Surest Quotes
More Surest Quotes
A mixture of admiration and pity is one of the surest recipes for affection.
andré maurois— Ariel (1923)
The only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him; and the surest way to make him untrustworthy is to distrust him and show your distrust.
henry l. stimson— The Bomb and the Opportunity (March 1946)
The passion of hatred is so durable and so inveterate that the surest prognostic of death in a sick man is a wish for reconciliation.
— Les haines sont si longues et si opiniâtres que le plus grand signe de mort dans un homme malade, c'est la réconciliation
— Jean de La Bruyère, Les Caractères (1688), De l'Homme 108.
All students, members of the faculty, and public officials in both Mississippi and the Nation will be able, it is hoped, to return to their normal activities with full confidence in the integrity of American law. This is as it should be, for our Nation is founded on the principle that observance of the law is the eternal safeguard of liberty and defiance of the law is the surest road to tyranny.
— John F. Kennedy's Radio and Television Report to the Nation on the Situation at the University of Mississippi (30 September 1962).
The city’s architecture is the surest sign that Goa evolved independently of the rest of India. In the small old quarters of Fontainhas and Sao Tomé, winding alleyways are lined with Portuguese-style houses, boasting distinctive red-tiled roofs, wooden window shutters and rickety balconies decorated with bright pots of petunias.
— Lonely Planet, in “Introducing Panaji”
There are three roads to ruinwomen, gambling and technicians.The most pleasant is women, the quickest is with gambling, but the surest is with technicians.
— 1968 In the SundayTelegraph.
An impersonal and scientific knowledge of the structure of our bodies is the surest safeguard against prurient curiosity and lascivious gloating.
Marie Stopes— 1918 Married Love, ch.5.
There are several good protections against temptation but the surest is cowardice.
— 1897 Following the Equator, ch.36.
The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him. That remark in itself wouldn’t make any sense if quoted as it stands.
robert benchley— "Quick Quotations" in My Ten Years in a Quandary and How They Grew (1936)
It is alone that part of the external universe which we call material which acts on man through his senses — that part of which we ordinarily feel our knowledge to be the surest; but in reality, strangely enough, as will soon appear, this is one of the aspects of the external world, of which we can know nothing.
Richard Maurice Bucke— Ch. 1 : Lines of Cleavage
The way to secure success, is to be more anxious about obtaining than about deserving it; the surest hindrance to it is to have too high a standard of refinement in our own minds, or too high an opinion of the discernment of the public.
william hazlitt— "On the Qualifications Necessary for Success"
My conscience is my crown,Contented thoughts my rest;My heart is happy in itself,My bliss is in my breast.Enough I reckon wealth;A mean the surest lot,That lies too high for base contempt,Too low for envy's shot.
robert southwell— Line 9; p. 57.
Success, the mark no mortal wit, Or surest hand, can always hit: For whatsoe'er we perpetrate, We do but row, we're steer'd by Fate, Which in success oft disinherits, For spurious causes, noblest merits.
— Samuel Butler, Hudibras, Part I (1663-64), Canto I, line 879.
The surest sign that a man has a genuine taste of his own is that he is uncertain of it.
wystan hugh auden— "Reading", p. 6
A crowded police docket is the surest of all signs that trade is brisk and money plenty.
mark twain— Roughing It (published 1872).
To promise not to do a thing is the surest way in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing.
mark twain— Ch. 22. (The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876))
I would suggest to my honourable Friend that the foreign investor is at least as discouraged by high national debt for that, as all example shows, is the surest precursor of high taxation.
john james cowperthwaite— March 24, 1966, page 213.
The surest pledge of a deathless name Is the silent homage of thoughts unspoken.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow— The Herons of Elmwood, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
The surest plan to make a Man Is, think him so.
james russell lowell— No. 2. (Series II (1866))
The French are ... the most brilliant and the most dangerous nation of Europe, and the one that is surest to inspire admiration, hatred, terror, or pity, but never indifference.
alexis de tocqueville— Variant translation: The French constitute the most brilliant and the most dangerous nation in Europe and the best qualified in turn to become an object of admiration, hatred, pity or terror but never indifference.Old Regime (1856), p. 245
All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it.
alexis de tocqueville— Book Three, Chapter XXII
As the mental endowment of a man varies with the organisation of his accumulated experiences, the better endowed he is, the more readily will he be able to remember his whole past, everything that he has ever thought or heard, seen or done, perceived or felt, the more completely in fact will he be able to reproduce his whole life. Universal remembrance of all its experiences, therefore, is the surest, most general, and most easily proved mark of a genius.
otto weininger— pp. 114-115
The surest way to hit a woman's heart is to take aim kneeling.
— Douglas Jerrold, Douglas Jerrold's Wit, The Way to a Woman's Heart.
Of praise a mere glutton, he swallow'd what came, And the puff of a dunce, he mistook it for fame; Till his relish grown callous, almost to displease, Who pepper'd the highest was surest to please.
Oliver Goldsmith— Oliver Goldsmith, Retaliation (1774), line 109.
The surest way to prevent war is not to fear it.
— John Randolph, speech in the House of Representatives (March 5, 1806).
The surest way to be deceived is to think oneself more clever than others.
— François de La Rochefoucauld, Maxims (1665–1678), Maxim 127
The surest way to be deceived is to consider oneself cleverer than others.
— François de La Rochefoucauld, in The Atlanta Co-Ed Murder, p.165
Is not old wine wholesomest, old pippins toothsomest, old wood burn brightest, old linen wash whitest? Old soldiers, sweetheart, are surest, and old lovers are soundest.
john webster— John Webster, Westward Ho, Act II, scene 1.
The readiest and surest way to get rid of censure, is to correct ourselves.
— As quoted in The World's Laconics: Or, The Best Thoughts of the Best Authors (1853) by Everard Berkeley, p. 34
