The height of human wisdom is to bring our tempers down to our circumstances, and to make a calm within, under the weight of the greatest storm without.
—Daniel Defoe (English Writer)
It’s too easy to criticize a man when he’s out of favor, and to make him shoulder the blame for everybody else’s mistakes.
—Leo Tolstoy (Russian Novelist)
Health is a precious thing, and the only one, in truth, meriting that a man should lay out not only his time, sweat, labor and goods, but also life itself to obtain it.
—Michel de Montaigne (French Philosopher)
What makes old age hard to bear is not the failing of one’s faculties, mental and physical, but the burden of one’s memories.
—W. Somerset Maugham (French Playwright)
The first condition of education is being able to put someone to wholesome and meaningful work.
—John Ruskin (English Art Critic)
In every real man a child is hidden that wants to play.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (German Philosopher, Scholar)
Whenever a man’s friends begin to compliment him about looking young, he may be sure that they think he is growing old.
—Washington Irving (American Author)
I read my own books sometimes to cheer me when it is hard to write and then I remember that it was always difficult and how nearly impossible it was sometimes.
—Ernest Hemingway (American Author)
Instead of loving your enemies, treat your friends a little better.
—E. W. Howe (American Novelist)
We may convince others by our arguments, but we can only persuade them by their own.
—Joseph Joubert (French Essayist)
A man’s errors are his portal to discovery.
—James Joyce (Irish Novelist)
In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)
Only that thing is free which exists by the necessities of its own nature, and is determined in its actions by itself alone.
—Baruch Spinoza (Dutch Philosopher)
It’s not the increasing competition; it’s going back to real work that most of us complain about.
—William Feather (American Publisher)
So often we dwell on the things that seem impossible rather than on the things that are possible. So often we are depressed by what remains to be done and forget to be thankful for all that has been done.
—Marian Wright Edelman (American Civil Regrets Advocate)
Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.
—Nelson Mandela (South African Political leader)
Discouragement is not the absence of adequacy but the absence of courage.
—Neal A. Maxwell (American Mormon Religious Leader)
If the people around you are spiteful and callous and will not hear you, fall down before them and beg their forgiveness; for in truth you are to blame for their not wanting to hear you.
—Fyodor Dostoyevsky (Russian Novelist)
Wisdom is to the mind what health is to the body.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld
He who gives way to his wrath makes desolate his house.
—The Talmud (Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith)