Top 500 Mason Cooley Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “Self-hatred and self-love are equally self-centered.”

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

55. “Indifference creates an artificial peace.”

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

62. “Reading about ethics is about as likely to improve one’s behavior as reading about sports is to make one into an athlete.”

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

69. “Duty is whatever opposes inclination.”

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

72. “Sentimentality is the respect the cold-hearted pay to feeling.”

— Mason Cooley

73. “The telephone gives us the happiness of being together yet safely apart.”

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

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley

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

— 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. “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

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

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

— Mason Cooley

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

— Mason Cooley