Top 40 Clarence Day Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “There is an art of reading, as well as an art of thinking, and an art of writing.”

— Clarence Day

Featured in: Reading Quotes

2. “The real world is not easy to live in. It is rough; it is slippery. Without the most clear-eyed adjustments we fall and get crushed. A man must stay sober; not always, but most of the time.”

— Clarence Day

3. “Ants are good citizens; they place group interest first. But they carry it so far, they have few or no political rights. An ant doesn’t have the vote, apparently; he just has his duties.”

— Clarence Day

4. “The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man.”

— Clarence Day

Featured in: Reading Quotes

5. “The test of a civilized person is first self-awareness, and then depth after depth of sincerity in self-confrontation.”

— Clarence Day

6. “The creatures that want to live a life of their own, we call wild. If wild, then no matter how harmless, we treat them as outlaws, and those of us who are specially well brought up shoot them for fun.”

— Clarence Day

Featured in: Fun Quotes

7. “If your parents didn’t have any children, there’s a good chance that you won’t have any.”

— Clarence Day

8. “When eras die, their legacies Are left to strange police. Professors in New England guard The glory that was Greece.”

— Clarence Day

9. “You can’t sweep other people off their feet, if you can’t be swept off your own.”

— Clarence Day

10. “Information’s pretty thin stuff unless mixed with experience.”

— Clarence Day

11. “Elephants suffer from too much patience. Their exhibitions of it may seem superb,-such power and such restraint, combined, are noble,-but a quality carried to excess defeats itself.”

— Clarence Day

12. “Ants are good citizens: they place group interests first.”

— Clarence Day

13. “Knowledge is power. Unfortunate dupes of this saying will keep on creating, ambitiously, till they have stunned their native initiative and made their thoughts weak.”

— Clarence Day

14. “The ant is knowing and wise, but he doesn’t know enough to take a vacation.”

— Clarence Day

15. “The worshipper of energy is too physically energetic to see that he cannot explore certain higher fields until he is still.”

— Clarence Day

16. “The egg it is the source of all. Tis everyone’s ancestral hall. The bravest chief that ever fought, The lowest thief that e’er was caught, The harlot’s lip, the maiden’s leg, They each and all came from an egg.”

— Clarence Day

17. “The artistic impulse seems not to wish to produce finished work. It certainly deserts us half-way, after the idea is born; and if we go on, it is labor.”

— Clarence Day

18. “A moderate addiction to money may not always be hurtful; but when taken in excess it is nearly always bad for the health.”

— Clarence Day

19. “Age should not have its face lifted, but it should rather teach the world to admire wrinkles as the etchings of experience and the firm line of character.”

— Clarence Day

20. “Tender are a mother’s dreams, But her babe’s not what he seems. See him plotting in his mind To grow up some other kind.”

— Clarence Day

21. “Will and wisdom are both mighty leaders. Our times worship will.”

— Clarence Day

22. “The first thing the world does to a genius is to make him lose all his youth.”

— Clarence Day

23. “This is a hard and precarious world, where every mistake and infirmity must be paid for in full.”

— Clarence Day

24. “Be adorable always to each other; respect is everlasting.”

— Clarence Day

25. “Reason is the servant of instinct.”

— Clarence Day

26. “Father expected a good deal of God. He didn’t actually accuse God of inefficiency, but when he prayed his tone was loud and angry, like that of a dissatisfied guest in a carelessly managed hotel.”

— Clarence Day

27. “I was different unique and always happy. At school this attracted playground harassment. Nowadays, while I remain effervescent, quicker to perceive enmity I reserve my warmest touches and smiles for those who smolder with envy.”

— Clarence Day

28. “Creatures whose mainspring is curiosity enjoy the accumulating of facts far more than the pausing at times to reflect on those facts.”

— Clarence Day

29. “Real friendships among men are so rare that when they occur they are famous.”

— Clarence Day

30. “If you don’t go to other men’s funerals, they won’t go to yours.”

— Clarence Day

31. “The egg it is the source of all To everyone’s ancestral hall.”

— Clarence Day

32. “As to modesty and decency, if we are simians we have done well, considering: but if we are something else-fallen angels-we have indeed fallen far.”

— Clarence Day

33. “Too many moralists begin with a dislike of reality.”

— Clarence Day

34. “A universe capable of giving birth to many such accidents is – blind or not – a good world to live in, a promising universe.”

— Clarence Day

35. “We talk of our mastery of nature, which sounds very grand; but the fact is we respectfully adapt ourselves, first, to her ways.”

— Clarence Day

36. “Dogs have more love than integrity. They’ve been true to us, yes, but they haven’t been true to themselves.”

— Clarence Day

37. “As time goes on, new and remoter aspects of truth are discovered which can seldom be fitted into creeds that are changeless.”

— Clarence Day

38. “The poets of each generation seldom sing a new song. They turn to themes men always have loved, and sing them in the mode of their times.”

— Clarence Day

39. “Babies are unreasonable; they expect far too much of existence. Each new generation that comes takes one look at the world and thinks wildly, “Is this all they’ve done to it?” and bursts into tears.”

— Clarence Day

40. “It is fair to judge peoples by the rights they will sacrifice most for.”

— Clarence Day