Joseph Wood Krutch

There is no such thing as a dangerous woman; there are only susceptible men.

A humanist is anyone who rejects the attempt to describe or account for man wholly on the basis of physics chemistry or animal behaviour.

Only those within whose own consciousness the sun rise and set, the leaves burgeon and wither, can be said to be aware of what living is.

Happiness is itself a kind of gratitude.

Though many have tried, no one has ever yet explained away the decisive fact that science, which can do so much, cannot decide what it ought to do.

Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want.

As machines get to be more and more like men, men will come to be more like machines.

August creates as she slumbers, replete and satisfied.

It is sometimes easier to head an institute for the study of child guidance than it is to turn one brat into a decent human being.

When a man wantonly destroys one of the works of man we call him a vandal. When he destroys one of the works of god we call him a sportsman.

The snow itself is lonely or, if you prefer, self-sufficient. There is no other time when the whole world seems composed of one thing and one thing only.

If people destroy something replaceable made by mankind they are called vandals if they destroy something irreplaceable made by God they are called developers.

Civilizations die from philosophical calm irony and a sense of fair play quite as surely as they die of debauchery.

Few people have ever seriously wished to be exclusively rational. The good life which most desire is a life warmed by passions and touched with that ceremonial grace which is impossible without some affectionate loyalty to traditional form and ceremonies.

Cats are rather delicate creatures and they are subject to a good many different ailments, but I have never heard of one who suffered from insomnia.

What a man knows is everywhere at war with what he wants.

Metaphysics may be, after all, only the art of being sure of something that is not so and logic only the art of going wrong with confidence.

It is not ignorance but knowledge which is the mother of wonder.

Every time a value is born existence takes on a new meaning every time one dies some part of that meaning passes away.

Both the cockroach and the bird would get along very well without us, although the cockroach would miss us most.

The most serious charge which can be brought against New England is not Puritanism but February.

Technology made large populations possible; large populations now make technology indispensable.

Security depends not so much upon how much you have, as upon how much you can do without.

If we do not permit the earth to produce beauty and joy, it will in the end not produce food, either.

The wilderness and the idea of wilderness is one of the permanent homes of the human spirit.

To be individually righteous is the first of all duties, come what may to ones self, to one's country, to society, and to civilization itself.

In a cat's eye, all things belong to cats.

If people destroy something replaceable made by mankind, they are called vandals; if they destroy something irreplaceable made by God, they are called developers.

The rare moment is not the moment when there is something worth looking at, but the moment when we are capable of seeing.

If we do not permit the earth to produce beauty and joy it will in the end not produce food either.

Any euphemism ceases to be euphemistic after a time and the true meaning begins to show through. It's a losing game, but we keep on trying.