Words of Wisdom Quotes

"Axel," replied the Professor with perfect coolness, "our situation is almost desperate; but there are some chances of deliverance, and it is these that I am considering. If at every instant we may perish, so at every instant we may be saved. Let us then be prepared to seize upon the smallest advantage." ~ Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne "We may brave human laws, but we cannot resist natural ones." ~ 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour. ~ A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens For it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself. ~ A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens At last, however, he began to think -- as you or I would have thought at first; for it is always the person not in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done in it, and would unquestionably have done it too. ~ A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. ~ A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens "If you could say, with truth, to your own solitary heart, to-night, 'I have secured to myself the love and attachment, the gratitude or respect, of no human creature; I have won myself a tender place in no regard; I have done nothing good or serviceable to be remembered by!' your seventy-eight years would be seventy-eight heavy curses; would they not?" ~ A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens So complex is the human spirit that it can itself scarce discern the deep springs which impel it to action. ~ The White Company by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle The landlady looked at him in a motherly way and shook her head. "You have had no great truck with the world," she said, "or you would have learned that it is the small men and not the great who hold their noses in the air." ~ The White Company by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "Streams may spring from one source, and yet some be clear and some be foul." ~ The White Company by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle