Caitlin > Caitlin's Quotes

“All other trades are contained in that of war.

Is that why war endures?

No. It endures because young men love it and old men love it in them. Those that fought, those that did not.

That's your notion.

The judge smiled. Men are born for games. Nothing else. Every child knows that play is nobler than work. He knows too that the worth or merit of a game is not inherent in the game itself but rather in the value of that which is put at hazard. Games of chance require a wager to have meaning at all. Games of sport involve the skill and strength of the opponents and the humiliation of defeat and the pride of victory are in themselves sufficient stake because they inhere in the worth of the principals and define them. But trial of chance or trial of worth all games aspire to the condition of war for here that which is wagered swallows up game, player, all.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West

“Whatever in creation exists without my knowledge exists without my consent.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West

“A man seeks his own destiny and no other, said the judge. Wil or nill. Any man who could discover his own fate and elect therefore some opposite course could only come at last to that selfsame reckoning at the same appointed time, for each man's destiny is as large as the world he inhabits and contains within it all opposites as well. The desert upon which so many have been broken is vast and calls for largeness of heart but it is also ultimately empty. It is hard, it is barren. Its very nature is stone.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West

“Suppose two men at cards with nothing to wager save their lives. Who has not heard such a tale? A turn of the card. The whole universe for such a player has labored clanking to his moment which will tell if he is to die at that man’s hand or that man at his. What more certain validation of a man’s worth could there be? This enhancement of the game to its ultimate state admits no argument concerning the notion of fate. The selection of one man over another is a preference absolute and irrevocable and it is a dull man indeed who could reckon so profound a decision without agency or significance either one. In such games as have for their stake the annihilation of the defeated the decisions are quite clear. This man holding this particular arrangement of cards in his hand is thereby removed from existence. This is the nature of war, whose stake is at once the game and the authority and the justification. Seen so, war is the truest form of divination. It is the testing of one’s will and the will of another within that larger will which because it binds them is therefore forced to select. War is the ultimate game because war is at last a forcing of the unity of existence. War is god.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West

“He poured the tumbler full. Drink up, he said. The world goes on. We have dancing nightly and this night is no exception. The straight and the winding way are one and now that you are here what do the years count since last we two met together? Men's memories are uncertain and the past that was differs little from the past that was not.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West

“The way of the world is to bloom and to flower and die but in the affairs of men there is no waning and the noon of his expression signals the onset of night. His spirit is exhausted at the peak of its achievement. His meridian is at once his darkening and the evening of his day.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West

“The carrion birds sat about the topmost corners of the houses with their wings outstretched in attitudes of exhortation like dark little bishops.”
― Cormac McCarthy

“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”
― Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).”
― Mark Twain

“The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.”
― Mark Twain

“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”
― Mark Twain

“A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”
― Mark Twain

“Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.”
― Mark Twain

“God created war so that Americans would learn geography.”
― Mark Twain

“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.”
― Mark Twain

“Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.”
― Laurence J. Peter, The Peter Principle

“Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.”
― Mark Twain

“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”
― Mark Twain

“I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.”
― Abraham Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being

“The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.”
― Mark Twain

“A clear conscience is the sure sign of a bad memory.”
― Mark Twain

“To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.”
― Mark Twain

“All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure. ”
― Mark Twain

“The secret to getting ahead is getting started.”
― Mark Twain

“Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.”
― Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson

“It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.”
― Mark Twain

“Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned.”
― Mark Twain, Notebook

“What you seek is seeking you.”
― Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

“She behaves as if she was beautiful. Most American women do. It is the secret of their charm.”
― Oscar Wilde

“They sicken of the calm who know the storm.”
― Dorothy Parker, Sunset Gun: Poems