Affectation is an awkward and forced imitation of what should be genuine and easy, wanting the beauty that accompanies what is natural.
—John Locke (English Philosopher)
A vacuum of ideas affects people differently than a vacuum of air, otherwise readers of books would be constantly collapsing.
—Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (German Scientist)
Sleep hath its own world, and a wide realm of wild reality. And dreams in their development have breath, and tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (English Romantic Poet)
Difficulties should act as a tonic. They should spur us to greater exertion.
—B. C. Forbes (Scottish-born American Journalist)
No rock so hard but that a little wave may beat admission in a thousand years.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson (British Poet)
When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.
—John Lennon (British Singer)
When neither their property nor their honor is touched, the majority of men live content.
—Niccolo Machiavelli (Florentine Political Philosopher)
Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.
—Henry Adams (American Journalist)
A liberated woman is one who has sex before marriage and a job after.
—Gloria Steinem (American Feminist)
Out of difficulties grow miracles.
—Jean de La Bruyere
No padlock, bolts, or bars can secure a maiden so well as her own reserve.
—Miguel de Cervantes (Spanish Novelist)