A man lives not only his personal life as an individual but also, consciously or unconsciously, the life of his epoch and his contemporaries.
—Thomas Mann (German Novelist)
What I still ask for daily-for life as long as I have work to do, and work as long as I have life.
—Reynolds Price (American Novelist)
He who walks in the middle of the road gets hit from both sides.
—George P. Shultz (American Economist)
Don’t criticize what you can’t understand.
—Bob Dylan (American Singer)
We would have to settle for the elegant goal of becoming ourselves.
—William Styron (American Novelist)
The more I traveled the more I realized that fear makes strangers of people who should be friends.
—Shirley MacLaine (American Actor)
Friendship doesn’t exist to criticize but to inspire confidence.
—Jean-Paul Sartre (French Philosopher)
Common sense and good nature will do a lot to make the pilgrimage of life not too difficult.
—W. Somerset Maugham (French Playwright)
I am in the present. I cannot know what tomorrow will bring forth. I can know only what the truth is for me today. That is what I am called upon to serve, and I serve it in all lucidity.
—Igor Stravinsky (Russian-born American Composer)
Man is not on the earth solely for his own happiness. He is there to realize great things for humanity.
—Vincent van Gogh (Dutch Painter)
Are great things ever done smoothly? Time, patience, and indomitable will must show.
—Swami Vivekananda (Indian Hindu Mystic)
Most of the trouble in this world has been caused by folks who can’t mind their own business, because they have no business of their own to mind, any more than a smallpox virus has.
—William S. Burroughs (American Novelist)