Katharine Hepburn's Quotes

It's a rather rude gesture, but at least it's clear what you mean.

Without discipline, there's no life at all.

Enemies are so stimulating.

To keep your character intact you cannot stoop to filthy acts. It makes it easier to stoop the next time.

Being a housewife and a mother is the biggest job in the world, but if it doesn't interest you, don't do it - I would have made a terrible mother.

I never realized until lately that women were supposed to be the inferior sex.

Only the really plain people know about love - the very fascinating ones try so hard to create an impression that they soon exhaust their talents.

As for me, prizes are nothing. My prize is my work.

If you want to give up the admiration of thousands of men for the distain of one, go ahead, get married.

My greatest strength is common sense. I'm really a standard brand - like Campbell's tomato soup or Baker's chocolate.

A man's character is his guardian divinity.

Bigotry is the sacred disease.

To God everything is beautiful, good, and just; humans, however, think some things are unjust and others just.

Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony.

The best people renounce all for one goal, the eternal fame of mortals; but most people stuff themselves like cattle.

The eyes are more exact witnesses than the ears.

God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, surfeit and hunger.

No one that encounters prosperity does not also encounter danger.

Nothing endures but change.

Corpses are more fit to be thrown out than is dung.

I am what libraries and librarians have made me, with little assistance from a professor of Greek and poets.

Nature is wont to hide herself.

Big results require big ambitions.

The sun is new each day.

There is nothing permanent except change.

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.

Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character.

Justice will overtake fabricators of lies and false witnesses.

If you do not expect the unexpected you will not find it, for it is not to be reached by search or trail.

Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.

A man's character is his fate.

Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.

Hide our ignorance as we will, an evening of wine soon reveals it.

To do the same thing over and over again is not only boredom: it is to be controlled by rather than to control what you do.

Even sleepers are workers and collaborators in what goes on in the Universe.

Eyes and ears are poor witnesses to people if they have uncultured souls.

The chain of wedlock is so heavy that it takes two to carry it - and sometimes three.

Change alone is unchanging.

It is hard to contend against one's heart's desire; for whatever it wishes to have it buys at the cost of soul.

Much learning does not teach understanding.

Couples are wholes and not wholes, what agrees disagrees, the concordant is discordant. From all things one and from one all things.

Character is destiny.

Men who wish to know about the world must learn about it in its particular details.

You cannot step into the same river twice.

You could not step twice into the same rivers; for other waters are ever flowing on to you.

Deliberate violence is more to be quenched than a fire.

A woman's mind is cleaner than a man's: She changes it more often.

A man is known by the silence he keeps.

A rolling stone gathers no moss, but it gains a certain polish.

Cat: a pygmy lion who loves mice, hates dogs, and patronizes human beings.

Modesty: the gentle art of enhancing your charm by pretending not to be aware of it.

The Irish gave the bagpipes to the Scotts as a joke, but the Scotts haven't seen the joke yet.

A man must love a thing very much if he not only practices it without any hope of fame and money, but even... without any hope of doing it well.

Many are called but few get up.

Darling: the popular form of address used in speaking to a member of the opposite sex whose name you cannot at the moment remember.

What is my loftiest ambition? I've always wanted to throw an egg at an electric fan.

Age, like distance lends a double charm.

Manuscript: something submitted in haste and returned at leisure.

Only the young die good.

Tact: to lie about others as you would have them lie about you.

When I go abroad I always sail from Boston because it is such a pleasant place to get away from.

There is always room at the top - after the investigation.