Might I give counsel to any man, I would say to him, try to frequent the company of your betters. In books and in life, that is the most wholesome society; learn to admire rightly; the great pleasure of life is that. Note what great men admire.
—William Makepeace Thackeray (English Novelist)
A man can only attain knowledge with the help of those who possess it. This must be understood from the very beginning. One must learn from him who knows.
—Georges Gurdjieff (Armenian Philosopher)
Attach yourself to those who advise you rather than praise you.
—Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux
The first attribute that characterizes the greater man from the moron is his thicker layer of inhibition.
—Martin H. Fischer
Time cools, time clarifies; no mood can be maintained quite unaltered through the course of hours.
—Thomas Mann (German Novelist)
The good man is the man who, no matter how morally unworthy he has been, is moving to become better.
—John Dewey (American Philosopher)
Only if you have been in the deepest valley, can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.
—Richard Nixon (American Head of State)
The hallmark of our age is the tension between aspirations and sluggish institutions.
—John W. Gardner (American Government Official)
A marriage without conflicts is almost as inconceivable as a nation without crises.
—Andre Maurois
Someone has defined genius as intensity of purpose: the ability to do, the patience to wait… Put these together and you have genius, and you have achievement.
—Leo J. Muir
You’ll break the worry habit the day you decide you can meet and master the worse that can happen to you.
—Arnold Glasow (American Businessman)
Every man, through fear, mugs his aspirations a dozen times a day.
—Brendan Behan (Irish Poet)