Lewis Mumford Quotes

I'm 47 years old, and I have to accept the fact that I'm probably not going to set the world on fire... If I was going to do that, I would have done it by now.

We see young men who owe us a new world, so readily and lavishly they promise, but they never acquit the debt; they die young anddodge the account: or if they live, they lose themselves in the crowd.

One is not allowed a grief for a life never lived. Yet one has buried the fruit of love, and a great deal of hope and many dreams.

I used to want to be a war photographer, and I used to want to be a ballerina and a comedian. I used to want to be a writer. I invalidated myself; it's a mistake for me.

The greatest evil which fortune can inflict on men is to endow them with small talents and great ambition.

I wouldn't want to be 20 again for anything.

I wasted too much time in my twenties. I worked, but I would do theater in the evening, and during the day I would surf and do irascible things. And then, for some reason, as I got closer to my thirties, I thought, 'Okay Joel, you've wasted enough time.'

I don't think I gave 'Wings' its due. I was young. I wanted to light the world on fire.

The reveries of youth, in which so much energy is wasted, are the yearnings of a Spirit made for what it has not found but must forever seek as an Ideal.

I always wished for this, but it's almost turning into more of a nightmare than a dream.

There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart's desire. The other is to gain it.

Many people die with their music still in them. Why is this so? Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it, time runs out.

Hopes are like hair ornaments. Girls want to wear too many of them. When they become old women they look silly wearing even one.

When I was younger, I wanted to be older. Now I am older, I am not quite so sure.

The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.

I believe that a dream un-followed turns into all kinds of bad things in the lives of those who don't pursue them.

Life's missed opportunities, at the end, may seem more poignant to us than those we embraced - because in our imagination they have a perfection that reality can never rival.

Many feel discouraged because they have not measured up to their potential.

I would've preferred to blossom earlier in life.

Having a collection of regrets when you hit your 40s is part of the deal.

I don't feel deprived in not completing my artistic endeavors.

Balotelli, and a few others, have everything that I would have liked to have. It angers me that he does not use his talent to his full advantage.

We're so sure of what our unlived lives would have been like that we feel guilty for not living them - for not living up to our potential.

All of those years, I felt like 'Heaven's Gate' was a beautiful, fantastically colored balloon tied to a string fastened to my wrist, so the balloon could never fly.

I was surrounded by a lot of people not doing what they wanted to do.