World

"This world is strange and incomprehensible, and there are many people who are lost and worried. When you ask who is the oppressor, it turns out that everyone is oppressed.~~ March 8, 2025"

"The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds."

"This restless world Is full of chances, which by habit's power To learn to bear is easier than to shun."

"Wandering between two worlds, one dead, The other powerless to be born, With nowhere yet to rest my head, Like these, on earth I wait forlorn."

"Securus judicat orbis terrarum."

"It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens."

"This world's a bubble."

"Earth took her shining station as a star, In Heaven's dark hall, high up the crowd of worlds."

"Dieu est le poète, les hommes ne sont que les acteurs. Ces grandes pièces qui se jouent sur la terre ont été composées dans le ciel."

"Fly away, pretty moth, to the shade Of the leaf where you slumbered all day; Be content with the moon and the stars, pretty moth, And make use of your wings while you may. * * * * * * But tho' dreams of delight may have dazzled you quite, They at last found it dangerous play; Many things in this world that look bright, pretty moth, Only dazzle to lead us astray."

"Let the world slide."

"The world is like a board with holes in it, and the square men have got into the round holes, and the round into the square."

"Renounce the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the world."

"The pomps and vanity of this wicked world."

"He sees that this great roundabout, The world, with all its motley rout, Church, army, physic, law, Its customs and its businesses, Is no concern at all of his, And says—what says he?—Caw."

"'Tis a very good world we live in To spend, and to lend, and to give in; But to beg, or to borrow, or ask for our own; 'Tis the very worst world that ever was known."

"The severe schools shall never laugh me out of the philosophy of Hermes, that this visible world is but a picture of the invisible, wherein as in a portrait, things are not truly, but in equivocal shapes, and as they counterfeit some real substance in that invisible fabric."

"In this bad, twisted, topsy-turvy world, Where all the heaviest wrongs get uppermost."

"O world as God has made it! All is beauty."

"The innumerable worlds in the cosmos are like the eyes of the net. Each and every world is different, its variety infinite. So too are the Dharma Doors (methods of cultivation) taught by the Buddhas."

"The wide world is all before us— But a world without a friend."

"I have not loved the world, nor the world me; I have not flatter'd its rank breath, nor bow'd To its idolatries a patient knee."

"Well, well, the world must turn upon its axis, And all mankind turn with it, heads or tails, And live and die, make love and pay our taxes, And as the veering winds shift, shift our sails."

"Such is the world. Understand it, despise it, love it; cheerfully hold on thy way through it, with thy eye on highest loadstars!"

"The true Sovereign of the world, who moulds the world like soft wax, according to his pleasure, is he who lovingly sees into the world."

"Socrates, quidem, cum rogaretur cujatem se esse diceret, "Mundanum," inquit; totius enim mundi se incolam et civem arbitrabatur."

"This is the best world, that we live in, To lend and to spend and to give in: But to borrow, or beg, or to get a man's own, It is the worst world that ever was known."

"'Tis pleasant, through the loopholes of retreat, To peep at such a world; to see the stir Of the Great Babel, and not feel the crowd."

"Such stuff the world is made of."

"For a brief space conceive yourself to be transported to one of the loftiest peaks of some inaccessible mountain, thence gaze on the appearances of things lying below you, and with eyes turned in various directions look upon the eddies of the billowy world, while you yourself are removed from earthly contacts—you will at once begin to feel compassion for the world, and with self-recollection and increasing gratitude to God, you will rejoice with all the greater joy that you have escaped it."

"And for the few that only lend their ear, That few is all the world."

"Vien dietro a me, e lascia dir le genti."

"The Doctor: It’s like when you’re a kid. The first time they tell you that the world’s turning and you just can’t quite believe it ’cause everything looks like it’s standing still… I can feel it: the turn of the Earth. The ground beneath our feet is spinning at 1,000 miles an hour and the entire planet is hurtling around the sun at 67,000 miles an hour, and I can feel it. We’re falling through space, you and me, clinging to the skin of this tiny little world, and if we let go… That’s who I am."

"The idea that defines all humanism is that the world is not a given world, foreign to man, one to which he has to force himself to yield without. It is the world willed by man, insofar as his will expresses his genuine reality."

"Quel est-il en effet? C'est un verre qui luit, Qu'un souffle peut detruire, et qu'un souffle a produit."

"Come! Behold this world, which is like a decorated royal chariot. Here fools flounder, but the wise have no attachment to it."

"I am a citizen of the world."

"Asked where he came from, he said, "I am a citizen of the world.""

"Over at our place, we're sure of just one thing: everybody in the world was once a child. So in planning a new picture, we don't think of grown-ups, and we don't think of children, but just of that fine, clean, unspoiled spot down deep in every one of us that maybe the world has made us forget and that maybe our pictures can help recall."

"The world is a wheel, and it will all come round right."

"Since every man who lives is born to die, And none can boast sincere felicity, With equal mind, what happens let us bear, Nor joy nor grieve too much for things beyond our care. Like pilgrims, to th' appointed place we tend; The world's an inn, and death the journey's end."

"The world's a stage where God's omnipotence, His justice, knowledge, love and providence, Do act the parts."

"I take the world to be but as a stage, Where net-maskt men doo play their personage."

"But they will maintain the state of the world; And all their desire is in the work of their craft."

"Pythagoras said that this world was like a stage, Whereon many play their parts; the lookers-on the sage Philosophers are, saith he, whose part is to learn The manners of all nations, and the good from the bad to discern."

"Good-bye, proud world! I'm going home; Thou art not my friend; I am not thine."

"Shall I speak truly what I now see below? The World is all a carkass, smoak and vanity, The shadow of a shadow, a play And in one word, just Nothing."

"Map me no maps, sir; my head is a map, a map of the whole world."

"Long ago a man of the world was defined as a man who in every serious crisis is invariably wrong."

"Mais dans ce monde, il n'y a rien d'assure que le mort et les impots."

"Eppur si muove. (Epur)."

"It takes 11 guys to change the world. It takes five to change a university."

"Nor is this world inhabited by man the first of things earthly created by God. He made several worlds before ours, but He destroyed them all, because He was pleased with none until He created ours. But even this last world would have had no permanence, if God had executed His original plan of ruling it according to the principle of strict justice. It was only when He saw that justice by itself would undermine the world that He associated mercy with justice, and made them to rule jointly. Thus, from the beginning of all things prevailed Divine goodness, without which nothing could have continued to exist. If not for it, the myriads of evil spirits had soon put an end to the generations of men."

"Il mondo è un bel libro, ma poco serve a chi non lo sa leggere."

"Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay; Princes and Lords may flourish, or may fade— A breath can make them, as a breath has made— But a bold peasantry, their country's pride, When once destroy'd can never be supplied."

"Creation's heir, the world, the world is mine!"

"I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it for I shall not pass this way again."

"Earth is but the frozen echo of the silent voice of God."

"In a world that is in chaos politically, socially and environmentally, how can the human race sustain another 100 years?"

"Let the world slide, let the world go; A fig for care and a fig for woe! If I can't pay, why I can owe, And death makes equal the high and low."

"The world's a theatre, the earth a stage, Which God and nature do with actors fill."

"Nor is this lower world but a huge inn, And men the rambling passengers."

"There are two worlds; the world that we can measure with line and rule, and the world that we feel with our hearts and imaginations."

"The belief that the world would end in 2012 was inconsistent with ’s theology, which does not include a doctrine of the end of the world."

"The nations are as a drop of a bucket."

"World without end."

"οὐκ οἴδατε ὅτι ἡ φιλία τοῦ κόσμου ἔχθρα τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐστιν; ὃς ἐὰν οὖν βουληθῇ φίλος εἶναι τοῦ κόσμου, ἐχθρὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ καθίσταται."

"The visible world is but man turned inside out that he may be revealed to himself."

"It takes all sorts of people to make a world."

"This world, where much is to be done and little to be known."

"I never have sought the world; the world was not to seek me."

"If there is one beast in all the loathsome fauna of civilization I hate and despise, it is a man of the world."

"Upon the battle ground of heaven and hell I palsied stand."

"Give me matter, and I will construct a world out of it!"

"Being a good mother means teaching your children to care for the world."

"We spill over into the world and the world spills over into us. The earth, that first among good mothers, gives us the gift that we cannot provide ourselves."

"Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift."

"The world goes up and the world goes down, And the sunshine follows the rain; And yesterday's sneer and yesterday's frown Can never come over again, Sweet wife. No, never come over again."

"For to admire an' for to see, For to be'old this world so wide— It never done no good to me, But I can't drop it if I tried!"

""Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you" is the greatest phrase ever written. If everyone followed that creed, this world would be a paradise."

"If all the world must see the world As the world the world hath seen, Then it were better for the world That the world had never been."

"It is an ugly world. Offend Good people, how they wrangle, The manners that they never mend, The characters they mangle. They eat, and drink, and scheme, and plod, And go to church on Sunday— And many are afraid of God— And more of Mrs. Grundy."

"I was borne on an eagle's wing, Till with the noon-sun perishing; Then I stood in a world alone, From which all other life was gone, Whence warmth, and breath, and light were fled, A world o'er which a curse was said: The trees stood leafless all, and bare, The sky spread, but no sun was there: Night came, no stars were on her way, Morn came without a look of day,— As night and day shared one pale shroud, Without a colour or a cloud. And there were rivers, but they stood Without a murmur on the flood, Waveless and dark, their task was o'er,— The sea lay silent on the shore, Without a sign upon its breast Save of interminable rest: And there were palaces and halls, But silence reign'd amid their walls, Though crowds yet fill'd them; for no sound Rose from the thousands gather'd round; All wore the same white, bloodless hue, All the same eyes of glassy blue, Meaningless, cold, corpse-like as those No gentle hand was near to close. And all seem'd, as they look'd on me, In wonder that I yet could be A moving shape of warmth and breath Alone amid a world of death."

"O what a glory doth this world put on For him who, with a fervent heart, goes forth Under the bright and glorious sky, and looks On duties well performed, and days well spent!"

"Glorious indeed is the world of God around us, but more glorious the world of God within us. There lies the Land of Song; there lies the poet's native land."

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age."

"One day with life and heart, Is more than time enough to find a world."

"Flammantia mœnia mundi."

"When the world dissolves, And every creature shall be purified, All places shall be hell that are not heaven."

"The world in all doth but two nations bear, The good, the bad, and these mixed everywhere."

"This world is full of beauty, as other worlds above, And if we did our duty, it might be as full of love."

"I feel like I live in a world made of cardboard. Always taking constant care not to break something. To break someone. Never allowing myself to lose control, even for a moment, or someone could die."

"The world's a stage on which all parts are played."

"Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot Which men call Earth."

"Hanging in a golden chain This pendent world, in bigness as a star Of smallest magnitude close by the moon."

"A boundless continent, Dark, waste, and wild, under the frown of night Starless expos'd."

"Then stayed the fervid wheels, and in his hand He took the golden compasses, prepared In God's eternal store, to circumscribe This universe and all created things: One foot he centred, and the other turned Round through the vast profundity obscure, And said, "Thus far extend, thus far thy bounds, This be thy just circumference, O World.""

"The world was all before them, where to choose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide."

"If you have been inside my head, then you know what I've seen. The suffering. Every moment in time and space is burning. It must end, and I intend to end it the only way I can."

"To me, when we talk about the world, we are talking about our ideas of the world. Our ideas of organisation, our different religions, our different economic systems, our ideas about it are the world. We are heading for a radical revision where you could say we are heading towards the end of the world, but more in the R.E.M. sense than the Revelation sense. That is what apocalypse means – revelation. I could square that with the end of the world, a revelation, a new way of looking at things, something that completely radicalises our notions of the where we were, when we were, what we were, something like that would constitute an end to the world in the kind of abstract – yet very real sense – that I am talking about. A change in the language, a change in the thinking, a change in the music. It wouldn’t take much – one big scientific idea, or artistic idea, one good book, one good painting – who knows – we are at a critical point where the ideas are coming thicker and faster and stranger and stranger than they ever were before. They are realised at a greater speed, everything has become very fluid."

"The Doctor: There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, and the sea’s asleep, and the rivers dream; people made of smoke and cities made of song. Somewhere there’s danger, somewhere there’s injustice, and somewhere else the tea’s getting cold. Come on, Ace. We’ve got work to do."

"Le monde n'est qu'une bransloire perenne."

"Is it not a noble farce wherein kings, republics, and emperors have for so many ages played their parts, and to which the vast universe serves for a theatre?"

"Or may I think when toss'd in trouble, This world at best is but a bubble."

"This world is all a fleeting show, For man's illusion given; The smiles of joy, the tears of woe, Deceitful shine, deceitful flow,— There's nothing true but Heaven."

"This outer world is but the pictured scroll Of worlds within the soul; A colored chart, a blazoned missal-book, Whereon who rightly look May spell the splendors with their mortal eyes, And steer to Paradise."

"We look at this as the best of all possible worlds, but the French know it isn't, because most people speak English."

"Think, in this battered Caravanserai, Whose Portals are alternate Night and Day, How Sultán after Sultán with his Pomp Abode his destined Hour, and went his way."

"The world is large, when its weary leagues two loving hearts divide; But the world is small, when your enemy is loose on the other side."

"We have it in our power to begin the world over again."

"Love to his soul gave eyes; he knew things are not as they seem; The dream is his real life; the world around him is the dream."

"By faith Noah, after receiving divine warning of things not yet seen, showed godly fear and constructed an ark for the saving of his household; and through this faith he condemned the world, and he became an heir of the righteousness that results from faith."

"Quod fere totus mundus exerceat histrionem."

"To me it seems that they who grasp the world, The kingdom and the power and the glory, Must pay with deepest misery of spirit, Atoning unto God for a brief brightness."

"Alexander wept when he heard from Anaxarchus that there was an infinite number of worlds, and his friends asking him if any accident had befallen him he returned this answer: "Do you not think it is a matter worthy of lamentation that where there is such a vast multitude of them we have not yet conquered one?""

"But as the world, harmoniously confused, Where order in variety we see; And where, tho' all things differ, all agree."

"Every soul will taste death, and you will only be given your (full compensation) on the Day of Resurrection. So he who is drawn away from the Fire and admitted to Paradise has attained (his desire). And what is the life of this world is nothing but the enjoyment of delusion."

"My soul, what's lighter than a feather? Wind. Than wind? The fire. And what than fire? The mind. What's lighter than the mind? A thought. Than thought? This bubble world. What than this bubble? Nought."

"Looking at beauty in the world is the first step of purify the mind. A corrupted mind can't recognize the beauty of the world. A pure mind perceives it."

"All nations and kindreds and people and tongues."

"The world of the future will not flourish behind walls—no matter who builds them and no matter what their purpose. A world divided economically must inevitably be a world divided politically. As Secretary of State, I cannot contemplate that prospect with anything but deep disquiet."

"Le monde est le livre des femmes."

"The worlde bie diffraunce ys ynn orderr founde."

"Physicists and astronomers see their own implications in the world being round, but to me it means that only one-third of the world is asleep at any given time and the other two-thirds is up to something."

"Es liebt die Welt, das Stralende zu schwärzen Und das Erhabne in den Staub zu ziehn."

"Denn nur vom Nutzen wird die Welt regiert."

"Most people in the world are poor. If we knew the economy of being poor, we would know much of the economics that really matter. Most of the world's poor people earn their living in agriculture. If we knew the economics of agriculture, we would know much of the economic of being poor."

"Non sum uni angulo natus; patria mea totus hic est mundus."

"All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players."

"This wide and universal theatre Presents more woful pageants than the scene Wherein we play in."

"How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable Seem to me all the uses of this world!"

"For some must watch, while some must sleep; So runs the world away."

"Would I were dead! if God's good will were so: For what is in this world but grief and woe?"

"Mad world. Mad kings. Mad composition."

"The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, And these are of them."

"To be imprisoned in the viewless winds And blown with restless violence around about The pendent world."

"I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano: A stage where every man must play a part."

"Why, then, the world's mine oyster, Which I with sword will open."

"The world is grown so bad, That wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch."

"Like bubbles in the water, the worlds rise, exist and dissolve in the Supreme Self, which is the material cause and the prop of everything."

"You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race."

"The world's great age begins anew, The golden years return, The earth doth like a snake renew Her winter weeds outworn."

"Our leaders tell us there is only one world: the existing world, the globalised world, the hegemonic world. ‘Either sink or swim’, they say. The truth of the matter is that the working people are sinking in the globalised world, while the elite are swimming in it. It is clear therefore that there is a contest between two worldviews: one which wants to maintain the existing world; the other that wants to create an alternative world. Which worldview do we share? We must make a choice, and act in accordance with our choice. [...] The pundits of the status quo have in common with all dominating classes and hegemonic powers the assumption that the existing world is the only realistic world, and no alternative world is possible. Yet, it is the struggle for an alternative world, a better world, which has changed the past and will continue to change the present for a better future. We, the activists, together with the working people, must continue to fight for a better world. An alternative world is possible."

"Making a perpetual mansion of this poor baiting place."

"the world is big/Big and bright and round/And it's full of folks like me/Who are black, yellow, beige and brown"

"If you choose to represent the various parts in life by holes upon a table, of different shapes,—some circular, some triangular, some square, some oblong,—and the persons acting these parts by bits of wood of similar shapes, we shall generally find that the triangular person has got into the square hole, the oblong into the triangular, and a square person has squeezed himself into the round hole. The officer and the office, the doer and the thing done, seldom fit so exactly that we can say they were almost made for each other."

"O Earth! all bathed with blood and tears, yet never Hast thou ceased putting forth thy fruit and flowers."

"This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me."

"I wanted to write the most beautiful poem but that is impossible; the world has written its own."

"The world cannot be translated; it can only be dreamed of and touched."

"My feelings are too loud for words and too shy for the world."

"There was all the world and his wife."

"In this playhouse of infinite forms I have had my play, and here have I caught sight of him that is formless."

"Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world."

"A mad world, my masters."

"So many worlds, so much to do, So little done, such things to be."

"For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be; Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales; Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a ghastly dew From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue; Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm, With the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the thunder-storm; Till the war-drums throbb'd, no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law."

"The world is a looking glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face. Frown at it and it will in turn look sourly upon you; laugh at it and with it, and it is a jolly kind companion."

"Even the linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist I swung the earth a trinket at my wrist."

"Anchorite, who didst dwell With all the world for cell!"

"For, if the worlds In worlds enclosed should on his senses burst * * * He would abhorrent turn."

"Heed not the folk who sing or say In sonnet sad or sermon chill, "Alas, alack, and well-a-day! This round world's but a bitter pill." We too are sad and careful; still We'd rather be alive than not."

"There can be only one permanent revolution — a moral one; the regeneration of the inner man. How is this revolution to take place? Nobody knows how it will take place in humanity, but every man feels it clearly in himself. And yet in our world everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing himself."

"Do we have all the hatred and all the aversion for the world which Our Lord requires, and which his example must inspire in us?"

"Tout est pour le mieux dans le meilleur des mondes."

"Why is the world so beautiful? is a question that we all ought to be embracing."

"People can’t understand the world as a gift unless someone shows them how it’s a gift."

"Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view, That stand upon the threshold of the new."

"The world is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel."

"If we suppose a sufficient righteousness and intelligence in men to produce presently, from the tremendous lessons of history, an effective will for a world peace—that is to say, an effective will for a world law under a world government—for in no other fashion is a secure world peace conceivable—in what manner may we expect things to move towards this end?… It is an educational task, and its very essence is to bring to the minds of all men everywhere, as a necessary basis for world cooperation, a new telling and interpretation, a common interpretation, of history."

"I must confess that I lost faith in the sanity of the world."

"What is this world? A net to snare the soule."

"I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world."

"Was ist ihm nun die Welt? ein weiter leerer Raum, Fortunen's Spielraum, frei ihr Rad herum zu rollen."

"I have my beauty,—you your Art— Nay, do not start: One world was not enough for two Like me and you."

"I had never doubted my own abilities, but I was quite prepared to believe that "the world" would decline to recognize them."

"When the fretful stir Unprofitable, and the fever of the world Have hung upon the beatings of my heart."

"The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending we lay waste our powers; Little we see in Nature that is ours."

"The world's a bubble—and the life of man Less than a span. In his conception wretched, and from the womb So to the tomb. Nurst from the cradle, and brought up to years With cares and fears. Who then to frail mortality shall trust, But limns in water, and but writes in dust."

"Man of the World (for such wouldst thou be called)— And art thou proud of that inglorious style?"

"They most the world enjoy who least admire."

"Let not the cooings of the world allure thee: Which of her lovers ever found her true?"