All Quotes

"Miss Frobisher smiles, with little cause that I know of. If Jesus of Nazareth had had before him the example of Miss Frobisher getting through the Latin degree papers of the London University Examinations Board he wouldn’t have had to fall back on camels and the eyes of needles, and Miss Frobisher’s name would be a delightful surprise to encounter in Matthew, Chapter 19; as would, even more surprisingly, the London University Examinations Board. Your name is not Miss Frobisher? What is your name? Miss Burton. I’m very sorry. I stand corrected. If Jesus of Nazareth had had before him the example of Miss Burton getting through the... Oh, dear, I hope it is not I who have made you cry."

"Alexander: I myself was educated in Italy. My doctorate in philosophy is from the University of Padua. Renne: Really? Philosophy? Alexander: My dissertation was on worms. Renne: Worms the philosopher? Alexander: No, just worms. Renne: Ah, the philosophy of worms. Alexander: Not at all. Worms have no philosophy, as far as is known."

"Alexander: No spunk, simple as that! Your brother's an army deserter! Michael: Oh yes, I've resigned my commission. Alexander: He's refusing to return to duty. Michael: On grounds of ill health, Papa. I'm sick of the Army. Alexander: No discipline, that's the problem! Michael: No, it's riddled with discipline, that's the problem. That and Poland."

"Michael: "March here, march there, present arms, where's your cap?" — you've no idea, the whole Army's obsessed with playing at soldiers."

"Alexander: How the world must have been changing while I was holding it still."

"Herzen: Marx is a bourgeois from the anus up. Natalie : Alexander! I won't have that word... Herzen: Sorry, middle-class."

"Bakunin: Act first! The ideas will follow, and if not — well, it's progress"

"Turgenev: The names for things don't come first. Words stagger after, hopelessly trying to become the sensation."

"Their coarseness is the sinew of some kind of brute confidence which is the reason England is home to every shade of political exile. They don't give asylum out of respect for asylum-seekers, but out of respect for themselves. They invented personal liberty, and they know it, and they did it without having any theories about it. They value liberty because it's liberty."

"Bakunin: Left to themselves people are noble, generous, uncorrupted, they'd create a completely new kind of society if only people weren't so blind, stupid and selfish. Herzen: Is that the same people or different people? Bakunin: The same people."

"Wake me up for breakfast, if I'm not dead."

"(Falls down in a drunken stupor): Let's sit down."

"It is better of course to know useless things than to know nothing."

"My work always tried to unite the true with the beautiful; but when I had to choose one or the other, I usually chose the beautiful."

"Beauty is desired in order that it may be befouled; not for its own sake, but for the joy brought by the certainty of profaning it. [Elle est désirée pour la salir. Non pour elle-même, mais pour la joie goûtée dans la certitude de la profaner.]"

"If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older."

"If you associate enough with older people who do enjoy their lives, who are not stored away in any golden ghettos, you will gain a sense of continuity and of the possibility for a full life."

"Responsibilities gravitate to the person who can shoulder them."

"From principles is derived probability, but truth or certainty is obtained only from facts."

"My wife and I are deeply saddened to learn of the death of one of our greatest writers, Sir Tom Stoppard. A dear friend who wore his genius lightly, he could, and did, turn his pen to any subject, challenging, moving and inspiring his audiences, borne from his own personal history. We send our most heartfelt sympathy to his beloved family. Let us all take comfort in his immortal line: "Look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else.""

"Stoppard just assumed his audience was as well read and inquisitive as he was. … Philosophy is the foundation of Stoppard’s plays. They cite Aquinas, Aristotle, Ayer, Bentham, Kant, Moore, Plato, Ramsey, Russell, Ryle and Zeno."

"When Harold Pinter was lobbying to have London's Comedy Theatre renamed the Pinter Theatre, Stoppard wrote back: "Have you thought, instead, of changing your name to Harold Comedy?""

"Tom Stoppard is in my pantheon. I just saw Leopoldstadt on Broadway, and was equally moved and impressed. (Moved to the point of sobbing, impressed to the point of continued hero worship.) His Arcadia is my favorite play, and had a seismic impact on my writing."

"A little of what you call frippery is very necessary towards looking like the rest of the world."

"Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence."

"Patriotism in the female s*x is the most disinterested of all virtues. Excluded from honors and from offices, we cannot attach ourselves to the State or Government from having held a place of eminence. Even in the freest countries our property is subject to the control and disposal of our partners, to whom the laws have given a sovereign authority. Deprived of a voice in legislation, obliged to submit to those laws which are imposed upon us, is it not sufficient to make us indifferent to the public welfare? Yet all history and every age exhibit instances of patriotic virtue in the female sex; which considering our situation equals the most heroic of yours."

"I begin to think, that a calm is not desirable in any situation in life. Every object is beautiful in motion; a ship under sail, trees gently agitated with the wind, and a fine woman dancing, are three instances in point. Man was made for action and for bustle too, I believe."

"To be good, and to do good, is the whole duty of man comprised in a few words."

"Knowledge is a fine thing, and mother Eve thought so; but she smarted so severly for hers, that most of her daughters have been afraid of it since."

"I acknowledge myself a unitarian — Believing that the Father alone, is the supreme God, and that Jesus Christ derived his Being, and all his powers and honors from the Father. … There is not any reasoning which can convince me, contrary to my senses, that three is one, and one three."

"Do not grieve, my friend, my dearest friend. I am ready to go. And John, it will not be long."

"Men of sense in all ages abhor those customs, which treat us only as the vessels of your sex"

"Do not put such unlimited powers in the hands of the husband, Remember all men would be tyrants if they could."

"Great necessities call forth great leaders."

"In the revolution, Mrs. Adams sad to her husband, “It seems to me that while you are struggling for your own liberty, you are not applying the principle universally” — the women and the slaves had been left out. The principle was not applied then, and has not been applied since."

"I had always resented the pains that militant suffragists took to belittle the work that woman had done in the past in the world, picturing her as a meek and prostrate "doormat." They refused, I felt, to pay proper credit to the fine social and economic work that women had done in the building of America. And in 1909, after we took over the American Magazine, I burst out with a series of studies of leading American women from the Revolution to the Civil War, including such stalwarts as Mercy Warren, Abigail Adams, Esther Reed, Mary Lyon, Catharine Beecher, the fighting antislavery leaders-not omitting two for whom I had warm admiration, if I was not in entire agreement with them, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony."

"I have come to save the devotees. I was sent here because the world was seen in misery."

"I've burned my own house down, the torch is in my hand. Now I'll burn down the house of anyone who wants to follow me."

"Admire the diamond that can bear the hits of a hammer. Many deceptive preachers, when critically examined, turn out to be false."

"Don't open your diamonds in a vegetable market. Tie them in bundle and keep them in your heart, and go your own way."

"A diamond was laying in the street covered with dirt. Many fools passed by. Someone who knew diamonds picked it up."

"When you were born, you cried while others laughed. Perform such deeds that when dying, you laugh while others cry.”"

"O servant, where dost thou seek Me? Lo! I am beside thee. I am neither in temple nor in mosque: I am neither in Kaaba nor in Kailash: Neither am I in rites and ceremonies, nor in Yoga and renunciation. If thou art a true seeker, thou shalt at once see Me: thou shalt meet Me in a moment of time."

"Kabîr says, "O Sadhu! God is the breath of all breath.""

"It is needless to ask of a saint the caste to which he belongs; For the priest, the warrior. the tradesman, and all the thirty-six castes, alike are seeking for God. It is but folly to ask what the caste of a saint may be; The barber has sought God, the washerwoman, and the carpenter — Even Raidas was a seeker after God."

"Hindus and Moslems alike have achieved that End, where remains no mark of distinction."

"O friend! hope for Him whilst you live, know whilst you live, understand whilst you live: for in life deliverance abides. If your bonds be not broken whilst living, what hope of deliverance in death? It is but an empty dream, that the soul shall have union with Him because it has passed from the body: If He is found now, He is found then, If not, we do but go to dwell in the City of Death. If you have union now, you shall have it hereafter."

"Do not go to the garden of flowers! O Friend! go not there; In your body is the garden of flowers. Take your seat on the thousand petals of the lotus, and there gaze on the Infinite Beauty."

"Open your eyes of love, and see Him who pervades this world! consider it well, and know that this is your own country."

"When you meet the true Guru, He will awaken your heart; He will tell you the secret of love and detachment, and then you will know indeed that He transcends this universe."