James Richardson
American poet.
The great consolation of righteousness is never having to worry whether you’re a bore.
If you do everything for one reason, then all you have done will become meaningless when the reason does.
He does not deserve your praise, but he deserves to be treated as if someday he might.
There are crimes I don’t commit mainly because I don’t want to find out I could.
Patience is not very different from courage. It just takes longer.
To practice Sincerity is to burden everyone else with believing you.
Often you only have to ask What would I do if I were not afraid?
Books serve us simply by opening a window on all we wanted to say and feel and think about. We may not even notice that they have not said it themselves till we go back to them years later and do not find what we loved in them. You cannot keep the view by taking the window with you.
I don’t know what’s meant by Know thyself, which seems to ask a window to look at a window.
The first quest or the first love is also the last. The second isn’t.
What I’m not changes more than what I am.
Think of all the smart people made stupid by flaws of character. The finest watch isn’t fine long when used as a hammer.
A day is only a day. But a life is only a life.
God help my neighbors if I loved them as I love myself.
That others know: science. That others choose: politics.
To condemn your sin in another is hypocrisy. Not to condemn is to reserve your right to sin.
The cynic suffers the form of faith without love. Incredulity is his piety.
I am not unambitious. I am just too ambitious for what you call ambitions.
A belief is a question we have put aside so we can get on with what we believe we have to do.
I’ll buy that means also I believe it.