It is not for minds like ours to give or to receive flatter; yet the praises of sincerity have ever been permitted to the voice of friendship
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (English Romantic Poet)
There is one thing even more vital to science than intelligent methods; and that is, the sincere desire to find out the truth, whatever it may be.
—Charles Sanders Peirce (American Philosopher)
There are two insults no human will endure: the assertion that he has no sense of humor and the doubly impertinent assertion that he has never known trouble.
—Sinclair Lewis
The tears of the world are a constant quality. For each one who begins to weep, somewhere else another stops. The same is true of the laugh.
—Samuel Beckett (Irish Novelist, Playwright)
I never knew a man of letters ashamed of his profession.
—William Makepeace Thackeray (English Novelist)
The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.
—Thucydides
Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.
—Anais Nin (French-American Essayist)
Man has a limited biological capacity for change. When this capacity is overwhelmed, the capacity is in future shock.
—Alvin Toffler
No matter how well you perform there’s always somebody of intelligent opinion who thinks it’s lousy.
—Laurence Olivier (English Actor)
Life is too short for theatrics, for face time, for jumping through hoops, for excuses, for blaming, for trying too hard to please others, or for chasing society’s illusion of distant riches or fame.
—Robert Cooper