All fortune belongs to him who has a contented mind.
—Panchatantra
It is best to act with confidence, no matter how little right you have to it.
—Lillian Hellman (American Playwright)
I’m trying to die correctly, but it’s very difficult, you know.
—Lawrence Durrell (British Biographer)
The mystery of existence is the connection between our faults and our misfortunes.
—Anne Louise Germaine de Stael
Manifest plainness, Embrace simplicity, Reduce selfishness, Have few desires.
—Laozi (Chinese Philosopher)
Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.
—Sun Tzu (Chinese Military Leader)
Ability is of little account without opportunity.
—Napoleon I (French Monarch)
Feedback is the breakfast of champions.
—Ken Blanchard (American Author)
All things are possible until they are proved impossible–even the impossible may only be so, as of now.
—Pearl S. Buck (American Novelist)
When unhappy, one doubts everything; when happy, one doubts nothing.
—Philibert Joseph Roux (French Surgeon)
They that have lived a single day have lived an age.
—Jean de La Bruyere
Coming to terms with the rhythms of women’s lives means coming to terms with life itself, accepting the imperatives of the body rather than the imperatives of an artificial, man-made, perhaps transcendentally beautiful civilization. Emphasis on the male work-rhythm is an emphasis on infinite possibilities; emphasis on the female rhythms is an emphasis on a defined pattern, on limitation.
—Margaret Mead (American Anthropologist)
The past is the best prophet of the future.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (English Romantic Poet)