Top 103 Quotes & Sayings by Don Marquis - Page 2

From 'the lesson of the moth': and before i could argue him out of his philosophy he went and immolated himself on a patent cigar lighter i do not agree with him myself i would rather have half the happiness and twice the longevity but at the same time i wish there was something i wanted as badly as he wanted to fry himself

A little while with grief and laughter, And then the day will close; The shadows gather ... what comes after No man knows.

i have had my ups and downs but wotthehell wotthehell yesterday sceptres and crowns fried oysters and velvet gowns and today i herd with bums but wotthehell wotthehell i wake the world from sleep as i caper and sing and leap when i sing my wild free tune wotthehell wotthehell under the blear eyed moon i am pelted with cast off shoon but wotthehell wotthehell

For all of the creeds are false, and all of the creeds are true; And low at the shrines where my brothers bow, there will I bow too; For no form of a god, and no fashion Man has made in his desperate passion, But is worthy some worship of mine; Not too hot with a gross belief, Nor yet too cold with pride, I will bow me down where my brothers bow, Humble, but open eyed.

You want to know whether I believe in ghosts? Of course I do not believe in them. If you had known as many of them as I have, you would not believe in them either.

That stern and rockbound coast felt like an amateur when it saw how grim the puritans that landed on it were.

The things that I can't have I want, And what I have seems second-rate, The things I want to do I can't, And what I have to do I hate.

This is another day! Are its eyes blurred with maudlin grief for any wasted past? A thousand thousand failures shall not daunt! Let dust clasp dust, death, death; I am alive!

For him who fain would teach the world The world holds hate in fee- For Socrates, the hemlock cup; For Christ, Gethsemane.

Just as soon as the uplifters get a country reformed it slips into a nose dive.

fire is beautiful and we know that if we get too close it will kill us but what does that matter it is better to be happy for a moment and be burned up with beauty than to live a long time and be bored all the while

An optimist is the person who has never had any experience at all.

Of middle age the best that can be said is that a middle aged person has likely learned how to have a little fun in spite of his troubles.

Many a man spanks his children for things his own father should have spanked out of him.

what man calls civilizationalways results in desertsman is never on the squarehe uses up the fat and greenery of the eartheach generation wastes a little moreof the future with greed and lust for riches

An old stomach reforms more whiskey drinkers than a new resolve.

It is a cheering thought to think that God is on the side of the best digestion.

Life is one damned kitten after another." Mehitabel the Alley Cat

The female of all species are most dangerous when they appear to retreat.

No form of government matters nearly as much as the spirit and intelligence brought to the administration of any form of government.

A certain alloy of expediency improves the gold of morality and makes it wear all the longer.

A fierce unrest seethes at the core, of all existing things:, it was the eager wish to soar, that gave the gods their wings.

There was once a Hindu sage, who sat down on the banks of the Ganges and thought for seventy years about the millennium. Just as he arrived at the solution and was putting it into verse, a mosquito stung him and he forgot it again at once.

A great many people who spend their time mourning over the brevity of life could make it seem longer if they did a little more work.

He worked like hell in the country so he could live in the city, where he worked like hell so he could live in the country.

I love you as New Englanders love pie!

Yes, he's got all them different kinds of thoroughbred blood in him, and he's got other kinds you ain't mentioned and that you ain't slick enough to see.

If the world were not so full of people, and most of them did not have to work so hard, there would be more time for them to get out and lie on the grass, and there would be more grass for them to lie on.

I get up in the morning with an idea for a three-volume novel and by nightfall it's a paragraph in my column.

It would be a colorless world if each individual did not secretly believe himself superior to almost everyone else.

it is better to be a part of beauty for one instant and then cease to exist than to exist forever and never be a part of beauty

Most of the people living in New York have come here from the far to try to make enough money to go back to the farm

Persian pussy from over the sea demure and lazy and smug and fat none of your ribbons and bells for me ours is the zest of the alley cat

My heart hath followed all my days Something I cannot name.

Old godheads sink in space and drown Their arks like foundered galleons sucked down.

Life's too damn funny for me to explain.

I do not see why men sheould be so proud insects have the more ancient lineage according to the scientists insects were insects when man was only a burbling whatisit.

Censors are necessary, increasingly necessary, if America is to avoid having a vital literature.

the high cost of living isnt so bad if you dont have to pay for it

Vibrations are the key to everything. Atoms used to be, but atoms have quite gone out.

Give up the dream that Love may trick the fates To live again somewhere beyond the gleam Of dying stars, or shatter the strong gates Some god has builded high; give up the dream.

Not every woman in old slippers can manage to look like Cinderella

As the skull of the man grows broader, so do his creeds. And his gods they are shaped in his image and mirror his needs. And he clothes them with thunders and beauty, He clothes them with music and fire, Seeing not, as he bows by their altars, That he worships his own desire.