Robert Wilson Lynd Quotes

13 Sourced Quotes

There is nothing in which the birds differ more from man than the way in which they can build and yet leave a landscape as it was before.

Robert Wilson Lynd
It is almost impossible to remember how tragic a place the world is when one is playing golf.

Robert Wilson Lynd
The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions.

Robert Wilson Lynd
We welcome almost any break in the monotony of things, and a man has only to murder a series of wives in a new way to become known to millions of people who have never heard of Homer.

Robert Wilson Lynd
In order to see birds it is necessary to become a part of the silence.

Robert Wilson Lynd
Most of us can remember a time when a birthday — especially if it was one's own — brightened the world as if a second sun had risen

Robert Wilson Lynd
There are some people who want to throw their arms round you simply because it is Christmas; there are other people who want to strangle you simply because it is Christmas.

Robert Wilson Lynd
We forget that Socrates was famed for wisdom not because he was omniscient but because he realized at the age of seventy that he still knew nothing.

Robert Wilson Lynd
It is doubtful if even experience of riches and success is as intense among those who have experienced nothing else as among those who have also experienced poverty and failure. There is little romance in wealth to those who have been born wealthy and whose families have been wealthy for generations.

Robert Wilson Lynd
The last spectacle of which Christian men are likely to grow tired is a harbour. Centuries hence there may be jumping-off places for the stars, and our children's children's and so forth children may regard a ship as a creeping thing scarcely more adventurous than a worm. Meanwhile, every harbour gives us a sense of being in touch, if not with the ends of the universe, with the ends of the earth.

Robert Wilson Lynd
The happiness even of the naturalist depends in some measure upon his ignorance, which still leaves him new worlds of this kind to conquer. He may have reached the very Z of knowledge in the books, but he still feels half ignorant until he has confirmed each bright particular with his eyes.

Robert Wilson Lynd
The art of writing history is the art of emphasizing the significant facts at the expense of the insignificant. And it is the same in every field of knowledge. Knowledge is power only if a man knows what facts not to bother about.

Robert Wilson Lynd
It is an engaging problem in ethics whether, if you have been lent a cottage, you have the right to feed the mice.

Robert Wilson Lynd