Jonathan Swift Quotes
Wisdom is a fox who, after long hunting, will at last cost you the pains to dig out; it is a cheese, which, by how much the richer, has the thicker, the homlier, and the coarser coat; and whereof to a judicious palate, the maggots are best. It is a sack posset, wherein the deeper you go, you'll find it the sweeter. Wisdom is a hen, whose cackling we must value and consider, because it is attended with an egg. But lastly, it is a nut, which, unless you choose with judgment, may cost you a tooth, and pay you with nothing but a worm.
Quotes to Explore
-
We've been allowed to operate unmolested on the fringes of the music scene, really. That's where we enjoy it most.
-
It seems to me that in literature, books have always been answers to other books.
-
I have a younger brother and sister who actually play in my band, and we were always into Disney music, big time. The first time I heard myself sing was when I recorded myself singing a Disney song. I remember it because it was awful, and I didn't expect to hear that. I think it was 'A Whole New World' from 'Aladdin.'
-
Whenever you do a new interpretation of a great, previous text of any kind, you always look for some kind of immediate significance right now.
-
What is a diary as a rule? A document useful to the person who keeps it. Dull to the contemporary who reads it and invaluable to the student, centuries afterwards, who treasures it.
-
I'm just so glad that I started acting when I did because I had this wealth of life experience. I don't know if I'd have been able to handle it had I gone out to L.A. at 22.
-
After a long day, my favorite way to unwind is by going running. Not exactly the most relaxing activity, granted, but I always imagine I'm sweating out all the things weighing on my mind.
-
I had a strong vision for 'The Best Man Holiday,' so I was able to translate that to the actors and ultimately to the screen. Things can't get too heavy or too outrageously funny; it has to strike a balance. Tone is everything. If you've set the right tone, you can get away with a lot of stuff. You can get away with making people cry.
-
I live for the text. It's my job.
-
A Microsoft-Yahoo merger is a deal only an investment banker could love.
-
A constant struggle, a ceaseless battle to bring success from inhospitable surroundings, is the price of all great achievements.
-
I do see value in music criticism. Most of the criticism I have received over the years has been very good.
-
I'm always flattered when someone thinks of me as a potential commissioner of baseball.
-
I was never for Richard Nixon until Watergate.
-
Living in the U.K., there is no way to know whether anyone in India likes my music, but I was surprised to see people singing along while I performed in Pune.
-
When I bought a collection of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, I returned home with a bright enthusiasm to begin the long march into the Russian soul. Though I've failed to read either man to completion, they both helped me to imagine that my fictional South Carolina was as vast a literary acreage as their Russia.
-
The consequences of a collapse would not be pretty. Whichever country precipitated it - Germany by threatening to abandon the euro, or Greece or Spain by actually doing so - would trigger economic chaos and incur its neighbours' wrath.
-
I don't have anything against my mom, but my family has no emotional connection to each other.
-
The conventional wisdom is that if you are gay, you cannot play the romantic straight lead in a movie.
-
Better mad with the rest of the world than wise alone.
-
I believe we have become paralyzed, paralyzed by our desire to be loved. Now our founding fathers had the wisdom to know that social acceptance and popularity were fleeing, and that this country's principles needed to be rooted in strengths greater than the passions and the emotions of the times.
-
I never get enough sleep, even when I travel. I wake up in the middle of the night, either with the help of my kids or because my mind is going. I wish I got eight hours a night, but it is more like an interrupted six or seven. The secret is to go to sleep well before midnight.
-
Wisdom is a fox who, after long hunting, will at last cost you the pains to dig out; it is a cheese, which, by how much the richer, has the thicker, the homlier, and the coarser coat; and whereof to a judicious palate, the maggots are best. It is a sack posset, wherein the deeper you go, you'll find it the sweeter. Wisdom is a hen, whose cackling we must value and consider, because it is attended with an egg. But lastly, it is a nut, which, unless you choose with judgment, may cost you a tooth, and pay you with nothing but a worm.
