Mason Cooley Quotes

Reason enables us to get around in the world of ideas, but cannot prescribe our thoughts.

To love a fool is a misfortune, but does not make one a fool.

When you can't figure out what to do, it's time for a nap.

Unlike other vices, cruelty, alas, is never boring.

To confer dignity, forgive. To express contempt, forget.

The unhappy are prisoners of a single round of thought.

Repetition comforts me for a time, then closes in.

My father was a patriarch inside a matriarchy, but never knew it.

A budget takes the fun out of money.

Outside books, we avoid colorful characters.

I win on my merits; my opponents win by cheating.

After an argument, silence may mean acceptance or the continuation of resistance by other means.

The popping of bubblegum discourages the most determined lecher.

Make the expectations lively enough, and action will follow.

I enjoy my rights, but I revel in my privileges.

Flattery has to overcome my mistrust, and it does.

Imprudence gets us into more trouble than actual misdeeds do.

People often imagine that being hard to please confers a certain superiority.

Mistakes are the only universal form of originality.

Hope likes justification, but can do without.

Mathematics: silent harmonies. Music: sounding numbers.

Expensive advertising courts us with hints and images. The ordinary kind merely says, Buy.

Innocence is thought charming because it offers delightful possibilities for exploitation.

Dreams are distorted representations of desire. So are dream- analyses.

When my beloved arrives, I yawn. When my beloved departs, I weep.

The aphorism is a slippery plaything.

Freedom is the moment between sleep and waking before selfhood and the world return.

Totem poles and wooden masks no longer suggest tribal villages but fashionable drawing rooms in New York and Paris.

Giving out crowns to everyone will not make a nation of kings.

If folly disappeared, wit would starve.

Vulgarity is innocent; urbanity is not.

As a child I was middle-aged and cautious compared to my impulsive father.

My struggles with myself seldom reach aerobic level.

Friends are sometimes boring, but enemies never.

Envy grieves. Jealousy rages.

Alcohol postpones anxiety, then multiplies it.

A dirty mind is a rich inner resource.

My passions have never jumped out of the fireplace and set fire to the carpet.

A neurotic can neither enjoy his illusions nor give them up.

I will not tolerate your faults. They are of no use to me.

Documents create a paper reality we call proof.

Being charming takes time and effort, and I am busy.

Fruitless striving breeds less despair than inaction.

Self-esteem is not based on itself.

If success is a habit, it is a hard one to acquire.

Some subjects come up suddenly in our speech and cannot be silenced.

Hope and despair ignore one another's cries.

When Medusa looks in the mirror, she sees the Lady of Sorrows.