John Oliver Hobbes Quotes

The wisest are those who can best adjust their disadvantages.

There is no misery quite so wearing as the misery of a false position. It seems to slay the body and the soul.

A statesman's words, like butcher's meat, should be well weighed.

To die for one's great ideas is glorious—and easy. The horror is to outlive them. That is our worst capability.

He longed to make a mark, or, to express it more vulgarly, cut a figure. Now, fortunately or unfortunately, the number of figures which can be cut in the world is practically unlimited; the only difficulty is to cut precisely the kind of figure one would wish.

He did not speak again till just before he died, when he kissed his wife’s hand with singular tenderness and called her "Elizabeth." She had been christened Augusta Frederica; but then, as the doctors explained, dying men often make these mistakes.

Women may be whole oceans deeper than we are, but they are also a whole paradise better. She may have got us out of Eden, but as a compensation she makes the earth very pleasant.

Reader. But where are the Unities?
Author. In life there are no Unities, but three Incomprehensibles: Destiny, Man, and Woman.

Ideals, my dear Golightly, are the root of every evil. When a man forgets his ideals he may hope for happiness, but not till then.

A quart of doubt to an ounce of truth is the safest brew.

If women thought less of their own souls and more about men's tempers, marriage wouldn't he what it is.

"Ah," said that gentleman, ever ready to discuss one friend with another—in fact, it was chiefly for this pleasure that he made them...

Disillusions all come from within...from the failure of some dear and secret hope. The world makes no promises; we only dream it does; and when we wake, we cry!

Dearest, every man—even the most cynical—has one enthusiasm—he is earnest about some one thing; the all-round trifler does not exist. If there is a skeleton—there is also an idol in the cupboard!

... I had rather sleep and eat and dance
Than hear a nightingale any day o' the week!