Quotes by Thornton Wilder

Leadership is for those who love the public good and are endowed and trained to administer it.

the condition of leadership adds new degrees of solitariness to the basic solitude of mankind. Every order that we issue increases the extent to which we are alone, and every show of deference which is extended to us separates us from our fellows.

All of us have failed. One wishes to be punished. One is willing to assume all kinds of penance, but do you know, my daughter, that in love -- I scarcely dare say it -- but in love our very mistakes dont seem to be able to last long?

Good-by, Good-by, world. Good-by, Grovers Corners... Mama and Papa. Good-by to clocks ticking... and Mamas sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses and hot baths...and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, youre too wonderful for anybody to realize you.

This assumption that she need look for no more devotion now that her beauty had passed proceeded from the fact that she had never realized any love save love as passion. Such love, though it expends itself in generosity and thoughtfulness, though it give birth to visions and to great poetry, remains among the sharpest expressions of self-interest. Not until it has passed through a long servitude, through its own self-hatred, through mockery, through great doubts, can it take its place among the loyalties. Many who have spent a lifetime in it can tell us less of love than the child that lost a dog yesterday.

She did not suspect that the Abbess was even there hovering about the house, herself estimating the stresses and watching for the moment when a burden harms and not strengthens.

The first and last schoolmaster of life is living and committing oneself unreservedly and dangerously to living; to men who know this an Aristotle and a Plato have much to say; but those who have imposed cautions on themselves and petrified themselves in a system of ideas, them the masters themselves will lead into error

So - people a thousand years from now...This is the way we were: in our growing up and in our marrying and in our living and in our dying.

Only it seems to me that once in your life before you die you ought to see a country where they dont talk in English and dont even want to.

But while they continued staring into one another’s face waiting for the miracle of science the pain grew worse.

Cesar is not a philosophical man. His life has been one long flight from reflection. At least he is clever enough not to expose the poverty of his general ideas; he never permits the conversation to move toward philosophical principles. Men of his type so dread all deliberation that they glory in the practice of the instantaneous decision. They think they are saving themselves from irresolution; in reality they are sparing themselves the contemplation of all the consequences of their acts. Moreover, in this way they can rejoice in the illusion of never having made a mistake; for act follows so swiftly on act that it is impossible to reconstruct the past and say that an alternative decision would have been better. They can pretend that every act was forced on them under emergency and that every decision was mothered by necessity

Never support two weaknesses at the same time. Its your combination sinners - your lecherous liars and your miserly drunkards - who dishonor the vices and bring them into bad repute.

I have inherited this burden of superstition and nonsense. I govern innumerable men but must acknowledge that I am governed by birds and thunderclaps

It is only dogs that never bite their masters.

The Marquesa would even have been astonished to learn that her letters were very good, for such authors live always in the noble weather of their own minds and those productions which seem remarkable to us are little better than a days routine to them.

The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude.

Emily: Oh, Mama, look at me one minute as though you really saw me. Mama, fourteen years have gone by. Im dead. Youre a grandmother, Mama! Wallys dead, too. His appendix burst on a camping trip to North Conway. We felt just terrible about it - dont you remember? But, just for a moment now were all together. Mama, just for a moment were happy. Lets really look at one another!...I cant. I cant go on.It goes so fast. We dont have time to look at one another. I didnt realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed. Take me back -- up the hill -- to my grave. But first: Wait! One more look. Good-bye , Good-bye world. Good-bye, Grovers Corners....Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking....and Mamas sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new ironed dresses and hot baths....and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth,you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every,every minute?Stage Manager: No. (pause) The saints and poets, maybe they do some.Emily: Im ready to go back.

Her religious beliefs went first, for all she could ask of a god, or of immortality, was the gift of a place where daughters love their mothers; the other attributes of Heaven you could have for a song.

Throughout the hours of the night, though there had been few to hear it, the whole sky had been loud with the singing of these constellations.

[Dona Maria] saw that the people of this world moved about in an armor of egotism, drunk with self-gazing, athirst for compliments, hearing little of what was said to them, unmoved by the accidents that befell their closest friends, in dread of all appeals that might interrupt their long communion with their own desires.