The influence of each human being on others in this life is a kind of immortality.
—John Quincy Adams (American Head of State)
Kind thoughts are rarer than either kind words or deeds. They imply a great deal of thinking about others. This in itself is rare. But they also imply a great deal of thinking about others without the thoughts being criticisms. This is rarer still.
—Frederick William Faber (British Hymn writer)
It must be hard to be a model, because you’d want to be like the photograph of you, and you can’t ever look that way.
—Andy Warhol (American Painter)
There is a special place in hell for women who do not help other women.
—Madeleine Albright (Czech-born American Diplomat)
A man only becomes wise when he begins to calculate the approximate depth of his ignorance.
—Gian Carlo Menotti (Italian-born American Composer)
I wish I were either rich enough or poor enough to do a lot of things that are impossible in my present comfortable circumstances.
—Don Herold (American Humorist)
In the finest critics one hears the full cry of the human. They tell one why it matters to read.
—Harold Bloom (American Literary Critic)
Every time you win, you’re reborn; when you lose, you die a little.
—George E. Allen (American Sportsperson)
The very essence of the creative is its novelty, and hence we have no standard by which to judge it.
—Carl Rogers (American Psychologist)
Obscurity in writing is commonly a proof of darkness in the mind; the greatest learning is to be seen in the greatest plainness.
—John Wilkins (English Anglican Clergyman)
If I had my hand full of truth, I would take good care how I opened it.
—Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle (French Essayist)
True happiness must arise from well-regulated affections, and an affection includes a duty.
—Mary Wollstonecraft (British Children’s Books Writer)
Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God.
—Karl Barth (Swiss Reformed Theologian)