Top 500 Mason Cooley Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Every farewell combines loss and new freedom.”

— Mason Cooley

52. “There are different rules for reading, for thinking, and for talking. Writing blends all three of them.”

— Mason Cooley

53. “Wisdom remembers. Happiness forgets.”

— Mason Cooley

54. “Self-hatred and self-love are equally self-centered.”

— Mason Cooley

55. “Age: I go slower as time goes faster.”

— Mason Cooley

56. “A dirty mind is a rich inner resource.”

— Mason Cooley

57. “The routines of tourism are even more monotonous than those of daily life.”

— Mason Cooley

58. “Indifference creates an artificial peace.”

— Mason Cooley

59. “Every path to a new understanding begins in confusion...”

— Mason Cooley

60. “Alone, I am satisfied with myself. With others, I am beset by troubling comparisons.”

— Mason Cooley

61. “The villain may be good looking, but his smile is never quite right.”

— Mason Cooley

62. “Never try to leap from a standstill.”

— Mason Cooley

63. “The more learned a writer, the more digression beckons him.”

— Mason Cooley

64. “Our civilization is shifting from science and technology to rhetoric and litigation.”

— Mason Cooley

65. “A budget takes the fun out of money.”

— Mason Cooley

66. “Flattery and insults raise the same question: What do you want?”

— Mason Cooley

67. “With age, comfort becomes more seductive than beauty.”

— Mason Cooley

68. “People may show jealousy, but hide their envy.”

— Mason Cooley

69. “I love money, but will money ever love me in return?”

— Mason Cooley

70. “Lies and promises are necessary but not sufficient.”

— Mason Cooley

71. “Duty is whatever opposes inclination.”

— Mason Cooley

72. “Either offer me something I really like, or stop trying to tempt me.”

— Mason Cooley

73. “Change often makes accepted customs into crimes.”

— Mason Cooley

74. “Those who refuse to play second fiddle may wind up playing no fiddle at all.”

— Mason Cooley

75. “Moo may represent an idea, but only the cow knows.”

— Mason Cooley

76. “Even in writing an annual report, the unconscious plays a role.”

— Mason Cooley

77. “To be sexy, nudes need a little underwear.”

— Mason Cooley

78. “Nostalgia paints a smile on the stony face of the past.”

— Mason Cooley

79. “Elegance thrives on exclusion.”

— Mason Cooley

80. “The doctrine of the immortality of the soul has more threat than comfort.”

— Mason Cooley

81. “Once wealth and beauty are gone, there is always rural life.”

— Mason Cooley

82. “The narcissist enjoys being looked at and not looking back.”

— Mason Cooley

83. “Human society sustains itself by transforming nature into garbage.”

— Mason Cooley

84. “Fortuna smiles and frowns according to a timetable surprising even to herself.”

— Mason Cooley

85. “Self-blame usually has an undertone of self-congratulation.”

— Mason Cooley

86. “What lies behind appearance is usually another appearance.”

— Mason Cooley

87. “As every cockroach knows, thriving on poisons is the secret of success.”

— Mason Cooley

88. “The lonely become either thoughtful or empty.”

— Mason Cooley

89. “Who would not give up wit for power and beauty?”

— Mason Cooley

90. “Self-deception is nature; hypocrisy is art.”

— Mason Cooley

91. “Beggars beg to get money, not to reproach the passerby.”

— Mason Cooley

92. “In the labyrinth of a difficult text, we find unmarked forks in the path, detours, blind alleys, loops that deliver us back to our point of entry, and finally the monster who whispers an unintelligible truth in our ears.”

— Mason Cooley

93. “Promiscuity is like never reading past the first page. Monogamy is like reading the same book over and over.”

— Mason Cooley

94. “Telescopes and binoculars endanger the ever-distant sublime.”

— Mason Cooley

95. “Travelers never think that they are the foreigners.”

— Mason Cooley

96. “Fluency avoids hard thoughts.”

— Mason Cooley

97. “Change is upsetting. Repetition is tedious. Three cheers for variation!”

— Mason Cooley

98. “Fantasy mirrors desire. Imagination reshapes it.”

— Mason Cooley

99. “Self-pity dries up our sympathy for others.”

— Mason Cooley

100. “Money: power at its most liquid.”

— Mason Cooley