Archive for the ‘Aphorisms’ Category

QUOTES OF OSCAR WILDE

Friday, March 20th, 2020
Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish poet and playwright

I’m always amazed at myself. And the only onesomething that makes life worth living.

There are moments when one is in the need to choose between living one’s full, whole, complete life, or dragging a false, shameful, degrading existence as the world, in its great hypocrisy, asks it.

Life is too short to waste it realizing the dreams of others.

Loving yourself is the beginning of an idyll that lasts a lifetime.

The waste of life lies in the love that has not been able to give, in the power that it has not been able to use, in the egoistic prudence that has prevented us from risking and that, avoiding a regret, has made us lack happiness.

The bond of every relationship, both in marriage and in friendship, lies in the conversation.

Anyone can sympathize with the pain of a friend, but only a noble soul can sympathize with a friend’s success.

Friendship is more tragic than love because it lasts longer.

Beauty cannot be questioned: it reigns by divine right.

Beauty is the only thing against which the force of time is vain. What is beautiful is a joy for all seasons, and is a possession for all eternity.”

The Beauty is a form of the Genius, indeed, it is higher than the Genius because it does not need explanations. It is one of the great facts of the world, like the sunlight, the spring, the reflection in the dark water of that shell of silver we call moon.

It seems to me that we all look too much at Nature and live too little with it.

He who turns to look at his past does not deserve to have a future ahead of him.

The only charm of the past is the fact that it has passed.

Experience is the most difficult kind of teacher. First you take the exam, then explain the lesson to you.

Experience is the name that everyone gives to their mistakes.

Nothing worth knowing can be taught.

I don’t want to erase my past, because for better or for worse it made me what I am today. In fact I thank those who made me discover love and pain, those who loved me and used me, who told me I want you good believing and those who did it only because of his comfortable filth. I thank myself for having always found the strength to get up and go on, always. ”

One can have only one great experience in life, at best, the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible.

I’m not at all cynical, I only have some experience, which is almost the same.”

Art is the only serious thing in the world. And the artist is the only person who is never serious.

What the art tries to destroy is the monotony of the type, the slavery of fashion, the tyranny of habits, and the lowering of man to the level of the machine.

To be happy you should live. But living is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist and nothing more.

In this world there are only two tragedies: one is not getting what one wants, the other is getting it. This second and the worst, the real tragedy.

Happiness is not what you want, but you want what you have.

Nothing is more necessary than the superfluous.

A cigarette and the perfect prototype of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite and leaves unsatisfied. What more could you want?

I can resist anything but temptations.

The only way to get rid of temptation and surrender.

To test the reality we have to see it on the circus rope. When the truths become acrobats, then we can judge them.

The truth is rarely pure, and never simple.

The true things of life are not studied, they are learned, but they meet.

Little sincerity and danger and much and absolutely fatal.

PHRASES OF HONORE DE BALZAC

Friday, March 20th, 2020
Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850). Daguerréotype de Louis-Auguste Bisson (1814-1876). Paris, Maison de Balzac.

Pleasure is like certain medicinal drugs: to always achieve the same result you need to double the dose.

Aunts, mothers and sisters have a particular jurisprudence for their grandchildren, their children and their brothers.

Stupids talk about the past, the wise of the present, the fools of the future.

Every woman has her fortune between her legs.

A woman knows the face of the man she loves like a sailor knows the open sea.

Women are accustomed for I do not know what tendency of the soul not to see in a man of genius that the defects is in a fool that the qualities.

Joy can only break out between people who feel equal.

The only victory against love and escape.

The misunderstood fall into two categories: women and writers.

Marriage is a fight to the bitter end before which the spouses ask for his blessing to heaven, because to love each other is always the most daring of the enterprises.

The best way to keep your word is not to give it.

You never go up so high except when you don’t know where you go.

A people leads by indicating a future to them: a leader and a seller of hope.

The avarice begins where poverty ends.

It is banging one’s head against each other that one learns to know.

The purpose of civilized or wild life is rest.

PHRASES, QUOTES AND APHORISMS OF WINSTON CHURCHILL

Friday, March 20th, 2020
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British politician, army officer, and writer

The optimist sees opportunities in every danger, the pessimist sees danger in every opportunity. A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

The politician must be able to predict what will happen tomorrow, next month and next year, and, later, have the ability to explain why it did not happen, next week, next month, and next year. To explain why it didn’t happen.

Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.

My tastes are simple: I am easily satisfied with the best!

Italians lose wars as they were football matches, and football matches as if they were wars.

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.

We are masters of unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out.

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government, with the exception of all those other forms that have been tried so far from time to time.

When I am abroad, I always make it a rule never to criticize or attack the government of my own country. I make up for lost time when I come home.

The inherent vice of capitalism is the equal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

A good speech should be like a woman’s skirt; long enough to cover the subject and short enough to create interest.

In War: Resolution, In Defeat: Defiance, In Victory: Magnaminity, In Peace: Good Will.

The truth is so precious that it must always be protected by a bodyguard made of lies – A small lie needs a bodyguard of bigger lies to protect it.

I resigned, but I refused.

Tact is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they can’t wait to make the journey.

A special moment arrives in the everyone’s life, a moment for which that person was born. That special opportunity, when he grasps it, will satisfy his mission – a mission for which he is uniquely qualified. At that moment, he finds greatness. It’s his most beautiful hour.

Do you have any enemies? Well. This means that you have struggled for something in your life.

If you’re going through hell, go ahead and don’t stop.

If we open a dispute between the present and the past, we risk losing the future.

The only statistics we can trust are the ones we falsified.

I have always thought that a politician should be judged by the animosity he provokes among his opponents.

The great and the good are rarely the same man.

Happiness is not so much in having as in sharing. We live with what we take, but we make ourselves a life with what we give.

In principle, the short words are the best, and the old words are better than all.

In war you must not be sympathetic: you just have to be right.

I pass with great relief from the rough sea of ​​the Cause and the Theory to the mainland of the Result and the Facts.

Politics is almost as exciting as war and almost as dangerous. In war you can be killed only once, in politics many times.

Over the course of my life I have had to take my words back many times and have found that it is a very healthy diet.

War is an invention of the human mind, and the human mind can also invent peace.

Those who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace and those who could make a good peace would never have won the war.

Democracy works when two decide. And one is sick.

There’s only one thing worse than fighting with allies, and it’s fighting without them.

The greatest lesson of life is to know that even fools, at times, are right.

It is a pity not to do anything on the pretext that we cannot do everything.

The most important thing he had learned over the years was that there is no way to be a perfect mother and a million ways to be a good mother.

The politician becomes a statesman when he starts thinking about the next generations instead of the next elections.

The kites fly higher against the wind, not with the wind in favor.

The positive thinker sees the invisible, feels the intangible and reaches the impossible.

Lady Nancy Astor: “Winston, if I were my husband, I would put the poison in the coffee.” Winston Churchill: “Nancy, if you were my wife, I’d drink it”.

Communism is like a crocodile: when it opens its mouth you never know if it is trying to smile or is preparing to swallow you.

When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to chatter.

He can best be described as one of those speakers who, before getting up, do not know what they are going to say; when they talk, they don’t know what they say; and when they sat down, they didn’t know what they said.

There is a terrible number of lies that go around the world and the worst and half of them are true.

Don’t interrupt me while I’m interrupting.

When I am overwhelmed by worries, I think of a man who, on his deathbed, said his whole life had been full of worries, most of them for things that never happened.

My wife and I tried to have breakfast together, but we had to stop or our marriage would fall apart.

The problem of our times is that men do not want to be useful but important.

The imagination comforts us of what we cannot be. The sense of humor of what we are.

It is a socialist idea that making profits is a vice; I consider it a real vice to have losses.

I would like to live forever, at least to see how in a hundred years people make the same mistakes as me.

The story will be kind to me as I intend to write it.

Who speaks badly of me behind my back is contemplated by my ass.

If the present tries to judge the past, it will lose the future.

As good as the strategy is, you should look at the results every once in a while.

One should never turn his back on threatened danger and try to escape from it. If you do, double the danger. But if you face it promptly and without blinking, you will reduce the risk of the goal.

Perhaps it is better to be irresponsible and to be right, than to be responsible and to be wrong.

If we issue tens of thousands of regulations, we destroy all respect for the law.

The plan is nothing, planning is everything.

First we are the ones who give shape to buildings, then it is these that shape us.

It is a good thing for the uneducated person to read quotation books. Quotations when carved into memory bring you good thoughts. And they also make you anxious by lawre authors to look for others.

Let England be what it wants, With all its faults, it is always my country.

You can always count on Americans doing the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.

Too often the strong man is silent and silent only because he does not know what to say, and is considered strong only because he has remained silent.

– Mr Churchill, what do you attribute success to life? – Energy conservation. Do not stand up when you can sit. And never sit down when you can lie down.

Writing a book is an adventure: at the beginning it is fun, then it becomes a lover, then a master, and finally a tyrant. The last phase is one in which, just as you are about to get used to your servant, you kill the monster and throw it to the public.

The era of postponements, half measures, deceptively comforting expedients, delays is to be considered closed. Now begins the period of actions that produce consequences.

If you want me to talk for an hour, you have to give me a couple of days to prepare it, for a half hour, I need a week, for one of five minutes, I need a month.

The socialists are like Christopher Columbus. They leave without knowing where they are going. When they arrive, they don’t know where they are. All this with other people’s money.

Weird Italian people. One day 45 million fascists. The next day 45 million anti-fascists and partisans. Yet these 90 million Italians do not appear in the censuses.

I can’t make predictions about Russia’s actions. Russia is a puzzle wrapped in a mystery that lies within an enigma.

Improving means changing, being perfect means changing often.

Never argue with the monkey, when the accordion player is in the room.

Being honest is a good thing, but it’s also important to be right.

Human beings can be divided into three categories: the tired to die, the bored to die and the worried to die.

Some people see a private company as a ferocious tiger to kill immediately, others like a cash cow, very few see it as it really is: a sturdy horse that pulls a very heavy cart.

Make progress every day. Each step can be fruitful. However, we are facing a path that is always in development, always on the rise, always improving. You know you will never arrive at the end of the journey. But this, far from discouraging you, will only add joy and glory to the climb.

A joke is a very serious thing.

A continuous effort – not strength or intelligence – is the key that unleashes our potential.

Building can be a slow and laborious task of years. Destroying can be the reckless act of a single day.

If you need to make an important point, don’t try to be subtle or cunning. Use a mallet. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit again. Then hit it a third time with a tremendous blow.

Now this is not the end. It’s not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

The price of the size is the responsibility.

The only way a man can remain consistent between changing circumstances is to change with them while preserving the same dominant purpose.

Sometimes doing your best is not enough; we must do what is necessary.

Life is not always as one would like it to be, but living it to the fullest, as it is, and the only way to be happy.

Changing does not always mean improving, but to improve we must change.

Courage is what it takes to get up and talk; courage and also what it takes to sit and listen.

I say that when a nation tries to tax itself to achieve prosperity, it is as if a man stood in a bucket and tried to lift himself by the handle.

There is nothing wrong with change, if it is in the right direction.

Nothing is more exciting in life than being shot and not being hit.

All men are wrong, but only the great ones learn from their mistakes.

Fanatic is one who cannot change his mind and does not intend to change the subject.

If you can’t read all your books, in any case handle them, or, so to speak, pet them – peek inside them, drop them open where they want, read the first sentence on which the eye stops, put them back on their shelves with your own hands, arrange them again at your leisure so that, if you don’t know what they contain, you will know at least where they are. Let them become your friends; in any case let them become your acquaintances.

From Szczecin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain fell on the continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe.

An apple a day keeps the doctor away. Just have a good aim.

Don’t discuss the difficulties. The difficulties will make it sothe.

Never give up life. There is a way out of everything, except from death.

They could choose between dishonor and war. They have chosen dishonor and will have war.

I like pigs. Dogs look at us from below. Cats look at us from above. The pigs treat us equally.

Golf is a game whose objective is to throw a tiny ball into a hole even more tiny, with singularly poorly designed tools for that purpose.

Although I am personally happy that they invented explosives, I believe we must not improve them.

A fool and his money separate soon.

Nothing is more expensive, nothing is more sterile than a vendetta.

I am reminded of a professor who, during the hours of decline, was asked by his devoted students for a final council. He replied, “Check your citations”

I am sure that on this day – now – we are masters of our destiny; that the task that has been placed before us is not greater than our strength; that his spasms and his labor are not superior to our resistance. As long as we have faith in our cause it is an undeniable willpower, salvation will not be denied.

Agatha Christie is the woman who, after Lucrezia Borgia, lived longer in contact with crime.

The dictators ride back and forth on tigers from which they dare not disassemble. And the tigers are starting to get hungry.

A pacifist is one who feeds the crocodile – hoping he eats it last.

You make a living from what you get. You make a life with what you give. Sometimes it’s not enough to do your best. Sometimes it is necessary to complete the work.

My most brilliant feat was my ability to persuade my wife to marry me.

Where does the family start? Start with a young man who falls in love with a girl – a superior alternative has not yet been found.

If two people always have the same opinion, and one of them is superfluous.

There are many things in life that catch the eye, but only a few capture your heart: follow those.

The more the war attracts and fascinates my mind with its tremendous situations, the more I feel every year in depth what vile and perverse madness and barbarity is all this.

We are all worms. But I believe I’m a firefly.

A man is not worth the money he has, but the credit he enjoys.

I got more out of alcohol than alcohol got from me.

The head cannot absorb more than the bottom cannot stand.

Democracy is the need to bow to the opinions of others from time to time.

There are three great things in the world: the oceans, the mountains and a busy person.

In my opinion it is not necessary to tighten the sentences for bigamy. A bigamist has two mother-in-law: as punishment it seems to me that it is enough.

Everyone has his day and some days last longer than others.

I’m ready to meet my creator. If my creator is prepared for the difficult trial of meeting me, it’s another matter.

I’m bored with everything – I’m bored with it all. (Last words of Winston Churchill before he died)

ALBERT EINSTEIN, THE GENIUS IN 10 PHRASES

Wednesday, March 18th, 2020
Albert Einstein; (14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of relativity

Only two things are endless: the universe and human stupidity, about the universe I still have doubts …

Logic will take you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere …

Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb trees he will spend his whole life believing himself stupid …

Everyone knows that something is impossible to achieve, until a fool arrives who does not know and invents it …

Who says it’s impossible, shouldn’t disturb those who are doing it …

Life is not worth living, unless it is lived for someone else ...

There is a stronger driving force than steam, electricity and atomic energy: the will …

The mind is like a parachute. It only works if it opens …

The man discovered the atomic bomb, but no mouse in the world would build a mouse trap …

Everything is relative. Take a centenarian who breaks a mirror: he will be happy to know that he still has seven years of misfortune …