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Inspirational Quotes by Mason Cooley

39 Inspirational quotes by Mason Cooley

All Inspirational quotes Mason Cooley’s page

Cooley notes that we often justify ourselves even when we are alone. He points out that naming new motives while repeating the same actions is a common pattern. The quotes also suggest that wisdom can cushion a fall, even if it can’t prevent it.

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Advice is more agreeable in the mouth than in the ear.

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Failure makes us envious. Success makes us greedy.

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Even alone we go on justifying ourselves.

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Politicians love change, but of details only.

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We make some changes. But mostly changes make us.

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Dancers dance through their pain I shrink from mine.

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The best propaganda omits rather than invents

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Every work of art changes its predecessors.

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When a paradox is widely believed, it is no longer recognized as a paradox.

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Scepticism is always a back road leading to some credo or other.

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I keep renaming my motives, but continue doing the same things.

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Artistic inspiration ignores the law of supply and demand.

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Alone, I am satisfied with myself. With others, I am beset by troubling comparisons.

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If a problem is insoluble, it is Necessity. Leave it alone.

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Jealousy is inconsolable because it cannot know the beloved

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Astrology: do we make a hullabaloo among the stars, or do they make a hullabaloo down here?

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Simplicity is a strict taskmaster.

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To a suicide: You just poisoned the wrong person.

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The aftermath of joy is not usually more joy.

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I cling to depression, thinking it a form of truth.

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Change often makes accepted customs into crimes.

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In an aphorism, aptness counts for more than truth.

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The critical spirit never knows when to stop meddling.

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Art can make chaos seductive.

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Everything changes as it is written down.

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Every farewell combines loss and new freedom.

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Indifference creates an artificial peace.

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Retirement is a one-way trip to insignificance.

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Carnal knowledge is as forgettable as the other kinds.

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Nature knows no difference between weeds and flowers.

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Every path to a new understanding begins in confusion...

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Unemployment diminishes people. Leisure enlarges them.

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Don't milk the cow too hard. She will kick you.

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The familiar changes as we cling to it.

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Generosity knows how to count, but refrains.

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Wisdom cannot prevent a fall, but may cushion it.

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Doubt is long-winded. Certainty is brief.

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In retirement, only money and symptoms are consequential.

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The muse is blind as Cupid and skittish as Diana.

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Nostalgia keeps dissolving the ironic narratives in which I have contained my past.

The modernist writers found despair inspirational.

Even the most abject have a sense of superiority based on powerful though undefined merits.

Money comes to life as it is spent.

Even the most fickle are faithful to a few bad habits.

Rage is exciting, but leaves me confused and exhausted.

Literary tradition is full of lies about poverty-the jolly beggar, the poor but happy milkmaid, the wholesome diet of porridge, etc.

Experience teaches us, but we scarcely know what.

The body has a mind of its own.

In retirement, I look for days off from my days off. Mason Cooley

My intentions go one way, my desires another. Thus I feel both self-indulgent and deprived.

The Puritan sours his pleasures by disguising them as duties.

Unlike the actual, the fictional explains itself.

Vacations prove that a life of pleasure is overrated.

Outside literature, high-flown sentiments are merely exasperating.