Quote

Proverbs often contradict one another, as any reader soon discovers. The sagacity that advises us to look before we leap promptly warns us that if we hesitate we are lost that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but out of sight, out of mind.

Leo Rosten

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Leo Rosten
Age: 88 †
Born: 1908
Born: January 1
Died: 1997
Died: January 1
Lexicographer
Linguist
Novelist
Political Scientist
Screenwriter
Writer
Lodz
Leo Calvin Rosten
Mind
Grows
Advise
Fonder
Often
Leap
Warns
Lost
Philosophical
Proverbs
Makes
Absence
Sagacity
Another
Sight
Promptly
Look
Soon
Contradict
Looks
Reader
Discovers
Heart
Grow
Hesitate
Advises

More quotes by Leo Rosten

Image
Happiness comes only when we push our brains and hearts to the farthest reaches of which we are capable.
Leo Rosten
Image
Her cooking suggested she had attended the Cordon Noir.
Leo Rosten
Image
The love of money is the source of an enormous amount of good the fact that the good is a by-product of the selfish pursuit of riches has nothing to do with its indisputable value.
Leo Rosten
Image
Machines certainly can solve problems, store information, correlate, and play games - but not with pleasure.
Leo Rosten
Image
You can learn much about life from a checker game: surrender one to take two don't make two moves at one time move up, not down and when you reach the top, you may move as you like.
Leo Rosten
Image
Everyone, in some small sacred sanctuary of the self, is nuts.
Leo Rosten
Image
Where was it ever promised us that life on this earth can ever be easy, free from conflict and uncertainty, devoid of anguish and wonder and pain? … The purpose of life is to matter, to be productive, to have it make some difference that you lived at all.
Leo Rosten
Image
If you are going to do something wrong, at least enjoy it.
Leo Rosten
Image
The fellow who laughs last may laugh best, but he gets the reputation of being very slow-witted.
Leo Rosten
Image
Acting is a form of deception, and actors can mesmerize themselves almost as easily as an audience.
Leo Rosten
Image
Humor is the affectionate communication of insight.
Leo Rosten
Image
In the dark colony of night, when I consider man's magnificent capacity for malice, madness, folly, envy, rage, and destructiveness, and I wonder whether we shall not end up as breakfast for newts and polyps, I seem to hear the muffled cries of all the words in all the books with covers closed.
Leo Rosten
Image
You understand people better if you look at them-no matter how old or impressive or important they may be-as if they were children. For most men never mature they simply grow taller.
Leo Rosten
Image
The purpose of life is to matter, to be productive, to have it make a difference that you lived at all-using the talents that God has given you for the betterment of others.
Leo Rosten
Image
The purpose of life is not to be happy, the purpose of life is to matter.
Leo Rosten
Image
The hardest part of growing up is learning how to wait
Leo Rosten
Image
The first printed mention of bagels... is to be found in the Community Regulations of Kracow, Poland, for the year 1610 which stated that bagels would be given as a gift to any woman in childbirth.
Leo Rosten
Image
O, to be sure, we laugh less and play less and wear uncomfortable disguises like adults, but beneath the costume is the child we always are, whose needs are simple, whose daily life is still best described by fairy tales.
Leo Rosten
Image
If a picture is worth a thousand words, please paint me the Gettysburg Address.
Leo Rosten
Image
Courage is the capacity to confront what can be imagined.
Leo Rosten