Category: Quotes

Work nourishes noble minds. —SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 31.5

Stress and worry tend to be higher before you act. Without action, all you can do is worry. Once you begin, fear shrinks as you start to influence the outcome. – James Clear

Work not for a reward, but never cease to do thy work. – Bhagavad Gita

If you’re efficient, you’re doing it the wrong way. The right way is the hard way. – Jerry Seinfeld

That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do, not that the nature of the thing has changed but that our power to do has increased. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Circumstances are what deceive us—you must be discerning in them. We embrace evil before good. We desire the opposite of what we once desired. Our prayers are at war with our prayers, our plans with our plans. —SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 45.6

“Life without a design is erratic. As soon as one is in place, principles become necessary. I think you’ll concede that nothing is more shameful than uncertain and wavering conduct, and beating a cowardly retreat. This will happen in all our affairs unless we remove the faults that seize and detain our spirits, preventing them from pushing forward and making an all-out effort.” —SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 95.46

People seek retreats for themselves in the country, by the sea, or in the mountains. You are very much in the habit of yearning for those same things. But this is entirely the trait of a base person, when you can, at any moment, find such a retreat in yourself. For nowhere can you find a more peaceful and less busy retreat than in your own soul—especially if on close inspection it is filled with ease, which I say is nothing more than being well-ordered. Treat yourself often to this retreat and be renewed. —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 4.3.1

A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd – Islwyn Jeneins

If a person gave away your body to some passerby, you’d be furious. Yet you hand over your mind to anyone who comes along, so they may abuse you, leaving it disturbed and troubled—have you no shame in that? —EPICTETUS, ENCHIRIDION, 28

Usually, what you wish for doesn’t fall in your lap; it falls somewhere nearby, and you have to recognize it, stand up, and put in the time and work it takes to get to it. – Neil Strauss

There are no traffic jams on the extra mile. – Zig Ziglar

Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one’s self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all. – Thomas Szasz

Source: Words to the Wise 

Most of what we say and do is not necessary, and its omission would save both time and trouble. At every step, therefore, a man should ask himself, ‘Is this one of the things that are superfluous?’ Moreover, not idle actions only but even idle impressions ought to be suppressed; for the unnecessary action will not ensue. – Marcus Aurelius

Clear your mind and get a hold on yourself and, as when awakened from sleep and realizing it was only a bad dream upsetting you, wake up and see that what’s there is just like those dreams. – Marcus Aurelius

Take a good hard look at people’s ruling principle, especially of the wise, what they run away from and what they seek out. —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 4.38

“From Rusticus . . . I learned to read carefully and not be satisfied with a rough understanding of the whole, and not to agree too quickly with those who have a lot to say about something.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 1.7.3

Without commitment, you cannot have depth in anything, whether it’s a relationship, a business or a hobby.” – Neil Strauss

Too many of us are total strangers to ourselves. We seek busyness. We seek external markers. We seek out others to understand us, and demand that they hear what we’re saying. Meanwhile, we ignore the voice inside. The one that is whispering to us so many important lessons. The one that is shouting so many warnings. – Ryan Holiday

External things can’t fix internal issues. – Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic p. 31

If you wish to understand the present moment, you’ll gain more clarity by studying the past than you will from following the breathless news cycle. Put distance between you and the attention merchants. Read philosophy. Read history. Read biographies. Study psychology. Study the patterns of humanity. – Ryan Holiday

I will keep constant watch over myself and—most usefully—will put each day up for review. For this is what makes us evil—that none of us looks back upon our own lives. We reflect upon only that which we are about to do. And yet our plans for the future descend from the past. – SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 83.2

I often find myself thinking that Keynes must be one of the most remarkable men that ever lived – the quick logic, the birdlike swoop of intuition, the vivid fancy, the wide vision, above all the incomparable sense of the fitness of words, all combine to make something several degrees beyond the limit of ordinary human achievement. – Lionel Robbins

Pass through this brief patch of time in harmony with nature, and come to your final resting place gracefully, just as a ripened olive might drop, praising the earth that nourished it and grateful to the tree that gave it growth.” —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 4.48.2

Tranquility can’t be grasped except by those who have reached an unwavering and firm power of judgment – the rest constantly fall and rise in their decisions, wavering in a state of alternately rejecting and accepting things. What is the cause of this back and forth? It’s because nothing is clear and they rely on the most uncertain guide – common opinion. – Seneca

You must linger among a limited number of master-thinkers, and digest their works, if you would derive ideas which shall win firm hold in your mind. – Seneca

In today’s world, some may look at Jimmy Carter and see a man of a bygone era — with honesty and character, faith and humility. But I don’t believe it’s a bygone era. I see a man not only of our times, but for all times. Someone who embodies the most fundamental human values we can never let slip away. … We may never see his like again. But we would all do well to try to be a little more like Jimmy Carter. – Joe Biden

We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive. – C.S. Lewis

If your choices are beautiful, so too will you be. – Epictetus

We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles. Jimmy Carter

Now we assign punishment to fit the criminal and not the crime. Jimmy Carter

We suffer more in imagination than in reality. Seneca

If you want to change the way people respond to you, change the way you respond to people. – Timothy Leary

People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive – Joseph Campbell

If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair. ― CS Lewis

You should no longer be concerned with what the world says of you but with what you say to yourself.

— On Solitude by Michel de Montaigne

The funniest thing about dying is how much we, the living, ask of the dying; how we beg them to make it easier on us. – Zadie Smith

Politics is an argument about the future. – Patrick Moynihan

It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so. – Mark Twain

I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. – Michael Jordan

Victory belongs to the most tenacious. – Roland Garros

You have to like to suffer. – Carlos Alcaraz

You can’t climb the ladder of success with your hands in your pockets. – Arnold Schwarzenegger

The impediment to action advances action.
What stands in the way becomes the way. – Marcus Aurelius

 News is only the first rough draft of history. – Alan Barth (often attributed to Phil Graham)

Some people die at 25 and aren’t buried until 75. – Benjamin Franklin

Pass through this brief patch of time in harmony with nature, and come to your final resting place gracefully, just as a ripened olive might drop, praising the earth that nourished it and grateful to the tree that gave it growth. —MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 4.48

We must give up many things to which we are addicted, considering them to be good. Otherwise, courage will vanish, which should continually test itself. Greatness of soul will be lost, which can’t stand out unless it disdains as petty what the mob regards as most desirable. —SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 74.12b–13

It’s not how well you avoid problems. It’s how fast you figure out what the problem is and fix it. – Tom Mueller

If if we are merely loquacious and loud talkers, then we can afford to stand very near together, check by jail, and feel each other’s breath: but if we speak reservedly and thoughtfully, we want to be farther apart, that all animal heat and moisture may have a chance to evaporate. – Henry David Thoreau

Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny. ― Lao Tzu

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool. — Richard Feynman

America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense… human rights invented America. – Jimmy Carter

Piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose. – Jimmy Carter

Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks. – John F. Kennedy

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy.” — Seneca (4 BCE – 65 CE)

“Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation.” – Walter Cronkite

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see. – Arthur Schopenhauer

Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an action and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step towards the diminution of war, every step towards better treatment of the coloured races, or every migration of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organised Churches of the world. I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organised in its Churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. – Bertrand Russell – Why I’m Not a Christian

People don’t decide their futures, they decide their habits and their habits decide their future. – F.M. Alexander

The more a man is the less he wants. – Maxwell Perkins

All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone. – Blaise Pascal

To be really happy and really safe, one ought to have at least two or three hobbies, and they must all be real. – Winston Churchill

We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones. – Henry David Thoreau

Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little. – Epictetus

Most of us would be seized with fear if our bodies went numb, and would do everything possible to avoid it, yet we take no interest at all in the numbing of our souls. – Epictetus

Of the seven deadly sins, only envy is no fun at all. – Joseph Epstein

Work done for a reward is much lower than work done in the Yoga of wisdom. Set they heart upon thy work, but never on its reward. Work not for the reward; but never cease to do thy work. – The Bhagavad Gita

Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it. – Colin Powell

How noble and good everyone could be if at the end of the day they were to review their own behavior and and weigh up the rights and wrongs. They would automatically try to do better at the start of each new day, and after a while, would certainly accomplish a great deal. – Anne Frank

If you wish to improve, be content to appear clueless or stupid in extraneous matters. – Epictetus

First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do. – Epictetus

Photography is naively believed to reproduce visual actuality, but in fact the images our eyes take in and the images the camera delivers are not the same. Taking a picture is a transformative act. – Janet Malcolm (Still Pictures, p. 153)

Yes, all happy families are alike in the pain their members helplessly inflict upon one another, as if under orders from a perverse higher authority. – Janet Malcolm (Still Pictures, p. 71)

Modern Americans behave as if intelligence were some sort of hideous deformity. ― Frank Zappa

The past is a country that issues no visas. We can only enter it illegally. – Janet Malcolm (Still Pictures p. 22)

This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be. – Jim Stockdale

When nothing seems to help, I go back and look at the stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it—but all that had gone before. — Jacob Riis

It is only when we fully exercise our capacities – when we grow – that we have roots in the world and feel at home in it. – Eric Hoffer

Life is like an empty field. With intention it becomes a garden, without it weeds and debris will take over. Something will grow either way, but it’s your choice what takes root. – John Steinbeck

Resolve to behave as though your every act were to become a universal law for all people. – Immanuel Kant

Circumstances do not make the man; they merely reveal him to himself. – Epictetus

Every choice you make is a statement about your true values and priorities. – Brain Tracy

What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear a word that you say. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anyone else expects of you. – Henry Ward Beecher

There will always be someone who can’t see your worth. Don’t let it be you. – Mel Robbins

God is not needed to create guilt or to punish. Our fellow men suffice, aided by ourselves. Albert Camus, The Fall, p. 110

Above all, don’t believe your friends when they ask you to be sincere with them. They merely hope you will encourage them in the good opinion they have of themselves by providing them with with the additional assurance they will find in your promise of sincerity. Albert Camus, The Fall, p. 82

Today we are always as ready to judge as we are to fornicate. – Albert Camus, The Fall, p. 77

I was of respectable but humble birth (my father was an officer), and yet, certain mornings, let me confess it humbly, I felt like a king’s son, or a buring bush. It was not a matter, mind you, of the certainty I had of being more intelligent than everyone else. Bsides, such certainty is of no consequence because so many imbeciles share it. – Albert Camus, The Fall p. 28.

The only thing that you absolutely have to know, is the location of the library. – Albert Einstein

The universe is what it is, not what I choose that it should be. If it is indifferent to human desires, as it seems to be; if human life is a passing episode, hardly noticeable in the vastness of cosmic processes; if there is no superhuman and supernatural purpose, and no hope of ultimate salvation, it is far better to understand and acknowledge this truth than to endeavor, in futile self-assertion, to order the universe to be what we may find comfortable.

The universe is neither hostile nor friendly; it neither favors our ideals nor refutes them. Our individual life is brief, and perhaps the whole life of humankind will be brief if measured on an astronomical scale. But that is no reason for not living it as seems best to us. The things that seem to us good are none the less good for not being eternal, and we should not ask of the universe an external approval of our own ethical standards.

The freethinker’s universe may seem bleak and cold to those who have been accustomed to the comfortable indoor warmth of the various religious cosmologies. But to those who have grown accustomed to it, it has its own sublimity, and confers its own joys. In learning to think freely we have hopefully learnt to thrust fear out of our thoughts, and this lesson, once learnt, brings a kind of peace which is impossible to the slave of hesitant and uncertain credulity.

— Bertrand Russell, The Value of Free Thought: How to Become a Truth-Seeker and Break the Chains of Mental Slavery (1944), pp. 40-41

The greatest fallacy in, or rather the greatest objection to, teleological thinking is in connection with the emotional content, the belief. People get to believing and even to professing the apparent answers thus arrived at, suffering mental constrictions by emotionally closing their minds to any of the further and possibly opposite “answers” which might otherwise be unearthed by honest effort — answers which, if faced realistically, would give rise to a struggle and to a possible rebirth which might place the whole problem in a new and more significant light. – John Steinbeck

The stories we tell, in politics as in life, leave us stuck in the past even as we’re forced, pitilessly, into the future. – Ezra Klein

I feel like a ghost wandering in a world grown alien. – Rachmaninoff 

Your beliefs drive your perceptions, they drive your behaviors, and most of that is happening at the non-conscious level.

― JR Badian

Night is a time for meditation. – Albert Camus (1st Letter to a friend)

If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got. – Albert Einstein

The defects of the mind, like those of the face, grow worse with age. – Francois de La Rochefoucauld

We are all geniuses up to the age of ten. – Aldous Huxley

None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm. – Henry David Thoreau

Happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will elude you; but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder. – author unknown

We are no closer than the first cave men at living life on the level we suspect human life might be lived. – Henry Mitchell (from the book, Any Day)

Our mind is a garden, our thoughts are the seeds, you can grow flowers or you can grow weeds. – Ritu Ghatourey

First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do. – Epictetus

The effect of power and publicity on all men is the aggravation of self, a sort of tumor that ends by killing the victim’s sympathies; a diseased appetite, like a passion for drink or perverted tastes; one can scarcely use expressions too strong to describe the violence of egotism it stimulates; and Thurlow Weed was one of the exceptions; a rare immune. – Henry Adams

[A schoolmaster is] a man hired to tell lies to little boys. – Henry Adams

Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, had always been the systematic organization of hatreds – Henry Adams

If you’re going through hell, keep going. – Winston Churchill

It’s one-on-one out there, man. There ain’t no hiding. I can’t pass the ball. – Pete Sampras

Don’t be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Never had so few lost so much so stupidly and so fast. – Dean Acheson

Everything has its beauty but not everyone sees it. – Andy Warhol

They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself. – Andy Warhol

Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth. – Rumi

Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself. – Rumi

Republicans are men of narrow vision, who are afraid of the future. – Jimmy Carter

Too many of us now tend to worship self indulgence and consumption. – Jimmy Carter

Unless both sides win, no agreement can be permanent. – Jimmy Carter

When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on the faces surrounding him. In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.

― Albert Camus

Sometimes you just have to bite your upper lip and put sunglasses on.
― Bob Dylan

Money doesn’t talk, it swears. – Bob Dylan

I have always called talking about feelings “important talk”. Knowing that feelings are natural and normal for all of us can make it easier for us to share them with one another. – Fred Rogers

The real issue in life is not how many blessings we have, but what we do with our blessings. Some people have many blessings and hoard them away. Some have few and give everything away. – Fred Rogers

If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person. – Fred Rogers

When you combine your own intuition with a sensitivity to other people’s feelings and moods, you may be close to the origins of valuable human attributes such as generosity, altruism, compassion, sympathy, and empathy. – Fred Rogers

I hope you’re proud of yourself for the times you said “yes,” when all it meant was extra work for you and was seemingly helpful only to somebody else. – Fred Rogers

What makes the difference between wishing and realizing our wishes question what lots of things, of course, but the main one, I think karma is whether we link our wishes to our act of work. It may take months or years, but it’s far more likely to happen when we care so much that we will work as hard as we can to make it happen. And when we are working towards the realization of our wishes, some of our greatest strengths come from the encouragement of people who care about us. – Fred Rogers

Listening is a very active awareness of the coming together of at least two lives. Listening, as far as I’m concerned, is certainly a prerequisite of love. One of the most essential ways of saying “I love you” is being a receptive listener. – Fred Rogers

Don’t let it be forgotten, that once there was a spot, for one brief shining moment that was known as Camelot, and it will never be that way again. – Jackie Kennedy

A poem is really a kind of machine for producing the poetic state of mind by means of words. – Paul Valery

Education makes a straight ditch of a free meandering brook.- Henry David Thoreau

Our main business is not to see what lies dimly in the distance, but to do what is clearly at hand. – Thomas Carlyle

But nothing can take the place of love. Love is the measure of life: only so far as we love do we really live. The variety of our interests, the width of our sympathies, the susceptibilities of our hearts— if these do not measure our lives, what does? As the years go by, we are all of us more or less subject to two dangers, the danger of petrifaction and the danger of putrefaction; either that we shall become hard and callous, crusted over with customs and conventions till no new ray of light or of joy can reach us, or that we shall become lax and disorganized, losing our grip upon the real and vital sources of happiness and power. Now, there is no preservative and antiseptic, nothing that keeps one’s heart young, like love, like sympathy, like giving one’s self with enthusiasm to some worthy thing or cause. – John Burroughs

The power to see straight is the rarest of gifts; to see no more and no less than is actually before you; to be able to detach yourself and see the thing as it actually is, uncolored or unmodified by your own sentiments or prepossessions. In short, to see with your reason as well as with your perceptions, that is to be an observer and to read the book of nature aright. – John Burroughs

We’ll start the war from right here! – Theodore Roosevelt  Jr.

If you can’t say something good about someone, sit right here by me. – Alice Roosevelt

In Genesis, it says that it is not good for a man to be alone but sometimes it is a great relief. – John Barrymore

If we think birds, we shall see birds wherever we go; if we think arrowheads, as Thoreau did, we shall pick up arrowheads in every field. – John Burroughs

The eye sees what it has the means of seeing, and its means of seeing are in proportion to the love and desire behind it. – John Burroughs

We are all answers to long sums in addition. – Clara Barrus

We usually do well what we like to do. When anyone finds something he especially likes to do, and can do just a little better than anyone else, and in a way all his own, it is probably his particular work in the world. It is often nearer than he dreams. – Clara Barrus

Serene I fold my hands and wait
Nor care for wind, nor tide, nor sea;
I rave no more ‘gainst time or fate,
For lo! my own shall come to me.
– John Burroughs

The most precious things of life are near at hand, without money and without price. Each of you has the whole wealth of the universe at your very door. All that I ever had, and still have, may be yours by stretching forth your hand and taking it. – John Burroughs

The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness. – Eric Hoffer

It is our duty as men and women to proceed as though the limits of our abilities do not exist. – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

A test of what is real is that it is hard and rough. Joys are found in it, not pleasure. What is pleasant belongs to dreams. – Simone Weil

You can use all the quantitative data you can get, but you still have to distrust it and use your own intelligence and judgment. – Alvin Toffler

Work like you don’t need the money. Love like you’ve never been hurt. Dance like nobody’s watching. – Satchel Paige

You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think. – Dorthy Parker

All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Great works are often born on a street corner or in a restaurant’s revolving door . – Albert Camus

The universe has farted immensely in all our faces. And we try to ignore the huge stink the best we can. – Frank Kuppner

Through perseverance many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure. – Benjamin Disraeli

We should regret our mistakes and learn from them, but never carry them forward into the future with us. – Lucy Maud Montgomery

Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be. – Abraham Lincoln

I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals. – Winston Churchill

So convenient a thing to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.  –  Benjamin Franklin

Truth and sincerity have a certain distinguishing native luster about them which cannot be perfectly counterfeited; they are like fire and flame, that cannot be painted. –  Benjamin Franklin

If two persons equal in judgment play for a considerable sum, he that loves money most shall lose; his anxiety for the success of the game confounds him. – Benjamin Franklin

Your daily life is your temple and your religion. When you enter into it take with you your all. – Khalil Gibran

A man can be himself only so long as he is alone. – Arthur Schopenhauer

A life of slothful ease, a life of that peace which springs merely from lack either of desire or of power to strive after great things, is as little worthy of a nation as of an individual. – Teddy Roosevelt

I like that about the Republicans, the evidence does not faze them, they are not bothered at all by the facts. – Bill Clinton

The easiest person to deceive is one’s self. – Lord Lytton

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of. – Benjamin Franklin

People who lean on logic and philosophy and rational exposition end by starving the best part of the mind. – William Butler Yeats

Republicans are men of narrow vision, who are afraid of the future. – Jimmy Carter

The wise person often shuns society for fear of being bored. – Jean de la Bruyere

The truth is like poetry– And most people fucking hate poetry. – Overheard in a Washington D.C. bar by Michael Lewis, author of The Big Short

The greatest disorder of the mind is to let will direct belief. –  Louis Pasteur

The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all. – John F. Kennedy

Humor does not rescue us from unhappiness, but enables us to move back from it a little. – Mason Cooley

I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. – Henry David Thoreau

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it. – Henry David Thoreau

A man is as old as his arteries. – Thomas Sydenham

Realists do not fear the results of their study. – Fyodor Dostoevsky

If you miss the first buttonhole, you can’t ever get fully buttoned up. –  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Buy the ticket, take the ride. – Hunter Thompson

The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining. – John F. Kennedy

Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it. – George Santayana

Turn the goddamn music up! My heart feels like an alligator! – Hunter Thompson

I find hope in the darkest of days, and focus in the brightest. I do not judge the universe. – Dalia Lama

If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain. – Dolly Parton

The two most important things in life are good friends and a strong bullpen. – Bob Lemon

Grief upon grief! Disappointments upon disappointments. What then? This is a gay, merry world notwithstanding. – John Adams

Tell me to what you pay attention and I will tell you who you are. – Jose Ortega Y Gasset

There are many truths of which the full meaning cannot be realized until personal experience has brought it home. – John Stuart Mill

Remember that children, marriages, and flower gardens reflect the kind of care they get. – H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

The secret of your future is hidden in your daily routine. – Mike Murdock

Go on failing. Go on. Only next time, try to fail better. – Samuel Beckett

A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. – Leo Tolstoy

Death is always around the corner, but often our society gives it inordinate help. – Carter Burwell

Genius is an African who dreams up snow. – Vladimir Nabokov

Disease, insanity, and death were the angels that attended my cradle, and since then have followed me throughout my life.- Edvard Munch

Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic. – W. H. Auden

If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume and come back as a new character, would you slow down? Or speed up? – Chuck Palahniuk

In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death. – Ann Frank

Courage can’t see around corners but goes around them anyway. – Mignon McLaughlin

We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear. – Martin  Luther King

If your stomach disputes you, lie down and pacify it with cool thoughts. – Satchel Paige