One inch of joy surmounts of grief a span,
Because to laugh is proper to the man.
The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mould.... The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbour causes a war betwixt princes.
Not because Socrates said so,... I look upon all men as my compatriots.
If on my theme I rightly think,
There are five reasons why men drink,--
Good wine, a friend, because I 'm dry,
Or lest I should be by and by,
Or any other reason why.
It is not permitted to the most equitable of men to be a judge in his own cause.
Montaigne is wrong in declaring that custom ought to be followed simply because it is custom, and not because it is reasonable or just.
It is more than a crime; it is a political fault," --words which I record, because they have been repeated and attributed to others.
I fall back dazzled at beholding myself all rosy red,
At having, I myself, caused the sun to rise.
I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy.
As the bird by wandering, as the swallow by flying, so the curse causeless shall not come.
The grinders cease because they are few.
The grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail; because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets.
Rachel weeping for her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not.
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary, the Devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.
Cause me no causes.
The communication media inflate language because they dare not be honest and call a spade a spade
The important thing is to get yourself born. Youâre entitled to that. But youâre not entitled to life. Because if you were entitled to life, then the life would have to be quantified. How many years? Seventy? Sixty? Shakespeare was dead at fifty-two. Keats was dead at twenty-six. Thomas Chatterton at seventeen.
The establishment rejected him. And it was because heâd had the guts to fight and get gassed, while the rest of the bastards stayed at home.
Because we were too intellectual and clever and humanistic to believe in a hell didnât mean that a hell couldnât exist.
A poem isnât important because of the biographical truth of the content.
Human beings are defined by freedom of choice. Once you have them doing what theyre told is good just because theyre going to get a lump of sugar instead of a kick up the ahss (?!) then ethnics no longer exists. The state could tell them it was good to go off and mug and rape and kill some other nation.
It is because literature has no power to imitate the sound of music that it is led to mockery of its sister art
Life is death because it moves towards death from its very beginning
Life is circular and the beginning of a circle is also its end; life is not a rectilinear continuum. Thus the season of renewal is cruel because renewal entails the death of the old, and we may have committed ourselves to the old.
Poetry of a surrealistic kind can, as a dream can, free the imagination from the trammels of daily cause and effect