Gilbert Quotes & Sayings

The happiest life is that which constantly exercises and educates what is best in us. — Philip Gilbert Hamerton

What is called matriarchy is simply moral anarchy, in which the mother alone remains fixed because all the fathers are fugitive and irresponsible. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Within a couple of weeks even earthquake survivors return to their normal level of unfounded optimism. — Daniel M. Gilbert

Ardon was greeted by several of the members of the tribe of Dan. They were an unruly, quarrelsome group, and Ardon remembered the prophecy that Jacob, the grandson of Abraham, had given on his deathbed. He had identified the nature of each of his sons, and of Dan he had said, "Dan will be a serpent by the roadside, a viper along the path, that bites the horse's heels so that its rider tumbles backward." A grim smile touched Ardon's broad lips. "Old Jacob got it right that time. Dan has some good soldiers, but they are not to be trusted. — Gilbert Morris

When you are lying awake with a dismal headache, and repose is tabooed by anxiety, I conceive you may use any language you choose to indulge in without impropriety. — W.S. Gilbert

Curiosity is what keeps you working steadily, while hotter emotions may come and go. — Elizabeth Gilbert

The idiot who praises, with enthusiastic tone, All centuries but this, and every country but his own. — W.S. Gilbert

I think of modern marriage as a car strangely fashioned out of an old abandoned horse carriage, built upon the framework of a mule cart. All the original engineering is still there, underneath it all. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Floods are 'acts of God,' but flood losses are largely acts of man. — Gilbert F. White

it is only experience and disillusionment that make me cautious. — Martin Gilbert

Every religion in the world has had a subset of devotees who seek a direct, transcendent experience with God, excusing themselves from fundamentalist scriptural or dogmatic study in order to personally encounter the divine. — Elizabeth Gilbert

There are no new lies, no new heresies. Man is simply not that creative. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

The trouble with Christianity is, not that its failed, but that it's never been tried ... not that it can't remake the world, but that it's difficult. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Embrace the beautiful mess that you are. — Elizabeth Gilbert

[Paradox is] truth standing on its head to gain attention. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Men spoke much in my boyhood about restricted or ruined men of genius: and it was common to say that many a man was a Great Might-Have-Been. To me it's a more solid and startling fact that any man in the street is a Great Might-Not-Have-Been. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

In matters of truth the fact that you don't want to publish something is, nine times out of ten, a proof that you ought to publish it. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

The full potentialities of human fury cannot be reached until a friend of both parties tactfully interferes. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

A good teacher is a determined person. — Gilbert Highet

Error is far more common than fraud which probably comprises 1 percent or a tenth of a percent of the literature. — Walter Gilbert

Do whatever brings you to life, then. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Author Martha Beck says of the ego, "Don't leave home without it." But do not let your ego totally run the show, or it will shut down the show. Your ego is a wonderful servant, but it's a terrible master - because the only thing your ego ever wants is reward, reward, and more reward. And since there's never enough reward to satisfy, your ego will always be disappointed. Left unmanaged, that kind of disappointment will rot you from the inside out. An unchecked ego is what the Buddhists call "a hungry ghost" - forever famished, eternally howling with need and greed. Some version of that hunger dwells within all of us. We all have that lunatic presence, living deep within our guts, that refuses to ever be satisfied with anything. I have it, you have it, we all have it. My saving grace is this, though: I know that I am not only an ego; I am also a soul. And I know that my soul doesn't care a whit about reward or failure. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Something's still wrong
the same thing that was wrong forty years ago. A malignancy, a tumor, slowly growing in someone's heart. A conscience that's seared. — Heather Day Gilbert

And my Black bird, still not quitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On that pallid bust -- still flitting through my dolorous domain;
But it cannot stop from gazing for it truly finds amazing
That, by artful paraphrasing, I such rhyming can sustain--
Notwithstanding my lost symbol I such rhyming still sustain--
Though I shan't try it again! — Gilbert Adair

A tragedy means always a mans struggle with that which is stronger than man. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

If you spell a word wrong you have some temptation to think it wrong. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Mine is just a simple old human story - of one person trying, with great rigor and discipline, to comprehend her personal relationship with divinity. — Elizabeth Gilbert

No one likes to be criticized, of course, but if the things we successfully strive for do not make our future selves happy, or if the things we unsuccessfully avoid do, then it seems reasonable (if somewhat ungracious) for them to cast a disparaging glance backward and wonder what the hell we were thinking. — Daniel Gilbert

My little Matthew, Isabelle at once snapped back at him, when two people agree, it means one of them is redundant — Gilbert Adair

Modern man is educated to understand foreign languages and misunderstand foreigners. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

The Yogic scriptures say that God responds to the sacred prayers and efforts of human beings in any way whatsoever that mortals choose to worship - just so long as those prayers are sincere. — Elizabeth Gilbert

The most valuable book we can read, about countries we have visited, is that which recalls to us something that we did notice, but did not notice that we noticed. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Things are seldom what they seem. — W.S. Gilbert

People here worship the sun." "Yes, but my people worship the God who made the sun. — Gilbert Morris

A large section of the intelligentsia seems wholly devoid of intelligence. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

The danger of loss of faith in God is not that one will believe in nothing, but rather that one will believe in anything. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

The hardest part of your life is behind you now. — Elizabeth Gilbert

The magnet's name the observing Grecians drew. From the magnetic region where it grew. — William Gilbert

The great intellectual tradition that comes down to us from the past was never interrupted or lost through such trifles as the sack of Rome, the triumph of Attila, or all the barbarian invasions of the Dark Ages. It was lost after the introduction of printing, the discovery of America, the founding of the Royal Society, and all the enlightenment of the Renaissance and the modern world. It was there, if anywhere, that there was lost or impatiently snapped the long thin delicate thread that had descended from distant antiquity; the thread of that unusual human hobby: the habit of thinking. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

I realized that, as a songwriter, the only thing I really do is make jewelry for the inside of other people's minds. — Elizabeth Gilbert

I want to be the best in whatever I do. — Gilbert Arenas

The third year at a school for any head coach is the most important year for the program they are attempting to develop. — George M. Gilbert

The martyr endured tortures to affirm his belief in truth but he never asserted his disbelief in torture. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

When you set out in the world to help yourself,sometimes you end up helping Tutti. — Elizabeth Gilbert

There's this human capacity for joy and endurance, even when things are at their worst. A joy that occurs not despite our suffering, but within it. — Elizabeth Gilbert

The fact is that much misunderstanding is often caused by our modern attempts to limit too strictly the meaning of a Greek word. — Gilbert Murray

It's not the method, it's the mindset. — Andy Gilbert

Fuller Warren had won the 1948 election by running as a moderate and promising to ease racial tension and violence in Florida. He'd denounced the Klansmen who paraded through Lake County on election night (with Sheriff Willis McCall following behind) as "hooded hoodlums and sheeted jerks," and Moore cautiously held out some hope for the new governor. Warren had admitted to being a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, but renouncing his past, like many a politician before and since, he'd stated that he had joined years before "as a favor to a friend" and that he "never wore a hood." Moore did not adopt a wait-and-see approach with the new governor. — Gilbert King

He had learned in the past four years to speak only when he knew that which he was speaking about. Moreover, he had learned that silence can sometimes relax a listener into thinking that one might be intelligent. — Elizabeth Gilbert

The scientist is a practical man and his are practical (i.e., practically attainable) aims. He does not seek the ultimate but the proximate. He does not speak of the last analysis but rather of the next approximation. His are not those beautiful structures so delicately designed that a single flaw may cause the collapse of the whole. The scientist builds slowly and with a gross but solid kind of masonry. If dissatisfied with any of his work, even if it be near the very foundations, he can replace that part without damage to the remainder. — Gilbert N. Lewis

For when a child is born the mother also is born again. — Gilbert Parker

An artist will betray himself by some sort of sincerity. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Recognizing that people's reactions don't belong to you is the only sane way to create. If people enjoy what you've created, terrific. If people ignore what you've created, too bad. If people misunderstand what you've created, don't sweat it. And what if people absolutely hate what you've created? What if people attack you with savage vitriol, and insult your intelligence, and malign your motives, and drag your good name through the mud? Just smile sweetly and suggest - as politely as you possibly can - that they go make their own fucking art. Then stubbornly continue making yours. — Elizabeth Gilbert

The day of the ball was spent preparing me much as one prepares a goose for Christmas, with the same ultimate effect. — Catherine Gilbert Murdock

The data says that with the poor, a little money can buy a lot of happiness. If you're rich, a lot of money can buy you a little more happiness. But in both cases, money does it. — Daniel Gilbert

The pressure to being a comedian is being funny, but I've given that up, so there is no pressure whatsoever. — Gilbert Gottfried

The happiest hour a sailor sees Is when he's down At an inland town, With his Nancy on his knees, yo ho! And his arm around her waist! — W.S. Gilbert

Utopia's quite another land;
In her enterprising movements,
She is England
with improvements — W.S. Gilbert

We need courage to take ourselves seriously, to look closely and without flinching, to regard the things that frighten us in life and art with wonder. — Elizabeth Gilbert

They loved each other, she realized. They loved each other, because they knew each other. — Elizabeth Gilbert

I believe in miracles, I believe in the Law of Attraction, but even I don't think I'm big enough to manifest five Asian elephants cloaked in gold ... — Elizabeth Gilbert

I'd like to have a kid, but I'd probably get a Frank Sinatra Jr. instead of a Gilbert Gottfried Jr. I'd totally screw up like that. — Gilbert Gottfried

People who make history know nothing about history. You can see that in the sort of history they make. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

The problem, simply put, is that we cannot choose everything simultaneously. So we live in danger of becoming paralyzed by indecision, terrified that every choice might be the wrong choice. — Elizabeth Gilbert

The things we do when we expect our lives to continue are naturally and properly different than the things we might do if we expected them to end abruptly. We go easy on the lard and tobacco, smile dutifully at yet another of our supervisor's witless jokes, read books like this one when we could be wearing paper hats and eating pistachio macaroons in the bathtub, and we do each of these things in the charitable service of the people we will soon become. — Daniel M. Gilbert

With that, I hurled the slipper at him, not caring if I caused his decapitation. (I did not.) Marshaling what little dignity I yet possessed, I stomped down the corridor - challenging indeed with one shoe - and around the corner. I lay awake for hours. The prince had no right, not one, to indict me so, and if I had held the slightest hope of the book's assistance, I would have climbed at once to my wizard room for a spell with which to punish him. Death, perhaps, or humiliation. A croaking frog would be nice, particularly a frog that retained Florian's dark eyes. I should keep it in a box and poke it occasionally with a stick; that would be satisfying indeed. — Catherine Gilbert Murdock

I think there are writers who take a quieter approach to their work - one that is just about respectfully showing up for your vocation day after day, steadily doing your best, and letting go of the results. Not going to war against anyone else, or against their talents, or against themselves. — Elizabeth Gilbert

No good play is a success; fine writing and high morals are useless on the stage. I have been scribbling twaddle for thirty-five years to suit the public taste, and I should know. — W.S. Gilbert

Men reform a thing by removing the reality from it, and then do not know what to do with the unreality that is left. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

America has a new delicacy, a coarse, rank refinement. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

That Gilbert of yours is a darling, Anne, — L.M. Montgomery

What are you passionate enough about that you can endure the most disagreeable aspects of the work? — Elizabeth Gilbert

Yea ! by your works are ye justified
toil unrelieved ;
Manifold labours, co-ordinate each to the sending achieved ;
Discipline, not of the feet but the soul, unremitting, unfeigned ;
Tortures unholy by flame and by maiming, known, faced, and disdained ;
Courage that suns
Only foolhardiness ; even by these, are ye worthy of your guns. — Gilbert Frankau

It is human to err; and the only final and deadly error, among all our errors, is denying that we have ever erred. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Let a man walk ten miles steadily on a hot summer's day along a dusty English road, and he will soon discover why beer was invented. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

There is a hardly a more gracious gift that we can offer somebody than to accept them fully, to love them almost despite themselves. — Elizabeth Gilbert

The aim of good prose words is to mean what they say. The aim of good poetical words is to mean what they do not say. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Travel is similar to therapy. You can go to the best psychologist in the world for ten years. If you don't feel like actively shifting anything in your life, there is nothing that person can do to change you. — Elizabeth Gilbert

O God of earth and altar,
Bow down and hear our cry,
Our earthly rulers falter,
Our people drift and die;
The walls of gold entomb us,
The swords of scorn divide,
Take not thy thunder from us,
But take away our pride. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Students of popular science ... are always insisting that Christianity and Buddhism are very much alike, especially Buddhism. This is generally believed, and I believed it myself until I read a book giving the reasons for it. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

You need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select your clothes every day. This is a power you can cultivate. If you want to control things in your life so bad, work on the mind. That's the only thing you should be trying to control. — Elizabeth Gilbert

I'm not surprised he wants to challenge me here, where no one can protect me. He thinks I'm a weak woman. He thinks wrong. — Heather Day Gilbert

Currents of humid wind swept down the mountainside. The air across the beach snapped and shimmied, like a bedsheet shaken out - as though the beach itself were shaking off the violence that had just been visited upon it. Then a humid calm would prevail, for a few hours or a few days, until another storm rolled in. — Elizabeth Gilbert

The wise teacher knows that 55 minutes of work plus 5 minutes laughter are worth twice as much as 60 minutes of unvaried work. — Gilbert Highet

God wants us to be in joy, God wants us to be happy. — Elizabeth Gilbert

I've sort of dealt with the characters' lives more; particularly the women characters. — Gilbert Hernandez

It's not wrong to hustle hustlers. It's like killing murderers, a public service. -Damon Salvatore — L.J.Smith

Our society is so abnormal that the normal man never dreams of having the normal occupation of looking after his own property. When he chooses a trade, he chooses one of the ten thousand trades that involve looking after other people's property. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

We are as near to heaven by sea as by land. — Humphrey Gilbert

I have more compassion than if I had led a life where everything worked out exactly as I had planned or if I had never been wounded or if I had never been betrayed or I had never been harmed. I don't think I would be as good a person. — Elizabeth Gilbert

A man cannot be wise enough to be a great artist without being wise enough to wish to be a philosopher. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

(Ah, lovely adolescence - when the "talented" are officially shunted off from the herd, thus putting the total burden of society's creative dreams on the thin shoulders of a few select souls, while condemning everyone else to live a more commonplace, inspiration-free existence! What a system . . . ) — Elizabeth Gilbert

When she was pregnant with her second child, a midwife asked if Catherine had any unspoken fears about anything that could go wrong with the baby - such as genetic defects or complications during the birth. My sister said, 'My only fear is that he might grow up to become a Republican. — Elizabeth Gilbert

I don't want to be afraid of bright colors, or new sounds, or big love, or risky decisions, or strange experiences, or weird endeavors, or sudden changes, or even failure. — Elizabeth Gilbert

All that we call spirit and art and ecstacy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forgot. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Strike the concertina's melancholy string!
Blow the spirit-stirring harp like any thing!
Let the piano's martial blast
Rouse the Echoes of the Past — W.S. Gilbert

I'm still aspiring to be a better and better person, but I think that disappointments have made me gentler with other people and their disappointments, the stuff that they have to carry around and endure. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Nothing is poetical if plain daylight is not poetical; and no monster should amaze us if the normal man does not amaze. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

My love affair with (him) had a wonderful element of romance to it, which I will always cherish. But it was not an infatuation, and here's how I can tell: because I did not demand that he become my Great Emancipator or my Source of All Life, nor did I immediately vanish into that man's chest cavity like a twisted, unrecognizable, parasitical homonculus. During our long period of courtship, I remained intact within my own personality, and I allowed myself to meet (him) for who he was. — Elizabeth Gilbert

In short, we derive support for our preferred conclusions by listening to the words that we put in the mouths of people who have already been preselected for their willingness to say what we want to hear. — Daniel M. Gilbert