Don Marquis Quotes

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

Happiness is the interval between periods of unhappiness.

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

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.

what man calls civilizationalways results in desertsman is never on the squarehe uses up the fat and greenery of the eartheach generation wastes a little moreof the future with greed and lust for riches

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.

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.

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

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

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

I would rather start a family than finish one.

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

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

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.

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

the high cost of living isnt so bad if you dont have to pay for it

Old godheads sink in space and drown Their arks like foundered galleons sucked down.

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

My heart hath followed all my days Something I cannot name.

Pity the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

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.

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

Most of the people living in New York have come here from the far to try to make enough money to go back to the farm

Blood will tell, but often it tells too much.

You want to know whether I believe in ghosts? Of course I do not believe in them. If you had known as many of them as I have, you would not believe in them either.

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

Not every woman in old slippers can manage to look like Cinderella

One of the most important things to remember about infant care is: don't change diapers in midstream.

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

Too many creatures both insects and humans estimate their own value by the amount of minor irritation they are able to cause to greater personalities than themselves.

Vibrations are the key to everything. Atoms used to be, but atoms have quite gone out.

Persian pussy from over the sea demure and lazy and smug and fat none of your ribbons and bells for me ours is the zest of the alley cat

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.

Life's too damn funny for me to explain.

Censors are necessary, increasingly necessary, if America is to avoid having a vital literature.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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