Quotes by Statesmen - Page 7

If you would convince others seem open to conviction yourself.
Lord Chesterfield
God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed it is the purest of human pleasures.
Francis Bacon
Alas! how light a cause may move dissention between hearts that love!
Thomas More
Du hast so viele Leben, wie du Sprachen sprichst. (You have as many lives as the number of languages you speak.)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable.
Francis Bacon
Better pointed bullets than pointed speeches.
Otto von Bismarck
The unnatural - that too is natural.
Goethe
You are unfortunate in my judgment, for you have never been unfortunate. You have passed through life with no antagonist to face you; no one will know what you were capable of, not even you yourself.
Seneca
Each one's no longer consciousOf the high wall, or the rest:Since the one enduring fortress,Is the soldier's iron breast.If you’d live unconquered,Quickly arm, and fight the real foe:Every wife an Amazon bred,And every child a hero.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The most part of all princes have more delight in warlike manners and feats of chivalry than in the good feats of peace.
Thomas More
The sun though it passes through dirty places yet remains as pure as before.
Francis Bacon
Isn't this conception of absolute justice absolutely unjust?
Thomas More
History is simply a piece of paper covered with print the main thing is still to make history not to write it.
Otto von Bismarck
What must be shall be and that which is a necessity to him that struggles is little more than choice to him that is willing.
Marcus Annaeus Seneca
Each day acquire something that will fortify you against poverty, against death, indeed against other misfortunes as well; and after you have run over many thoughts, select one to be thoroughly digested that day.
Seneca
How silly then to imagine that the human mind, which is formed of the same elements as divine beings, objects to movement and change of abode, while the divine nature finds delight and even self-preservation in continual and very rapid change.
Seneca
Talent develops in tranquility, character in the full current of human life.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Barley porridge, or a crust of barley bread, and water do not make a very cheerful diet, but nothing gives one keener pleasure than having the ability to derive pleasure even from that-- and the feeling of having arrived at something which one cannot be deprived of by any unjust stroke of fortune.
Seneca
And here poor fool with all my lore I stand no wiser than before.
Goethe
A sudden bold and unexpected question doth many times surprise a man and lay him open.
Francis Bacon
The virtue of prosperity is temperance the virtue of adversity is fortitude which in morals is the heroical virtue.
Francis Bacon
Nothing is easier than self-deceit.
Demosthenes
It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable.
Seneca
Desultory reading is delightful, but to be beneficial, our reading must be carefully directed.
Seneca
Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.
Francis Bacon
They are happy men whose natures sort with their vocations.
Francis Bacon
Firmness of purpose is one of the most necessary sinews of character and one of the best instruments of success. Without it genius wastes its efforts in a maze of inconsistencies.
Lord Chesterfield
Seize time by the forelock.
Pittacus of Mitylene
But what they find most amazing and despicable is the insanity of those who all but worship the rich, to whom they owe nothing and who can do them no harm; they do so for no other reason except that they are rich, knowing full well that they are so mean and tightfisted that they will certainly never give them one red cent during their whole lives.
Thomas More
Time is the wisest counsellor of all.
Pericles
When he comes to the doorhe always looks mocking and half-way angry.You can see he has sympathy for nothing.It's written on his foreheadthat he can love no one.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
You live as if you were destined to live forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full and abundant supply, though all the while that day which you bestow on some person or thing is perhaps your last.
Seneca
I think that saving a little child And bringing him to his own Is a derned sight better business Than loafing around the throne.
John Hay
Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement.
Edmund Burke
The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers & cities; but to know someone who thinks & feels with us, & who, though distant, is close to us in spirit, this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
As usual, I shall tell my story badly; and you, as usual, will think me extravagant.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Leisure without books is death, and burial of a man alive.
Seneca
No one, on his deathbed, ever regretted having been a Catholic.
Thomas More
[F]or grief is felt not so much for the want of what we have never known, as for the loss of that to which we have been long accustomed.
Pericles
The writers against religion whilst they oppose every system are wisely careful never to set up any of their own.
Edmund Burke
It is not death we fear but the thought of it.
Marcus Annaeus Seneca
We are all in the same cart, going to execution; how can I hate anyone or wish anyone harm?
Thomas More
What matters creative endless toil, When, at a snatch, oblivion ends the coil?
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Nothing is worth more than this day.
Goethe
Respect is tendered with pleasure only where it is not exacted.
Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot
Age does not make us childish, as some say; it finds us true children.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I call architecture 'petrified music'.
Goethe
Do not give in too much to feelings. A overly sensitive heart is an unhappy possession on this shaky earth.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Heroes who shed their blood and lost their lives! You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours. You, the mothers, who sent their sons from far away countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
Truth has to be repeated constantly, because Error also is being preached all the time, and not just by a few, but by the multitude. In the Press and Encyclopaedias, in Schools and Universities, everywhere Error holds sway, feeling happy and comfortable in the knowledge of having Majority on its side.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Was man wünscht, das glaubt auch jeder.
Demosthenes
Most of the successful people I’ve known are the ones who do more listening that talking.
Bernard Baruch
Let us train our minds to desire what the situation demands.
Marcus Annaeus Seneca
Custom reconciles us to everything.
Edmund Burke
Here is your great soul—the man who has given himself over to Fate; on the other hand, that man is a weakling and a degenerate who struggles and maligns the order of the universe and would rather reform the gods than reform himself.
Seneca
He'd have improved if you'd not givenHim a mere glimmer of the light in heaven;He calls it Reason, and it has only increasedHis power to be beastlier than a beast.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
People never lie so much as before an election, during a war, or after a hunt.
Otto von Bismarck
Whom they have injured they also hate.
Marcus Annaeus Seneca
Virtue is like a rich stone best plain set.
Sir Francis Bacon