Old But Good Quotes & Sayings

Those who lead a literary life seem old when they're young and young when they're old, but they're never actually either. Like a good book, they are bound by neither category nor time. — J.C. Hallman

The old saying has it that when we promote our best salesman and make him a manager, we ruin a good salesman and get a bad manager. But if we think about it, we see we have no choice but to promote the good salesman. Should our worst salesman get the job? When we promote our best, we are saying to our subordinates that performance is what counts. — Andrew S. Grove

A good man will take care of his horses and dogs, not only while they are young, but also when they are old and past service. — Plutarch

The waitress scuttles away, and I make a shooing motion at the old couple who're still glaring.
"Don't you have something to better to work on?" I hiss. "Like golfing or eating prunes or dying?"
The old lady looks shocked.
"Okay, sorry, not dying. But seriously, prunes are good for you. — Sara Wolf

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

I'd always been the confident guy in school. I was good in math and English, but I was still shy. I couldn't get up and speak in front of people. I was asked to do it when I was 10 years old and I burst out crying. — Chris Vance

He'd never played in Wrigley Field - the Cubs had still been out at old West Side Grounds when he came through as a catcher for the Cardinals before the First World War. But seeing the ballpark in ruins brought the reality of this war home to him like a kick in the teeth. Sometimes big things would do that, sometimes little ones; he remembered a doughboy breaking down and sobbing like a baby when he found some French kid's dolly with its head blown off. Muldoon's eyes slid over toward Wrigley for a moment. "Gonna be a long time before the Cubs win another pennant," he said, as good an epitaph as any for the park - and the city. — Harry Turtledove

To believe in God is a good thing, a right thing. But when you reinforce your belief with words you take from the Old Testament that you seek out, and interpret in the ways that suit your needs best, that is hypocrisy, — V.C. Andrews

This had been a bad section of town before the Circus moved in and brought in money, which attracted other businesses. The area had been gentrified not because of some government interference, but by good old-fashioned capitalism, which was one of Jean-Claude's favorite things. — Laurell K. Hamilton

Humanity is an organism, inherently rejecting all that is deleterious, that is, wrong, and absorbing after trial what is beneficial, that is, right. If so disposed, the Architect of the Universe, we must assume, might have made the world and man perfect, free from evil and from pain, as angels in heaven are thought to be; but although this was not done, man has been given the power of advancement rather than of retrogression. The Old and New Testaments remain, like other sacred writings of other lands, of value as records of the past and for such good lessons as they inculcate. Like the ancient writers of the Bible our thoughts should rest upon this life and our duties here. "To perform the duties of this world well, troubling not about another, is the prime wisdom," says Confucius, great sage and teacher. The next world and its duties we shall consider when we are placed in it. — Andrew Carnegie

There was one knight," said Meera, "in the year of the false spring. The Knight of the Laughing Tree, they called him. He might have been a crannogman, that one." "Or not." Jojen's face was dappled with green shadows. "Prince Bran has heard that tale a hundred times, I'm sure." "No," said Bran. "I haven't. And if I have it doesn't matter. Sometimes Old Nan would tell the same story she'd told before, but we never minded, if it was a good story. Old stories are like old friends, she used to say. You have to — George R R Martin

The barn was dark from the storm, and we couldn't find the harness, which no one had used in years. Old Jake, who had sprained his good foot falling off a horse and was hobbling around worse than ever, started getting panicky at the idea of the dam giving out and washing away the cattle, but I told him to hush his mouth. We all knew what was at stake, and if we were going to save the ranch, we needed clear heads. — Jeannette Walls

That peril is that the human intellect is free to destroy itself. Just as one generation could prevent the very existence of the next generation, by all entering a monastery or jumping into the sea, so one set of thinkers can in some degree prevent further thinking by teaching the next generation that there is no validity in any human thought. It is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith. Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all. If you are merely a sceptic, you must sooner or later ask yourself the question, "Why should anything go right; even observation and deduction? Why should not good logic be as misleading as bad logic? They are both movements in the brain of a bewildered ape?" The young sceptic says, "I have a right to think for myself." But the old sceptic, the complete sceptic, says, "I have no right to think for myself. I have no right to think at all." There — G.K. Chesterton

Economics has made good on its promise to deliver prosperity and democratic freedom to much of the world, but in doing away with the age-old problems of humanity, it has opened up a crisis of an entirely new variety. — Philip Roscoe

It is simply no good trying to keep any thrill: that is the very worst thing you can do. Let the thrill go - let it die away - go on through that period of death into the quieter interest and happiness that follow - and you will find you are living in a world of new thrills all the time. But if you decide to make thrills your regular diet and try to prolong them artificially, they will all get weaker and weaker, and fewer and fewer, and you will be a bored, disillusioned old man for the rest of your life. — C.S. Lewis

For Jefferson, there was one step crucial to creating a genuine natural aristocracy. The poor and rich had to have equal access to a good education. That's why, despite being soemthing of a liberatarian, he repeatedly proposed that the state pay for universal primary education as well as fund education at later stages. He was met with opposition from many quarters, mostly those wary of big government or highter taxes. Yet interestingly, one of this most ardent supporters was an old friend and political opponent, the conservative John Adams. "The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people, and must be willing to bear the expenses of it," Adams wrote. "There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the public expense of the people. — Fareed Zakaria

The expression 'there is nothing like the good old days' does not mean that fewer bad things happened before, but fortunately, that people tend to forget about them. — Ernesto Sabato

Believing is never a waste of time." Simon looked at me intently his eyes flickering. "Even if you're wrong you could have been right. Take me with my painting I don't know if I'm any good. So maybe I shouldn't try because maybe I'd be setting myself up for disappointment. But it's like you looking for old coins on the beach. Whether you find any or not is for bonus points it's the search that counts. It's the belief that they might be out there. — Amanda Howells

I had the good fortune to be able to right an injustice that I thought was being heaped on young people by lowering the voting age, where you had young people that were old enough to die in Vietnam but not old enough to vote for their members of Congress that sent them there. — Birch Bayh

The South: What is this place? What's different about it? Is it different anymore? Good questions. Old ones, too. People have been asking them for decades. Some of us even make our living by asking them, but we still don't agree about the answers. — John Shelton Reed

I havent even been drinking, but, at all, but, you know, being a man, Ive got to say that weve got this guy in the White House who thinks he is a man, you know, who projects himself as a man because he has a certain masculinity, and he's a good old boy, and he used to drink, and he knows how to shoot a gun and how to drive a pickup truck, etcetera like that. Thats not the definition of a man, God Dammit! — Ed Harris

Online advertising may not be much more successful than an old double-barrel, but - like a good spray of buckshot - it makes up for its lack of accuracy with sheer volume. There are 10 unique ads listed with every Gmail message in your queue, each tied to the message content. And a paying sponsor. — Douglas Rushkoff

Because up to sixteen years old you feel gymnastics more. You can show your emotion, grace, like woman gymnastics, not kid's gymnastics. I feel I have good shape, and I can do it elements everything, but, it's not competition for me. — Olga Korbut

What is he rudest question you can ask a woman? 'How old are you?' 'What do you weigh?' No, the worst question is 'How do you juggle it all?' people constantly ask me, with an accusatory look in their eyes. 'You're fucking it all up, aren't you?' their eyes say. My standard answer is that I have the same struggles as any working parent but with the good fortune of working my dream job. — Tina Fey

But Friedman seemed to share Friedrich Hayek's extreme and inaccurate view that socialism of the sort that Britain embraced under the old Labour Party was incompatible with democracy, and I don't think that there is a good theoretical or empirical basis for that view. The Road to Serfdom flunks the test of accuracy of prediction! — Richard Posner

It made me think of the nice old Marimekko-clad ladies I sometimes went to see in the Ritz Tower: gravel-voiced, turban-wearing, panther-braceleted widows looking to move to Miami, their apartments filled with smoked-glass and chromed-steel furniture that, in the seventies, they'd purchased through their decorators for the price of a good Queen Anne
but (I was responsible for telling them, reluctantly) had not held its value and could not be re-sold at even half what they'd bought it for. — Donna Tartt

Mom, how do you know if the guy is the guy?"
You mean if he'll be a good husband?" She pauses, then says "The ticket is for the man to love the woman more than she loves him."
Shouldn't it be equal?"
Mom cackles. "It can never be equal."
But what if the woman loves the man more?"
A life of hell awaits her. As women, the deck is stacked against us because time is our enemy. We age, while men season. And trust me, there are plenty of women out there looking for a man, and they don't mind staking a claim on somebody else's husband, no matter how old, creaky, and deaf they are. — Adriana Trigiani

In the old days he had clutched life with such violence that the juice of it ran out between his fingers and was lost, but now he would touch it delicately, thankful for the good and accepting the ills with patience. — Elizabeth Goudge

They were our enemies. Yet in those young men of Italy I'd seen something centuries old. An American is only as old as his years. A long line of something was hidden behind the bright eyes of those Italians. And then and there I decided to learn something of the modern world. There was something abroad which we Americans couldn't or wouldn't understand. But unless we made some attempt to realize that everyone in the world isn't American, and that not everything American is good, we'll all perish together, and in this twentieth century.... — John Horne Burns

The races are like America's children. White people are the firstborn, so they were Dad's favorite. Black people are the second kids, the abused ones, so they still hate Dad. Latinos are the third, caught in the middle and always trying to make peace between the other siblings. Asians are the youngest, and get good marks in school, but basically are just trying to keep their heads down and not get involved. And Native Americans are the old uncle who owns a house and everyone else in the family was like, "He's not using that! Let's move in! — Colin Quinn

Everything has become so easy. It's great that it's at your fingertips, but I miss those good old days. And we're connected, but it can be very alienating. There is this distance between all of us because we're speaking to each other through cameras and monitors and icons and Emojis. — Rami Malek

My mother - she's a good old classic Northern European socialist - she's totally wonderful, but she raised me up believing that rich people have stolen their money from poor people. — Tobias Lindholm

Ice is an interesting subject for contemplation. They told me that they had some in the ice-houses at Fresh Pond five years old which was as good as ever. Why is it that a bucket of water soon becomes putrid, but frozen remains sweet forever? It is commonly said that this is the difference between the affections and the intellect. — Henry David Thoreau

I keep my old friends, and get older with them, but push young. It's good to be surrounded by kids, because they keep you young. — Carine Roitfeld

But when we reflect how difficult it is to move or inflect the great machine of society, how impossible to advance the notions of a whole people suddenly to ideal right, we see the wisdom of Solon's remark that no more good must be attempted than the nation can bear, and that will be chiefly to reform the waste of public money, and thus drive away the vultures who prey on it, and improve some little on old routines. Even — Jon Meacham

Don't miss out on the love of a good women,son. No matter what that old man of yours tells you,love is real.I'd have never had the success in my life without the women right there.She's been my backbone.She's been my reason for everything I've ever done.One day your drive to make a name for yourself will begin to drift away. It won't be that important anymore.But when you're doing it for someone else, someone you would move heaven and earth for then you never lose the desire to succeed.I can't imagine this world without her in it.I don't ever want to. — Abbi Glines

At a certain point in our lives, when we really need a clear-cut solution, the person who knocks at our door is, more likely than not, a messenger bearing bad news. This isn't always the case, but from experience I'd say the gloomy reports far outnumber the others. The messenger touches his hand to his cap and looks apologetic, but that does nothing to improve the contents of the message. It isn't the messenger's fault. No good to blame him, no good to grab him by the collar and shake him. The messenger is just conscientiously doing the job his boss assigned him. And this boss? That would be none other than our old friend Reality. — Haruki Murakami

Then something unexpected happens. At least, I don't expect it because I don't think of District 12 as a place that cares about me. But a shift has occurred since I stepped up to take Prim's place, and now it seems I have become someone precious. At first one, then another, then almost every member of the crowd touches the three middle fingers of their left hand to their lips and holds it out to me. It is an old and rarely used gesture of our district, occasionally seen at funerals. It means thanks, it means admiration, it means good-bye to someone you love. — Suzanne Collins

Come on in, I've got a sale
on scratch and dent dreams,
whole cases of imperfect ambitions
stuff the idealists couldn't sell.
Yeah, I know none of its got price tags,
you decide how much its worth.
And none of its got glossy colored packaging
but it all works just fine.
I've got rainy day swing sets
good night kisses and stationary stars
still flying at the speed of light.
And over there out back
if you dig down through those
alabaster stoplights and those old 45's
you'll find a whole crate of second hand hope.
Yeah right there, that's no chrome,
you just gotta work, polish it up a little bit.
Most folks give up too easy,
trade it in for some injection mold
and here and now. — Eric Darby

They're still in good shape, but I'm not flashing them anymore. I'm an old lady. I leave all the flesh to the kids. — Tina Turner

I put my hand on the altar rail. 'What if ... what if Heaven is real, but only in moments? Like a glass of water on a hot day when you're dying of thirst, or when someone's nice to you for no reason, or ... ' Mam's pancakes with Toblerone sauce; Dad dashing up from the bar just to tell me, 'Sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite'; or Jacko and Sharon singing 'For She's A Squishy Marshmallow' instead of 'For She's A Jolly Good Fellow' every single birthday and wetting themselves even though it's not at all funny; and Brendan giving his old record player to me instead of one of his mates. 'S'pose Heaven's not like a painting that's just hanging there for ever, but more like ... Like the best song anyone ever wrote, but a song you only catch in snatches, while you're alive, from passing cars, or ... upstairs windows when you're lost ... — David Mitchell

I need grit and struggle and Los Angeles is terribly nice, but people, once they get there, cease to be real. Constant and repetitive fulfillment is not good for the human spirit. We all need rain and good old depression. Life can't be all beer and skittles. — Morrissey

Mostly it was Mad magazine. And I did read a lot of - I had a subscription when I was little, but I also had access to some old collections, the little paperbacks of the really good stuff. — Alison Bechdel

But these vague whisperings may arise from Mr. Snagsby's being, in his way, rather a meditative and poetical man; loving to walk in Staple Inn in the summer time; and to observe how countrified the sparrows and the leaves are ... and to remark (if in good spirits) that there were old times once, and that you'd find a stone coffin or two, now, under that chapel, he'd be bound, if you was to dig for it. — Charles Dickens

Elderly people are like plants. Whereas some go to seed, or to pot, others blossom in the most wonderful ways. I believe beauty competitions should be held only for people over seventy years of age. When we are young, we have the face and figure God gave us. We did nothing to earn our good looks. But as we get older, character becomes etched on our face. Beautiful old people are works of art. Like a white candle in a holy place, so it the beauty of an aged face. — James Simpson

If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with banknotes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coalmines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well-tried principles of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again (the right to do so being obtained, of course, by tendering for leases of the note-bearing territory), there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of the repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth also, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is. It would, indeed, be more sensible to build houses and the like; but if there are political and practical difficulties in the way of this, the above would be better than nothing. — John Maynard Keynes

Life," Garp wrote, "is sadly not structured like a good old-fashioned novel. Instead an end occurs when those who are meant to peter out have petered out. All that is left is memory. But even a nihilist has memory. — John Irving

You know, I understand that a lot of people, especially up north, put fruits and nuts in their stuffing, which is good, but for myself personally, I love an old-timey savory dressing. — Paula Deen

Don't worry about your studies. When you want to do them well you will do them superbly. But for the moment the main thing is to get what little happiness there is in this wartorn world because "these are only good old days" now. — Clare Boothe Luce

But let the good old corn adorn
The hills our fathers trod;
Still let us, for his golden corn,
Send up our thanks to God! — John Greenleaf Whittier

Life has everything in store for you, Dorian. There is nothing that you, with your extraordinary good looks, will not be able to do."
"But suppose, Harry, I became haggard, and old, and wrinkled? What then?"
"Ah, then," said Lord Henry, rising to go, "then, my dear Dorian, you would have to fight for your victories. As it is, they are brought to you. No, you must keep your good looks. We live in an age that reads too much to be wise, and that thinks too much to be beautiful. We cannot spare you." (8.19) — Oscar Wilde

Out here you better have a gun, and a gun in the wagon ain't good for nothin'. I believe what the old Quaker said, 'Trust in the Lord, but keep your powder dry. — Louis L'Amour

They don't go into what is the cause of goodness, so why of the other shop? If lewdies are good that's because they like it, and I wouldn't ever interfere with their pleasures, and so of the other shop. And I was patronizing the other shop. More, badness is of the self, the one, the you or me on our oddy knockies, and that self is made by old Bog or God and is his great pride and radosty. But the not-self cannot have the bad, meaning they of the government and the judges and the schools cannot allow the bad because they cannot allow the self. And is not our modern history, my brothers, the story of the brave malenky selves fighting these big machines? — Anthony Burgess

I used to be good at clothes shopping and whatnot - at least ,I think I was! - but at some point after two kids and a career that worked out better than I ever could have imagined, I looked up from my desk and realized that I wore the same three t-shirts and 15-year-old jeans every day. — Kelly Sue DeConnick

I like What Goes Around Comes Around for old concert tees. Oh man, I got this 'Sgt. Pepper' cartoon Beatles shirt there; it was, like, $300. I didn't even know how much it cost - I thought it was gonna be, like, $80 at most - till I got to the register and was like, 'Oh mah gawd!' Good Lord. But it's classic vintage rock, you know? — Kid Cudi

It is asked whether, in fact, the leader makes propaganda, or whether propaganda makes the leader. There is a widespread impression that a good press agent can puff up a nobody into a great man.
The answer is the same as that made to the old query as to whether the newspaper makes public opinion or whether public opinion makes the newspaper. There has to be fertile ground for the leader and the idea to fall on. But the leader also has to have some vital seed to sow. To use another figure, a mutual need has to exist before either can become positively effective. Propaganda is of no use to the politician unless he has something to say which the public, consciously or unconsciously, wants to hear. — Edward L. Bernays

Friends," he began, "fellow citizens of the Federation, I have tonight a unique honor and privilege. Since the triumphant return of our trail-blazing ship Champion - " He continued in a few thousand well-chosen words to congratulate the citizens of Earth on their successful contact with another planet, another civilized race. He managed to imply that the exploit of the Champion was the personal accomplishment of every citizen of the Federation, that any one of them could have led the expedition had he not been busy with other serious work - and that he, Secretary Douglas, had been chosen by them as their humble instrument to work their will. The flattering notions were never stated baldly, but implied; the underlying assumption being that the common man was the equal of anyone and better than most - and that good old Joe Douglas embodied the common man. Even his mussed cravat and cowlicked hair had a "just folks" quality. — Robert A. Heinlein

I observed an eighteen-year-old friend of one of our daughters talking to his mother on the telephone. As he hung up the phone in frustration he said, "She makes me so angry, she's always telling me what to think and where to go and how to do things." He was obviously upset and filled with anger. I told him he had one of two choices. He could either continue to practice being right, or practice being kind. If you insist on being right you will argue, get frustrated, angry, and your problem will persist with your mom, I explained. If you simply practice being kind, you can remind yourself that this is your mom, she's always been that way, she will very likely stay that way, but you are going to send her love instead of anger when she starts in with her routine. A simple statement of kindness such as, "That's a good point, Mom, I'll think about it," and you have a spiritual solution to your problem. — Wayne W. Dyer

When you're young and good-looking, you've got to behave. But when you're old, you can get away with murder. — Julie Newmar

A young musician asked Mozart, 'Herr Mozart, it has been suggested to me that I write a symphony. Would you be good enough to tell me how to go about it?' Mozart thought for a moment and gently suggested, 'You are still too young to write symphonies. Why not try ballads first?' 'You wrote symphonies when you were ten years old,' argued the young man indignantly. 'Ah, yes, but I didn't ask how,' replied Mozart. Absolutely. Mozart — Ashwin Sanghi

I saw a new world coming rapidly. More scientific, efficient, yes. More cures for the old sicknesses. Very good. But a harsh, cruel, world. And I saw a little girl, her eyes tightly closed, holding to her breast the old kind world, one that she knew in her heart could not remain, and she was holding it and pleading, never to let her go. — Kazuo Ishiguro

That's not the way he told it, Tarwater said. He said that when the schoolteacher was seven years old, he had good sense but later it dried up. His daddy was an ass and not fit to raise him and his mother was a whore. She ran away from here when she was eighteen years old.

It took her that long? the stranger said in an incredulous tone. My, she was kind of a ass herself. — Flannery O'Connor

There are two ways of being happy: We may either diminish our wants or augment our means- either will do- the result in the same; and it is for each man to decide for himself, and do that which happens to be the easiest. If you are idle or sick or poor, however hard it may be to diminish your wants, it will be harder to augment your means. If you are active and prosperous or young and in good health, it may be easier for you to augment your means than to diminish your wants. But if you are wise, you will do both at the same time, young or old, rich or poor, sick or well; and if you are very wise you will do both in such a way as to augment the general happiness of society. — Benjamin Franklin

This perpetual fear, always accompanying mankind in the ignorance of causes, as it were in the dark, must needs have for object something. And therefore when there is nothing to be seen, there is nothing to accuse, either of their good, or evil fortune, but some power, or agent invisible: in which sense perhaps it was, that some of the old poets said, that the gods were at first created by human fear: which spoken of the gods, that is to say, of the many gods of the Gentiles, is very true. — Christopher Hitchens

There was no sense to life, to the structure of things. D.H. Lawrence had known that. You needed love, but not the kind of love most people used and were used up by. Old D.H. had known something. His buddy Huxley was just an intellectual fidget, but what a marvelous one. Better than G.B. Shaw with that hard keel of a mind always scraping bottom, his labored wit finally only a task, a burden on himself, preventing him from really feeling anything, his brilliant speech finally a bore, scraping the mind and the sensibilities. It was good to read them all though. It made you realize that thoughts and words could be fascinating, if finally useless. — Charles Bukowski

Do you remember Vlek, who was such a good sheepdog that she and Jakob alone could drive a whole flock past you at the counting-post? Do you remember how Vlek grew old and sickly and could not hold down her food, and how there was no one to shoot her but you, and how you went for a walk afterwards because you did not want anyone to see you cry? — J.M. Coetzee

Marriage is supposed to be this huge great overwhelming passion, and that we're supposed to be looking for our soulmate, our other half, but it's actually pretty damn mundane. After all the excitement goes, what you really want to be left with is someone who is a really good person and who adores you, and who you can grow old with. I know the bastards are exciting, but they don't make a good husband material. — Jane Green

I don't know what your Company is feeling as of today about the work of Dr. Alice Hamilton on benzol [benzene] poisoning. I know that back in the old days some of your boys used to think that she was a plain nuisance and just picking on you for luck. But I have a hunch that as you have learned more about the subject, men like your good self have grown to realize the debt that society owes her for her crusade. I am pretty sure that she has saved the lives of a great many girls in can-making plants and I would hate to think that you didn't agree with me. — Bradley Dewey

My good friend, if, when we were once out of this fight, we could escape old age and death thenceforward and for ever, I should neither press forward myself nor bid you do so, but death in ten thousand shapes hangs ever over our heads, and no man can elude him; therefore let us go forward and either win glory for ourselves, or yield it to another. — Homer

It should be explained that the cure of Verrieres, an old man of eighty, but blessed by the keen air of his mountains with an iron character and strength, had the right to visit at any hour of the day the prison, the hospital, and even the poorhouse. It was at six o'clock in the morning precisely that M. Appert, who was armed with an introduction to the cure from Paris, had had the good sense to arrive in an inquisitive little town. He had gone at once to the presbytery. — Stendhal

I like my fellow man, but I also realize he carried a good measure of the Old Nick in him and he can find a good excuse for almost any kind of wrongdoing or mischief. — Louis L'Amour

Blood mixture and the result drop in the racial level is the sole cause of the dying out of old cultures; for men do not perish as a result of lost wars, but by the loss of that force of resistance which is continued only in pure blood. All who are not of good race in this world are chaff. — Adolf Hitler

Old age, believe me, is a good and pleasant thing. It is true you are gently shouldered off the stage, but then you are given such a comfortable front stall as spectator. — Confucius

Come let us mock at the great
That had such burdens on the mind
And toiled so hard and late
To leave some monument behind,
Nor thought of the levelling wind.
Come let us mock at the wise;
With all those calendars whereon
They fixed old aching eyes,
They never saw how seasons run,
And now but gape at the sun.
Come let us mock at the good
That fancied goodness might be gay,
And sick of solitude
Might proclaim a holiday:
Wind shrieked -- and where are they?
Mock mockers after that
That would not lift a hand maybe
To help good, wise or great
To bar that foul storm out, for we
Traffic in mockery. — W.B.Yeats

For God is the source of all good things, some directly (as with the Old and New Testaments), and some indirectly (as with philosophy). But it might be that philosophy was given to the Greeks immediately and directly, until such time as the Lord should also call the Greeks. For philosophy acted as a "custodian" to bring the Greeks to Christ, just as the law brought the Hebrews.10 — Mark A. Tietjen

Traffic crawls
Cell phone calls
Talk radio screams at me
But through my tinted window
I see a little girl
Rust red minivan
She's got chocolate on her face
Got little hands and she waves at me
Yeah, she smiles at me
Well hello world
How you been
Good to see you my old friend
Sometimes I feel
Cold as steel
Broken like I'm never gonna heal
And I see a light
A little hope
In a little girl
Hello world — Lady Antebellum

We chose younger and younger politicians to lead us because they looked good on television and were sharp. But really we should be looking for wisdom, and choosing people who had acquired it; and such people, in general, looked bad on television - gray, lined, thoughtful. — Alexander McCall Smith

So the conservative who resists change is as valuable as the radical who proposes it
perhaps as much more as the roots are more vital than grafts. It is good that new ideas should be heard, for the sake of the few that can be used; but it is also good that new ideas should be compelled to go through the mill of objection, opposition, and contumely; this is the trial heat which innovations must survive before being allowed to enter the human race. It is good that the old should resist the young, and that the young should prod the old; out of this tension, as out of the strife of the sexes and the classes, comes a creative tensile strength, a stimulated development, a secret and basic unity and movement of the whole. — Will Durant

[T]he young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat.
He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid; and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed - love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands. — William Faulkner

Jimmy Page is an excellent producer. Led Zeppelin I and II are classics. As a player he's very good in the studio, but I've never seen him play well live. He's sloppy. He plays like he's got a broken hand and he's two years old. If you put out a good album and play like a two year old, what's the purpose? — Eddie Van Halen

Put in hours and hours of planning, figure everything down to the last detail, then what? Burglar alarms start going off all overthe place for no sensible reason. A gun fires of its own accord and a man is shot. And a broken-down old house no good for anything but chasing kids has to trip over us. Blind accidents. What can you do against blind accidents? — Ben Maddow

Having a fling with you doesn't appeal to me. You're handsome, but you're too inexperienced and too arrogant to be good in bed. Having ridden many horses doesn't make you a good rider; it just proves that you can't recognize a good one or don't know how to keep her. You're too young for me, and in ten years, when you improve, I will be too old for you. So let's not speak of this again. A thin, high-pitched sound came from the wall. Miko was snickering. — Ilona Andrews

That old if you 'need anything, let me know,' is a total crock. You hear people say it all the time, but you never see anyone actually call up the person who said it and say, "Hey, remember when you said to let you know if i needed anything? Well, I'm feeling really overwhelmed. Could you please come clean my kitchen, I'd feel like I had a bit of a head start." You will never hear someone say that, because then the person asking the other person to clean their kitchen is seen as a helpless, incompetent dick. -Diana Rowland (My life as a white trash zombie) — Diana Rowland

This is all very fine, but it won't do-Anatomy-botany-Nonsense! Sir, I know an old woman in Covent Garden, who understands botany better, and as for anatomy, my butcher can dissect a joint full as well; no, young man, all that is stuff; you must go to the bedside, it is there alone you can learn disease!
Comment to Hans Sloane on Robert Boyle's letter of introduction describing Sloane as a 'ripe scholar, a good botanist, a skilful anatomist'. — Thomas Sydenham

Europe's the mayonnaise, but America supplies the good old lobster. — D.H. Lawrence

Old me? There is no way to know. All I can do is decide if i trust Marcus or not. And while he has done cruel, evil things, our society is not divided into "good" and "bad". Cruelty does not make a person dishonest, the same way bravery does not make a person kind. Marcus is not good or bad, but both. Well, he is probably more bad than good ... — Veronica Roth

Every child had a pretty good shot, to get at least as far as their old man got. But something happened on the way to that place. They threw an American flag in our face. — Billy Joel

Well, PZ Myers, Jen McCreight, Phil Plait, Amanda Marcotte, Greg Laden, Melissa McEwan and others have all already said it, but I figured I should post this for the record: yes, Richard Dawkins believes I should be a good girl and just shut up about being sexually objectified because it doesn't bother him. Thanks, wealthy old heterosexual white man! — Rebecca Watson

Had taught him to sharpen his senses - to trust the instincts that had been guiding him south. His homing radar was tingling like crazy now. The end of his journey was close - almost right under his feet. But how could that be? There was nothing on the hilltop. The wind changed. Percy caught the sour scent of reptile. A hundred yards down the slope, something rustled through the woods - snapping branches, crunching leaves, hissing. Gorgons. For the millionth time, Percy wished their noses weren't so good. They had always said they could smell him because he was a demigod - the half-blood son of some old Roman god. Percy had tried rolling in mud, splashing through creeks, even keeping air-freshener sticks in his pockets so he'd have that new car smell; but apparently demigod stink was hard to mask. He scrambled to the west — Rick Riordan

I was thirty-seven years old and wearing nothing but a butt plug. But there was a 1940's film-star Toby, looking about to spontaneously combust from sheer desire. It was probably hysterical postpubescent hormones, but still, it felt so good. So ridiculously good. — Alexis Hall

Life is an ordeal, albeit an exciting one, but I wouldn't trade it for the good old days of poverty and obscurity. — Jim Carrey

Found one of my old journals. from right around the time we were heading out on tour with NFG in the UK early 2008. i started reading it and couldn't help but cry a little bit. cause that person was really confused. and very lost. and as it went on, the person behind the pen seemed to get a little bit stronger.. that part felt good. it was the reminder that i needed that right now i'm as strong as ever. there really isn't a point to telling you all of this. except maybe i want to thank you. cause you are a constant reminder. that i'm not as lost as i once was. — Hayley Williams

I feel pretty good. My body actually looks like an old banana, but it's fine. — Mike Piazza

The drive was brief and the conversation limited, but oh, what a legacy of love! Father never read to me from the Bible about the good Samaritan. Rather, he took me with him and Uncle Elias in that old 1928 Oldsmobile and provided a living lesson I have always remembered. — Thomas S. Monson

She had to do that
she had to become a widow, for life, before she was even married. That's why I never got married. I'm thirty-eight years old. I can read and write very well
my mother made sure I was educated
and I do the bookwork for all the shops and businesses in the slum. I do the taxes for every man who pays them. I make a good living here, and I have respect. I shouldn't been married fifteen or even twenty years ago. But she was a widow, all her life, for me. And I couldn't do it. I just couldn't allow myself to get married. I kept hoping I would see him, the sailor with the best moustache. My mother had one very old, faded photograph of the two of them, looking very serious and stern. That's why I lived in this area. I always hoped I would see him. And I never married. And she died last week, Lin. My mother died last week. — Gregory David Roberts

DEAR MISS MANNERS:
I a tired of being treated like a child. My father says it's because I am a child
I am twelve-and-a-half years old
but it still isn't fair. If I go into a store to buy something, nobody pays any attention to me, or if they do, it's to say, "Leave that alone," "Don't touch that," although I haven't done anything. My money is as good as anybody's, but because I am younger, they feel they can be mean to me. It happens to me at home, too. My mother's friend who comes over after dinner sometimes, who doesn't have any children of her own and doesn't know what's what, likes to say to me, "Shouldn't you be in bed by now,dear?" when she doesn't even know what my bedtime is supposed to be. Is there any way I can make these people stop?
GENTLE READER:
Growing up is the best revenge. — Judith Martin

Fireworks made of glass. An explosion of dew. Crescendo. Diminuendo. Silence.
There are drugs that work the same, and while I am not suggesting that our founder purchased the glassworks to get more drops, it is clear that she had the seed planted, not once, but twice, and knew already the lovely contradictory nature of glass and she did not have to be told, on the day she saw the works at Darling Harbour, that glass is a thing in disguise, an actor, is not solid at all, but a liquid, that an old sheet of glass will not only take on a royal and purplish tinge but will reveal its true liquid nature by having grown fatter at the bottom and thinner at the top, and that even while it is as frail as the ice on a Parramatta puddle, it is stronger under compression than Sydney sandstone, that it is invisible, solid, in short, a joyous and paradoxical thing, as good a material as any to build a life from. — Peter Carey

Outside the gates of the finca, watching the passing rows of tin-roofed shacks which represented the residential section of San Francisco de Paula, I began to think about The Old Man and the Sea, and I realized it was Ernest's counterattack against those who had assaulted him for Across the River. It was an absolutely perfect counterattack and I envisioned a row of snickering carpies bearing the likenesses of Dwight Macdonald and Louis Kronenberger and E.B. White, who in the midst of cackling, "Through! Washed Up! Kaput!" suddenly grab their groins and keel over. It is a rather elementary military axiom that he who attacks must anticipate the counterattack, but the critics, poor boys, would never make General Staff. As Ernest once said, "One battle doesn't make a campaign but critics treat one book, good or bad, like a whole goddamn war. — A. E. Hotchner

You are very clever," said the old man shyly. "I would like to eat your brains, one day."
For some reason the books of etiquette that Daphne's grandmother had forced on her didn't quite deal with this. Of course, silly people would say to babies, "You're so sweet I could gobble you all up!" but that sort of nonsense seemed less funny when it was said by a man in war paint who owned more than one skull. Daphne, cursed with good manners, settled for "It's very kind of you to say so. — Terry Pratchett

Little John, watching her standing next to her brother, half-glowering in the old Cecil manner and half-comforted by Robin's words, saw for a moment what it had been like for her as Will's litter sister. Some of what she was good at, and some of what she was bad at, as his pupil, came clear to him in that moment; and something else came clear to him too, but he set it aside so quickly that he allowed himself not to recognize it for what it was. — Robin McKinley