Gelett Burgess > Quotes

“If in the last few years you haven't discarded a major opinion or acquired a new one, check your pulse. You may be dead”
― Gelett Burgess

“There is work that is work and there is play that is play; there is play that is work and work that is play. And in only one of these lies happiness.”
― Gelett Burgess

“I never saw a Purple Cow, I never hope to see one; But I can tell you, anyhow, I'd rather see than be one.”
― Gelett Burgess

“To appreciate nonsense requires a serious interest in life.”
― Gelett Burgess

“If in the last few years you haven’t discarded a major opinion or acquired a new one, check your pulse. You may be dead.”
― Gelett Burgess

“If in the last few years you haven't discarded a major opinion or acquired a new one, check your pulse, you may be dead.”
― Gelett (Frank) Burgess

“Book-hunters are the most determined and interesting collectors in the world. I know of no passion to equal it.”
― Gelett Burgess, The Master of Mysteries: Being an Account of the Problems Solved by Astro, Seer of Secrets, and His Love Affair With Valeska Wynne His Assistant

“It is in the blood of genius to love play for its own sake, and whether one uses one's skill on thrones or women, swords or pens, gold or fame, the game 's the thing!”
― Gelett Burgess, The Romance of the Commonplace

“There is no such stimulating instant possible for old friends for they are bound by preconceived ideals of personality—they are pigeon-holed as this or that—circumscribed by mutual duty and sacrifice ; they must reconcile present whims to past vagaries; they are held to strict account of consistency with previous moods; but on our first meeting with another we are free of all this constraint, and if we have courage may meet soul to soul without reserves. We may confess unreliable things in that moment, for there is no perspective of formulated opinion into which the confidence must be fitted—the little secret is safe alone in the new mind, and will not be held to intolerable account. We may even for this once state a brutal truth, for we are unpledged to distressing considerations. We may be in some few sacred thoughts more intimate with a stranger than with an old friend. Such is the divine franchise of this first sudden opportunity. No compact is yet sealed; you must take me as you find me, like me or not, it matters little, since it is for us to say whether or not we shall meet again.”
― Gelett Burgess, The Romance of the Commonplace

“I have made believe so long that now I am quite sincere in my conviction that we can see pretty much whatever we look for; which should prove the desirability of searching for amusement and profit rather than for boredom and disillusion.”
― Gelett Burgess, The Romance of the Commonplace

“How can we, supercivilized out of almost all real emotion, develop the potential charm of this first glimpse of a new personality ?”
― Gelett Burgess, The Romance of the Commonplace

“it is not so desirable that we should al- ways win, as that the game itself be worth the playing.”
― Gelett Burgess, The Romance of the Commonplace

“In the year 1877 the Siskiyou House, originally a third-class hotel patronized chiefly by mining men, had fallen into such disrepute”
― Gelett Burgess, The Heart Line

“do not confound playing with playing a part.”
― Gelett Burgess, The Romance of the Commonplace

“Why not defy custom and boldly snatch in that magic moment some satisfactory taste of warm human intercourse ?”
― Gelett Burgess, The Romance of the Commonplace

“Beware of a woman who does not sign her name to her letters. She will bear watching. Aye, she has a past.”
― Gelett Burgess

“Our bodies are apt to be our autobiographies.”
― Gelett Burgess