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World

term ambiguously referring to any of: the whole of reality, the universe, the Earth and all life upon it, or human civilization

The World is a common name for the Earth, or the whole of human civilization, history, or experiences and conditions in general; in a philosophical context it may refer to the whole of the physical Universe, or an ontological world (as in world disclosure). In theological contexts, "the world" often refers to material or profane realms, as opposed to the celestial, spiritual, transcendent or sacred.

Friendship with the world is enmity with God. ~ James the Just
The life of this world is nothing but the enjoyment of delusion. ~ Quran

Arranged alphabetically by author or source:
A · B · C · D · E · F · G · H · I · J · K · L · M · N · O · P · Q · R · S · T · U · V · W · X · Y · Z · See also · External links

A

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  • The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds.
  • This restless world
    Is full of chances, which by habit's power
    To learn to bear is easier than to shun.
    • John Armstrong, Art of Preserving Health (1744), Book II, line 453; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • Wandering between two worlds, one dead,
    The other powerless to be born,
    With nowhere yet to rest my head,
    Like these, on earth I wait forlorn.
    • Matthew Arnold, Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • Securus judicat orbis terrarum.
    • The verdict of the world is conclusive.
    • Augustine of Hippo, Contra Epist. Parmen, III. 24; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.

B

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  • It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens.
  • This world's a bubble.
    • Ascribed to Francis Bacon by Thomas Farnaby (1629). Appeared in his Book of Epigrams; and by Joshua Sylvester, Panthea. Appendix. (1630). See also Wottonianæ, p. 513. Attributed to Bishop Usher. See Miscellanes, H. W. Gent (1708); reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • Earth took her shining station as a star,
    In Heaven's dark hall, high up the crowd of worlds.
  • Dieu est le poète, les hommes ne sont que les acteurs. Ces grandes pièces qui se jouent sur la terre ont été composées dans le ciel.
    • God is the author, men are only the players. These grand pieces which are played upon earth have been composed in heaven.
    • Honore de Balzac, Socrate Chrétien; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • Fly away, pretty moth, to the shade
    Of the leaf where you slumbered all day;
    Be content with the moon and the stars, pretty moth,
    And make use of your wings while you may.
    * * * * * *
    But tho' dreams of delight may have dazzled you quite,
    They at last found it dangerous play;
    Many things in this world that look bright, pretty moth,
    Only dazzle to lead us astray.
    • Thomas Haynes Bayly, Fly away, pretty Moth; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • Let the world slide.
    • Beaumont and Fletcher, Wit Without Money (c. 1614; publisher 1639), Act V, scene 2. Taming of the Shrew. Introduction, scene 1, line 5. Also Sc. 2, line 146. ("Slip" in folio).
  • The world is like a board with holes in it, and the square men have got into the round holes, and the round into the square.
    • Bishop Berkeley, as quoted by Punch; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • Renounce the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the world.
    • Book of Common Prayer, Public Baptism of Infants; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • The pomps and vanity of this wicked world.
    • Book of Common Prayer, Catechism; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • He sees that this great roundabout,
    The world, with all its motley rout,
    Church, army, physic, law,
    Its customs and its businesses,
    Is no concern at all of his,
    And says—what says he?—Caw.
    • Vincent Bourne, The Jackdaw. Cowper's translation; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • 'Tis a very good world we live in
    To spend, and to lend, and to give in;
    But to beg, or to borrow, or ask for our own;
    'Tis the very worst world that ever was known.
    • J. Bromfield. As given in The Mirror, under The Gatherer (Sept. 12, 1840). Quoted by Washington Irving in Tales of a Traveller. Prefixed to Part II. Another similar version attributed to Earl of Rochester; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • The severe schools shall never laugh me out of the philosophy of Hermes, that this visible world is but a picture of the invisible, wherein as in a portrait, things are not truly, but in equivocal shapes, and as they counterfeit some real substance in that invisible fabric.
    • Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • In this bad, twisted, topsy-turvy world,
    Where all the heaviest wrongs get uppermost.
    • Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Aurora Leigh (1856), Book V, line 981; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • O world as God has made it! All is beauty.
    • Robert Browning, Guardian Angel, A Picture at Fano; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • The innumerable worlds in the cosmos are like the eyes of the net. Each and every world is different, its variety infinite. So too are the Dharma Doors (methods of cultivation) taught by the Buddhas.
  • Gautama Buddha Sutra Translation Committee of the US and Canada (2000). The Brahma Net Sutra, New York [w:Brahmajala Sutra (Mahayana)|Brahmajala Sutra (Mahayana)]
  • The wide world is all before us—
    But a world without a friend.
    • Robert Burns, Strathallan's Lament; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • I have not loved the world, nor the world me;
    I have not flatter'd its rank breath, nor bow'd
    To its idolatries a patient knee.
  • Well, well, the world must turn upon its axis,
    And all mankind turn with it, heads or tails,
    And live and die, make love and pay our taxes,
    And as the veering winds shift, shift our sails.
    • Lord Byron, Don Juan (1818-24), Canto II, Stanza 4; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.

C

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  • Such is the world. Understand it, despise it, love it; cheerfully hold on thy way through it, with thy eye on highest loadstars!
    • Thomas Carlyle, Essays, Count Cagliostro, last lines; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • The true Sovereign of the world, who moulds the world like soft wax, according to his pleasure, is he who lovingly sees into the world.
    • Thomas Carlyle, Essays, Death of Goethe; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • Socrates, quidem, cum rogaretur cujatem se esse diceret, "Mundanum," inquit; totius enim mundi se incolam et civem arbitrabatur.
    • Socrates, indeed, when he was asked of what country he called himself, said, "Of the world;" for he considered himself an inhabitant and a citizen of the whole world.
    • Cicero, Tusculanarum Disputationum, Book V. 37. 108; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • This is the best world, that we live in,
    To lend and to spend and to give in:
    But to borrow, or beg, or to get a man's own,
    It is the worst world that ever was known.
    • From A Collection of Epigrams (1737).
  • 'Tis pleasant, through the loopholes of retreat,
    To peep at such a world; to see the stir
    Of the Great Babel, and not feel the crowd.
  • Such stuff the world is made of.
    • William Cowper, Hope, line 211; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • For a brief space conceive yourself to be transported to one of the loftiest peaks of some inaccessible mountain, thence gaze on the appearances of things lying below you, and with eyes turned in various directions look upon the eddies of the billowy world, while you yourself are removed from earthly contacts—you will at once begin to feel compassion for the world, and with self-recollection and increasing gratitude to God, you will rejoice with all the greater joy that you have escaped it.

D

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  • And for the few that only lend their ear,
    That few is all the world.
    • Samuel Daniel, Musophilus, Stanza 97; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • Vien dietro a me, e lascia dir le genti.
    • Come, follow me, and leave the world to its babblings.
    • Dante Alighieri, Purgatorio (early 14th century), V. 13; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • The Doctor: It’s like when you’re a kid. The first time they tell you that the world’s turning and you just can’t quite believe it ’cause everything looks like it’s standing still… I can feel it: the turn of the Earth. The ground beneath our feet is spinning at 1,000 miles an hour and the entire planet is hurtling around the sun at 67,000 miles an hour, and I can feel it. We’re falling through space, you and me, clinging to the skin of this tiny little world, and if we let go… That’s who I am.
  • Quel est-il en effet? C'est un verre qui luit,
    Qu'un souffle peut detruire, et qu'un souffle a produit.
    • What is it [the world], in fact? A glass which shines, which a breath can destroy, and which a breath has produced.
    • De Caux, L'Horloge de Sable (1745). In D'Israeli's Curiosities of Literature, Imitations and Similarities.
  • Come! Behold this world, which is like a decorated royal chariot. Here fools flounder, but the wise have no attachment to it.
  • I am a citizen of the world.
    • Diogenes Laertius; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • Over at our place, we're sure of just one thing: everybody in the world was once a child. So in planning a new picture, we don't think of grown-ups, and we don't think of children, but just of that fine, clean, unspoiled spot down deep in every one of us that maybe the world has made us forget and that maybe our pictures can help recall.
    • Walt Disney Recorded statement (1938) used in The Pixar Story (2008)
  • The world is a wheel, and it will all come round right.
    • Benjamin Disraeli, Endymion (1880), Chapter LXX; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • Since every man who lives is born to die,
    And none can boast sincere felicity,
    With equal mind, what happens let us bear,
    Nor joy nor grieve too much for things beyond our care.
    Like pilgrims, to th' appointed place we tend;
    The world's an inn, and death the journey's end.
    • John Dryden, Palamon and Arcite, Book III, line 2,159; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • The world's a stage where God's omnipotence,
    His justice, knowledge, love and providence,
    Do act the parts.
    • Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas, Divine Weekes and Workes, First Week, First Day; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • I take the world to be but as a stage,
    Where net-maskt men doo play their personage.
    • Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas, Divine Weekes and Workes. Dialogue Between Heraclitus and Democritus. "The world is a stage; each plays his part, and receives his portion." Found in Winschooten's Seeman (1681). Bohn's Collection, 1857. Juvenal, Satires, III. 100. (Natio comœda est.); reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.

E

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  • But they will maintain the state of the world;
    And all their desire is in the work of their craft.
    • Ecclesiasticus, XXXVIII. 34; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • Pythagoras said that this world was like a stage,
    Whereon many play their parts; the lookers-on the sage
    Philosophers are, saith he, whose part is to learn
    The manners of all nations, and the good from the bad to discern.
    • Richard Edwards, Damon and Pythias; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • Good-bye, proud world! I'm going home;
    Thou art not my friend; I am not thine.
    • Ralph Waldo Emerson, Good-bye, Proud World! ("And I," in later Ed.); reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.

F

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  • Shall I speak truly what I now see below?
    The World is all a carkass, smoak and vanity,
    The shadow of a shadow, a play
    And in one word, just Nothing.
    • Owen Feltham, Resolves (Ed. 1696), p. 316. From the Latin said to have been left by Lipsius to be put on his grave.
  • Map me no maps, sir; my head is a map, a map of the whole world.
    • Henry Fielding, Rape upon Rape, Act I, scene 5; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • Long ago a man of the world was defined as a man who in every serious crisis is invariably wrong.
    • Fortnightly Review, Armageddon—and After (Nov., 1914), p. 736; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • Mais dans ce monde, il n'y a rien d'assure que le mort et les impots.
    • But in this world nothing is sure but death and taxes.
    • Benjamin Franklin, letter to M. Leroy (1789); reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.

G

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  • Eppur si muove. (Epur).
    • But it does move.
    • Galileo, before the Inquisition (1632). Questioned by Karl von Geble; also by Prof. Heis, who says it appeared first in the Dictionnaire Historique. Caen. (1789). Guisar says it was printed in the Lehrbuch der Geschichte, Wurtzburg. (1774). Conceded to be apocryphal. Earliest appearance in Abbé Irailh, Querelle's Litteraires; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • Nor is this world inhabited by man the first of things earthly created by God. He made several worlds before ours, but He destroyed them all, because He was pleased with none until He created ours. But even this last world would have had no permanence, if God had executed His original plan of ruling it according to the principle of strict justice. It was only when He saw that justice by itself would undermine the world that He associated mercy with justice, and made them to rule jointly. Thus, from the beginning of all things prevailed Divine goodness, without which nothing could have continued to exist. If not for it, the myriads of evil spirits had soon put an end to the generations of men.
  • Il mondo è un bel libro, ma poco serve a chi non lo sa leggere.
    • The world is a beautiful book, but of little use to him who cannot read it.
    • Carlo Goldoni, Pamela (c. 1750), I. 14.
  • Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
    Where wealth accumulates, and men decay;
    Princes and Lords may flourish, or may fade—
    A breath can make them, as a breath has made—
    But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
    When once destroy'd can never be supplied.
  • Creation's heir, the world, the world is mine!
  • I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good, therefore, that I can do or any kindness I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it for I shall not pass this way again.
    • Attributed to Stephen Grellet , variants of this have been been widely circulated as a Quaker saying since at least 1869, and attributed Grellet since at least 1893. W. Gurney Benham in Benham's Book of Quotations, Proverbs, and Household Words (1907) states that though sometimes attributed to others, "there seems to be some authority in favor of Stephen Grellet being the author, but the passage does not appear in any of his printed works." It appears to have been published as an anonymous proverb at least as early as 1859, when it appeared in Household Words : A Weekly Journal.

H

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  • Earth is but the frozen echo of the silent voice of God.
    • Hageman, Silence; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • In a world that is in chaos politically, socially and environmentally, how can the human race sustain another 100 years?
    • Stephen Hawking, Posed this open question on the Internet. The Guardian, Britain. Quoted in Watching the World, Awake! magazine, June 2007.
  • Let the world slide, let the world go;
    A fig for care and a fig for woe!
    If I can't pay, why I can owe,
    And death makes equal the high and low.
    • John Heywood, Be Merry Friends; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • The world's a theatre, the earth a stage,
    Which God and nature do with actors fill.
    • John Heywood, Dramatic Works, Volume I. The Author to His Book. Prefix to Apology for Actors; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • Nor is this lower world but a huge inn,
    And men the rambling passengers.
    • James Howell, The Vote. Poem prefixed to his Familiar Letters; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • There are two worlds; the world that we can measure with line and rule, and the world that we feel with our hearts and imaginations.
    • Leigh Hunt, Men, Women, and Books, Fiction and Matter of Fact; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.

I

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  • The nations are as a drop of a bucket.
    • Isaiah. XL. 15; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • World without end.
    • Isaiah. XLV. 17; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.

J

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  • οὐκ οἴδατε ὅτι ἡ φιλία τοῦ κόσμου ἔχθρα τοῦ Θεοῦ ἐστιν; ὃς ἐὰν οὖν βουληθῇ φίλος εἶναι τοῦ κόσμου, ἐχθρὸς τοῦ Θεοῦ καθίσταται.
    • Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
    • James 4:4 ESV
  • The visible world is but man turned inside out that he may be revealed to himself.
    • Henry James (the Elder). From J. A. Kellog, Digest of the Philosophy of Henry James; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • It takes all sorts of people to make a world.
    • Douglas Jerrold, Story of a Feather. In Punch, Volume V, p. 55; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • This world, where much is to be done and little to be known.
    • Samuel Johnson, Prayers and Meditations, Against Inquisitive and Perplexing Thoughts; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • If there is one beast in all the loathsome fauna of civilization I hate and despise, it is a man of the world.
    • Henry Arthur Jones, The Liars, Act I; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • Upon the battle ground of heaven and hell
    I palsied stand.
    • Marie Josephine, Rosa Mystica, p. 231; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.

K

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  • Give me matter, and I will construct a world out of it!
    • Immanuel Kant, "Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens", Preface, Kant's Cosmogony, trans. W. Hastie, p. 29 (1900).
  • We spill over into the world and the world spills over into us. The earth, that first among good mothers, gives us the gift that we cannot provide ourselves.
  • Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift.
  • The world goes up and the world goes down,
    And the sunshine follows the rain;
    And yesterday's sneer and yesterday's frown
    Can never come over again,
    Sweet wife.
    No, never come over again.
    • Charles Kingsley, Dolcino to Margaret; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • For to admire an' for to see,
    For to be'old this world so wide—
    It never done no good to me,
    But I can't drop it if I tried!
    • Rudyard Kipling, For to Admire, In The Seven Seas; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.

L

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  • "Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you" is the greatest phrase ever written. If everyone followed that creed, this world would be a paradise.
  • If all the world must see the world
    As the world the world hath seen,
    Then it were better for the world
    That the world had never been.
    • Charles Godfrey Leland, The World and the World; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • It is an ugly world. Offend
    Good people, how they wrangle,
    The manners that they never mend,
    The characters they mangle.
    They eat, and drink, and scheme, and plod,
    And go to church on Sunday—
    And many are afraid of God—
    And more of Mrs. Grundy.
    • Frederick Locker-Lampson, The Jester's Plea; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • I was borne on an eagle's wing,
    Till with the noon-sun perishing;
    Then I stood in a world alone,
    From which all other life was gone,
    Whence warmth, and breath, and light were fled,
    A world o'er which a curse was said:
    The trees stood leafless all, and bare,
    The sky spread, but no sun was there:
    Night came, no stars were on her way,
    Morn came without a look of day,—
    As night and day shared one pale shroud,
    Without a colour or a cloud.
    And there were rivers, but they stood
    Without a murmur on the flood,
    Waveless and dark, their task was o'er,—
    The sea lay silent on the shore,
    Without a sign upon its breast
    Save of interminable rest:
    And there were palaces and halls,
    But silence reign'd amid their walls,
    Though crowds yet fill'd them; for no sound
    Rose from the thousands gather'd round;
    All wore the same white, bloodless hue,
    All the same eyes of glassy blue,
    Meaningless, cold, corpse-like as those
    No gentle hand was near to close.
    And all seem'd, as they look'd on me,
    In wonder that I yet could be
    A moving shape of warmth and breath
    Alone amid a world of death.
  • O what a glory doth this world put on
    For him who, with a fervent heart, goes forth
    Under the bright and glorious sky, and looks
    On duties well performed, and days well spent!
  • Glorious indeed is the world of God around us, but more glorious the world of God within us. There lies the Land of Song; there lies the poet's native land.
  • The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
  • One day with life and heart,
    Is more than time enough to find a world.
    • James Russell Lowell, Columbus, last lines; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • Flammantia mœnia mundi.
    • The flaming ramparts of the world.
    • Lucretius, De Rerum Natura, I. 73; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.

M

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  • When the world dissolves,
    And every creature shall be purified,
    All places shall be hell that are not heaven.
    • Christopher Marlowe, Faustus, line 543; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • The world in all doth but two nations bear,
    The good, the bad, and these mixed everywhere.
    • Marvell, The Loyal Scot; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • This world is full of beauty, as other worlds above,
    And if we did our duty, it might be as full of love.
    • Gerald Massey, This World; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • I feel like I live in a world made of cardboard. Always taking constant care not to break something. To break someone. Never allowing myself to lose control, even for a moment, or someone could die.
  • The world's a stage on which all parts are played.
    • Thomas Middleton, A Game of Chess (1624), Act V, scene II; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot
    Which men call Earth.
  • Hanging in a golden chain
    This pendent world, in bigness as a star
    Of smallest magnitude close by the moon.
  • A boundless continent,
    Dark, waste, and wild, under the frown of night
    Starless expos'd.
  • Then stayed the fervid wheels, and in his hand
    He took the golden compasses, prepared
    In God's eternal store, to circumscribe
    This universe and all created things:
    One foot he centred, and the other turned
    Round through the vast profundity obscure,
    And said, "Thus far extend, thus far thy bounds,
    This be thy just circumference, O World."
    • John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book VII, line 224. God is like a skillful Geometrician. Sir Thomas Browne—Religio Medici, Part I. Sect, XVI. Nature geometrizeth and observeth order in all things. Sir Thomas Browne—Garden of Cyrus, Chapter III. The same idea appears in Comber—Companion to the Temple. (Folio 1684). God acts the part of a Geometrician…. His government of the World is no less mathematically exact than His creation of it. (Quoting Plato.) John Norris—Practical Discourses, II, p. 228. (Ed. 1693). "God Geometrizes" is quoted as a traditional sentence used by Plato, in Plutarch—Symposium. By a carpenter mankind was created and made, and by a carpenter mete it was that man should be repaired. Erasmus—Paraphrase of St. Mark. Folio 42.
  • The world was all before them, where to choose
    Their place of rest, and Providence their guide.
  • If you have been inside my head, then you know what I've seen. The suffering. Every moment in time and space is burning. It must end, and I intend to end it the only way I can.
  • To me, when we talk about the world, we are talking about our ideas of the world. Our ideas of organisation, our different religions, our different economic systems, our ideas about it are the world. We are heading for a radical revision where you could say we are heading towards the end of the world, but more in the R.E.M. sense than the Revelation sense. That is what apocalypse means – revelation. I could square that with the end of the world, a revelation, a new way of looking at things, something that completely radicalises our notions of the where we were, when we were, what we were, something like that would constitute an end to the world in the kind of abstract – yet very real sense – that I am talking about. A change in the language, a change in the thinking, a change in the music. It wouldn’t take much – one big scientific idea, or artistic idea, one good book, one good painting – who knows – we are at a critical point where the ideas are coming thicker and faster and stranger and stranger than they ever were before. They are realised at a greater speed, everything has become very fluid.
  • The Doctor: There are worlds out there where the sky is burning, and the sea’s asleep, and the rivers dream; people made of smoke and cities made of song. Somewhere there’s danger, somewhere there’s injustice, and somewhere else the tea’s getting cold. Come on, Ace. We’ve got work to do.

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  • Le monde n'est qu'une bransloire perenne.
    • The world is but a perpetual see-saw.
    • Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Book III, Chapter II; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • Is it not a noble farce wherein kings, republics, and emperors have for so many ages played their parts, and to which the vast universe serves for a theatre?
    • Michel de Montaigne, Of the Most Excellent Men; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • Or may I think when toss'd in trouble,
    This world at best is but a bubble.
    • Dr. Moor. MS; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • This world is all a fleeting show,
    For man's illusion given;
    The smiles of joy, the tears of woe,
    Deceitful shine, deceitful flow,—
    There's nothing true but Heaven.
    • Thomas Moore, This World is all a Fleeting Show; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.

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  • This outer world is but the pictured scroll
    Of worlds within the soul;
    A colored chart, a blazoned missal-book,
    Whereon who rightly look
    May spell the splendors with their mortal eyes,
    And steer to Paradise.
    • Alfred Noyes, The Two Worlds; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.

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  • We look at this as the best of all possible worlds, but the French know it isn't, because most people speak English.
  • Think, in this battered Caravanserai,
    Whose Portals are alternate Night and Day,
    How Sultán after Sultán with his Pomp
    Abode his destined Hour, and went his way.
  • The world is large, when its weary leagues two loving hearts divide;
    But the world is small, when your enemy is loose on the other side.
    • John Boyle O'Reilly, "Distance", Katherine E. Conway, ed., Watchwords from John Boyle O'Reilly (1892), p. 16. These lines were quoted by Senator John F. Kennedy in a speech at the Al Smith Memorial Dinner in New York City (October 19, 1960), and, as president, to the Irish Parliament, Dublin, Ireland (June 28, 1963).

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  • We have it in our power to begin the world over again.
    • Thomas Paine, "Common Sense" (1776), conclusion; in Philip S. Foner, ed., The Complete Writings of Thomas Paine (1945), vol. 1, p. 45. Quoted by President Ronald Reagan in a televised presidential campaign debate with Walter F. Mondale (October 7, 1984).
  • Love to his soul gave eyes; he knew things are not as they seem;
    The dream is his real life; the world around him is the dream.
    • Francis Turner Palgrave, "The Dream of Maxen Wledig", in The Visions of England (London: Macmillan and Co., 1881), p. 13..
  • Quod fere totus mundus exerceat histrionem.
    • Almost the whole world are players.
    • Petronius Arbiter, adapted from Fragments. No. 10. (Ed. 1790). Over the door of Shakespeare's theatre, The Globe, Bankside, London, was a figure of Hercules; under this figure was the above quotation. It probably suggested "All the world's a stage"; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • To me it seems that they who grasp the world,
    The kingdom and the power and the glory,
    Must pay with deepest misery of spirit,
    Atoning unto God for a brief brightness.
    • Stephen Phillips, Herod: A Tragedy (London: John Lane, 1901), Act III; pp. 127–128.
  • Alexander wept when he heard from Anaxarchus that there was an infinite number of worlds, and his friends asking him if any accident had befallen him he returned this answer: "Do you not think it is a matter worthy of lamentation that where there is such a vast multitude of them we have not yet conquered one?"
    • Plutarch, On the Tranquillity of the Mind. One world is not sufficient; he [Alexander the Great] fumes unhappy in the narrow bounds of this earth. Quoted from Juvenal—Satires. X; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • But as the world, harmoniously confused,
    Where order in variety we see;
    And where, tho' all things differ, all agree.
    • Alexander Pope, Windsor Forest; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.

Q

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  • My soul, what's lighter than a feather? Wind.
    Than wind? The fire. And what than fire? The mind.
    What's lighter than the mind? A thought. Than thought?
    This bubble world. What than this bubble? Nought.
    • Francis Quarles, Emblems, Book I. 4; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.

R

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  • All nations and kindreds and people and tongues.
    • Revelation, VII. 9; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • The world of the future will not flourish behind walls—no matter who builds them and no matter what their purpose. A world divided economically must inevitably be a world divided politically. As Secretary of State, I cannot contemplate that prospect with anything but deep disquiet.
    • William Pierce Rogers, secretary of state, address before the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, Washington, D.C. (May 1, 1972); in The Washington Post (May 22, 1972), p. A20.
  • Le monde est le livre des femmes.
    • The world is woman's book.
    • Jean-Jacques Rousseau; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • Physicists and astronomers see their own implications in the world being round, but to me it means that only one-third of the world is asleep at any given time and the other two-thirds is up to something.
    • Dean Rusk, secretary of state, speech to the American Bar Association, Atlanta, Georgia (October 22, 1964), as reported by The Atlanta Constitution (October 23, 1964), p. 10.

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  • Es liebt die Welt, das Stralende zu schwärzen
    Und das Erhabne in den Staub zu ziehn.
    • The world delights to tarnish shining names,
      And to trample the sublime in the dust.
    • Friedrich Schiller, Das Mädchen von Orleans; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • Denn nur vom Nutzen wird die Welt regiert.
    • For the world is ruled by interest alone.
    • Friedrich Schiller, Wallenstein's Tod, I. 6. 37; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • Most people in the world are poor. If we knew the economy of being poor, we would know much of the economics that really matter. Most of the world's poor people earn their living in agriculture. If we knew the economics of agriculture, we would know much of the economic of being poor.
  • Non sum uni angulo natus; patria mea totus hic est mundus.
    • I am not born for one corner; the whole world is my native land.
    • Seneca the Younger, Epistles, 28; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • This wide and universal theatre
    Presents more woful pageants than the scene
    Wherein we play in.
  • How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable
    Seem to me all the uses of this world!
  • For some must watch, while some must sleep;
    So runs the world away.
  • Like bubbles in the water, the worlds rise, exist and dissolve in the Supreme Self, which is the material cause and the prop of everything.
  • You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.
    • Bernard Shaw, O'Flaherty, V. C.; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • The world's great age begins anew,
    The golden years return,
    The earth doth like a snake renew
    Her winter weeds outworn.
    • Percy Bysshe Shelley, Hellas, last chorus; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • Our leaders tell us there is only one world: the existing world, the globalised world, the hegemonic world. ‘Either sink or swim’, they say. The truth of the matter is that the working people are sinking in the globalised world, while the elite are swimming in it. It is clear therefore that there is a contest between two worldviews: one which wants to maintain the existing world; the other that wants to create an alternative world. Which worldview do we share? We must make a choice, and act in accordance with our choice. [...] The pundits of the status quo have in common with all dominating classes and hegemonic powers the assumption that the existing world is the only realistic world, and no alternative world is possible. Yet, it is the struggle for an alternative world, a better world, which has changed the past and will continue to change the present for a better future. We, the activists, together with the working people, must continue to fight for a better world. An alternative world is possible.
  • Making a perpetual mansion of this poor baiting place.
    • Sir Philip Sidney, Arcadia. Same idea in Moore, Irish Melodies. Washington Irving, Bracebridge Hall, Volume I, p. 213. An adaptation of Cicero, De Senectute, 26; and Seneca the Younger, Epistles, 120; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • the world is big/Big and bright and round/And it's full of folks like me/Who are black, yellow, beige and brown
  • If you choose to represent the various parts in life by holes upon a table, of different shapes,—some circular, some triangular, some square, some oblong,—and the persons acting these parts by bits of wood of similar shapes, we shall generally find that the triangular person has got into the square hole, the oblong into the triangular, and a square person has squeezed himself into the round hole. The officer and the office, the doer and the thing done, seldom fit so exactly that we can say they were almost made for each other.
    • Sydney Smith, Sketches of Moral Philosophy, p. 309; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • O Earth! all bathed with blood and tears, yet never
    Hast thou ceased putting forth thy fruit and flowers.
    • Anne Louise Germaine de Staël, Corinne (1807), Book XIII, Chapter IV, line E; L.'s translation; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • This world surely is wide enough to hold both thee and me.
    • Laurence Sterne, The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1760-1767), Book II, Chapter XII; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • I wanted to write the most beautiful poem but that is impossible; the world has written its own.
    • Dejan Stojanovic in The Sun Watches the Sun, “The Most Beautiful Poem” (Sequence: “Sky-Motion”) (1999).
  • The world cannot be translated; it can only be dreamed of and touched.
    • Dejan Stojanovic in The Creator, “World II” (Sequence: “The Dream Chamber”).
  • My feelings are too loud for words and too shy for the world.
  • There was all the world and his wife.
    • Jonathan Swift, Polite Conversation (c. 1738), Dialogue III. Anstey—New Bath Guide, p. 130. (1767); reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.

T

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Have we despised what the world esteems and esteemed what it despises? Have we fled what it wants and wanted what it flees? Have we loved what it hates and hated what it loves? ~ Louis Tronson
  • In this playhouse of infinite forms I have had my play, and here have I caught sight of him that is formless.
    • Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali, 96; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.
    • Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:9; Yerushalmi Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin 37a.
  • A mad world, my masters.
    • John Taylor, Western Voyage. First line. Middleton. Title of a play. (1608). Nicholas Breton. Title of a pamphlet. (1603). Mundus furiosus. (a mad world.) Inscription of a book by Jansenius—Gallo-Belgicus. (1596); reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • So many worlds, so much to do,
    So little done, such things to be.
  • For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see,
    Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be;
    Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails,
    Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales;
    Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a ghastly dew
    From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue;
    Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,
    With the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the thunder-storm;
    Till the war-drums throbb'd, no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd
    In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.
    There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe,
    And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in universal law.
    • Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Locksley Hall", verses 60–65, The Poetical Works of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, p. 111 (1897).
  • The world is a looking glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face. Frown at it and it will in turn look sourly upon you; laugh at it and with it, and it is a jolly kind companion.
  • Even the linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist
    I swung the earth a trinket at my wrist.
    • Francis Thompson, Hound of Heaven, line 126; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • Anchorite, who didst dwell
    With all the world for cell!
    • Francis Thompson, To the Dead Cardinal of Westminster, Stanza 5; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • For, if the worlds
    In worlds enclosed should on his senses burst * * *
    He would abhorrent turn.
    • James Thomson, The Seasons, Summer (1727), line 313; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • Heed not the folk who sing or say
    In sonnet sad or sermon chill,
    "Alas, alack, and well-a-day!
    This round world's but a bitter pill."
    We too are sad and careful; still
    We'd rather be alive than not.
    • Graham R. Tomson, Ballade of the Optimist; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • There can be only one permanent revolution — a moral one; the regeneration of the inner man.
    How is this revolution to take place? Nobody knows how it will take place in humanity, but every man feels it clearly in himself. And yet in our world everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing himself.
    • Leo Tolstoy "Three Methods Of Reform" in Pamphlets : Translated from the Russian (1900) as translated by Aylmer Maude, p. 29.
  • Do we have all the hatred and all the aversion for the world which Our Lord requires, and which his example must inspire in us?
Have we regarded it as the greatest enemy of Christianity, an enemy that can not abide that Jesus Christ reigns over the faithful, crying ceaselessly through the mouth of its fans, “We do not want this man to reign over us” (Saint Anthony).
Have we raised ourselves up to that outlook opposed to the world, and have we tried to destroy the esteem and love for it in all hearts?
Have we referred to it with indignation, distance and contempt; and have we made it clear that it is filled only with corruption, vanity and falsehood?
Have we condemned the world's sentiments? Are we opposed to its maxims? And have we made all our efforts to abolish its laws and overturn its accursed customs?
Have we despised what the world esteems and esteemed what it despises? Have we fled what it wants and wanted what it flees? Have we loved what it hates and hated what it loves?
Have we had the colossal aversion to the world's public assemblies, to its spectacles and all its pomp? ...
Have we fled the company of worldly persons, whom the saints, especially the Ecclesiastics, advise us to avoid like the plague, whom one should see only by necessity, and from whom we should separate ourselves as vigilantly as we can?
Have we wanted, in order to render our separation from the world as perfect as the sanctity of our state demands, that the world have aversion to us, as we have aversion to the world, following the example the apostle has given us, “The world is crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal. 6:14).
  • Louis Tronson, Examens particuliers sur divers sujets (1690), pp. 321-322.

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V

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  • Tout est pour le mieux dans le meilleur des mondes.
    • Everything is for the best in this best of possible worlds.
    • Voltaire, Candid, I. (A hit against Leibnitz' Optimistic Doctrines); reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.

W

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  • Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view,
    That stand upon the threshold of the new.
    • Edmund Waller, Divine Poems, Works, p. 316. (Ed. 1729); reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • The world is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel.
    • Horace Walpole, letter to Sir Horace Mann. (1770); reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • If we suppose a sufficient righteousness and intelligence in men to produce presently, from the tremendous lessons of history, an effective will for a world peace—that is to say, an effective will for a world law under a world government—for in no other fashion is a secure world peace conceivable—in what manner may we expect things to move towards this end?… It is an educational task, and its very essence is to bring to the minds of all men everywhere, as a necessary basis for world cooperation, a new telling and interpretation, a common interpretation, of history.
    • H. G. Wells, Outline of History, Chapter XLI. Par. 2; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • What is this world? A net to snare the soule.
    • George Whetstone, in Tottle's Miscellany. Erroneously attributed to Gascoigne; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.
    • Walt Whitman, Starting from Pawmano, No. 52; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • Was ist ihm nun die Welt? ein weiter leerer Raum,
    Fortunen's Spielraum, frei ihr Rad herum zu rollen.
    • What is the world to him now? a vast and vacant space, for fortune's wheel to roll about at will.
    • Christoph Martin Wieland, Oberon, VIII. 20; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • I have my beauty,—you your Art—
    Nay, do not start:
    One world was not enough for two
    Like me and you.
    • Oscar Wilde, Her Voice; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • I had never doubted my own abilities, but I was quite prepared to believe that "the world" would decline to recognize them.
  • When the fretful stir
    Unprofitable, and the fever of the world
    Have hung upon the beatings of my heart.
    • William Wordsworth, lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • The world is too much with us; late and soon,
    Getting and spending we lay waste our powers;
    Little we see in Nature that is ours.
    • William Wordsworth, Miscellaneous Sonnets, Part I, XXXIII; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.
  • The world's a bubble—and the life of man
    Less than a span.
    In his conception wretched, and from the womb
    So to the tomb.
    Nurst from the cradle, and brought up to years
    With cares and fears.
    Who then to frail mortality shall trust,
    But limns in water, and but writes in dust.
    • Henry Wotton, The World, Ode to Bacon; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 911-17.

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  • Man of the World (for such wouldst thou be called)—
    And art thou proud of that inglorious style?
    • Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night VIII, line 8.
  • They most the world enjoy who least admire.
    • Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night VIII, line 1,173.
  • Let not the cooings of the world allure thee:
    Which of her lovers ever found her true?
    • Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night VIII, line 1,279.

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