English quotes

English quotes with translation | page 33

Handwritten note responding to a question about posing nude, as quoted in International Herald Tribune (5 October 1984)
Variant: The body is meant to be seen, not all covered up.

Source: Hannah and Her Sisters

Unpublished notebook from 1845-50. Published in Seebacher (ed.), Oeuvres Complètes, vol. 10, p. 158 (Laffont, 1989). English translation from Robb, Victor Hugo p. 249 (Norton, 1997).

Source: Joseph Allen (1979). The Leisure alternatives catalog: food for mind & body. p. 134

Attributed by his friend Leo Mattersdorf, who also said that "From the time Professor Einstein came to this country until his death, I prepared his income tax returns and advised him on his tax problems." In a letter to Time magazine, 22 February 1963. See this post from The Quote Investigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/03/07/einstein-income-taxes/#more-2031 for more background.
Attributed in posthumous publications

Variant: There are thoughts which are prayers. There are moments when, whatever the posture of the body, the soul is on its knees.

Source: A Moveable Feast

As quoted in The Canine Hiker's Bible (2000) by Doug Gelbert, p. 8

Variant: When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity.
Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People

Source: The Alchemist (1988), p. 158.

The Island of the Day Before

Source: Emma (1815)

Misattributed

Variant: If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can not, you are right.

Source: White Noise: Text and Criticism

Source: The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), Part One, Chapter VI

Variant: You have passed through the two hardest tests on the spiritual road: the patience to wait for the right moment and the courage not to be disappointed with what you encounter.
Source: Veronika Decides to Die

Hyperion http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5436, Bk. III, Ch. IV (1839).
Variant: Believe me, every heart has its secret sorrows, which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad.
Context: "Ah! this beautiful world!" said Flemming, with a smile. "Indeed, I know not what to think of it. Sometimes it is all gladness and sunshine, and Heaven itself lies not far off. And then it changes suddenly; and is dark and sorrowful, and clouds shut out the sky. In the lives of the saddest of us, there are bright days like this, when we feel as if we could take the great world in our arms and kiss it. Then come the gloomy hours, when the fire will neither burn on our hearths nor in our hearts; and all without and within is dismal, cold, and dark. Believe me, every heart has its secret sorrows, which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad."

Variant: You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.
Source: Wherever You Go, There You Are

Thoughts on various subjects (Further thoughts on various subjects) (1745)

Source: Canti

Source: Address to the American Association to Promote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf at Mt. Airy, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (8 July 1896) http://www.afb.org/mylife/book.asp?ch=P3Ch4, quoted in supplement to The Story of My Life

Annotations to Swedenborg (1788)
1780s

Variant: Sex is part of nature. I go along with nature.

Source: A John Steinbeck Encyclopedia

"Proclamation 3560 — Thanksgiving Day, 1963" (5 November 1963) http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=9511<!-- Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project -->
1963
Context: Today we give our thanks, most of all, for the ideals of honor and faith we inherit from our forefathers —  for the decency of purpose, steadfastness of resolve and strength of will, for the courage and the humility, which they possessed and which we must seek every day to emulate. As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them.
Let us therefore proclaim our gratitude to Providence for manifold blessings — let us be humbly thankful for inherited ideals — and let us resolve to share those blessings and those ideals with our fellow human beings throughout the world.

Essays (1625)
Context: Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.

Of Studies

Variant: It is only because of their stupidity that they are able to be so sure of themselves.
Source: The Trial

Source: The Great Gatsby

On training, as quoted in "Ali: Born Again!" by Pete Axthelm and Peter Bonventre, Newsweek (25 September 1978)

As quoted in Marilyn Monroe : In Her Own Words (1983), edited by Roger Taylor
Variant: Hollywood's a place where they'll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss, and fifty cents for your soul. I know, because I turned down the first offer often enough and held out for the fifty cents.

Man kann sich des Eindrucks nicht erwehren, daß die Menschen gemeinhin mit falschen Maßstäben messen, Macht, Erfolg und Reichtum für sich anstreben und bei anderen bewundern, die wahren Werte des Lebens aber unterschätzen.
Source: 1920s, Civilization and Its Discontents (1929), Ch. 1, as translated by James Strachey, p.25

Notes of a Dirty Old Man (1969)

Variant: Even if you are on the right track, you will get run over if you just sit there.

Source: Walden

Source: On Writing (2002)

by filling three basic gaps in our anti-recession protection.
1962, Second State of the Union Address

La plus grande chose du monde, c'est de savoir être à soi.
Book I, Ch. 39
Essais (1595), Book I
Source: The Complete Essays

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori. Sweet and glorious it is to die for our country. ~ Horace in Odes, Book 3, Ode 2, Line 13, as translated in The Works of Horace by J. C. Elgood
Notes on the Next War (1935)

Source: Think and Grow Rich

Source: Walden

Source: An Essay on Man

Source: My Story

Source: 1800s, Jerusalem The Emanation of The Giant Albion (c. 1803–1820), Ch. 4, plate 91, line 1

Everybody's Political What's What? (ebook, must be borrowed) https://openlibrary.org/books/OL24979564M/Everybody's_political_what's_what (1944), Chapter XXXVII: Creed and Conduct, p. 330
1940s and later
Variant: Progress is impossible without change; and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
Context: Progress is impossible without change; and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. Creeds, articles, and institutes of religious faith ossify our brains and make change impossible. As such they are nuisances, and in practice have to be mostly ignored.

As quoted in Ms. magazine (August 1972) p. 40
Variant: I restore myself when I'm alone. A career is born in public — talent in privacy.

Source: This Side of Paradise

International Herald Tribune (21 February 1990)

Living, Loving, and Learning (1982)
Variant: Risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.
Source: Living Loving and Learning
Context: To love is to risk not being loved in return. To hope is to risk pain. To try is to risk failure, but risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.

As quoted in The Films of Barbra Streisand (2001) by Christopher Nickens and Karen Swenson
Variant: Success makes so many people hate you. I wish it wasn't that way. It would be wonderful to enjoy success without seeing envy in the eyes of those around you.

Letter to Archibald Stuart http://faculty.maxwell.syr.edu/skjolly/jeffersonianfederalism.pdf http://books.google.com/books?id=ZTIoAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA837#v=onepage&q=&f=false, Philadelphia (23 December 1791)
1790s
Variant: I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty, than those attending too small a degree of it.
Source: Letters of Thomas Jefferson

Source: Pride and Prejudice

Epigraph
Source: A Moveable Feast (1964)

Progress of Culture (see also: Art)
1870s, Society and Solitude (1870), Books, Letters and Social Aims http://www.rwe.org/comm/index.php?option=com_content&task=category&sectionid=5&id=74&Itemid=149 (1876)

Kerouac, as quoted by Allen Ginsberg in The Book of Martyrdom and Artifice (2006), page 250.

Preface
The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze (1934)
Context: The most solid advice for a writer is this, I think: Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.

Nausea (1938)

Source: Of Mice and Men

in Bukowski: Born Into This (2002)
Variant: I've never met another man I'd rather be.

Variant: We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.

Source: Lauren Bacall By Myself and Then Some (2005)

Source: Tender is the Night

Last paragraph of section III of Antidotes for fear, page 122 (see link at top of the section)
1960s, Strength to Love (1963)
Source: A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches

Source: East of Eden

Source: The Turtles of Tasman

Variant: Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.

In an interview conducted by Paloma Chamorro in Madrid (Spain), 1982; as cited in Salvador Dalí: a la conquista de lo irracional, Javier Pérez Andújar (2003) p. 245
Quotes of Salvador Dali, 1981 - 1989
Variant: I don't do drugs. I'm drugs.

Optimism (1903)
Variant: Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement