Don Marquis Quotes


"Prohibition makes you want to cry into your beer and denies you the beer to cry into."
- Don Marquis
(Related: Beer, Prohibition, Want)

"Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday."
- Don Marquis
(Related: Art, Procrastination, Yesterday)

"Poetry is what Milton saw when he went blind."
- Don Marquis
(Related: Poetry, Blind)

"Pity the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."
- Don Marquis
(Related: Earth, Pity)

"One of the most important things to remember about infant care is: don't change diapers in midstream."
- Don Marquis
(Related: Change, Care)

"Man cannot be uplifted; he must be seduced into virtue."
- Don Marquis
(Related: Virtue, Man)

"Publishing a volume of verse is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo."
- Don Marquis
(Related: Echo, Publishing, Waiting)

"There is nothing so habit-forming as money."
- Don Marquis
(Related: Money, Habit, Nothing)

"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
(Related: Age, Time, Man, Middle age, Thinking, Will)

"Ours is a world where people don't know what they want and are willing to go through hell to get it."
- Don Marquis
(Related: People, Hell, Want, World)

"Punctuality is one of the cardinal business virtues: always insist on it in your subordinates."
- Don Marquis
(Related: Business, Punctuality)

"Some persons are likeable in spite of their unswerving integrity."
- Don Marquis
(Related: Integrity)

"Successful people are the ones who think up things for the rest of the world to keep busy at."
- Don Marquis
(Related: People, Successful, Rest, World)

"The art of newspaper paragraphing is to stroke a platitude until it purrs like an epigram."
- Don Marquis
(Related: Art)

"The chief obstacle to the progress of the human race is the human race."
- Don Marquis
(Related: Progress, Race)

"There is luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel no one else has a right to blame us."
- Don Marquis
(Related: Blame, Luxury, Right, Self)

"We pay for the mistakes of our ancestors, and it seems only fair that they should leave us the money to pay with."
- Don Marquis
(Related: Money, Mistakes)

"When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him: 'Whose?'"
- Don Marquis
(Related: Work, Hard work, Man)

"Writing a book of poetry is like dropping a rose petal down the Grand Canyon and waiting for the echo."
- Don Marquis
(Related: Poetry, Echo, Waiting, Writing)

"Age is not a particularly interesting subject. Anyone can get old. All you have to do is live long enough."
- Don Marquis
(Related: Age, Old)

"It takes all sorts of people to make the underworld."
- Don Marquis
(Related: People)

"The trouble with the public is that there is too much of it; what we need in public is less quantity and more quality."
- Don Marquis
(Related: Quality, Public, Quantity, Trouble)

"An optimist is a guy that has never had much experience."
- Don Marquis
(Related: Experience)

"An idea isn't responsible for the people who believe in it."
- Don Marquis
(Related: People, Idea)

"In order to influence a child, one must be careful not to be that child's parent or grandparent."
- Don Marquis
(Related: Influence, Order)

"A hypocrite is a person who - but who isn't?"
- Don Marquis
"A pessimist is a person who has had to listen to too many optimists."
- Don Marquis
"A sequel is an admission that you've been reduced to imitating yourself."
- Don Marquis
"A demagogue is a person with whom we disagree as to which gang should mismanage the country."
- Don Marquis
(Related: Country)

"Blood will tell, but often it tells too much."
- Don Marquis
(Related: Blood, Will)

"Bores bore each other too; but it never seems to teach them anything."
- Don Marquis
"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
(Related: Time, Man, Will, Worth)

"Did you ever notice that when a politician does get an idea he usually gets it all wrong."
- Don Marquis
(Related: Idea, Wrong)

"Ideas pull the trigger, but instinct loads the gun."
- Don Marquis
(Related: Ideas, Instinct)

"In all systems of theology the devil figures as a male person. Yes, it is women who keep the church going."
- Don Marquis
(Related: Women, Church, Devil, Theology)

"An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it."
- Don Marquis
(Related: People, Idea)

"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
(Related: Reading, Want, Writing)

"Every cloud has its silver lining but it is sometimes a little difficult to get it to the mint."
- Don Marquis
"I would rather start a family than finish one."
- Don Marquis
(Related: Family)

"I have often noticed that ancestors never boast of the descendants who boast of ancestors. I would rather start a family than finish one. Blood will tell, but often it tells too much."
- Don Marquis
(Related: Family, Blood, Will)

"Honesty is a good thing, but it is not profitable to its possessor unless it is kept under control."
- Don Marquis
(Related: Control, Honesty)

"Happiness is the interval between periods of unhappiness."
- Don Marquis
(Related: Happiness, Unhappiness)

"Fishing is a delusion entirely surrounded by liars in old clothes."
- Don Marquis
(Related: Clothes, Delusion, Fishing, Old)

"Fate often puts all the material for happiness and prosperity into a man's hands just to see how miserable he can make himself with them."
- Don Marquis
(Related: Happiness, Fate, Man, Prosperity)