Joseph Wood Krutch

“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 form and ceremonies.”

“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.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Security depends not so much upon how much you have, as upon how much you can do without.”

“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.”

“Though many have tried, no one has ever yet explained away the decisive fact that science, which can do so much, cannot decide what it ought to do.”

“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.”

“When a man wantonly destroys one of the works of man we call him a vandal. When he destroys one of the works of god we call him a sportsman.”

“Happiness is itself a kind of gratitude.”

“What a man knows is everywhere at war with what he wants.”

“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.”

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

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

“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.”