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Joseph Wood Krutch Quotes






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A humanist is anyone who rejects the attempt to describe or account for man wholly on the basis of physics, chemistry or animal behaviour.

All the naturalistic religions are founded upon the assumption that nature - which "never did betray the heart that loved her" - is discoverable and ready to serve as an infallible guide.
[Religion]

Any euphemism ceases to be euphemistic after a time and the true meaning begins to show through. It's a losing game, but we keep on trying.

Both the cockroach and the bird would get along very well without us, although the cockroach would miss us most.

Cats are rather delicate creatures and they are subject to a good many different ailments, but I have never heard of one who suffered from insomnia.
[Cats]

Cats are subject to a good many ailments, but I never heard of one who suffered from insomnia.
[Cats]

Cats seem to go on the principle that it never does any harm to ask for what you want.
[Cats]

Civilizations die from philosophical calm, irony, and the sense of fair play quite as surely as they die of debauchery.
[Civilization]

Few people have ever seriously wished to be exclusively rational. The good life which most desire is a life warmed by passions and touched with that ceremonial grace which is impossible without some affectionate loyalty to traditional forms and ceremonies.

Happiness is itself a kind of gratitude.
[Forgiveness]

If people destroy something replaceable made by mankind, they are called vandals; if they destroy something irreplaceable made by God, they are called developers.

If we do not permit the earth to produce beauty and joy, it will in the end not produce food, either.

It is not ignorance but knowledge which is the mother of wonder.

It is sometimes easier to head an institute for the study of child guidance than it is to turn one brat into a decent human being.

Logic is the art of going wrong with confidence.
[Decisions]

Only those within whose own consciousness the sun rise and set, the leaves burgeon and wither, can be said to be aware of what living is.

Security depends not so much upon how much you have, as upon how much you can do without.
[Security]

The most serious charge which can be brought against New England is not Puritanism but February.

The snow itself is lonely or, if you prefer, self-sufficient. There is no other time when the whole world seems composed of one thing and one thing only.

There is no such thing as a dangerous woman; there are only susceptible men.


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