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"Necessity is the mother of invention" is a silly proverb. "Necessity ...  
Actors are loved because they are unoriginal. Actors stick to their sc...  
An enormous part of our mature experience cannot not be expressed in w...  
Art attracts us only by what it reveals of our most secret self.  
Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjo...  
But you can catch yourself entertaining habitually certain ideas and s...  
Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations ...  
Civilizations can only be understood by those who are civilized.  
Common sense is genius in homespun.  
Every philosophy is tinged with the coloring of some secret imaginativ...  
Everything of importance has been said before by somebody who did not ...  
Familiar things happen, and mankind does not bother about them. It req...  
Human life is driven forward by its dim apprehension of notions too ge...  
I would be a billionaire if I was looking to be a selfish boss. That's...  
Ideas won't keep; something must be done about them.  
If a dog jumps into your lap, it is because he is fond of you; but if ...  
In every age of well-marked transition, there is the pattern of habitu...  
Intelligence is quickness to apprehend as distinct form ability, which...  
It is the business of the future to be dangerous; and it is among the ...  
Life is an offensive, directed against the repetitious mechanism of th...  
Man can acquire accomplishments or he can become an animal, whichever ...  
No one who achieves success does so without acknowledging the help of ...  
No period of history has ever been great or ever can be that does not ...  
Not ignorance, but ignorance of ignorance, is the death of knowledge.  
One main factor in the upward trend of animal life has been the power ...  
Periods of tranquility are seldom prolific of creative achievement. Ma...  
Philosophy is the product of wonder.  
Seek simplicity but distrust it.  
Simple solutions seldom are. It takes a very unusual mind to undertake...  
Speak out in acts; the time for words has passed, and only deeds will ...  
Speech is human nature itself, with none of the artificiality of writt...  
The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve c...  
The deepest definition of youth is life as yet untouched by tragedy.  
The vitality of thought is in adventure. Ideas won't keep. Something m...  
There is a self-satisfied dogmatism with which mankind at each period ...  
True courage is not the brutal force of vulgar heroes, but the firm re...  
We think in generalities, but we live in detail.  
What is morality in any given time or place? It is what the majority t...  
When you're average, you're just as close to the bottom as you are the...  
Without adventure civilization is in full decay.