Mason Cooley Quotes

Expenditure now attracts fame as conquest once did.

Passion impels our deeds; ideology supplies the explanations.

I feel affluent or not according to what part of town I am in.

The ironies in the commonplace are my inspiration and delight.

Creativity is not a substitute for competence.

Not even self-love can always be counted on for support.

Jargon is part ceremonial robe, part false beard.

The past goes right on pulling me apart, though I can scarcely remember the people or the issues.

Sacred texts always offend reason.

Profundity often goes past the issue to some deep but useless truth.

Political correctness is driving machismo underground and recalling effeminacy from exile.

Metaphysics keeps surviving its obituaries.

Beauty and virtue: the most kissable ass in the world is no guarantee of good intentions.

The pointless ferocities of intellectual life shock businessmen, who kill only to eat.

The Lady: a fluty voice, sensible shoes, a melancholy sense of living by rules few still remember.

I can neither return your love nor dismiss it.

The negative always wins at last, but I like it none the better for that.

Love sorrows are addictive as other sorrows are not.

With age, I have become both more pious and more shameless.

Every path to a new understanding begins in confusion.

If you have no power, talk about your influence. If you have power, talk about the constraints that hem you in.

Don't tell me it's raining when you're peeing on me!

The trouble with the young people today is that it is they who are young.

Money comes to life as it is spent.

A sense of blessedness comes from a change of heart, not from more blessings.

The older we become, the more certain our future.

I am no longer in love, but I still have my jealousy.

Your vanity and my vanity will never be friends.

Failures are easier to repeat than successes.

Boredom is the only sure cure for neurosis.

Laughing at our friends, we avenge the disappointment they have caused.

An insult angers me. Being ignored crushes me.

Small successes are still successes; great failures are still failures.

The grandeur of a philosophy does not certify its truth.

Under attack, sentiments harden into dogma.

Maxims are sharp-edged half-truths.

I am plain-speaking out of both sides of my mouth.

Art chooses its constraints.

The children of childish parents age quickly.

The educated can listen impassively to almost anything.

Without the blessing of cowardice, the world would long since have been torn to bits.

Commitments, not feelings, hold life together.

The great advantage of a new friend is that we have not yet found one another out.

Lovers' quarrels are not generally about money. Divorce cases generally are.

The man of sensibility is too busy talking about his feelings to have time for good deeds.

Romance is tempestuous. Love is calm.

Suspense combines curiosity with fear and pulls them up a rising slope.

Don't milk the cow too hard. She will kick you.