Quotes from Don Marquis

An idea isn't responsible for the people who believe in it.

Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.

I love you as New Englanders love pie!

Give up the dream that Love may trick the fates To live again somewhere beyond the gleam Of dying stars, or shatter the strong gates Some god has builded high; give up the dream.

The trouble with the public is that there is too much of it; what we need in public is less quantity and more quality.

It is better to be happy for the moment and be burned up with beauty than to live a long time and be bored all the while.

Pity the meek for they shall inherit the earth.

There is nothing we like to see so much as the gleam of pleasure in a person's eye when he feels that we have sympathized with him, understood him, interested ourself in his welfare. At these moments something fine and spiritual passes between two friends. These moments are the moments worth living.

Ours is a world where people don't know what they want and are willing to go through hell to get it.

The goal of all civilization, all religious thought, and all that sort of thing is simply to have a good time. But man gets so solemn over the process that he forgets the end.

Happiness comes fleetingly now and then to those who have learned to do without it, and to them only.

Every cloud has its silver lining but it is sometimes a little difficult to get it to the mint.

There is nothing so habit-forming as money.

Ideas pull the trigger, but instinct loads the gun.

Friends, I beg you do not shirk your daily task of indolence.

Fate often puts all the material for happiness and prosperity into a man's hands just to see how miserable he can make himself with them.

Some persons are likeable in spite of their unswerving integrity.

It takes all sorts of people to make the underworld.

Man cannot be uplifted; he must be seduced into virtue

Insects have their own point of view about civilization a man thinks he amounts to a great deal but to a flea or a mosquito a human being is merely something good to eat.

I do not see why men sheould be so proud insects have the more ancient lineage according to the scientists insects were insects when man was only a burbling whatisit.

What man calls civilization always results in deserts.

Honesty is a good thing, but it is not profitable to its possessor unless it is kept under control.

Let us recognize that our wings are to frivol with. The goal of all civilization, all religious thought, and all that sort of thing is simply to have a Good Time. But man gets so solemn over the process that he forgets the end.