Tre Cool's Quotes

There is nothing less to our credit than our neglect of the foreigner and his children, unless it be the arrogance most of us betray when we set out to 'Americanize' him.

We are ashamed to seem evasive in the presence of a straightforward man, cowardly in the presence of a brave one, gross in the eyes of a refined one, and so on. We always imagine, and in imagining share, the judgments of the other mind.

We have no higher life that is really apart from other people. It is by imagining them that our personality is built up; to be without the power of imagining them is to be a low-grade idiot.

When one ceases from conflict, whether because he has won, because he has lost, or because he cares no more for the game, the virtue passes out of him.

An artist cannot fail; it is a success to be one.

One should never criticize his own work except in a fresh and hopeful mood. The self-criticism of a tired mind is suicide.

Our individual lives cannot, generally, be works of art unless the social order is also.

A talent somewhat above mediocrity, shrewd and not too sensitive, is more likely to rise in the world than genius.

Institutions - government, churches, industries, and the like - have properly no other function than to contribute to human freedom; and in so far as they fail, on the whole, to perform this function, they are wrong and need reconstruction.

The imaginations which people have of one another are the solid facts of society.

To have no heroes is to have no aspiration, to live on the momentum of the past, to be thrown back upon routine, sensuality, and the narrow self.

Failure sometimes enlarges the spirit. You have to fall back upon humanity and God.

Unless a capacity for thinking be accompanied by a capacity for action, a superior mind exists in torture.

The bashful are always aggressive at heart.

The mind is not a hermit's cell, but a place of hospitality and intercourse.

To get away from one's working environment is, in a sense, to get away from one's self; and this is often the chief advantage of travel and change.

A man may lack everything but tact and conviction and still be a forcible speaker; but without these nothing will avail... Fluency, grace, logical order, and the like, are merely the decorative surface of oratory.

If we divine a discrepancy between a man's words and his character, the whole impression of him becomes broken and painful; he revolts the imagination by his lack of unity, and even the good in him is hardly accepted.

As social beings we live with our eyes upon our reflection, but have no assurance of the tranquillity of the waters in which we see it.

Every general increase of freedom is accompanied by some degeneracy, attributable to the same causes as the freedom.

Prudence and compromise are necessary means, but every man should have an impudent end which he will not compromise.

The idea that seeing life means going from place to place and doing a great variety of obvious things is an illusion natural to dull minds.

The literature of the inner life is very largely a record of struggle with the inordinate passions of the social self.

The need to exert power, when thwarted in the open fields of life, is the more likely to assert itself in trifles.

There is hardly any one so insignificant that he does not seem imposing to some one at some time.

There is no way to penetrate the surface of life but by attacking it earnestly at a particular point.

To cease to admire is a proof of deterioration.

The general fact is that the most effective way of utilizing human energy is through an organized rivalry, which by specialization and social control is, at the same time, organized co-operation.

Between richer and poorer classes in a free country a mutually respecting antagonism is much healthier than pity on the one hand and dependence on the other, as is, perhaps, the next best thing to fraternal feeling.

A sense of blessedness comes from a change of heart, not from more blessings.

There are different rules for reading, for thinking, and for talking. Writing blends all three of them.

Faith moves mountains, but you have to keep pushing while you are praying.

The doctrine of the immortality of the soul has more threat than comfort.

No chaos, no creation. Evidence: the kitchen at mealtime.

Three meals plus bedtime make four sure blessings a day.

The wisdom of age: don't stop walking.

We are prepared for insults, but compliments leave us baffled.

Even cats grow lonely and anxious.

I love you is the inscription on Pandora's box.

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

Bad faith likes discourse on friendship and loyalty.

Innocence: I am only stepping on your face because it lies in my path.

As equality increases, so does the number of people struggling for predominance.

Reality is the name we give to our disappointments.

Humor does not rescue us from unhappiness, but enables us to move back from it a little.

Logic teaches rules for presentation, not thinking.

Mistakes are the only universal form of originality.

Psychology keeps trying to vindicate human nature. History keeps undermining the effort.

Rage is exciting, but leaves me confused and exhausted.

Art begins in imitation and ends in innovation.

Think carefully before asking for justice. Mercy might be safer.

Children now expect their parents to audition for approval.

Worried about being a dull fellow? You might develop your talent for being irritating.

At sixty, I know little more about wisdom than I did at thirty, but I know a great deal more about folly.

Dancing and running shake up the chemistry of happiness.

Don't stare into a mirror when you are trying to solve a problem.

If you are going to break a Law of Art, make the crime interesting.

Poor but happy is not a phrase invented by a poor person.

The power of lying is much less than the power of what is not to be discussed.

Even the most fickle are faithful to a few bad habits.

Irony regards every simple truth as a challenge.

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

What lies behind appearance is usually another appearance.

A blocked path also offers guidance.

Even boredom has its crises.

Flattery and insults raise the same question: What do you want?

Hatred observes with more care than love does.

If I play hard to get, soon the phone stops ringing altogether.

Most people regard getting their way as a matter of simple justice.

My thought has been shaped by books; my desires by pictures.

After my spectacular failures, I could not be satisfied with an ordinary success.

Cynicism is full of naive disappointments.

Journalism never admits that nothing much is happening.

Self-hatred and self-love are equally self-centered.