Favorite Literary Quotes or Passages
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From Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities:
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.
From Dickens's Great Expectations:
We need never be ashamed of our tears.
That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected daystruck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns of flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.
From Dickens's Great Expectations:
We need never be ashamed of our tears.
That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected daystruck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns of flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.
From The Importance of Being Ernest by Oscar Wilde:
- The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.
- To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness
- I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square.
- . . . it is very painful for me to be forced to speak the truth. It is the first time in my life that I have ever been reduced to such a painful position, and I am really quite inexperienced in doing anything of the kind.
- The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete impossibility!
- Memory, my dear Cecily, is the diary that we all carry about with us.
- In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity is the vital thing.
From The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde:
- I knew that I had come face to face with some one whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art itself.
- I know what conscience is, to begin with. It is not what you told me it was. It is the divinest thing in us. Don't sneer at it, Harry, any more,--at least not before me. I want to be good. I can't bear the idea of my soul being hideous.
- . . . there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
- Those who are faithful know only the pleasures of love: it is the faithless who know love's tragedies.
- He covered page after page with wild words of sorrow and wilder words of pain. There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has a right to blame us. It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.
- The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself.
Oscar Wilde:
- Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
- Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.
- At twilight, nature is not without loveliness, though perhaps its chief use is to illustrate quotations from the poets.
- Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.
- If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you.
- Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.
Here are some of my favorites:
"To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong." [Joseph Chilton Pearce]
"Figure out who you are and then do it on purpose." [Dolly Parton]
"Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance." [Will Durant]
"Don't compromise yourself; you're all you've got." [Janis Joplin]
"I feel the way bank robbers must feel just before they go out on that last big job that ends up getting them all killed. That is to say, optimistic." [Joey Comeau]
"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody." [Bill Cosby]
"I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next." [Gilda Radner]
"To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong." [Joseph Chilton Pearce]
"Figure out who you are and then do it on purpose." [Dolly Parton]
"Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance." [Will Durant]
"Don't compromise yourself; you're all you've got." [Janis Joplin]
"I feel the way bank robbers must feel just before they go out on that last big job that ends up getting them all killed. That is to say, optimistic." [Joey Comeau]
"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody." [Bill Cosby]
"I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next." [Gilda Radner]
OH MY GOD!! This is my favorite quotation from my absolute favorite book in the WORLD!!!!!!
In spite of everything, I still believe people are really good at heart" Anne Frank
I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more. (1944)- Anne Frank
In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. -Martin Luther King Jr.
Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true. --Martin Luther King Jr.
I submit to you that if a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live.--Martin Luther King Jr.
I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that this cruelty too shall end, that peace and tranquility will return once more. (1944)- Anne Frank
In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. -Martin Luther King Jr.
Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true. --Martin Luther King Jr.
I submit to you that if a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live.--Martin Luther King Jr.
From Oscar Wilde:
From The Picture of Dorian Gray:
- God knows; I won't be an Oxford don anyhow. I'll be a poet, a writer, a dramatist. Somehow or other I'll be famous, and if not famous, I'll be notorious. Or perhaps I'll lead the life of pleasure for a time and then—who knows?—rest and do nothing. What does Plato say is the highest end that man can attain here below? To sit down and contemplate the good. Perhaps that will be the end of me too.
- Appearance blinds, whereas words reveal.
- I have but the simplest taste - I am always satisfied with the best.
- I simply hate, detest, loathe, despise, and abhor redundancy.
- People who count their chickens before they are hatched act very wisely because chickens run about so absurdly that it's impossible to count them accurately.
From The Picture of Dorian Gray:
- Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.
- There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.
- No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that are true can be proved. No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. No artist is ever morbid. The artist can express everything.
- All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.
- Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending for one.
- Genius lasts longer than beauty.
- Beauty is a form of genius - is higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation.
- It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about nowadays saying things against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely true.
From The Importance of Being Ernest:
- Of course the music is a great difficulty. You see, if one plays good music, people don't listen, and if one plays bad music people don't talk.
- Algernon, Act I
- If I am occasionally a little over-dressed, I make up for it by being immensely over-educated.
- Algernon, Act III
Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll
Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
How Doth the Little Crocodile by Lewis Carroll
How doth the little crocodile...
How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!
How cheerfully he seems to grin
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in,
With gently smiling jaws!
How doth the little crocodile...
How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!
How cheerfully he seems to grin
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in,
With gently smiling jaws!
