Cute quotes
page 3
This appears as an anonymous proverb in Frank Leslie's Sunday Magazine Vol. XIII, (January - June 1883) edited by T. De Witt Talmage, and apparently only in recent years has it become attributed to Addison.
Disputed
“The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.”
Source: Family Matters
“I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach.”
No. LXIII
Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850)
Variant: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach
Context: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
Context: How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! —and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
“And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”
"The End"; The last full song track of Abbey Road (1969) the last Beatles album to be recorded before the band broke up. (Let It Be was the last album released, but had been recorded earlier.)
Lyrics, The Beatles
Source: The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics
“To be or not to be. That's not really a question.”
“If love is the answer, could you please rephrase the question?”
Contributions of Jane Wagner
Source: Many Moons
Statement in Mainliner (July 1977), as quoted in Creativity and the writing process (1982) by Olivia Bertagnolli, p. 182; also partly quoted in Survival Skills for Managers (1981) by Marlene Wilson, p. 19
Variant: Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple.
As quoted in The Evaluation and Treatment of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (1999) by Nils R. Varney and Richard J. Roberts, p. 303
Context: My son's a painter. All through school his teachers tell him he's a genius. I tell him to paint me an apple that looks like and apple before he paints me one that doesn't. Go where you can go, but start from someplace recognizable. Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.
“There is no instinct like that of the heart.”
“You are my sun,
my moon, and
all my stars.”
Variant: Yours is the light by which my spirit's born: - you are my sun, my moon, and all my stars.
“We must be our own before we can be another's.”
“Love is when you meet someone who tells you something new about yourself.”
Source: Mad Love
“With our love, we could save the world.”
“To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love.”
Source: Pride and Prejudice (1813)
“Two things are infinite: the universe and the human stupidity.”
As discussed in this entry from The Quote Investigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/04/universe-einstein/#more-173, the earliest published attribution of a similar quote to Einstein seems to have been in Gestalt therapist Frederick S. Perls' 1969 book Gestalt Theory Verbatim, where he wrote on p. 33: "As Albert Einstein once said to me: 'Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity.' But what is much more widespread than the actual stupidity is the playing stupid, turning off your ear, not listening, not seeing." Perls also offered another variant in his 1972 book In and Out the Garbage Pail, where he mentioned a meeting with Einstein and on p. 52 http://books.google.com/books?id=HuxFAAAAYAAJ&q=human+stupidity#search_anchor quoted him saying: "Two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I am not yet completely sure about the universe." However, Perls had given yet another variant of this quote in an earlier book, Ego, Hunger, and Aggression: a Revision of Freud’s Theory and Method (originally published 1942, although the Quote Investigator only checked that the quote appeared in the 1947 edition), where he attributed it not to Einstein but to a "great astronomer", writing: "As modern times promote hasty eating to a large extent, it is not surprising to learn that a great astronomer said: 'Two things are infinite, as far as we know – the universe and human stupidity.' To-day we know that this statement is not quite correct. Einstein has proved that the universe is limited." So, the later attributions in 1969 and 1972 may have been a case of faulty memory, or of intentionally trying to increase the authority of the quote by attributing it to Einstein. The quote itself may be a variant of a similar quote attributed even earlier to the philosopher Ernest Renan, found for example in The Public: Volume 18 from 1915, which says on p. 1126 http://books.google.com/books?id=cTPmAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA1126#v=onepage&q&f=false: "He quotes the saying of Renan: it isn't the stars that give him an idea of infinity; it is man's stupidity." (Other examples of similar attributions to Renan can be found on this Google Books search http://www.google.com/search?q=renan+infinity+stupidity&btnG=Search+Books&tbm=bks&tbo=1.) Renan was French so this is presumably intended as a translation, but different sources give different versions of the supposed original French quote, such as "La bêtise humaine est la seule chose qui donne une idée de l'infini" (found for example in Réflexions sur la vie, 1895-1898 by Remy de Gourmont from 1903, p. 103 http://books.google.com/books?id=RtrtAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA103#v=onepage&q&f=false, along with several other early sources as seen in this search http://www.google.com/search?q=%22humaine+est+la+seule+chose+qui%22+renan&btnG=Search+Books&tbm=bks&tbo=1) and "Ce n'est pas l'immensité de la voûte étoilée qui peut donner le plus complétement l'idée de l'infini, mais bien la bêtise humaine!" (found in Broad views, Volume 2 from 1904, p. 465 http://books.google.com/books?id=9NEaAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA465#v=onepage&q&f=false). Since these variants have not been found in Renan's own writings, they may represent false attributions as well. They may also be variants of an even older saying; for example, the 1880 book Des vers by Guy de Maupassant includes on p. 9 http://books.google.com/books?id=cQUvAAAAMAAJ&pg=PP21#v=onepage&q&f=false a quote from a letter (dated February 19, 1880) by Gustave Flaubert where Flaubert writes "Cependant, qui sait? La terre a des limites, mais la bêtise humaine est infinie!" which translates to "But who knows? The earth has its boundaries, but human stupidity is infinite!" Similarly the 1887 book Melanges by Jules-Paul Tardivel includes on p. 273 http://books.google.com/books?id=n9cOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA273#v=onepage&q&f=false a piece said to have been written in 1880 in which he writes "Aujourd'hui je sais qu'il n'y a pas de limites à la bêtise humaine, qu'elle est infinie" which translates to "today I know that there is no limit to human stupidity, it is infinite."
Disputed
Variant: "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." Earliest version located is in Technocracy digest: Issues 287–314 from 1988, p. 76 http://books.google.com/books?id=L7LnAAAAMAAJ&q=%22sure+about+the+former%22#search_anchor. Translated to German as: "Zwei Dinge sind unendlich: das Universum und die menschliche Dummheit. Aber beim Universum bin ich mir nicht ganz sicher." (Earliest version located is Arndt-Michael Meyer, Die Macht der Kürze, Books on Demand GmbH, 2004, p. 14 http://books.google.gr/books?id=12DW-RBKTW8C&pg=PA14&dq=%22Zwei+Dinge+sind+unendlich:+das+Universum+und+die+menschliche+%22+arnd&hl=en&sa=X&ei=gquJUsrYBomM7AapmYGgCQ&ved=0CC8Q6wEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22Zwei%20Dinge%20sind%20unendlich%3A%20das%20Universum%20und%20die%20menschliche%20%22%20arnd&f=false.)
Variant: Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
“A single rose can be my garden; a single friend, my world.”
“Love must be as much a light as it is a flame.”
LOVE (1972)
Variant: Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest accomplishment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
“Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?”
Source: Good Will Hunting
“I am what I am Are you what you are or What?”
“And enigmatic smile is worth ten pages of dialog.”
Source: The Bridal Season
“Love takes off the masks we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.”
Source: Sense and Sensibility
“Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.”
Commonly attributed, but source unknown. note: Uncertain
“And remember, no matter where you go, there you are.”
“If evolution really works, how come mothers only have two hands?”
“Life is not meant to be easy, my child but take courage: it can be delightful.”
Pt. V; see also the later phrasing of Malcolm Fraser, "life wasn't meant to be easy"
1920s, Back to Methuselah (1921)
“People who keep stiff upper lips find that it's damn hard to smile.”
Source: Ordinary People
“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.”
No known source in Emerson's works; first found as a piece of anonymous folk-wisdom in a 1936 newspaper column:
: Every minute you are angry, you lose 60 seconds of happiness.
:* Junius, "Office Cat" https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/85995624/, The Daily Freeman [Kingston, NY] (30 December 1936), p. 6
Misattributed
“A happy life consists in tranquility of mind.”
“Pursue some path, however narrow and crooked, in which you can walk with love and reverence.”
“May you live all the days of your life.”
Polite Conversation (1738), Dialogue 2
“The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and let it come in”
Source: Morrie: In His Own Words
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”
Source: Selected Poems
“The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in.”
Source: Tuesdays with Morrie (1997)
“Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become.”
E. Payne, trans. (1974) Vol. 1, p. 347
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life
“You can do anything, but not everything.”
“Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.”
“loving people live in a loving world. hostile people live in a hostile world. same world.”
“A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?”
“Age does not protect you from love. But love, to some extent, protects you from age.”
“If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits?”
Book title (1978)
Source: When God Created Mothers
“You should be kissed and often, by someone who knows how.”
Variant: You should be kissed and by someone who knows how.
Source: Gone with the Wind
Variant: Immature love says: 'I love you because I need you.' Mature love say: 'i need you because I love you.
Source: The Art of Loving (1956), Ch. 2
“There is no escape if love is not there”
Source: The Witch of Blackbird Pond
“You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.”
Address at his enthronement as Anglican archbishop of Cape Town (7 September 1986)
“Withhold a smile only when the smile can hurt someone. Otherwise, let it bloom forth in a riot.”
Source: The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
Source: Annie Hall: Screenplay
“If you only have one smile in you, give it to the people you love.”
“For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.”
Source: Contact (1985), Chapter 24 (p. 430)
Source: Eat, Pray, Love (2006)
Context: People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.
A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave.
A soul mates purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master…
“Smile. it's the second best thing you can do with your lips.”
Source: Head Over Heels
“Under normal circumstances, you inviting me to the bedroom would be the highlight of my day.”
Source: The Indigo Spell
“You believe lies so you eventually learn to trust no one but yourself.”
“Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.”
“Be the one to stand out in the crowd.”
Source: Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential
“A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.”
"Webster's Electronic Quotebase," ed. Keith Mohler, 1994