Great Words

This page contains some of my favorite words by my favorite authors and other literary magicians. More coming soon!

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“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake up in the day to find it was vanity, but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.” – Lawrence of Arabia

“The supreme question about a work of art is out of how deep a life does it spring.” – James Joyce

“The Lord of the Rings rediscovers reality by making of this world a myth; the value of myth is that it takes all the things we know and restores to them the rich significance which had been hidden by the veil of familiarity.” – Jack

“It is no use trying to see through first principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To see through all things is the same as not to see.” – The Abolition of Man

“The noblest power of man is reason. The highest goal of reason is the knowledge of God.” – St. Albert The Great

“Cynicism is the intellectual cripple’s substitute for intelligence.” – J. Russell Lynes

“If the world becomes pagan and perishes, the last man left alive would do well to quote the Iliad and die.” – The Everlasting Man

“A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.” – Socrates

“Progress is a comparative of which we have not settled the superlative.” – Heretics

“The crux and crisis is that man found it natural to worship; even natural to worship unnatural things.” – The Everlasting Man

“The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge.” – Daniel J. Boorstin

“A dead thing goes with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.” – G.K. Chesterton

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.” – Theodore Roosevelt

“Do not confuse motion and progress. A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any progress.” – Alfred A. Montapert

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” – Oscar Wilde

“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.” – Michael Althsuler

“Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.” – Edgar Allan Poe

“A mind is a fire to be kindled, not a vessel to be filled.” – Plutarch

“The little I know I owe to my ignorance.” – Orville Mars

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” – George Bernard Shaw

“It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.” – Harry S. Truman

“Danger gleams like sunshine to a brave man’s eyes.” – Euripides

“He didn’t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.” – Clarence Budington Kelland

“America is becoming so educated that ignorance will be a novelty. I will belong to the select few.” – Will Rogers

“Being a hero is about the shortest-lived profession on earth.” – Will Rogers

“It was the light in his eyes, a warrior’s clarity, that elicited the most respect.” – R.A. Salvatore

“The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him,
but because he loves what is behind him.” – G.K. Chesterton

“An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered; an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered.” – G.K. Chesterton

“I have told you this so that my joy might be in you and your joy might be complete. This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” – Jesus Christ

“Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.” – Edgar Allan Poe

“I intend to live forever. So far, so good.” – Steven Wright

“She felt it like a heartbeat beneath her bare feet, the land alive, the rhythm of life itself, and it compelled her to dance.” – The Ghost King

“I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.” – William Ernest Henley

“I have not yet begun to fight!” – John Paul Jones

“If this endeavor is of human origin, it will destroy itself. But if it comes from God, you will not be able to destroy it; you may even find yourselves fighting against God.” – Gamaliel

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover the prisoner was you.” – Lewis B. Smedes

“Nobody ever supposed that man could imagine how a world was created any more than he could create one. But evolution really is mistaken for explanation. It has the fatal quality of leaving on many minds the impression that they do understand it and everything else; just as many of them live under a sort of illusion that they have read the Origin of Species.” – G.K. Chesterton

“If there is no God, everything is permitted.” – Dostoevsky

“My power will be in humility.” – Walter Russell

“I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith. From now on the crown of righteousness awaits me, which the Lord, the just judge, will award me on that day, and not only to me, but to all who have longed for his appearance.” – 2 Timothy 4:7-8

“All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.” – Edgar Allan Poe

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” – The Great Gatsby

“We are the small and arrogant oligarchy of the lucky-to-be-living.”- Peter Kreeft

“The Church hasn’t changed; the heresies have. And so they always will. The truth is the Rock that remains.” – John Zmirak

“We know the meaning of all the myths. We know the last secret revealed to the perfect initiate. And it is not the voice of a priest or a prophet saying ‘These things are.’ It is the voice of a dreamer and an idealist crying, ‘Why cannot these things be?” – The Everlasting Man

“Wishing, dreaming, longing, and thinking, even the clearest and most rational thinking, will not move our feet one inch. There always comes a time, after thinking and inquiring and writing and reading, to put those things away—not because they are mere toys, or because they are dispensable (they are indispensable!) but because they are means to a greater end. They are maps, and maps are means for moving, for marching. An army of map collectors will win no battles. So let us march.” – Peter Kreeft

“Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it: white shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.” – Gandalf

“No, no, master! No use that way! No use! Don’t take the Precious to Him! He’ll eat us all, if He gets it, eat all the world.” – Gollum

“I am Aragorn son of Arathorn; and if by life or death I can save you, I will.” – Aragorn

“There’s only one God, ma’am, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t dress like that.” – Captain America

“True focus lies somewhere between rage and serenity.” – Charles Xavier