Wisdom before experience is only words; wisdom after experience is of no avail.
—Mark Van Doren
Every time you get angry, you poison your own system.
—Alfred A. Montapert
Genius is another word for magic, and the whole point of magic is that it is inexplicable.
—Margot Fonteyn
What I cannot love, I overlook.
—Anais Nin (French-American Essayist)
The sign for which I forge an image has no value if it doesn’t harmonize with other signs, which I must determine in the course of my invention and which are completely peculiar to it.
—Henri Matisse
God may forgive your sins, but your nervous system won’t.
—Alfred Korzybski (Polish-born American Philosopher)
Depression is the inability to construct a future.
—Rollo May (American Philosopher)
Some people are molded by their admirations, others by their hostilities.
—Elizabeth Bowen (Irish Novelist)
We don’t see things as they are; we see them as we are.
—Anais Nin (French-American Essayist)
Man cannot remake himself without suffering, for he is both the marble and the sculptor.
—Alexis Carrel (American Surgeon)
Never again clutter your days or nights with so many menial and unimportant things that you have no time to accept a real challenge when it comes along. This applies to play as well as work. A day merely survived is no cause for celebration. You are not here to fritter away your precious hours when you have the ability to accomplish so much by making a slight change in your routine. No more busy work. No more hiding from success. Leave time, leave space, to grow. Now. Now! Not tomorrow!
—Og Mandino
Solitude is the place of purification.
—Martin Buber
A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.
—James Joyce (Irish Novelist)
Power abdicates only under stress of counter-power.
—Martin Buber