David Quotes

Experience is in the fingers and head. The heart is inexperienced.

So our human life but dies down to its root, and still puts forth its green blade to eternity.

Law never made men a whit more just.

Why does it [government] always crucify Christ, and excommunicate Copernicus and Luther, and pronounce Washington and Franklin rebels?

Knowledge does not come to us in details, but in flashes of light from heaven.

The birds I heard today, which, fortunately, did not come within the scope of my science, sang as freshly as if it had been the first morning of creation.

The Heavens are as deep as our aspirations are high.

Today you may write a chapter on the advantages of traveling, and tomorrow you may write another chapter on the advantages of not traveling.

We cannot put a noose around another man's neck without first hanging ourselves.

There never was and is not likely soon to be a nation of philosophers, nor am I certain it is desirable that there should be.

Though the youth at last grows indifferent, the laws of the universe are not indifferent, but are forever on the side of the most sensitive.

Some simple dishes recommend themselves to our imaginations as well as palates.

I do not know what right I have to so much happiness, but rather hold it in reserve till the time of my desert.

Spring. March fans it, April christens it, and May puts on its jacket and trousers.

The fibers of all things have their tension and are strained like the strings of an instrument.

If you would get exercise, go in search of the springs of life.

The true finish is the work of time, and the use to which a thing is put. The elements are still polishing the pyramids.

I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who have understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks,-who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering.

It requires a direct dispensation from Heaven to become a walker.

I love nature, I love the landscape, because it is so sincere. It never cheats me. It never jests. It is cheerfully, musically earnest. I lie and relie on the earth.

If it is surely the means to the highest end we know, can any work be humble or disgusting? Will it not rather be elevating as a ladder, the means by which we are translated?

I had a classmate who fitted for college by the lamps of a lighthouse, which was more light, we think, than the University afforded.

Love is the unexplainable energy that pulls us towards those who touch our heart.

Hitler really ruined that mustache for everybody. It’s really an interesting mustache, but now, no one can wear it.

I find human contact repulsive.

Making a woman laugh. What is that about? And the prettier the woman, the more satisfaction I get. It doesn't make any sense, but I'm being honest.

The addition of nuts in salad... I always find to be beneficial.

You don’t need to worry any more or punish yourself about food. It is totally counterproducti ve to stress yourself out about weight loss because that same stress causes you to put weight on.

Theology without love simply is very bad theology.

There are no such things as happy endings. Never. They're totally manufactured by fiction writers who choose to end the story on a high point.

We're all of us dying . . . from the moment we're born

Sometimes the most exciting journey you can make is through your own imagination.

All men want, not something to do with, but something to do, or rather something to be.

What sort of philosophers are we, who know absolutely nothing of the origin and destiny of cats?

There is danger that we lose sight of what our friend is absolutely, while considering what she is to us alone.

The sail, the play of its pulse so like our own lives: so thin and yet so full of life, so noiseless when it labors hardest, so noisy and impatient when least effective.

What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.

We are always paid for our suspicion by finding what we suspect.

I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.

If you tell the truth about how you're feeling, it becomes funny.

Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could not doubt, I should not believe.

If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.

Alas! how little does the memory of these human inhabitants enhance the beauty of the landscape!

You have to discover when you're inadequate to be funny and you don't know you're inadequate when you're a kid.

Generally speaking, a howling wilderness does not howl: it is the imagination of the traveler that does the howling.

What is called genius is the abundance of life and health.

The heart is forever inexperienced.

I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business.

If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see.

It began to dawn on me that perhaps my country needed me more at home than overseas.