Norman Douglas Quotes

The sublimity of wisdom is to do those things living, which are to be desired when dying.

You can construct the character of a man and his age not only from what he does and says, but from what he fails to say and do.

Many a man who thinks to found a home discovers that he has merely opened a tavern for his friends.

Distrust of authority should be the first civic duty.

Education is a state-controlled manufactory of echoes.

The longer one lives, the more one realizes that nothing is a dish for every day.

Shall I give you my recipe for happiness? I find everything useful and nothing indispensable. I find everything wonderful and nothing miraculous. I reverence the body. I avoid first causes like the plague.

It takes a wise man to handle a lie, a fool had better remain honest.

What is all wisdom save a collection of platitudes?

They who are all things to their neighbors cease to be anything to themselves.

To find a friend one must close one eye To keep him two.

There is in us a lyric germ or nucleus which deserves respect; it bids a man to ponder or create; and in this dim corner of himself he can take refuge and find consolations which the society of his fellow creatures does not provide.

Never take a solemn oath. People think you mean it.

A man can believe a considerable deal of rubbish, and yet go about his daily work in a rational and cheerful manner.

If you want to see what children can do you must stop giving them things.