Quotes By Don Marquis

The chief obstacle to the progress of the human race is the human race.

There is luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel no one else has a right to blame us.

Publishing a volume of verse is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.

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

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.

Age is not a particularly interesting subject. Anyone can get old. All you have to do is live long enough.

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

Pity the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Happiness is the interval between periods of unhappiness.

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

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

Bores bore each other too; but it never seems to teach them anything.

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

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

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

When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him: 'Whose?'

Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.

The art of newspaper paragraphing is to stroke a platitude until it purrs like an epigram.

It takes all sorts of people to make the underworld.

Some persons are likeable in spite of their unswerving integrity.

A hypocrite is a person who - but who isn't?

Poetry is what Milton saw when he went blind.

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.

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

Blood will tell, but often it tells too much.

Of middle age the best that can be said is that a middle-aged person has likely learned how to have a little fun in spite of his troubles.

An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it.

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

Punctuality is one of the cardinal business virtues: always insist on it in your subordinates.

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