Maxims Quotes
Rather perish than hate and fear, and twice rather perish than make oneself hated and feared — this must some day become the highest maxim for every single commonwealth.
The two maxims of any great man at court are, always to keep his countenance, and never to keep his word.
How can children credit the assertions of parents, which their own eyes show them to be false? Few parents act in such a manner as much to enforce their maxims by the credit of their lives
A man of maxims only is like a Cyclops with one eye, and that in the back of his head.
I see a lot of true artists... then you see them on the cover of Maxim. That's the lowest of low to me. I would never do anything like that.
The maxims for success laid out by the powerful are never much good as guides for those who aren't powerful.
Active, successful natures act, not according to the maxim, "know thyself," but as if prompted by the commandment: will a self, and so become a self.
In the unbending of the arm to do the deed there is experience worth all the maxims in the world.
My mother had all these maxims-like, classy girls never chew gum, never read comic books, never get their ears pierced, never get their hair dyed.
With the growth of knowledge our ideas must from time to time be organized afresh. The change takes place usually in accordance with new maxims as they arise, but it always remains provisional.
In the maxims of the law, God is seen as the rewarder of perfect righteousness and the avenger of sin. But in Christ, His face shines out, full of grace and gentleness to poor, unworthy sinners.
Maxims are to the intellect what laws are to actions; they do not enlighten, but they guide and direct, and, although themselves blind, are protective.
If I have lived by any maxim as a reporter, it was that every person is an expert on the circumstances of his life.
Once I find the right maxim to apply, I feel that I have done all that can be expected of me.
The counting-room maxims liberally expounded are laws of the Universe. The merchant's economy is a coarse symbol of the soul's economy. It is, to spend for power, and not for pleasure.
Ethical maxims are bandied about as a sort of current coin of discourse, and, being never melted down for use, those that are of base metal are never detected.
Cecil's dispatch of business was extraordinary, his maxim being, "The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at once."
Precepts or maxims are of great weight; and a few useful ones at hand do more toward a happy life than whole volumes that we know not where to find.
It is from our enemies that we often gain excellent maxims, and are frequently surprised into reason by their mistakes.
The secret of play-writing can be given in two maxims: stick to the point, and, whenever you can, cut.
It is only in the lonely emergencies of life that our creed is tested: then routine maxims fail, and we fall back on our gods.
All sciences are vain and full of errors that are not born of Experience, the mother of all Knowledge.
True love is like ghosts, which everybody talks about and few have seen.
To some believers, being on the pill or using a condom is a nonverbal way of telling God to go to hell.
Being rich or famous is the only profound thing that some people have ever said.
For a sane person to sincerely be happy that someone has succeeded, they have to either be profiting or likely to profit from that person’s success, or be that person.
Most sane human beings’ chances of being alive in a thousand years’ time are a hundred times higher than their chances of being sincerely happy for at least ten consecutive days.
Not a few millions of parents strongly hope that their own children will step in by instantly becoming their own parents’ foster parents, if and when the parents reach their second childhood.
Most sane human beings who are over the age of six usually act or react not as per what they genuinely feel or really think but in accordance with the expectations of those around them.
Some of us were brought into this troubled world primarily or only to increase our fathers’ chances of not being left by our mothers, or vice versa.
Greed is a contagious mental illness without which civilization as we know it would not have been possible.
Just like how most if not all poor boys look up to and aspire to someday be rich men, most if not all underdeveloped and developing countries look up to and aspire to someday be developed countries.
The last time everyone loved or at least liked everyone was when the world had a population of about 4.
In reality most human beings are not, to most human beings, more important than money.
Although they probably know that some children were used and some children are used as miners, most adults are ignorant of the chocolate industry’s use of minors.
There is nothing morally wrong with buying stolen goods, unless you know that they were stolen.
Loneliness tortures many if not most of the elderly more intensely and more frequently than it torments many if not most of us who will never be or have not yet been pushed or pulled into old age.
As an unavoidable result of the inevitable loss of some physical and/or some mental abilities, many a man who has been alive for many years has become a boy again.
Life is a process during which one initially gets less and less dependent, independent, and then more and more dependent.
Some people avoid thinking deeply in public, only because they are afraid of coming across as suicidal.
Some people hate people who are overconfident, only because their overconfidence reminds them of their underconfidence.
A premature death does not only rob one of the countless instances where one would have experienced pleasure, it also saves one from the innumerable instances where one would have experienced pain.