Category: Thought

A government could print a good edition of Shakespeare’s works, but it could not get them written.

With reasonable men, I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost.

The artist may doubt his own work, but he is bitterly disappointed if other people doubt it also.

To expect defeat is nine-tenths of defeat itself.

Truth never comes into the world but like a bastard, to the ignominy of him that brought her birth.

No man who knows aught, can be so stupid to deny that all men naturally were born free.

He who reigns within himself and rules passions, desires, and fears is more than a king.

He that studieth revenge keepeth his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.

The mind is its own place and in itself, can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.

I have discovered the most exciting, the most arduous literary form of all, the most difficult to master, the most pregnant in cur ious possibilities. I mean the advertisement…. It is far easier to write ten passably effective Sonnets, good enough to take in the not too inquiring critic, than one effective advertisement that will take in a few thousand of the uncritical buying public.