Saul Bellow Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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Never write when you can talk. Never talk when you can nod. And never put anything in an e-mail.
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There's this idea that it's all natural, but everything's been staged to look natural. It is also an invention. It's just that my inventions are different. I often get asked about my artifice, but isn't fashion based on the idea that we can create a fantasy?
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God's forgiving grace is incomplete until he gives me - and I accept - a new kingdom-building dream and opportunity.
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I am tied down with single words. But you wander off; you slip away; you rise up higher, with words and words in phrases.
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The world would be astonished if it knew how great a proportion of its brightest ornaments, of those distinguished even in popular estimation for wisdom and virtue, are complete sceptics in religion.
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There is no such thing as 'Gandhism', and I do not want to leave any sect after me.
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Thinking does not lead to truth; truth is the beginning of thought.
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I find my breath gets short, but it seldom gets longer as a man gets older. I take it as it comes, and make the most of it. That's the best way, ain't it?
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What was more needed by this old man who divided the leisure hours of his life, where he had so little leisure, between gardening in the daytime, and contemplation at night? Was not this narrow enclosure, with the sky for a background, enough to enable him to adore God in his most beautiful as well as in his most sublime works? Indeed, is not that all, and what more can be desired? A little garden to walk, and immensity to reflect upon. At his feet something to cultivate and gather; above his head something to study and meditate upon: a few flowers on the earth, and all the stars in the sky.
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Require nothing unreasonable of your officers and men, but see that whatever is required be punctually complied with. Reward and punish every man according to his merit, without partiality or prejudice; hear his complaints; if well founded, redress them; if otherwise, discourage them, in order to prevent frivolous ones. Discourage vice in every shape, and impress upon the mind of every man, from the first to the lowest, the importance of the cause, and what it is they are contending for.
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Nature does nothing in vain, and in the use of means to her goals she is not prodigal.
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A vain man is a nauseous creature: he is so full of himself that he has no room for anything else, be it never so good or deserving.
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A cultivated and decent man cannot be vain without setting a fearfully high standard for himself, and without despising and almost hating himself at certain moments.
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Kindness is the evidence of greatness. If anyone is glad that you are here, then you have not lived in vain.
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Re-forming after the chaos,” I said, remembering Raquel’s words. “Choosing what we’ll do with how things are now, who we’ll be in this new world where the only magic left is what we make ourselves.
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I'm glad I haven't lived in vain.
