Barbarism is the absence of standards to which appeal can be made.

Biography - a system in which the contradictions of a human life are unified.

We have need of history in its entirety, not to fall back into it, but to see if we can escape from it.

To rule is not so much a question of the heavy hand as the firm seat.

There is but one way left to save a classic; to give up revering him and use him for our own salvation.

Barbarism is the absence of standards to which appeal can be made.

Poetry is adolescence fermented, and thus preserved.

Man adapts himself to everything, to the best and the worst.

Biography is a system in which the contradictions of a human life are unified.

Civilization is nothing more than the effort to reduce the use of force to the last resort.

Our firmest convictions are apt to be the most suspect they mark our limitations and our bounds. Life is a petty thing unless it is moved by the indomitable urge to extend its boundaries.

The cynic a parasite of civilization lives by denying it for the very reason that he is convinced that it will not fail.

In order to be enchanted we must be above all capable of seeing another person simply opening ones eyes will not do.

When you are fed up with the troublesome present take your gun whistle for your dog and go out to the mountain.

One does not hunt in order to kill on the contrary one kills in order to have huntedIf one were to present the sportsman with the death of the animal as a gift he would refuse it. What he is after is having to win it to conquer the surly brute through

The metaphor is probably the most fertile power possessed by man.

An obsession is intrusive because it does not require a permit to walk into the brain.

Love is that splendid triggering of human vitality... the supreme activity which nature affords anyone for going out of himself toward someone else.

All we are given are possibilities to make ourselves one thing or another.

A revolution does not last more than fifteen years, the period which coincides with the flourishing of a generation.

The tapestry of history that seems so full of tragedy when viewed from the front has countless comic scenes woven into its reverse side. In truth, tragedy and comedy are the twin masks of history - its mass appeal.

Meditation on any theme, if positive and honest, inevitably separates him who does the meditating from the opinion prevailing around him, from that which ... can be called 'public' or 'popular' opinion.

We cannot put off living until we are ready. The most salient characteristic of life is its urgency, 'here and now' without any possible postponement. Life is fired at us point-blank.

To wonder is to begin to understand.

Without feeling abashed by my ignorance, I confess that I am absolutely unable to say. In the absence of an appearance of learning, my answer has at least one merit, that of perfect sincerity.

That a great battle must soon be fought no one could doubt; but, in the apparent and perhaps real absence of plan on the part of Lee, it was impossible to foretell the precise scene of the encounter.

Courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair.

Peace is not the absence of war, but a virtue based on strength of character.

The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.

With the absence of a flu vaccination last year, I did not take a flu shot; but there is still some immunity that carries over from year to year; but about every 30 years, there is a major change in the genetics of the flu virus.

And as far as false hope, there is no such thing. There is only hope or the absence of hope-nothing else.

The longest absence is less perilous to love than the terrible trials of incessant proximity.

Life has become the ideology of its own absence.

There is a movement to get an international criminal court in the world, voted for by hundreds of states-but with the noticeable absence of the United States of America.

I wish you to inform the Court that my absence, though deliberate, is not intended in any way to be disrespectful. Nor is it prompted by any fear of the punishment which might be inflicted on me.

Where choice begins, Paradise ends, innocence ends, for what is Paradise but the absence of any need to choose this action?

In the absence of that, I am happy to play solo, but I don't think there is any comparison.

For many Americans, including many who are employed, going to the doctor when they fall ill or become injured may not be an option because of the absence of health insurance.

The situation in the region is flammable and may explode at any moment, because of the crucial events and because of the absence of justice in executing the international legitimacy resolutions, regarding the Israeli Arab cause and the oppression on Palestinians by Israelis.

It is the maintenance of slavery by law in a state, not parallels of latitude, that makes its a southern state; and the absence of this, that makes it a northern state.

My dear, the duty that devolved wholly on you in my absence of guiding and expanding the minds of our dear children is a laborious one and a responsible one.

So far as discipline is concerned, freedom means not its absence but the use of higher and more rational forms as contrasted with those that are lower or less rational.

I was court-martial in my absence, and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence.

Of all the bewildering things about a new country, the absence of human landmarks is one of the most depressing and disheartening.

Instead, in the absence of respect for human rights, science and its offspring technology have been used in this century as brutal instruments for oppression.

When I came back to Dublin I was courtmartialed in my absence and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence.

Peace is not absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means.

It would be hard to ignore the absence of democracy in any Arab nation.

Grace is the absence of everything that indicates pain or difficulty, hesitation or incongruity.