97 Quotes by Joseph Wood Krutch

Man is the only one in whom the instinct of life falters long enough to enable it to ask the question "Why?

It is disastrous to own more of anything than you can possess, and it is one of the most fundamental laws of human nature that our power actually to possess is limited.

In our hearts those of us who know anything worth knowing know that in March a new year begins, and if we plan any new leaves, it will be when the rest of Nature is planning them too.

Custom has furnished the only basis which ethics have ever had.

A tragic writer does not have to believe in God, but he must believe in man.

Man is, perhaps, no more prone to war than he used to be and no more inclined to commit other evil deeds. But a given amount of ill will or folly will go further than it used to.

An abundance of some good things is perfectly compatible with the scarcity of others; that life is everywhere precarious, man everywhere small.

If we are deprived of hope as well as fear, we are compensated by being given an almost endless patience for enduring or simply for waiting.

Happiness is a kind of gratitude and vice versa.