Quotes by William Phelps

• One of the secrets of life is to keep our intellectual curiosity acute.
• The belief that youth is the happiest time of life is founded on a fallacy. The happiest person is the person who thinks the most interesting thoughts, and we grow happier as we grow older.
• Nature makes boys and girls lovely to look upon so they can be tolerated until they acquire some sense.
• The final test of a gentleman is his respect for those who can be of no possible service to him.
• The happiest people in this world are those who have the most interesting thoughts.
• There is a strange reluctance on the part of most people to admit they enjoy life.
• This is the final test of a gentleman: his respect for those who can be of no possible service to him.
• Those who decide to use leisure as a means of mental development, who love good music, good books, good pictures, good plays, good company, good conversation - what are they? They are the happiest people in the world.
• Whenever it is possible, a boy should choose some occupation which he should do even if he did not need the money.
• You can be deprived of your money, your job and your home by someone else, but remember that no one can ever take away your honor.
• The fear of life is the favorite disease of the 20th century.
• If you develop the absolute sense of certainty that powerful beliefs provide, then you can get yourself to accomplish virtually anything, including those things that other people are certain are impossible.
• You can learn more about human nature by reading the Bible than by living in New York.
• If happiness truly consisted in physical ease and freedom from care, then the happiest individual would not be either a man or a woman; it would be, I think, an American cow.
• In a start-up company, you basically throw out all assumptions every three weeks.
• A bibliophile of little means is likely to suffer often. Books don't slip from his hands but fly past him through the air, high as birds, high as prices.
• A cat pours his body on the floor like water. It is restful just to see him.
• A student never forgets an encouraging private word, when it is given with sincere respect and admiration.
• A well-ordered life is like climbing a tower; the view halfway up is better than the view from the base, and it steadily becomes finer as the horizon expands.
• God speaks to me not through the thunder and the earthquake, nor through the ocean and the stars, but through the Son of Man, and speaks in a language adapted to my imperfect sight and hearing.
• I divide all readers into two classes: those who read to remember and those who read to forget.
• If at first you don't succeed, find out if the loser gets anything.
• If I didn't start painting, I would have raised chickens.
• If I were running the world I would have it rain only between 2 and 5 a.m. Anyone who was out then ought to get wet.