Leo Mercer > Leo's Quotes

“Quotations every day of the year.”
― James Joyce, Ulysses

“By God," quod he, "for pleynly, at a word,
Thy drasty rymyng is nat worth a toord!”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

“But of no nombre mencioun made he, Of bigamye, or of octogamye33. Why sholde men thanne speke of it vileinye34?”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

“Ye knowe eek, that in forme of speche is chaunge
With-inne a thousand yeer, and wordes tho
That hadden prys, now wonder nyce and straunge
Us thinketh hem; and yet they spake hem so,
And spedde as wel in love as men now do.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer

“But for to telle yow al hir beautee,
It lyth nat in my tonge, n'yn my konnyng;
I dar nat undertake so heigh a thyng.
Myn Englissh eek is insufficient.
It moste been a rethor excellent
That koude his colours longynge for that art,
If he sholde hire discryven every part.
I am noon swich, I moot speke as I kan.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

“You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“To define is to limit.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“I am too fond of reading books to care to write them.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Never marry at all, Dorian. Men marry because they are tired, women, because they are curious: both are disappointed.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words?”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you! Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Some things are more precious because they don't last long.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is by far the best ending for one.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“The one charm about the past is that it is the past.”
― Oscar Wilde

“It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible....”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“I hate vulgar realism in literature. The man who would call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”
― Harry Crosby, Transit of Venus

“For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.”
― T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

“Distracted from distraction by distraction”
― T.S. Eliot

“I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.”
― James Joyce, Ulysses

“Come on, you winefizzling, ginsizzling, booseguzzling existences! Come on, you dog-gone, bullnecked, beetlebrowed, hogjowled, peanutbrained, weaseleyed fourflushers, false alarms and excess baggage! Come on, you triple extract of infamy! Alexander J. Christ Dowie, that's yanked to glory most half this planet from 'Frisco Beach to Vladivostok. The Deity ain't no nickel dime bumshow. I put it to you that he's on the square and a corking fine business proposition. He's the grandest thing yet and don't you forget it. Shout salvation in king Jesus. You'll need to rise precious early, you sinner there, if you want to diddle the Almighty God. Pflaaaap! Not half. He's got a coughmixture with a punch in it for you, my friend, in his backpocket. Just you try it on.”
― James Joyce, Ulysses

“My own experience is that a certain kind of genius among students is best brought out in bed.”
― Allen Ginsberg

“Follow your inner moonlight; don't hide the madness.”
― Allen Ginsberg

“Every American wants MORE MORE of the world and why not, you only live once. But the mistake made in America is persons accumulate more more dead matter, machinery, possessions & rugs & fact information at the expense of what really counts as more: feeling, good feeling, sex feeling, tenderness feeling, mutual feeling. You own twice as much rug if you're twice as aware of the rug.”
― Allen Ginsberg