World Quotes

We read the world wrong and say that it deceives us.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

It is quite clear that you are today the one person in the world who can prevent a war which may reduce humanity to the savage state. Must you pay that price for an object however worthy it may appear to you to be? Will you listen to the …

In wildness is the preservation of the world. Every tree sends its fibers forth in search of the Wild. The city imports it at any price. Men plow and sail for it. From the forest and wilderness come the tonics and barks which brace mankind.

The great malady of public life is cowardice. Most men are not untrue, but they are afraid. Most of the errors of public life, if my observation is to be trusted, come not because men are morally bad, but because they are afraid of …

In the animal world we have seen that the vast majority of species live in societies, and that they find in association the best arms for the struggle for life: understood, of course, in its wide Darwinian sense — not as a struggle for the …

The greatest part of mankind want leisure or capacity for demonstration, nor can carry a train of proofs, which in that way they must always depend upon for conviction, and cannot be required to assent to till they see the demonstration.

peace in some quarters is proclaimed as a bad dream, and war sanctified as an ideal for rational men. As long as the British Empire lasts we will raise our voices against these false gods.

And whether there is a heaven or hell here, or hereafter, every good man has enough to do to make this world a little better than it is. Millions of lives are wasted in the vain effort to find the origin of things, and the destiny of man. …

No wonder the child loves the camp-fire. The camp-fire was the ancestor of the hearth—the first bright spot in that dark world out of which our forefathers groped their way so long ago.

[E]xperience has taught me that those who give their time to the absorbing claims of what is called society, not having leisure to keep up a large acquaintance with the organs of opinion, remain much more ignorant of the general state …

The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.

The duty of holding a neutral conduct may be inferred, without any thing more, from the obligation which justice and humanity impose on every nation, in cases in which it is free to act, to maintain inviolate the relations of peace and …

The Providence that watches over the affairs of men works out of their mistakes, at times, a healthier issue than could have been accomplished by their wisest forethought.

I think I can hardly overrate the malignity of the principles of Protestant ascendancy, as they affect Ireland; or of Indianism, as they affect these countries, and as they affect Asia; or of Jacobinism, as they affect all Europe, and the …

I should say sincerity, a deep, great, genuine sincerity, is the first characteristic of all men in any way heroic.

a mental world, or universe of ideas, requires a cause as much, as does a material world, or universe of objects

A time when all such good things will be for all men may be coming more nearly than we think. Each one who believes that brings the good time nearer; each heart that fails delays it.

The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be …

But though empires, like all the other works of men, have all hitherto proved mortal, yet every empire aims at immortality.

They are periods when the wisdom of the wise is confounded and the prudence of the prudent turned into a laughing-stock....

Remember that the progress of the world depends on your knowing better than your elders

I am giving both Armand Hammer and B. Mishell a special recommendation on my own behalf and request all C.C. members to give these persons and their enterprise particular support. This is a small path leading to the American 'business' …

What, in the name of common-sense, had I to do with any better society than I had always lived in?