“Every one should keep a mental waste-paper basket and the older he grows the more things he will consign to it — torn up to irrecoverable tatters.”

—  Samuel Butler

Waste-Paper Baskets
The Note-Books of Samuel Butler (1912), Part XIV - Higgledy-Piggledy

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Every one should keep a mental waste-paper basket and the older he grows the more things he will consign to it — torn u…" by Samuel Butler?
Samuel Butler photo
Samuel Butler 232
novelist 1835–1902

Related quotes

Eric Hoffer photo

“Both the revolutionary and the creative individual are perpetual juveniles. The revolutionary does not grow up because he cannot grow, while the creative individual cannot grow up because he keeps growing.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Source: Reflections on the Human Condition (1973), p. 62

Arun Shourie photo

“The example we would do well to keep in front of us is that of the Dalai Lama. He was giving a discourse on a Tibetan text about meditation. He read out a sentence, laughed and remarked, ‘Buddhist theories of creation, a disgrace! Must throw them out!’ He advises that we should keep a wastepaper basket nearby – whatever doesn’t accord with what we know now, we should cast into that basket. ‘Buddhism must face facts,’ that is what he teaches. Accordingly, he has opened Buddhist texts to minute examination. (…) That reflects confidence in one’s tradition. That is true service to the tradition. That is the way to preserve for the future ‘the pearl of great price’ in it.”

Arun Shourie (1941) Indian journalist and politician

Eminent Historians: Their Technology, Their Line, Their Fraud

Leonardo Da Vinci photo

“There will be many who will eagerly and with great care and solicitude follow up a thing, which, if they only knew its malignity, would always terrify them. Of those men, who, the older they grow, the more avaricious they become, whereas, having but little time to stay, they should become more liberal.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XX Humorous Writings

“He kept growing. He thought it was very important to keep growing all your life.”

William McKeen (1954) American academic

Source: Outlaw Journalist (2008), Chapter 18, Man of Letters, p. 346

Keith Olbermann photo

“He puts the biscuit in the basket.”

Keith Olbermann (1959) American sports and political commentator

Catch Phrases
Source: http://www.sportscenteraltar.com/phrases/phrases.asp Sports Center Catchphrases

Pat Robertson photo

“As far as God's concerned, he knows the end from the beginning and He sees a little baby and that little baby could grow up to be Adolf Hitler, he could grow up to be Joseph Stalin, he could grow up to be some serial killer, or he could grow up to die of a hideous disease. God sees all of that, and for that life to be terminated while he's a baby, he's going to be with God forever in Heaven so it isn't a bad thing.”

Pat Robertson (1930) American media mogul, executive chairman, and a former Southern Baptist minister

Answering a viewer asking how to respond to a coworker who asked "Why did God allow my baby to die?" about their dead three-year-old child.
2015-06-09
Pat Robertson
The 700 Club
Television, quoted in * 2015-06-09
Pat Robertson: Tell Bereaved Mother Her Dead Baby Could've Been The Next Hitler
Brian
Tashman
Right Wing Watch
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/pat-robertson-tell-bereaved-mother-her-dead-baby-couldve-been-next-hitler

Grace Hopper photo

“At present, we're putting on paper a lot of stuff that never needed to be on paper. We do need to keep the records. But there isn't any reason for printing them. The next generation growing up with the computers will change that.”

Grace Hopper (1906–1992) American computer scientist and United States Navy officer

As quoted in the U.S. Navy's Chips Ahoy magazine (July 1986) http://web.archive.org/web/20090114165606/http://www.chips.navy.mil/archives/86_jul/interview.html

André Maurois photo

“In every young government strength is worth more than ancestral wisdom, but no government can remain young. As it grows older there is more respect for mature men than for old men. The leader who has build his career upon a basis of youth, loses youth. Like the old wolf, he tries to hide his disgrace; he keeps himself fit and affects the fearlessness and excess of a young man; but sooner or later time will make him a senator, then a corpse.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Growing Old

“He slowed down a bit more. "Gaia, how do you know these things?" She shrugged. "I'm smart." "And modest, too." "Modesty is a waste of time," she pronounced. "I'll keep that in mind.”

Francine Pascal Fearless

Source: Fearless

“As I grow older,
I notice certain things that seemed non-existent before…
How did I miss these delicious and beautiful things in Life?
Every day is a journey and
we can never know where we will end up.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Related topics