Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days, that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth, and transport the sailor and the traveler, thousands of miles away, back to his own fireside and his quiet home!
—Charles Dickens (English Novelist)
A road might end at a single house, but it’s not love’s road. Love is a river. Drink from it.
—Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi (Persian Muslim Mystic)
The great happiness of life, I find, after all, to consist in the regular discharge of some mechanical duty.
—Friedrich Schiller (German Poet)
Without music to decorate it, time is just a bunch of boring production deadlines or dates by which bills must be paid.
—Frank Zappa (American Rock Guitarist, Singer, Composer)
Incentives are spurs that goad a man to do what he doesn’t particularly like, to get something he does particularly want. They are rewards he voluntarily strives for.
—Paul G. Hoffman (American Businessperson)
I consider my ability to arouse enthusiasm among men the greatest asset I possess. The way to develop the best that is in a man is by appreciation and encouragement.
—Charles M. Schwab (American Businessperson)
If you see ten troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you and you have to battle with only one of them.
—Calvin Coolidge (American Head of State)
People often grudge others what they cannot enjoy themselves.
—Aesop (Greek Fabulist)
To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level.
—Bertrand A. Russell (British Philosopher)
To wisdom belongs the intellectual apprehension of things eternal; to knowledge, the rational apprehension of things temporal.
—Augustine of Hippo (Roman-African Christian Philosopher)
What usually happens in the educational process is that the faculties are dulled, overloaded, stuffed and paralyzed so that by the time most people are mature they have lost their innate capabilities.
—Buckminster Fuller (American Inventor, Philosopher)
I don’t know what’s the matter with people: they don’t learn by understanding, they learn by some other way—by rote or something. Their knowledge is so fragile!
—Richard Feynman (American Physicist)
Everything in moderation, including moderation.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)
Quit what you suck at.
—Brad Feld (American Entrepreneur, Investor)
The worldly hope men set their hearts upon turns ashes—or it prospers; and anon, like snow upon the desert’s dusty face, lighting a little hour or two—is gone.
—Omar Khayyam (Persian Mathematician)
Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you are riding through the ruts, don’t complicate your mind.
—Bob Marley (Jamaican Musician)
When we have passed beyond willings, then we shall have Power. Effort was the helper; Effort is the bar.
—Sri Aurobindo (Indian Yogi, Nationalist)
The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree: the presence of a family all wrapped up in each other.
—Burton Hillis (William E. Vaughan) (American Columnist)