Best 93 quotes of Don Marquis on MyQuotes

A certain alloy of expediency improves the gold of morality and makes it wear all the longer.

A demagogue is a person with whom we disagree as to which gang should mismanage the country.

A fierce unrest seethes at the core, of all existing things:, it was the eager wish to soar, that gave the gods their wings.

A great many people who spend their time mourning over the brevity of life could make it seem longer if they did a little more work.

A little while with grief and laughter, And then the day will close; The shadows gather ... what comes after No man knows.

An optimist is the person who has never had any experience at all.

An old stomach reforms more whiskey drinkers than a new resolve.

An optimist is a guy that has never had much experience.

A pessimist is a person who has had to listen to too many optimists.

A sequel is an admission that you've been reduced to imitating yourself.

As the skull of the man grows broader, so do his creeds. And his gods they are shaped in his image and mirror his needs. And he clothes them with thunders and beauty, He clothes them with music and fire, Seeing not, as he bows by their altars, That he worships his own desire.

Between the years of ninety-two and a hundred and two, however, we shall be the ribald, useless, drunken, outcast person we have always wished to be. We shall have a long white beard and long white hair; we shall not walk at all, but recline in a wheel chair and bellow for alcoholic beverages; in the winter we shall sit before the fire with our feet in a bucket of hot water, a decanter of corn whiskey near at hand, and write ribald songs against organized society... We look forward to a disreputable, vigorous, unhonoured, and disorderly old age.

Blood will tell, but often it tells too much.

By the time a bartender knows what drink a man will have before he orders, there is little else about him worth knowing.

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

fire is beautiful and we know that if we get too close it will kill us but what does that matter it is better to be happy for a moment and be burned up with beauty than to live a long time and be bored all the while

Fishing is a delusion entirely surrounded by liars in old clothes.

For all of the creeds are false, and all of the creeds are true; And low at the shrines where my brothers bow, there will I bow too; For no form of a god, and no fashion Man has made in his desperate passion, But is worthy some worship of mine; Not too hot with a gross belief, Nor yet too cold with pride, I will bow me down where my brothers bow, Humble, but open eyed.

For him who fain would teach the world The world holds hate in fee- For Socrates, the hemlock cup; For Christ, Gethsemane.

From 'the lesson of the moth': and before i could argue him out of his philosophy he went and immolated himself on a patent cigar lighter i do not agree with him myself i would rather have half the happiness and twice the longevity but at the same time i wish there was something i wanted as badly as he wanted to fry himself

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.

Happiness is the interval between periods of unhappiness.

He worked like hell in the country so he could live in the city, where he worked like hell so he could live in the country.

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

Ideas pull the trigger, but instinct loads the gun.

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.

If a child shows himself incorrigible, he should be decently and quietly beheaded at the age of twelve, lest he grow to maturity, marry, and perpetuate his kind.

If the world were not so full of people, and most of them did not have to work so hard, there would be more time for them to get out and lie on the grass, and there would be more grass for them to lie on.

If you want to get rich from writing, write the sort of thing that's read by persons who move their lips when they're reading to themselves.

I get up in the morning with an idea for a three-volume novel and by nightfall it's a paragraph in my column.

i have had my ups and downs but wotthehell wotthehell yesterday sceptres and crowns fried oysters and velvet gowns and today i herd with bums but wotthehell wotthehell i wake the world from sleep as i caper and sing and leap when i sing my wild free tune wotthehell wotthehell under the blear eyed moon i am pelted with cast off shoon but wotthehell wotthehell

I have often noticed that ancestors never boast of the descendants who boast of ancestors. I would rather start a family than finish one. Blood will tell, but often it tells too much.

I love you as New Englanders love pie!

In all systems of theology the devil figures as a male person. Yes, it is women who keep the church going.

In order to influence a child, one must be careful not to be that child's parent or grandparent.

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 once heard the survivors of a colony of ants that had been partially obliterated by a cow's foot seriously debating the intention of the gods towards their civilization.

I suppose the human race is doing the best it can but hells bells thats only an explanation its not an excuse.

It has been my observation and experience, and that of my family, that nothing human works out well.

It is a cheering thought to think that God is on the side of the best digestion.

it is better to be a part of beauty for one instant and then cease to exist than to exist forever and never be a part of beauty

It takes all sorts of people to make the underworld.

It wont be long now it wont be long man is making deserts of the earth it wont be long now before man will have used it up so that nothing but ants and centipedes and scorpions can find a living on it.

It would be a colorless world if each individual did not secretly believe himself superior to almost everyone else.

I would rather start a family than finish one.

Just as soon as the uplifters get a country reformed it slips into a nose dive.

Life is one damned kitten after another." Mehitabel the Alley Cat

Life's too damn funny for me to explain.

Many a man spanks his children for things his own father should have spanked out of him.

Middle age is the time when a man is always thinking that in a week or two he will feel as good as ever.