W. L. George Quotes

The Book of History is the Bible of Irony.

Let us also once more rejoice in, and thank God for, the fact that we know nothing about Homer, and practically nothing about Shakespeare.

Majorities are generally wrong, if only in their reasons for being right.

So, then, there abide these three, Aristotle, Longinus, and Coleridge.

Oratory is, after all, the prose literature of the savage.

honesty dies in selling itself.

It is extraordinary how music sends one back into memories of the past.

Vanity is the most despotic and iniquitous of masters, and I can never be the slave of my own vices.

... love is too delicate a flower to rise again when one has trampled it under foot.

You can bind my body, tie my hands, govern my actions: you are the strongest, and society adds to your power; but with my will, sir, you can do nothing.

And I refused to make any sacrifices; for nothing on earth seemed more valuable than my peace of mind, my pleasure and my acclaim.

Party politics is now a real farce.

It is high time that we had lights that are not incendiary torches.

Nature distributes her favors unequally.

One changes from day to day, and... after a few years have passed one has completely altered.

Our work can never be better than we are ourselves.

To be made evident, truth must be sought for; for of itself it is slow to appear, and between ourselves and God the obstacles are so many!

Weeds are omnipresent; errors are to be found in the heart of the most lovable.

You, stupid one, who believe in laws which punish murder by murder...

Celebrate within yourself that wonderful treasure . . . true kindness.

The whole secret of the study of nature lies in learning how to use one's eyes.

My strength has not equaled my mad ambition. I have remained obscure; I have done worse -- I have touched success, and allowed it to escape me.

I know that I have found fulfillment. I have an object in life, a task ... a passion.

Where love is absent there can be no woman.

Life is a slate where all our sins are written; from time to time we rub the sponge of repentance over it so we can begin sinning again.

Writing a journal means that facing your ocean you are afraid to swim across it, so you attempt to drink it drop by drop.

Art speaks only to the mind, whereas nature speaks to all the faculties.

O heart! love is thy bane and thy antidote.

One never knows how much a family may grow; and when a hive is too full, and it is necessary to form a new swarm, each one thinks of carrying away his own honey.

No religion can be built on force.

Simplicity, a delicate silence about oneself, increases their worth and makes one love those whom one admires.

[Failure is hard initially because] One knows what one has lost, but not what one may find [and learn from that failure]!

almost all novels are love stories.

You see what stupid folk my publishers are; but they are all alike.

Death must no longer be either the penalty for prosperity or the consolation of misery. God did not destine it to be either the punishment or the compensation for life.

Ever since time began the world has seemed stupid to those who aren't stupid themselves. It was to avoid that annoyance that I became stupid myself, as fast as ever I could. Sheer egoism, no doubt.

Time is always wanting to me, and I cannot meet with a single day when I am nut hurried along, driven to by wits'-end by urgent work, business to attent do or some service to render.

a woman, when she is heroic, is not heroic by halves.

There is but on virtue--the eternal sacrifice of self.

The publication of a book only brings very paltry results to its author.

... the progress of the language has caused us to lose many old treasures. It is thus with all progress, and one must make the best of it.

The more you lose the right to be jealous, the more so you become!

This is no time to act like a gentleman. I am a cad and shall react like one.

The actor is not quite a human being-but then, who is?

"All stories should be completely planned out from beginning to end."

I am essential to the theater.

Lips, like roses dropping myrrh.

Men ignorant of letters, studious for their bellies, and ignominiously lazy.

A building without ornamentation is like a heaven without stars.

Does the thoughtful man suppose that...the present experiment in civilization is the last world we will see?