Goele Lousbergh > Goele's Quotes

“Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.”
― Groucho Marx, The Essential Groucho: Writings For By And About Groucho Marx

“The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made.”
― Groucho Marx

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
― Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan

“The More Loving One

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.”
― W.H. Auden, Collected Shorter Poems, 1927-1957

“A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The time had come for him to set out on his journey westward. Yes, the newspapers were right: snow was general all over Ireland. It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”
― James Joyce, Dubliners

“In Brueghel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster, the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green water,
And the expensive ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.”
― W. H. Auden

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“In times of joy, all of us wished we possessed a tail we could wag.”
― W. H. Auden

“I don't mind living in a man's world, as long as I can be a woman in it.”
― Marilyn Monroe, Marilyn: Her Life in Her Own Words: Marilyn Monroe's Revealing Last Words and Her Photographs

“I love mankind ... it's people I can't stand!!”
― Charles M. Schulz

“Those are my principles, and if you don't like them...well I have others.”
― Groucho Marx

“It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Well-behaved women seldom make history.”
― Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History

“Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life.”
― Terry Pratchett, Jingo

“Go to heaven for the climate and hell for the company.”
― Benjamin Franklin Wade

“I never made a mistake in my life; at least, never one that I couldn't explain away afterwards.”
― Rudyard Kipling, Under The Deodars

“If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;!”
― Rudyard Kipling, If: A Father's Advice to His Son

“There is no friend as loyal as a book.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.”
― Albert Einstein

“The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
― Robert Frost

“I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn’t know.”
― Mark Twain

“Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.”
― Anthony G. Oettinger

“I don't know the question, but sex is definitely the answer.”
― Woody Allen

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night

“Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“When his life was ruined, his family killed, his farm destroyed, Job knelt down on the ground and yelled up to the heavens, "Why god? Why me?" and the thundering voice of God answered, There's just something about you that pisses me off.”
― Stephen King, Storm of the Century

“Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them. We all could.”
― Charles J. Sykes, Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves But Can't Read, Write or Add

“I am not young enough to know everything.”
― Oscar Wilde

“I don't want to go to heaven. None of my friends are there.”
― Oscar Wilde

“From the moment I picked up your book until I put it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it.”
― Groucho Marx