Top 500 Mason Cooley Quotes (2025 Update)
Page 4 of 10

151. “Let’s have some good, old-fashioned literature, with a virgin and a moral.”

— Mason Cooley

152. “Leisure unmasks our weaknesses.”

— Mason Cooley

153. “Studying the past may suggest new ways of going wrong.”

— Mason Cooley

154. “Fastidious taste makes enjoyment a struggle.”

— Mason Cooley

155. “Fruitless striving breeds less despair than inaction.”

— Mason Cooley

156. “The powerless worship Luck and Fate.”

— Mason Cooley

157. “Sometimes I discover I have changed my mind because I have forgotten what I used to think.”

— Mason Cooley

158. “If success is a habit, it is a hard one to acquire.”

— Mason Cooley

159. “In the museums, everything is in quotation marks.”

— Mason Cooley

160. “Dutch painting: daily life is enough.”

— Mason Cooley

161. “A fastidious taste is best indoors, away from nature and the city.”

— Mason Cooley

162. “Sign at the orgy: BODIES ONLY.”

— Mason Cooley

163. “The beloved is the ultimate fetish.”

— Mason Cooley

164. “Nostalgia keeps dissolving the ironic narratives in which I have contained my past.”

— Mason Cooley

165. “Good deal: justice for you, mercy for me.”

— Mason Cooley

166. “Jargon: any technical language we do not understand.”

— Mason Cooley

167. “Bravery despite defeat is praiseworthy. Victory despite cowardice is beyond praise.”

— Mason Cooley

168. “If you should ever acknowledge my existence, I plan to snub you.”

— Mason Cooley

169. “Supermarkets depict abundance; boutiques exclusiveness; roadside stands authenticity.”

— Mason Cooley

170. “Aphorisms know the angles, but not the structure.”

— Mason Cooley

171. “Somehow the body keeps life going despite the ravaging negations of the mind.”

— Mason Cooley

172. “In ethics, prudence is not an important virtue, but in the world it is almost everything.”

— Mason Cooley

173. “Living too long exacts a painful price.”

— Mason Cooley

174. “In youth, love and art. In age, investments and antiques.”

— Mason Cooley

175. “Aimless drifting also fulfills an intention.”

— Mason Cooley

176. “Old age likes indecency. It’s a sign of life.”

— Mason Cooley

177. “Self-realization sounds good. But what if only an enraged dwarf emerges?”

— Mason Cooley

178. “Laughter and tears may not persuade, but they cannot be refuted.”

— Mason Cooley

179. “Vanity well fed is benevolent. Vanity hungry is spiteful.”

— Mason Cooley

180. “Suspense combines curiosity with fear and pulls them up a rising slope.”

— Mason Cooley

181. “Pain narrows consciousness; pleasure blurs it.”

— Mason Cooley

182. “As night falls, every joy glows brighter.”

— Mason Cooley

183. “Every seeming equality conceals a hierarchy.”

— Mason Cooley

184. “Knowledge and power in the city; peace and decency in the country.”

— Mason Cooley

185. “Ideology has shaped the very sofa on which I sit.”

— Mason Cooley

186. “Narcissus weeps to find that his Image does not return his love.”

— Mason Cooley

187. “Preserving tradition has become a nice hobby, like stamp collecting.”

— Mason Cooley

188. “Blackmail is one of the great pastimes of family life.”

— Mason Cooley

189. “If “there is no harm in asking,” why guilt and fear when we do so?”

— Mason Cooley

190. “Alcohol postpones anxiety, then multiplies it.”

— Mason Cooley

191. “When Medusa looks in the mirror, she sees the Lady of Sorrows.”

— Mason Cooley

192. “When appearance and reality coincide, philosophy and literary criticism find themselves with nothing to say.”

— Mason Cooley

193. “In the game of love, the losers are more celebrated than the winners.”

— Mason Cooley

194. “A skyscraper is a boast in glass and steel.”

— Mason Cooley

195. “Like other secret lovers, many speak mockingly about popular culture to conceal their passion for it.”

— Mason Cooley

196. “Now that I see you understand me so well, I will avoid you.”

— Mason Cooley

197. “A modest demeanor arouses thoughts of seduction.”

— Mason Cooley

198. “Sulking is silent because speaking would reveal its folly.”

— Mason Cooley

199. “If suffering brought wisdom, the dentist’s office would be full of luminous ideas.”

— Mason Cooley

200. “Unemployment diminishes people. Leisure enlarges them.”

— Mason Cooley