fallacy of the claim that everyone can be rich and successful provided they work hard. He points to the millions who work themselves to the bone and still remain hungry.

Nelson Mandela /

Wit and valor are qualities that are more easily ascertained than virtue, or the love of wisdom.

Edward Gibbon - The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire /

When the history of our times is written, will we be remembered as the generation that turned our backs in a moment of global crisis or will it be recorded that we did the right thing?

Nelson Mandela /

Only a very bad theologian would confuse the certainty that follows revelation with the truths that are revealed. They are entirely different things.

Denis Diderot /

No matter what he does, every person on earth plays a central role in the history of the world. And normally he doesn't know it.

Consider metaphysics as an extension of the physical.

O thou monster, Ignorance, how deformed dost thou look!

William Shakespeare /

ignorance

It is in the character of growth that we should learn from both pleasant and unpleasant experiences.

Nelson Mandela /

experience

Time, matter, space — all, it may be, are no more than a point.

Denis Diderot /

Time, matter, space — all, it may be, are no more than a point.

Background photo by NASA on Unsplash

Art is science made clear.

Jean Cocteau - Le Coq et l’Arlequin /

Art produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time.

The dream is the luxury of thinking.

Poetry is indispensable — if I only knew what for.

poetry

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