#Influence Quotes

“Into what dangers would you lead me, Cassius, That you would have me seek into myself For that which is not in me?”

“Haply a woman's voice may do some goodWhen articles too nicely urged be stood on.”

“The tartness of his face sours ripe grapes.”

“If you would persuade, you must appeal to interest rather than intellect. We are advertis'd by our loving friends.”

“How much an ill word may empoison liking!”

“Your gentleness shall force More than your force move us to gentleness.”

“O that my tongue were in the thunder's mouth! Then with passion would I shake the world.”

“Well could he ride, and often men would say, "That horse his mettle from his rider takes: Proud of subjection, noble by the sway, What rounds, what bounds, what course, what stop he makes!" And controversy hence a question takes, Whether the horse by him became his deed, Or he his manage by the well-doing steed.”

“My nature is subdued to what it works in, like the dyer's hand.”

“What the great ones do, the less will prattle of”

“Gold were as good as twenty orators.”

“Company, villainous company, hath been the spoil of me.”

“Though music oft hath such a charm to make bad good, and good provoke to harm.”

“The private life of one man shall be a more illustrious monarchy,--more formidable to its enemy, more sweet and serene in its influence to its friend, than any kingdom in history. For a man, rightly viewed, comprehendeth the particular natures of all men.”

“The true preacher can be known by this, that he deals out to the people his life,--life passed through the fire of thought.”

“Soft pity enters an iron gate.”

“All history is a record of the power of minorities, and of minorities of one.”

“Dumb jewels often, in their silent kind, more than quick words, do move a woman's mind.”

“You are not wood, you are not stones, but men;And being men, hearing the will of Caesar,It will inflame you, it will make you mad.”

“Out of Plato come all things that are still written and debated about among men of thought.”

“The truth, the hope, of any time must be sought in the minorities. Michael Angelo was the conscience of Italy. We grow free with his name, and find it ornamental now, but in his own day his friends were few.”

“Strong reasons make strong actions let us go If you say ay, the king will not say no.”

“Shall we then judge a country by the majority, or by the minority? By the minority, surely. 'Tis pedantry to estimate nations by the census, or by square miles of land, or other than by their importance to the mind of the time.”

“Plato is philosophy, and philosophy, Plato,--at once the glory and the shame of mankind, since neither Saxon nor Roman have availed to add any idea to his categories.”

“Adult males are what their moms designed them.”

“O, teach me how you look, and with what art You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart."-Helena”

“I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men.”

“All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients.”

“England produces under favorable conditions of ease and culture the finest women in the world. And, as the men are affectionate and true-hearted, the women inspire and refine them.”

“Women, as most susceptible, are the best index of the coming hour.”

“No one has a prosperity so high and firm that two or three words can't dishearten it.”

“Women, more than all, are the element and kingdom of illusion. Being fascinated, they fascinate.”

“If the king is in the palace, nobody looks at the walls. It is when he is gone, and the house is filled with grooms and gazers, that we turn from the people, to find relief in the majestic men that are suggested by the pictures and the architecture.”

“Genius is always sufficiently the enemy of genius by over influence. The literature of every nation bear me witness. The English dramatic poets have Shakspearized now for two hundred years.”

“Opinion crowns with an imperial voice.”

“Romans, countrymen, and lovers, hear me for my cause, and be silent, that you may hear.”

“The Brightness of her cheek would shame those stars as daylight doth a lamp; her eyes in heaven would through the airy region stream so bright that birds would sing, and think it were not night.”

“Our debt to tradition through reading and conversation is so massive, our protest so rare and insignificant-and this commonly on the ground of other reading and hearing-that in large sense, one would say there is no pure originality. All minds quote. Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment. There is no thread that is not a twist of these two strands. By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. It is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent.”

“The unstable estimates of men crowd to him whose mind is filled with a truth, as the heaped waves of the Atlantic follow the moon.”

“Nor knowest thou what argument Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent. All are needed by each one; Nothing is fair or good alone.”

“We are as much informed of a writer's genius by what he selects as by what he originates. We read the quotation with his eyes, andfind a new and fervent sense; as a passage from one of the poets, well recited, borrows new interest from the rendering. As the journals say, "the italics are ours.”

“Eloquence shows the power and possibility of man. There is one of whom we took no note, but on a certain occasion it appears that he has a secret virtue never suspected - that he can paint what has occurred and what must occur, with such clearness to a company, as if they saw it done before their eyes. By leading their thought he leads their will, and can make them do gladly what an hour ago they would not believe that they could be led to do at all.”

“O hell! to choose love with another's eye.”

“It is the very error of the moon; She comes more nearer earth than she was wont, And makes men mad.”

“Women stand related to beautiful nature around us, and the enamoured youth mixes their form with moon and stars, with woods and waters, and the pomp of summer. They heal us of awkwardness by their words and looks. We observe their intellectual influence on the most serious student. They refine and clear his mind: teach him to put a pleasing method into what is dry and difficult.”

“If a man knows the law, find out, though he live in a pine shanty, and resort to him. And if a man can pipe or sing, so as to wrap the imprisoned soul in an elysium; or can paint a landscape, and convey into souls and ochres all the enchantments of Spring or Autumn; or can liberate and intoxicate all people who hear him with delicious songs and verses; it is certain that the secret cannot be kept; the first witness tells it to a second, and men go by fives and tens and fifties to his doors.”

“Great men do not content us. It is their solitude, not their force, that makes them conspicuous.”

“One idea lights a thousand candles.”

“Activity is contagious.”

“No man can quite emancipate himself from his age and country, or produce a model in which the education, the religion, the politics, usages, and arts, of his times shall have no share.”