Minerva > Minerva's Quotes

“Look up, laugh loud, talk big, keep the color in your cheek and the fire in your eye, adorn your person, maintain your health, your beauty, and your animal spirits.”
― William Hazlitt

“The art of conversation is the art of hearing as well as of being heard.”
― William Hazlitt, Selected Essays, 1778-1830

“I'm not smart, but I like to observe.
Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton was the one who asked why,”
― William Hazlitt, Characteristics: In the Manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims

“Shall I faint, now that I have poured out the spirit of my mind to the world, and treated many subjects with truth, with freedom, with power, because I have been followed with one cry of abuse ever since for not being a Government tool?”
― William Hazlitt

“Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be.”
― William Hazlitt

“A man is a very small thing, and the night is very large and full of wonders.”
― Lord Dunsany

“Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can; all of them make me laugh.”
― W.H. Auden

“A poet is, before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.”
― W.H. Auden, The Complete Works of W.H. Auden: Prose, Volume II: 1939-1948

“The way to read a fairy tale is to throw yourself in.”
― W.H. Auden

“Thank God for books as an alternative to conversation.”
― W.H. Auden

“A real book is not one that we read, but one that reads us.”
― W.H. Auden

“I will love you forever" swears the poet. I find this easy to swear too. "I will love you at 4:15 pm next Tuesday" - Is that still as easy?”
― W.H. Auden

“As a poet, there is only one political duty, and that is to defend one's language from corruption.”
― W. H. Auden

“To die will be an awfully big adventure.”
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

“The reason birds can fly and we can't is simply because they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings.”
― J.M. Barrie, The Little White Bird

“She was a lovely lady, with a romantic mind and such a sweet mocking mouth. Her romantic mind was like the tiny boxes, one within the other, that come from the puzzling East, however many you discover there is always one more; and her sweet mocking mouth had one kiss on it that Wendy could never get, though there it was, perfectly conspicuous in the right-hand corner.”
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

“Always try to be a little kinder than is necessary.”
― J M Barrie

“Boy, why are you crying?”
― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

“People who bring sunshine into the lives of others, cannot keep it from themselves.”
― J.M. Barrie

“Never laugh at live dragons.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

“A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, Fanshawe

“Not all those who wander are lost.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

“There is no exquisite beauty… without some strangeness in the proportion.”
― Edgar Allan Poe

“I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat.”
― Edgar Allan Poe

“In a time of deceit telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
― George Orwell

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“Every atom in your body came from a star that exploded. And, the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than your right hand. It really is the most poetic thing I know about physics: You are all stardust. You couldn’t be here if stars hadn’t exploded, because the elements - the carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, iron, all the things that matter for evolution and for life - weren’t created at the beginning of time. They were created in the nuclear furnaces of stars, and the only way for them to get into your body is if those stars were kind enough to explode. So, forget Jesus. The stars died so that you could be here today.”
― Lawrence M. Krauss