Selfishness is the only real atheism; unselfishness the only real religion.
—Israel Zangwill (British Humorist)
It is hard to free fools from the chains they revere.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher)
And in the end, through the long ages of our quest for light, it will be found that truth is still mightier than the sword. For out of the welter of human carnage and human sorrow and human weal the indestructible thing that will always live is a sound idea.
—Douglas MacArthur (American Military Leader)
Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority.
—Thomas Henry Huxley (English Biologist)
Old age and sickness bring out the essential characteristics of a man.
—Felix Frankfurter (American Judge)
When you pray, rather let your heart be without words than your words without heart.
—John Bunyan (English Christian Writer)
Disciplining yourself to do what you know is right and important, although difficult, is the highroad to pride, self-esteem, and personal satisfaction.
—Margaret Thatcher (British Head of State)
The relation of master and servant is advantageous only to masters who do not scruple to abuse their authority, and to servants who do not scruple to abuse their trust.
—George Bernard Shaw (Irish Playwright)
At the heart of all beauty lies something inhuman, and these hills, the softness of the sky, the outline of these trees at this very minute lose the illusory meaning with which we had clothed them, henceforth more remote than a lost paradise… that denseness and that strangeness of the world is absurd.
—Albert Camus (Algerian-born French Philosopher)
Friends love misery, in fact. Sometimes, especially if we are too lucky or too successful or too pretty, our misery is the only thing that endears us to our friends.
—Erica Jong (American Novelist)
Almost any difficulty will move in the face of honesty. When I am honest I never feel stupid. And when I am honest I am automatically humble.
—Hugh Prather (American Christian Author)
Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (Swiss Philosopher)
People who soar are those who refuse to sit back, sigh and wish things would change. They neither complain of their lot nor passively dream of some distant ship coming in. Rather, they visualize in their minds that they are not quitters; they will not allow life’s circumstances to push them down and hold them under.
—Chuck Swindoll (American Christian Pastor)