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Don Marquis Quotes | Quotes said by Don Marquis

  • Don Marquis Quote #1

    A pessimist is a person who has had to listen to too many optimist.


  • Don Marquis Quote #2

    A pessimist is a person who has had to listen to too many optimists.

  • Don Marquis Quote #3

    a spider and a fly

    i heard a spider
    and a fly arguing
    wait said the fly
    do not eat me
    i serve a great purpose
    in the world

    you will have to
    show me said the spider

    i scurry around
    gutters and sewers
    and garbage cans
    said the fly and gather
    up the germs of
    typhoid influenza
    and pneumonia on my feet
    and wings
    then i carry these germs
    into households of men
    and give them diseases
    all the people who
    have lived the right
    sort of life recover
    from the diseases
    and the old soaks who
    have weakened their systems
    with liquor and iniquity
    succumb it is my mission
    to help rid the world
    of these wicked persons
    i am a vessel of righteousness
    scattering seeds of justice
    and serving the noblest uses

    it is true said the spider
    that you are more
    useful in a plodding
    material sort of way
    than i am but i do not
    serve the utilitarian deities
    i serve the gods of beauty
    look at the gossamer webs
    i weave they float in the sun
    like filaments of song
    if you get what i mean
    i do not work at anything
    i play all the time
    i am busy with the stuff
    of enchantment and the materials
    of fairyland my works
    transcend utility
    i am the artist
    a creator and demi god
    it is ridiculous to suppose
    that i should be denied
    the food i need in order
    to continue to create
    beauty i tell you
    plainly mister fly it is all
    damned nonsense for that food
    to rear up on its hind legs
    and say it should not be eaten

    you have convinced me
    said the fly say no more
    and shutting all his eyes
    he prepared himself for dinner
    and yet he said i could
    have made out a case
    for myself too if i had
    had a better line of talk

    of course you could said the spider
    clutching a sirloin from him
    but the end would have been
    just the same if neither of
    us had spoken at all

    boss i am afraid that what
    the spider said is true
    and it gives me to think
    furiously upon the futility
    of literature

    archy

  • Don Marquis Quote #4

    Age is not a particularly interesting subject. Anyone can get old. All you have to do is live long enough.

  • Don Marquis Quote #5

    An idea isn't responsible for the people who believe in it.

  • Don Marquis Quote #6

    An optimist is a guy that has never had much experience.

  • Don Marquis Quote #7

    An optimist is a man who has never had much experience.

  • Don Marquis Quote #8

    By the time a bartender knows what drink a man will have before he orders, there is little else about him worth knowing.

  • Don Marquis Quote #9

    Every cloud has its silver lining but it is sometimes a little difficult to get it to the mint.

  • Don Marquis Quote #10

    fire is beautiful
    and we know that if we get
    too close it will kill us
    but what does that matter
    it is better to be happy
    for a moment
    and be burned up with beauty
    than to live a long time
    and be bored all the while

  • Don Marquis Quote #11

    From 'the lesson of the moth':

    and before i could argue him
    out of his philosophy
    he went and immolated himself
    on a patent cigar lighter
    i do not agree with him
    myself i would rather have
    half the happiness and twice
    the longevity

    but at the same time i wish
    there was something i wanted
    as badly as he wanted to fry himself

  • Don Marquis Quote #12

    Happiness is the interval between periods of unhappiness.

  • Don Marquis Quote #13

    i have had my ups and downs
    but wotthehell wotthehell
    yesterday sceptres and crowns
    fried oysters and velvet gowns
    and today i herd with bums
    but wotthehell wotthehell
    i wake the world from sleep
    as i caper and sing and leap
    when i sing my wild free tune
    wotthehell wotthehell
    under the blear eyed moon
    i am pelted with cast off shoon
    but wotthehell wotthehell

  • Don Marquis Quote #14

    I would rather start a family than finish one.

  • Don Marquis Quote #15

    Ideas pull the trigger, but instinct loads the gun.

  • Don Marquis Quote #16

    If a child shows himself to be incorrigible, he should be decently and quietly beheaded at the age of twelve, lest he grow to maturity, marry, and perpetuate his kind.

  • Don Marquis Quote #17

    If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you.

  • Don Marquis Quote #18

    If you want to get rich from writing, write the sort of thing that's read by persons who move their lips when they're reading to themselves.

  • Don Marquis Quote #19

    In order to influence a child, one must be careful not to be that child's parent or grandparent.

  • Don Marquis Quote #20

    it wont be long now it wont be long
    man is making deserts of the earth
    it wont be long now
    before man will have used it up
    so that nothing but ants
    and centipedes and scorpions
    can find a living on it
    ....
    what man calls civilization
    always results in deserts
    ....
    men talk of money and industry
    of hard times and recoveries
    of finance and economics
    but the ants wait and the scorpions wait
    for while men talk they are making deserts all the time
    getting the world ready for the conquering ant
    drought and erosion and desert
    because men cannot learn
    ....
    it wont be long now it wont be long
    till earth is barren as the moon
    and sapless as a mumbled bone

  • Don Marquis Quote #21

    Middle age is the time when a man is always thinking that in a week or two he will feel as good as ever.

  • Don Marquis Quote #22

    my master is the same as god
    when he thumps with his hand
    people bring us hamburg steaks
    at any eating stand pete s holiday

  • Don Marquis Quote #23

    Of middle age the best that can be said is that a middle-aged person has likely learned how to have a little fun in spite of his troubles.

  • Don Marquis Quote #24

    Poetry is what Milton saw when he went blind.

  • Don Marquis Quote #25

    Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday

  • Don Marquis Quote #26

    Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.

  • Don Marquis Quote #27

    Publishing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.

  • Don Marquis Quote #28

    Publishing a volume of verse is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo.

  • Don Marquis Quote #29

    Punctuality is one of the cardinal business virtues: always insist on it in your subordinates.

  • Don Marquis Quote #30

    There is nothing so habit-forming as money.

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