Quote

A purpose is the eternal condition of success.

Thornton Wilder

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Thornton Wilder
Age: 78 †
Born: 1897
Born: April 17
Died: 1975
Died: December 7
Novelist
Playwright
Screenwriter
Madison
Wisconsin
Thornton Niven Wilder
Purpose
Success
Providence
Condition
Eternal
Conditions

More quotes by Thornton Wilder

Image
Favors cease to be favors when there are conditions attached to them.
Thornton Wilder
Image
On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below.
Thornton Wilder
Image
I am convinced that, except in a few extraordinary cases, one form or another of an unhappy childhood is essential to the formation of exceptional gifts.
Thornton Wilder
Image
There is no drunkenness equal to that of remembering whispered words in the night.
Thornton Wilder
Image
Winning children (who appear so guileless) are children who have discovered how effective charm and modesty and a delicately calculated spontaneity are in winning what they want.
Thornton Wilder
Image
Ninety-nine percent of the people in the world are fools and the rest of us are in great danger of contagion.
Thornton Wilder
Image
Some say that we shall never know, and that to the gods we are like the flies that the boys kill on a summer's day, and some say, to the contrary, that the very sparrows do not lose a feather that has not been brushed away by the finger of God.
Thornton Wilder
Image
Doctors are mostly impostors. The older a doctor is and the more venerated he is, the more he must pretend to know everything. Of course, they grow worse with time. Always look for a doctor who is hated by the best doctors. Always seek out a bright young doctor before he comes down with nonsense.
Thornton Wilder
Image
Every good thing in the world stands on the razor-edge of danger.
Thornton Wilder
Image
The difference between a little money and no money at all is enormous-and can shatter the world. And the difference between a little money and an enormous amount of money is very slight-and that, also, can shatter the world.
Thornton Wilder
Image
Look at that moon. Potato weather for sure.
Thornton Wilder
Image
Heaven's my destination.
Thornton Wilder
Image
A man looks pretty small at a wedding, George. All those good women standing shoulder to shoulder, making sure that the knot's tied in a mighty public way.
Thornton Wilder
Image
Many plays - certainly mine - are like blank checks. The actors and directors put their own signatures on them.
Thornton Wilder
Image
We live in what is, but we find a thousand ways not to face it. Great theater strengthens our faculty to face it.
Thornton Wilder
Image
Hope, like faith, is nothing if it is not courageous it is nothing if it is not ridiculous.
Thornton Wilder
Image
Literature is the orchestration of platitudes.
Thornton Wilder
Image
Never support two weaknesses at the same time. It's your combination sinners - your lecherous liars and your miserly drunkards - who dishonor the vices and bring them into bad repute.
Thornton Wilder
Image
When you're at war, you think about a better life when you're at peace you think about a more comfortable one.
Thornton Wilder
Image
The condition of leadership adds new degrees of solitariness to the basic solitude of mankind. Every order that we issue increases the extent to which we are alone, and every show of deference which is extended to us separates us from our fellows.
Thornton Wilder