V quotes

The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself for an oracle, is inborn in us. -Paul Valery, poet and philosopher (1871-1945)

The best index to a person's character is how he treats people who can't do him any good, and how he treats people who can't fight back. -Abigail Van Buren

If you want your children to turn out well, spend twice as much time with them, and half as much money. -Abigail Van Buren, advice columnist (1918- )

Use what talent you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best. - Henry Van Dyke

There is a loftier ambition than merely to stand high in the world. It is to stoop down and lift mankind a little higher. -Henry van Dyke, poet (1852-1933)

If one is master of one thing and understands one thing well, one has at the same time, insight into and understanding of many things. -Vincent Van Gogh {1853-1890 Dutch Painter}

As for me, you must know, I shouldn't precisely have chosen madness if there had been any choice. What consoles me is that I am beginning to consider madness as an illness like any other and that I accept it as such. --Vincent Van Gogh

I dream my painting, and then I paint my dream. -Vincent van Gogh, artist (1853-1890)

Everyone is born with genius, but most people only keep it a few minutes. -Edgard Varese, composer (1885-1965)

A real patriot is the fellow who gets a parking ticket and rejoices that the system works. -Bill Vaughan, journalist (1915-1977)

Be humble, for the worst thing in the world is of the same stuff as you; be confident, for the stars are of the same stuff as you. -Nicholai Velimirovic

As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests. -Gore Vidal, writer (1925- )

Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something. - last words of Pancho Villa (1877-1923)

Leonardo Da Vinci, (1452-1519)
painter, engineer, musician, and scientist

Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active. -Leonardo da Vinci

Where the spirit does not work with the hand there is no art. -Leonardo da Vinci

Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer. Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen. - Leonardo Da Vinci

As a well spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death. -Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)

Iron rusts from disuse, stagnant water loses its purity, and in cold weather becomes frozen, even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind. -Leonardo Da Vinci, painter, engineer, musician, and scientist (1452-1519)

In rivers, the water that you touch is the last of what has passed and the first of that which comes; so with present time. -Leonardo da Vinci, painter, engineer, musician, and scientist (1452-1519)

Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs, and they will then be powerless to vex your mind. -Leonardo da Vinci, painter, engineer, musician, and scientist (1452-1519)

Let proportion be found not only in numbers and measures, but also in sounds, weights, times, and positions, and what ever force there is. -Leonardo Da Vinci, painter, engineer, musician, and scientist (1452-1519)

Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does Nature, because in her inventions, nothing is lacking and nothing is superfluous. -Leonardo da Vinci, painter, engineer, musician, and scientist (1452-1519)

Fortune favours the bold. -Virgil

To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides. -David Viscott

The test of ahimsa is the absence of jealousy. The man whose heart never cherishes even the thought of injury to anyone, who rejoices at the prosperity of even his greatest enemy, that man is the bhakta, he is the yogi, he is the guru of all. -Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902)

Voltaire 1694-1778, French Historian, Writer

Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say? -Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1922-) [Bluebeard, 1987]

I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center. -Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., writer (1922- )

We know the human brain is a device to keep the ears from grating on one another. -Peter de Vries

It is the final proof of God's omnipotence that he need not exist in order to save us. -Peter De Vries, novelist (1910-1993)

The value of marriage is not that adults produce children, but that children produce adults. -Peter De Vries, editor, novelist (1910-1993) [TheTunnel of Love, 1954]