No good work whatever can be perfect, and the demand for perfection is always a sign of a misunderstanding of the ends of art.
—John Ruskin (English Art Critic)
The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may not be going to prove one’s self a fool; the truest heroism is, to resist the doubt; and the profoundest wisdom, to know when it ought to be resisted, and when to be obeyed.
—Nathaniel Hawthorne (American Novelist)
Economy is the art of making the most of life. The love of economy is the root of all virtue.
—George Bernard Shaw (Irish Playwright)
Though men pride themselves on their great actions, often they are not the result of any great design, but of chance.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld
No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
—Nelson Mandela (South African Political leader)
It is the cheerful mind that is persevering. It is the strong mind that hews its way through a thousand difficulties.
—Swami Vivekananda (Indian Hindu Mystic)
Doubt is uncomfortable, certainty is ridiculous.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher)
I reject any religious doctrine that does not appeal to reason and is in conflict with morality.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (Indian Hindu Political leader)
All the greatest and most important problems of life are fundamentally insolvable. They can never be solved, but only outgrown.
—Carl Jung (Swiss Psychologist)
Every man who rises above the common level has received two educations: the first from his teachers; the second, more personal and important, from himself.
—Edward Gibbon (English Historian)
No man is happy unless he believes he is.
—Publilius Syrus (Syrian-born Latin Writer)
A man’s value to the community primarily depends on how far his feelings, thoughts, and actions are directed towards promoting the good of his fellows.
—Albert Einstein (German-born Theoretical Physicist)
If a person gets his attitude toward money straight, it will help straighten out almost every other area in his life.
—Billy Graham (American Baptist Religious Leader)
Life, we learn too late, is in the living, in the tissue of every day and hour.
—Stephen Leacock
No one can be a great thinker who does not recognize that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead.
—John Stuart Mill (English Philosopher, Economist)