Quotes by Statesmen - Page 9

What shadows we are what shadows we pursue!
Edmund Burke
The heart that has truly loved never forgets but as truly loves on to the close.
Thomas More
The proper function of a government is to make it easy for the people to do good, and difficult for them to do evil.t
Daniel Webster
schade dass die Natur nur einen Mensch aus dir schuf / denn zum wurdigen Mann war und zum Schelmen der Stoff" (loose translation: nature, alas, made only one being out of you although there was material for a good man & a rogue)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.
Marcus Annaeus Seneca
There is nothing in the world so much admired as a man who knows how to bear unhappiness with courage.
Marcus Annaeus Seneca
To conclude, therefore, let no man upon a weak conceit of sobriety or an ill-applied moderation think or maintain that a man can search too far, or be too well studied in the book of God's word, or the book of God's works, divinity or philosophy; but rather let men endeavor an endless progress or proficience in both; only let men beware that they apply both to charity, and not to swelling; to use, and not to ostentation; and again, that they do not unwisely mingle or confound these learnings together.
Francis Bacon
A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
It's not because things are difficult that we dare not venture. It's because we dare not venture that they are difficult.
Seneca
Naturalists tell of a noble race of horses that instinctively open a vein with their teeth, when heated and exhausted by a long course, in order to breathe more freely. I am often tempted to open a vein, to procure for myself everlasting liberty. Cento volte ho impugnato una lama per conficcarmela nel cuore. Si dice di una nobile razza i cavalli,che quando si sentono accaldati e affaticati, si aprono istintivamente una vena, per respirare più liberamente. Spesso anche io vorrei aprirmi una vena che mi desse libertà eterna.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Most people work the greater part of their time for a mere living and the little freedom which remains to them so troubles them that they use every means of getting rid of it.
Goethe
Truth is a naked and open daylight, that does not show the masques, and mummeries, and triumphs of the world, half so stately and daintily as candle-lights. . . A mixture of a lie doth ever add pleasure
Francis Bacon
It is our ignorance of things that causes all our admiration and chiefly excites our passions.
Edmund Burke
Wait for that wisest of all counselores, Time.
Pericles
Wealth is the slave of a wise man. The master of a fool
Seneca
Since there is nothing so well worth having as friends never lose a chance to make them.
Francesco Guicciardini
Let him who believes in immortality enjoy his happiness in silence without giving himself airs about it.
Goethe
Beautiful is greater than Good for it includes the Good.
Goethe
Only a mind that is deeply stirred can utter something noble and beyond the power of others.
Seneca
Being full of mischief, they love to listen;they gladly obey, for they like to betray you,pretending to be sent from Heaven,and lisping like angels, while they lie.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The way you see people is the way you treat them and the way you treat them is what they become.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
After I am dead I would rather have men ask why Cato has no monument than why he had one.
Cato the Elder
Freedom is the sure possession of those alone who have the courage to defend it.
Pericles
If you would create something,you must be something.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The freedom of the press is one of the great bulwarks of liberty and can never be restrained but by despotic governments.
George Mason
The inquiry of truth, which is the love-making, or the wooing of it, the knowledge of truth, which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth, which is the enjoying of it, is the sovereign good of human nature.
Francis Bacon
No one has ever properly understood me, I have never fully understood anyone; and no one understands anyone else
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Things alter for the worse spontaneously if they be not altered for the better designedly.
Francis Bacon
Behaviour is a mirror in which every one displays his own image.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The things I know, every man can know, but, oh, my heart is mine alone!
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Cessation of work is not accompanied by cessation of expenses.
Cato the Elder
Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly.
Francis Bacon
You can never plan the future by the past.
Edmund Burke
In the first place, most princes apply themselves to the arts of war, in which I have neither ability nor interest, instead of to the good arts of peace. They are generally more set on acquiring new kingdoms by hook or by crook than on governing well those that they already have.
Thomas More
Time heals what reason cannot.
Seneca
It is our nature to be more moved by hope than fear.
Francesco Guicciardini
Time discovered truth.
Seneca
Wisdom is only found in trudi.
Goethe
Man is not born to solve the problem of the universe, but to find out what he has to do; and to restrain himself within the limits of his comprehension.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
We often feel that we lack something, and seem to see that very quality in someone else, promptly attributing all our own qualities to him too, and a kind of ideal contentment as well. And so the happy mortal is a model of complete perfection--which we have ourselves created.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
When one is learning one should not think of play and when one is at play one should not think of learning.
Lord Chesterfield
nothing puts me so completely out of patience as the utterance of a wretched commonplace when I am talking from my inmost heart.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Count your years and you'll be ashamed to be wanting and working for exactly the same things as you wanted when you were a boy. Of this one thing make sure against your dying day - that your faults die before you do. Have done with those unsettled pleasures, which cost one dear - they do one harm after they're past and gone, not merely when they're in prospect. Even when they're over, pleasures of a depraved nature are apt to carry feelings of dissatisfaction, in the same way as a criminal's anxiety doesn't end with the commission of the crime, even if it's undetected at the time. Such pleasures are insubstantial and unreliable; even if they don't do one any harm, they're fleeting in character. Look around for some enduring good instead. And nothing answers this description except what the spirit discovers for itself within itself. A good character is the only guarantee of everlasting, carefree happiness. Even if some obstacle to this comes on the scene, its appearance is only to be compared to that of clouds which drift in front of the sun without ever defeating its light.
Seneca
And so when you see a man often wearing the robe of office, when you see one whose name is famous in the Forum, do not envy him; those things are bought at the price of life. They will waste all their years, in order that they may have one year reckoned by their name.
Seneca
I possess so much, but my love for her absorbs it all. I possess so much, but without her I have nothing.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
When you say that you agree to a thing in principle you mean that you have not the slightest intention of carrying it out.
Otto von Bismarck
If ever we should find ourselves disposed not to admire those writers or artists, Livy and Virgil for instance, Raphael or Michael Angelo, whom all the learned had admired, [we ought] not to follow our own fancies, but to study them until we know how and what we ought to admire; and if we cannot arrive at this combination of admiration with knowledge, rather to believe that we are dull, than that the rest of the world has been imposed on.
Edmund Burke
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Edmund Burke
The world turns gray, the air grows cool, the fog blows in. Only at evening can you really value home.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.
Seneca
Cease endlessly striving for what you would like to do and learn to love what must be done.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Let mental culture go on advancing, let the natural sciences progress in even greater extent and depth, and the human mind widen itself as much as it desires: beyond the elevation and moral culture of Christianity, as it shines forth in the Gospels, it will not go.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
We are much beholden to Machiavelli and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do . For it is not possible to join serpentine wisdom with the columbine innocency, except men know exactly all the conditions of the serpent; his baseness and going upon his belly, his volubility and lubricity, his envy and sting, and the rest; that is, all forms and natures of evil. For without this, virtue lieth open and unfenced. Nay, an honest man can do no good upon those that are wicked, to reclaim them, without the help of the knowledge of evil.
Francis Bacon
Reflect that nothing merits admiration except thespirit, the impressiveness of which prevents it from being impressed by anything.
Seneca
As is a tale so is life: not how long it is but how good it is is what matters.
Seneca
Age is only a number a cipher for the records. A man can't retire his experience. He must use it. Experience achieves more with less energy and time.
Bernard Baruch
by indignities men come to dignities
Francis Bacon
We see then how far the monuments of wit and learning are more durable than the monuments of power, or of the hands. For have not some books continued twenty-five hundred years or more, without the loss of a syllable or letter; during which time infinite palaces, temples, castles, and cities have been decayed and demolished?
Francis Bacon
Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable — the art of the next best
Otto von Bismarck
Constant exposure to dangers will breed contempt for them.
Seneca