Playwright Quotes

I can't talk religion to a man with bodily hunger in his eyes.

To die with glory, if one has to die at all, is still, I think, pain for the dier.

I love hearing my relations abused. It is the only thing that makes me put up with them at all. Relations are simply a tedious pack of people, who haven't got the remotest knowledge of how to live nor the smallest instinct about when to die.

Travelers must be content.

The average age (longevity) of a meat eater is 63. I am on the verge of 85 and still work as hard as ever. I have lived quite long enough and am trying to die; but I simply cannot do it. A single beef-steak would finish me; but I cannot bring myself to swallow it. I am oppressed with a dread of living forever. That is the only disadvantage of vegetarianism.

Many a maiden,With white feet glancing light as air,Made happy music through the gloom.

Thy best of rest is sleep, And that thou oft provok'st; yet grossly fear'st Thy death, which is no more.

It was a lover and his lass,With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,That o'er the green corn-field did pass,In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;Sweet lovers love the spring.

The weakest goes to the wall.

Strong reasons make strong actions.

What we call education and culture is for the most part nothing but the substitution of reading for experience, of literature for life, of the obsolete fictitious for the contemporary real.

Brains are not everything.

when the day comes that I kneel by your bedside and see your eyes close, or you kneel by mine, it must be that the one who waits behind shall know the parting is not all.

Most people are boring and stupid.

Nature, as it grows again toward earth, is fashioned for the journey, dull and heavy.

Distance... is like futurity. A dim vastness is spread before our souls; the perceptions of our mind are as obscure as those of our vision... But alas! when we have attained our object, when the distant 'there' becomes the present 'here,' all is changed; we are as poor and circumscribed as ever, and our souls still languish for unattainable happiness.

The privilege of feeling at home everywhere belongs only to kings, wolves and robbers.

Things are often spoke and seldom meant.

it is my lady! *sighs* o, it is my love! o, that she knew she were! she speaks, yet she sais nothing. what of that? her eye discourses; i will answer it. i am too bold, 'tis not to me she speaks; two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, having some business, do entreat her eyes to twinkle in their spheres till they return.

For grief is crowned with consolation.

An envious fever of pale and bloodless emulation.

Once more I am a wanderer, a pilgrim, through the world. But what else are you?

Sanity brings pain but madness is a vile thing.

There is nothing serious in Mortality

The dullness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits.

It is related of an Englishman that he hanged himself to avoid the daily task of dressing and undressing.

Not the maker of plans and promises, but rather the one who offers faithful service in small matters. This is the person who is most likely to achieve what is good and lasting.

For the canons of good society are, or should be, the same as the canons of art. Form is absolutely essential to it.

Misunderstandings and neglect occasion more mischief in the world than malice and wickedness.

Thriftless ambition, that wilt ravin up Thine own life's means!

Where the wave of moonlight glosses The dim gray sands with light, Far off by furthest Rosses We foot it all the night, Weaving olden dances, Mingling hands and mingling glances Till the moon has taken flight; To and fro we leap And chase the frothy bubbles, While the world is full of troubles And is anxious in its sleep. . . .

All that glitters is not gold; Often have you heard that told: Many a man his life has sold But my outside to behold: Gilded tombs do worms enfold Had you been as wise as bold, Your in limbs, in judgment old, Your answer had not been in'scroll'd Fare you well: your suit is cold.' Cold, indeed, and labour lost: Then, farewell, heat and welcome, frost!

People want to find a 'meaning' in everything and everyone. That's the disease of our age...

The solution of every problem is another problem

There is no such sport as sport by sport o'erthrown.

Poor and content, is rich and rich enough; But riches, fineless, is as poor as winter, To him that ever fears he shall be poor.

I tire so of hearing people say, Let things take their course. Tomorrow is another day. I do not need my freedom when I'm dead. I cannot live on tomorrow's bread.

Being a mother means that your heart is no longer yours; it wanders wherever your children do

That beauty which is meant by art is no mere accident of human life which people can take or leave, but a positive necessity of life if we are to live as nature meant us to, that is to say unless we are content to be less than men.

Never trust a woman who wears mauve, whatever her age may be, or a woman over thirty-five who is fond of pink ribbons.

Fantastic shadows of birds

I must to the barber's, monsieur, for methinks I am marvellous hairy about the face.

The hardest thing to see is what is in front of your eyes.

Let fancy still in my sense in Lethe steep; If it be thus to dream, still let me sleep!

Give a wise man an honest brief to plead and his eloquence is no remarkable achievement.

To be in hell is to drift; to be in heaven is to steer.

Tired with all these for restful death I cry, As to behold desert a beggar born, And needy nothing trimmed in jollity, And purest faith unhappily forsworn.

thou art the best o' the cut-throats

So well thy words become thee as thy wounds.

Everything great and intelligent is in the minority

There is none of my uncle's marks upon you; he taught me how to know a man in love; in which cage of rushes I am sure you are not prisoner.

One should not lose one's temper unless one is certain of getting more and more angry to the end.

We think that we are generous because we credit our neighbor with those virtues that are likely to benefit ourselves. We praise the banker that we may overdraw our account, and find good qualities in the highwayman in the hope that he may spare our pockets.

Be lion-mettled, proud, and take no careWho chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are!

I believe it is customary in good society to take some slight refreshment at five o'clock.

You know more than you think you know, just as you know less than you want to know.

On an occasion of this kind it becomes more than a moral duty to speak one's mind. It becomes a pleasure.

The true artist is known by what he annexes, and he annexes everything.

The longer I live, Dorian, the more keenly I feel that whatever was good enough for our fathers is not good enough for us. In art, as in politics, les grand-pères ont toujours tort.

In war," answered the weaver, "the strong make slaves of the weak, and in peace the rich make slaves of the poor. We must work to live, and they give us such mean wages that we die. We toil for them all day long, and they heap up gold in their coffers, and our children fade away before their time, and the faces of those we love become hard and evil. We tread out the grapes, another drinks the wine. We sow the corn, and our own board is empty. We have chains, though no eye beholds them; and are slaves, though men call us free.