Quotes by Authors - C
Quotes by Authors - C
It is important from time to time to slow down, to go away by yourself, and simply be.
Herb CaenI tend to live in the past because most of my life is there.
John CageI can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of old ones.
Italo CalvinoA classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.
Joseph Campbell(from The Power of Myth) When you see the Earth from space, you don't see any divisions of nation-states there. This may be the symbol of the new mythology to come; this is the country we will celebrate, and these are the people we are one with.
Thomas CampbellTo live in hearts we leave / Is not to die.
Albert CamusNobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.
Too many have dispensed with generosity in order to practice charity.
An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself.
In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.
Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow; Don't walk behind me, I may not lead; Walk beside me, and just be my friend.
There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.
Don't wait for the last judgment. It takes place every day.
You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.
(from The Myth of Sisyphus) If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.
Al CaponeYou can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone.
Thomas CarlyleMusic is well said to be the speech of angels.
It is the first of all problems for a man to find out what kind of work he is to do in this universe.
All that Mankind has done, thought, gained or been, it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books. They are the choicest possessions of men.
Lewis Carroll"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?" "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
Begin at the beginning," the King said gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop."
Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!"
Thomas J. CarruthersA good teacher has been defined as one who makes himself progressively unnecessary.
M. CartmillAs an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life - so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls.
Rachel Carson(from The Sense of Wonder, 1956) Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life. Whatever the vexations or concerns of their personal lives, their thoughts can find paths that lead to inner contentment and to renewed excitement in living. Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.
In every out-thrust headland, in every curving beach, in every grain of sand there is the story of the earth.
If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in.
George Washington CarverHow far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these.
Pablo CasalsA man can do something for peace without having to jump into politics. Each man has inside him a basic decency and goodness. If he listens to it and acts on it, he is giving a great deal of what it is the world needs most.
Henry Cate VIIThe problem with political jokes is they get elected.
Willa CatherWhere there is great love there are always miracles.
I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do.
Wynn CatlinDiplomacy --- the art of saying "Nice doggie" 'til you can find a stick.
Cato the Elder, (234-149 BCE)After I'm dead I'd rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one.
Jean-Pierre de Caussade - eighteenth-century Jesuit priestSo we follow our wandering paths, and the very darkness acts as our guide and our doubts serve to reassure us.
Miguel de CervantesLove not what you are, but what you may become.
As ill-luck would have it . . .
Too much sanity may be madness. And maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be!
Raymond ChandlerIt was a blonde, a blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window.
Edward Hubbell ChapinPoetry is the utterance of deep and heartfelt truth. The true poet is very near the oracle.
Chaucer, prologue to The Canterbury TalesIf you are afraid of loneliness, don't marry.
John Vance CheneyThe soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears.
CherThe trouble with some women is they get all excited about nothing --- and then they marry him.
Cherokee SayingWhen you were born you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die the world cries and you rejoice.
G. K. ChestertonMusic with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist.
Christianity has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.
Children are innocent and love justice, while most adults are wicked and prefer mercy.
A stiff apology is a second insult.
Do not free a camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel.
Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason it was put up.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but that may well be because we have made fiction to suit ourselves.
Chinese ProverbsHe who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.
The man who strikes first admits that his ideas have given out.
Those who do not study are only cattle dressed up in men's clothes.
A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.
Teachers open the doors, but you must enter by yourself.
I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.
If you always give you will always have.
The miracle is not to fly in the air, or to walk on the water, but to walk on the earth.
He who waits for a roast duck to fly into his mouth must wait a very, very long time. (from a traditional story by Hsun Tzu).
Agatha ChristieI like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.
Christopher Society MottoIt is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.
Chuang-tzuI do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man.
Winston Churchill(comment in the margin of a document referring to a proof-reader's excessive avoiding of prepositions at the end of sentences) This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.
I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
Although prepared for martyrdom, I preferred that it be postponed.
Many men stumble across the truth, but most manage to pick themselves up and continue as if nothing had happened.
History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.
I gather, young man, that you wish to be a Member of Parliament. The first lesson that you must learn is, when I call for statistics about the rate of infant mortality, what I want is proof that fewer babies died when I was Prime Minister than when anyone else was Prime Minister. That is a political statistic.
(Hansard, 4 June 1940, col. 796) Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the new world, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.
John CiardiA good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the hope of greening the landscape of idea.
Tell me how much a nation knows about its own language, and I will tell you how much that nation cares about its own identity.
Marcus Tullius CiceroA room without books is like a body without a soul.
Nihil tam absurde dici potest, quod non dicatur ab aliquo pilosophorum. (There is nothing so absurd but some philosopher has said it.)
Not to know what has been transacted in former times is to always be a child. If no use is made of the labors of past ages, the world must always remain in the infancy of knowledge.
If you aspire to the highest place it is no disgrace to stop at the second, or even the third.
Tom ClancyThe difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.
Arthur C. ClarkeIt may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God but to create him.
Georges Clemenceau, French politician (1841 - 1929)A man's life is interesting primarily when he has failed -- I well know. For it is a sign that he has tried to surpass himself.
America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization.
Samuel Taylor ColeridgeBy what I have effected, am I to be judged by my fellow men; what I could have done is a question for my own conscience.
Our quaint metaphysical opinions, in an hour of anguish, are like playthings by the bedside of a child deathly sick.
Charles Caleb ColtonTyrants have not yet discovered any chains that can fetter the mind.
Men will wrangle for religion, write for it, fight for it, die for it, anything but live for it.
Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer.
ColetteLa vrai disette, c'est l'absence de livres. (Real poverty is lack of books.)
ConfuciusReal knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.
It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.
(Analects, XV.24) Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire.
Edwin ConklinThe probability of life originating from accident is comparable to the probability of the unabridged dictionary resulting from an explosion in a printing shop.
Cyril ConnollyBetter to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.
Whom the gods wish to destroy, they first call promising.
Most people do not believe in anything very much and our greatest poetry is given to us by those who do.
Joseph ConradYou shall judge of a man by his foes as well as by his friends.
The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.
It is respectable to have no illusions - and safe - and profitable, and dull.
All ambitions are lawful except those which climb upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind.
Calvin CoolidgeNo one ever listened himself out of a job.
Wendy CopeA sparkling house is a fine thing if the children aren't robbed of their luster in keeping it that way.
Clayton E. CramerA pacifist who calls the police isn't one; hired violence is still violence.
Dr. Frank CraneYou may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you do not trust enough.
Cree Indian ProphecyOnly after the last tree has been cut down, Only after the last river has been poisoned, Only after the last fish has been caught, Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten.
Michael CrichtonIan Malcolm:"God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs."
Ellie Sattler: "Dinosaurs...eat man. Woman inherits the Earth."
Robert X. Cringely, InfoWorldIf the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside.
Quentin CrispThe trouble with children is that they are not returnable.
If you're taking an essay exam on geography and the exam could be on any country in the world, study only one country, and know it well. Let's say you choose China. When it comes time for the exam, and the question is, Write 1,000 words on Nigeria, you begin your essay, 'Nigeria is nothing like China...; and proceed to write everything you know about China.
If at first you don't succeed, failure may be your style.
Norm CrosbyWhen you go into court you are putting your fate into the hands of twelve people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty.
e.e.cummingsTo be nobody-but-yourself -- in a world which is doing its best night and day, to make you everybody else -- means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are.
The voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses.
The earth laughs in flowers.
The most wasted of all days is the one without laughter.
Madame CurieI never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done.
Humanity needs practical men, who get the most out of their work, and, without forgetting the general good, safeguard their own interests. But humanity also needs dreamers, for whom the disinterested development of an enterprise is so captivating that it becomes impossible for them to devote their care to their own material profit. A well-organized society should assure to such workers the efficient means of accomplishing their task, in a life freed from material care and freely consecrated to research.