Top 35 Bernard Williams Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Man never made any material as resilient as the human spirit.”

— Bernard Williams

2. “Unsolicited advice is the junk mail of life.”

— Bernard Williams

3. “The day the Lord created hope was probably the same day he created Spring.”

— Bernard Williams

4. “There was never a night or a problem that could defeat sunrise or hope.”

— Bernard Williams

5. “September tries its best to have us forget summer.”

— Bernard Williams

6. “Talent is a flame. Genius is a fire.”

— Bernard Williams

7. “This is the end of the day, but soon there will be a new day.”

— Bernard Williams

8. “People who say, ‘Let the chips fall where they may,’ usually figure they will not be hit by a chip.”

— Bernard Williams

9. “If we try and fail, we have temporary disappointments. But if we do not try at all, we have permanent regrets.”

— Bernard Williams

10. “Life is supposed to be a series of peaks and valleys. The secret is to keep the valleys from becoming Grand Canyons.”

— Bernard Williams

11. “It is almost impossible to watch a sunset and not dream.”

— Bernard Williams

12. “If a June night could talk, it would probably boast it invented romance.”

— Bernard Williams

13. “Without selfish partiality – to people you are deeply attached to, your family and friends, to place – we are nothing. We are creatures of kinship and loyalty, not blind servants of the world.”

— Bernard Williams

14. “We grow a little every time we do not take advantage of somebody’s weakness.”

— Bernard Williams

15. “Tranquility is like quicksilver. The harder you grab for it, the less likely you will grasp it.”

— Bernard Williams

16. “I like the word “indolence.” It makes my laziness seem classy.”

— Bernard Williams

17. “Laziness has many disguises. Soon “winter doldrums” will become “spring fever.””

— Bernard Williams

18. “An extravagance is something that your spirit thinks is a necessity.”

— Bernard Williams

19. “What will the professor’s justification do, when they break down the door, smash his spectacles, take him away?”

— Bernard Williams

20. “Ideas are like wandering sons. They show up when you least expect them.”

— Bernard Williams

21. “A half-truth is usually less than half of that.”

— Bernard Williams

22. “Sooner or later we all quote our mothers.”

— Bernard Williams

23. “We may pass violets looking for roses. We may pass contentment looking for victory.”

— Bernard Williams

24. “There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face.”

— Bernard Williams

25. “No symphony orchestra ever played music like a two-year-old girl laughing with a puppy.”

— Bernard Williams

26. “You are mature when you know what is foolhardy and what is courage.”

— Bernard Williams

27. “We must escape our illusions of correctness to understand the actions and beliefs of others.”

— Bernard Williams

28. “The trouble with religious morality comes not from morality’s being inescapably pure, but from religion’s being incurably unintelligible.”

— Bernard Williams

29. “What a strange world this would be if we all had the same sense of humor.”

— Bernard Williams

30. “Women have a favorite room, men a favorite chair.”

— Bernard Williams

31. “Few things move as quietly as the future.”

— Bernard Williams

32. “Books had instant replay long before televised sports.”

— Bernard Williams

33. “The only serious enterprise is living.”

— Bernard Williams

34. “A friend is a lot of things, but a critic isn’t.”

— Bernard Williams

35. “The average man will bristle if you say his father was dishonest, but he will brag a little if he discovers that his great-grandfather was a Pirate.”

— Bernard Williams

36. “That an action would be cowardly is not often found by an agent to be a consideration in its favor, but it could be, and in a counterethical way, ministering to a masochism of shame.”

— Bernard Williams

37. “Americans are optimists. They hope they’ll be wealthy someday – and they’re positive they can get one more brushful of paint out of an empty can.”

— Bernard Williams

38. “Disagreement does not necessarily have to be overcome. It may remain an important and constitutive feature of our relations to others.”

— Bernard Williams