Quotations by Theme
General
"Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink for fellows whom it hurts to think."
A. E. Housman, 1859-1936
"Men should be judged not by their tint of skin, the gods they serve, the vintage they drink, nor by the way they fight, or love, or sin, but by the quality of the thought they think."
Adela Florence Nicolson, 1865-1904
"Good advice is always certain to be ignored, but that's no reason not to give it."
Agatha Christie,
"Evil is not something superhuman, it's something less than human."
Agatha Christie,
"Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is."
Albert Camus, 1913-1960
"We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking. In that race which daily hastens us towards death, the body maintains its irreparable lead."
Albert Camus, 1913-1960
"The modern mind is in complete disarray. Knowledge has stretched itself to the point where neither the world nor our intelligence can find any foot-hold. It is a fact that we are suffering from nihilism."
Albert Camus, 1913-1960
"I don't know whether this world has a meaning that transcends it. But I know that I do not know that meaning and that it is impossible for me just now to know it. What can a meaning outside my condition mean to me? I can understand only in human terms."
Albert Camus, 1913-1960
"I shall not, as far as I am concerned, try to pass myself off as a Christian in your presence. I share with you the same revulsion from evil. But I do not share your hope, and I continue to struggle against this universe in which children suffer and die."
Albert Camus, 1913-1960
"It is easy to shield the outer body from poisoned arrows, but it is impossible to shield the mind from the poisoned darts that originate within itself. Greed, anger, foolishness and the infatuations of egoism - these four poisoned darts originate within the mind and infect it with deadly poison."
Albert Camus, 1913-1960
"Every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving."
Albert Einstein, 1879-1955
"Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love. How on earth can you explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love? Put your hand on a stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with that special girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. That's relativity."
Albert Einstein, 1879-1955
"I am certain and have always stressed that the destination of mankind is to become more and more humane. The ideal of humanity has to be revived."
Albert Schweitzer, 1875-1965
"Land, then, is not merely soil; it is a fountain of energy flowing through a circuit of soils, plants, and animals."
Aldo Leopold,
"The infinite vibratory levels, the dimensions of interconnectedness are without end. There is nothing independent. All beings and things are residents in your awareness."
Alex Grey, 1953-
"Little is the luck I've had, And oh, 'tis comfort small - To think that many another lad - Has had no luck at all."
Alfred Edward Housman,
"Contempt is the weapon of the weak and a defense against one's own despised and unwanted feelings."
Alice Duer Miller,
"Happiness is not a matter of events; it depends upon the tides of the mind."
Alice Meynell,
"I keep a conscience uncorrupted by religion, a judgment undimmed by politics and patriotism, a heart untainted by friendships and sentiments unsoured by animosities."
Ambrose Bierce, 1842-1914
"A conflict begins and ends in the hearts and minds of people, not in the hilltops."
Amos Oz, 1939
"Happiness: We rarely feel it. /I would buy it, beg it, steal it,/ Pay in coins of dripping blood/ For this one transcendent good."
Amy Lowell, 1874-1925
"Men would live exceedingly quiet if these two words, mine and thine, were taken away."
Anaxagoras,
"Without a family, man, alone in the world, trembles with the cold."
Andre Maurois, 1885-1967
"Freedom has no history."
Andrew Cohen, 1955-
"They read good books, and quote,/ but never learn a language other than the scream of rocket-burn/ Our straighter talk is drowned but ironclad;/ elections, money, empire, oil and Dad."
Andrew Motion, 1952-
"And finally I twist my heart round again, so that the bad is on the outside and the good is on the inside, and keep on trying to find a way of becoming what I would so like to be, and could be, if there weren't any other people living in the world."
Anne Frank,
"Despite everything, I believe that people are really good at heart."
Anne Frank, 1929-1945
"Mysteries, like the Masonic rites, are ones parents and elders are sworn not to reveal to the uninitiated, which include all children. And so we sought for signs."
Anthony Hecht,
"There is only one thing more painful than learning from experience and that is not learning from experience."
Archibald McLeish, 1892-1982
"The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold."
Aristotle,
"To run away from trouble is a form of cowardice and, while it is true that the suicide braves death, he does it not for some noble object but to escape some ill."
Aristotle,
"All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire."
Aristotle,
"The whole is more than the sum of its parts."
Aristotle,
"The more thou dost advance, the more thy feet pitfalls will meet. The Path that leadeth on is lighted by one fire- the light of daring burning in the heart. The more one dares, the more he shall obtain. The more he fears, the more that light shall pale - and that alone can guide."
Aristotle,
"All human actions have one or more of these seven causes:- chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion and desire."
Aristotle, 384-322 BCE
"Man must shape his tools lest they shape him."
Arthur Miller,
"I saw that all beings are fated to happiness: action is not life, but a way of wasting some force, an enervation. Morality is the weakness of the brain."
Arthur Rimbaud,
"To free a man from error is to give, not take away."
Arthur Schopenhauer,
"When walking through the "valley of shadows," remember, a shadow is cast by a Light."
Austin O'Malley,
"It is evident that everything which does not exist at first and then exists, is determined by something other than itself."
Avicenna,
"The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do."
B. F. Skinner, 1904-1990
"No matter what age you are, or what your circumstances might be, you are special, and you still have something unique to offer. Your life, because of who you are, has meaning."
Barbara de Angelis,
"Pride is pleasure arising from a man's thinking too highly of himself."
Baruch Spinoza,
"True virtue is life under the direction of reason."
Baruch Spinoza, 1632-1677
"Never apologise for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologise for truth."
Benjamin Disraeli, 1804-1881
"We must hang together, gentlemen ... else, we shall most assuredly hang separately."
Benjamin Franklin,
"Who is wise? He that learns from everyone. Who is powerful? He that governs his passions. Who is rich? He who is content. Who is that? Nobody."
Benjamin Franklin, 1706-1790
"Lighthouses are more helpful than churches."
Benjamin Franklin, 1706-1790
"Be civil to all; sociable to many; familiar with few; friend to one; enemy to none."
Benjamin Franklin,
"Lots of people talk to animals... Not very many listen, though... That's the problem."
Benjamin Hoff, 1946-
"None are so empty as those who are full of themselves"
Benjamin Whichcote, 1609-1683
"The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy; I mean that if you are happy you will be good."
Bertrand Russell,
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."
Bertrand Russell, 1872-1970
"Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.... This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me."
Bertrand Russell,
"At the innermost core of all loneliness is a deep and powerful yearning for union with one's lost self."
Brendan Francis,
"I have never read for entertainment, but rather for understanding and to satisfy my eager curiosity."
Bryant H. McGill, 1969-
"Having a sense of purpose is having a sense of self. A course to plot is a destination to hope for."
Bryant H. McGill, 1969-
"Sometimes power is all a person has, so they will protect it even unto their own destruction, for without power they have nothing."
Bryant H. McGill, 1969-
"The world is not fair, and often fools, cowards, liars and the selfish hide in high places."
Bryant H. McGill, 1969-
"There are amazingly wonderful people in all walks of life; some familiar to us and others not. Stretch yourself and really get to know people. People are in many ways one of our greatest treasures."
Bryant H. McGill, 1969-
"Within the hearts of men, loyalty and consideration are esteemed greater than success."
Bryant H. McGill, 1969-
"Join me in my quest for a greater understanding of our existence. Join me in my desire for a greater self. Join me as I seek the humility to love and understand my fellow man."
Bryant H. McGill, 1969-
"The whole world is a man's birthplace."
Caecilius Statius, 220-168 BCE
"We do not remember days, we remember moments.The richness of life lies in memories we have forgotten."
Cesare Pavese,
"Those who visit foreign nations, but associate only with their own country-men, change their climate, but not their customs. They see new meridians, but the same men; and with heads as empty as their pockets, return home with traveled bodies, but untravelled minds."
Charles Caleb Colton, 1780-1832
"There are three modes of bearing the ills of life, by indifference, by philosophy, and by religion."
Charles Caleb Colton, 1780-1832
"No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another."
Charles Dickens, 1812-1870
"Essentially, all life depends upon the soil .... There can be no life without soil and no soil without life; they have evolved together."
Charles E. Kellogg,
"There is no female mind. The brain is not an organ of sex. Might as well speak of a female liver."
Charlotte Perkins Gilman,
"Eternity is not something that begins after you're dead. It is going on all the time. We are in it now."
Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1860-1935
"Compassion automatically invites you to relate with people because you no longer regard people as a drain on your energy."
Chogyam Trungpa,
"Nature herself makes the wise man rich."
Cicero, 106-43 BCE
"The absolute truth is not a matter of opinion but nature"
Cicero, 106-43 BCE
"The average man is a conformist, accepting miseries and disasters with the stoicism of a cow standing in the rain."
Colin Wilson,
"The mind has exactly the same power as the hands; not merely to grasp the world, but to change it."
Colin Wilson, 1931-
"If a man takes no thought about what is distant, he will find sorrow near at hand."
Confucius, 551-479 BCE
"Men's natures are alike, it is their habits that carry them far apart."
Confucius, 551-479 BCE
"What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others."
Confucius, 551-479 BCE
"No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance."
Confucius, 551-479 BCE
"True freedom is the capacity for acting according to one's true character, to be altogether one's self, to be self-determined and not subject to outside coercion."
Corliss Lamont, 1902-1995
"Men! The only animal in the world to fear."
D.H. Lawrence, 1885-1930
"Money is our madness, our vast collective madness."
D.H. Lawrence, 1885-1930
"One could laugh at the world better if it didn't mix tender kindliness with its brutality."
D.H. Lawrence, 1885-1930
"Ours is an excessively conscious age. We know so much, we feel so little."
D.H. Lawrence, 1885-1930
"Brute force crushes many plants. Yet the plants rise again. The Pyramids will not last a moment compared with the daisy. And before Buddha or Jesus spoke the nightingale sang, and long after the words of Jesus and Buddha are gone into oblivion the nightingale still will sing. Because it is neither preaching nor commanding nor urging. It is just singing. And in the beginning was not a Word, but a chirrup."
D.H. Lawrence, 1885-1930
"The only justice is to follow the sincere intuition of the soul, angry or gentle. Anger is just, and pity is just, but judgement is never just."
D.H. Lawrence, 1885-1930
"One could laugh at the world better if it didn't mix tender kindlyness with its brutality."
D.H. Lawrence, 1885-1930
"This is the very worst wickedness, that we refuse to acknowledge the passionate evil that is in us. This makes us secret and rotten."
D.H. Lawrence, 1885-1930
"Remember happiness doesn't depend upon who you are or what you have; it depends solely on what you think."
Dale Carnegie, 1888-1955
"Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all."
Dale Carnegie, 1888-1955
"The juvenile sea squirt wanders through the sea searching for a suitable rock or hunk of coral to cling to and make its home for life. For this task, it has a rudimentary nervous system. When it finds its spot and takes root, it doesn't need its brain anymore so it eats it!"
Daniel Dennett, 1942-
"The idea that men are created free and equal is both true and misleading: men are created different; they lose their social freedom and their individual autonomy in seeking to become like each other."
David Riesman, 1909-2002
"When awareness is completely balanced, communicating with the outside world is instantaneous and automatic. It happens with the touch of thought."
Deepak Chopra,
"Change the changeable, accept the unchangeable, and remove yourself from the unacceptable."
Denis Waitley,
"Expect the best, plan for the worst, and prepare to be surprised."
Denis Waitley,
"We are members of the most destructive culture ever to exist. Our assault on the natural world, on indigenous and other cultures, on women, on children, on all of us through the possibility of nuclear suicide and other means - all these are unprecedented in their magnitude and ferocity."
Derrick Jensen,
"There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other."
Desiderius Erasmus,
"I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world."
Diogenes,
"Honesty is a good thing, but it is not profitable to its possessor unless it is kept under control."
Don Marquis, 18781937
"Too much sanity may be madness. And maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be."
Don Quixote,
"Bed is the best place for reading, thinking, or doing nothing."
Doris Lessing, 1919-
"Think wrongly, if you please, but in all cases think for yourself."
Doris Lessing, 1919-
"I believe television is going to be the test of the modern world, and that in this new opportunity to see beyond the range of our vision, we shall discover a new and unbearable disturbance of the modern peace, or a saving radiance in the sky. We shall stand or fall by television - of that I am quite sure."
E.B. White,
"A humanist has four leading characteristics — curiosity, a free mind, belief in good taste, and belief in the human race."
E.M. Forster, 1879-1970
"There is a destiny that makes us brothers;/ None goes his way alone; /All that we send into the lives of others/ Comes back into our own."
Edwin Markham, 1852-1940
"A man is not paid for having a head and hands, but for using them."
Elbert Hubbard, 1856-1915
"If we cannot be happy and powerful and prey on others, we invent conscience and prey on ourselves."
Elbert Hubbard, 1856-1915
"Responsibility is the price of freedom."
Elbert Hubbard,
"Responsibilities gravitate to the person who can shoulder them."
Elbert Hubbard, 1856-1915
"Forming characters! Whose? Our own or others? Both. And in that momentous fact lies the peril and responsibility of our existence."
Elihu Burritt,
"I didn't fully realize it at the time, but the goal of my life was profoundly molded by this experience - to help produce, in the next generation, more Mother Teresas and less Hitlers."
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, 1926-2004
"We flatter those we scarcely know/We please the fleeting guest/And deal full many a thoughtless blow/To those who love us best."
Ella Wheeler Wilcox, 1855-1919
"Personality can open doors, but only character can keep them open."
Elmer G. Letterman,
"The fact that life has no meaning is a reason to live, moreover, the only one."
Emile Cioran, 1911-1995
"There is no means of proving it is preferable to be than not to be."
Emile Cioran, 1911-1995
"Criticism is a misconception: we must read not to understand others but to understand ourselves."
Emile Cioran, 1911-1995
"He ate and drank the precious Words, his Spirit grew robust; He knew no more that he was poor, nor that his frame was Dust."
Emily Dickinson, 1830-1886
"A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people’s business."
Eric Hoffer, 1902-83
"Man was nature's mistake she neglected to finish him and she has never ceased paying for her mistake."
Eric Hoffer,
"It is not so much the example of others we imitate as the reflection of ourselves in their eyes and the echo of ourselves in their words."
Eric Hoffer,
"The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not."
Eric Hoffer, 1902-1983
"Someone who thinks the world is always cheating him is right. He is missing that wonderful feeling of trust in someone or something."
Eric Hoffer,
"If it were not for hopes, the heart would break."
Erich Fromm, 1900-1980
"The danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that man may become robots."
Erich Fromm, 1900-1980
"In the nineteenth century the problem was that God is dead. In the twentieth century the problem is that man is dead."
Erich Fromm, 1900-1980
"That man can destroy life is just as miraculous a feat as that he can create it, for life is the miracle, the inexplicable. In the act of destruction, man sets himself above life; he transcends himself as a creature. Thus, the ultimate choice for a man, inasmuch as he is driven to transcend himself, is to create or to destroy, to love or to hate."
Erich Fromm, 1900-1980
"Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve."
Erich Fromm, 1900-1980
"Many an article that I myself penned twenty years ago impresses me now as something quite foreign to myself."
Ernst Mach, 1838-1916
"It occurred to me that there was no difference between men, in intelligence or race, so profound as the difference between the sick and the well."
F. Scott Fitzgerald,
"The unique personality which is the real life in me, I can not gain unless I search for the real life, the spiritual quality, in others. I am myself spiritually dead unless I reach out to the fine quality dormant in others. For it is only with the god enthroned in the innermost shrine of the other, that the god hidden in me, will consent to appear."
Felix Adler,
"Man needs colour to live; it's just as necessary an element as fire and water."
Fernand Leger, 1881-1955
"Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds."
Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1882-1945
"Without a notion of the transcendental, human beings would, indeed, be animals; however, only fools can be convinced of it, and only degenerates need such a conviction."
Franz Grillparzer, 1791-1872
"The uneducated person perceives only the individual phenomenon, the partly educated person the rule, and the educated person the exception."
Franz Grillparzer, 1791-1872
"My peers, lately, have found companionship through means of intoxication - it makes them sociable. I, however, cannot force myself to use drugs to cheat on my loneliness - it is all that I have - and when the drugs and alcohol dissipate, will be all that my peers have as well."
Franz Kafka, 1883-1924
"By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired."
Franz Kafka, 1883-1924
"Existence really is an imperfect tense that never becomes a present."
Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900
"Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual."
Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900
"Nothing is beautiful, only man: on this piece of naivete rests all aesthetics, it is the first truth of aesthetics. Let us immediately add its second: nothing is ugly but degenerate man - the domain of aesthetic judgment is therewith defined."
Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900
"Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter."
Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900
"Madness is something rare in individuals - but in groups, parties, peoples, ages it is the rule."
Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900
"I call an animal, a species, an individual depraved when it loses its instincts, when it chooses, when it prefers what is harmful to it."
Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900
"It is good to express a thing twice right at the outset and so to give it a right foot and also a left one. Truth can surely stand on one leg, but with two it will be able to walk and get around."
Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900
"Is life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?"
Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900
"God is dead: but considering the state the species of Man is in, there will perhaps be caves, for ages yet, in which his shadow will be shown."
Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900
"Life doesn't revolve around what you need to know, it revolves around what you need to understand."
Ganesh Nana,
"If I were asked to name the chief benefit of the house, I should say: the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace."
Gaston Bachelard,
"Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned."
Gautama Buddha, 563-483 BCE
"We accumulate our opinions at an age when our understanding is at its weakest."
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, 1742-1799
"A toddling little girl is a centre of common feeling which makes the most dissimilar people understand each other."
George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), 1819-1880
"The eyes have one language everywhere."
George Herbert, 1593-1633
"Take all that is given whether wealth, love or language, nothing comes by mistake and with good digestion all can be turned to health."
George Herbert, 1593-1633
"Anybody can see that the little money you get is half-wasted, because you cannot spend it to advantage. The worst food comes to the poor, which their poverty makes them buy and their necessity makes them eat. Their stomachs are the waste-basket of the State. It is their lot to swallow all the adulterations on the market."
George Jacob Holyoake, 1817-1906
"To choose order over disorder, or disorder over order, is to accept a trip composed of both the creative and the destructive. But to choose the creative over the destructive is an all-creative trip composed of both order and disorder. To accomplish this, one need only accept creative disorder along with, and equal to, creative order, and also willing to reject destructive order as an undesirable equal to destructive disorder."
Greg Hill and Kerry Thornley,
"Long before we understand ourselves through the process of self-examination, we understand ourselves in a self-evident way in the family, society and state in which we live."
Hans-Georg Gadamer,
"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strenghtened, ambition inspired and success achieved."
Helen Keller, 1880-1968
"The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of tiny pushes of each honest worker."
Helen Keller, 1880-1968
"A thousand words will not leave so deep an impression as one deed."
Henrik Ibsen, 1828-1906
"Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad."
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
"I am not going to claim that modern anarchism has any direct relation to Roman jurisprudence; but I do claim that it has its basis in the laws of nature rather than in the state of nature."
Herbert Read,
"Life is the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations."
Herbert Spencer,
"But curb thou the high spirit in thy breast, for gentle ways are best, and keep aloof from sharp contentions."
Homer,
"Avoid inquisitive persons, for they are sure to be gossips, their ears are open to hear, but they will not keep what is entrusted to them."
Horace,
"I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people."
Isaac Newton,
"For women the best aphrodisiacs are words."
Isabel Allende,
"The farther behind I leave the past, the closer I am to forging my own character."
Isabel Eberhardt,
"Only barbarians are not curious about where they come from, how they came to be where they are, where they appear to be going, whether they wish to go there, and if so, why, and if not, why not."
Isaiah Berlin,
"One shouldn't be afraid of the humans. Well, I am not afraid of the humans, but of what is inhuman in them."
Ivo Andric, 1892-1975
"But I owe it to the subject to say, that it has long afforded me what philosophy is so often thought, and made, barren of - the fun of discovery, the pleasures of co-operation, and the satisfaction of reaching agreement."
J. L. Austin, 1911-1960
"There are children playing in the streets who could solve some of my top problems in physics, because they have modes of sensory perception that I lost long ago."
J. Robert Oppenheimer, 1904-1967
"It takes generosity to discover the whole through others. If you realize you are only a violin, you can open yourself up to the world by playing your role in the concert."
Jacques Yves Cousteau, 1910-1997
"Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound."
James Allen, 186-19124
"I hope to make people realise how totally helpless animals are, how dependent on us, trusting as a child must be that we will be kind and take care of their needs."
James Herriot,
"Usually when people are sad, they don't do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change."
James Russell Lowell, 1819-1891
"Without feeling abashed by my ignorance, I confess that I am absolutely unable to say. In the absence of an appearance of learning, my answer has at least one merit, that of perfect sincerity."
Jean Henri Fabre,
"Although modesty is natural to man, it is not natural to children. Modesty only begins with the knowledge of evil."
Jean Jacques Rousseau,
"It is in our faults and failings, not in our virtues, that we touch each other, and find sympathy. It is in our follies that we are one."
Jerome K. Jerome,
"We drink one another's health and spoil our own."
Jerome K. Jerome, 1859-1927
"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace."
Jimi Hendrix, 1942-1970
"Music is a safe type of high. It's more the way it was supposed to be. That's where highness came, I guess, from anyway. It's nothing but rhythm and motion."
Jimi Hendrix,
"Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens."
Jimi Hendrix,
"No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee."
Jjohn Donne,
"Instead of getting hard on ourselves and trying to compete, women should try and give their best qualities to men - bring them softness, teach them how to cry."
Joan Baez,
"Character - the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life - is the source from which self-respect spring."
Joan Didion,
"We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
"We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
"Precaution is better than cure."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
"Common sense is the genius of humanity."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
"Realism is not a matter of any fidelity to an empirical reality, but of the discursive conventions by which and for which a sense of reality is constructed."
John Fiske, 1842-1901
"The creative individual has the capacity to free himself from the web of social pressures in which the rest of us are caught. He is capable of questioning the assumptions that the rest of us accept."
John Gardner,
"People get so in the habit of worry that if you save them from drowning and put them on a bank to dry in the sun with hot chocolate and muffins they wonder whether they are catching cold."
John Jay Chapman, 1862 -1933
"Revenge, at first though sweet,/Bitter ere long back on itself recoils."
John Milton,
"I will not deny but that the best apology against false accusers is silence and sufferance, and honest deeds set against dishonest words."
John Milton,
"Good, the more/Communicated, more abundant grows."
John Milton,
"Life is a wave, which in no two consecutive moments of its existence is composed of the same particles."
John Tyndall, 1820-1893
"Dreams come true. Without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them."
John Updike, 1932
"Observation is an old man's memory."
Jonathan Swift, 1667-1745
"A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying... that he is wiser today than yesterday."
Jonathan Swift,
"Law is born from despair of human nature."
Jose Ortega y Gasset,
"Man is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief and aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one another."
Joseph Addison,
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