Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do.
—Jeremy Bentham (British Philosopher, Economist)
It’s fun to get together and have something good to eat at least once a day. That’s what human life is all about—enjoying things.
—Julia Child (American Cook, Author)
I do not feel that I am the product of chance, a speck of dust in the universe, but someone who was expected, prepared, prefigured. In short, a being whom only a Creator could put here; and this idea of a creating hand refers to God.
—Jean-Paul Sartre (French Philosopher)
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
—Leo Tolstoy (Russian Novelist)
Nothing is so perfectly amusing as a total change of ideas.
—Laurence Sterne (Irish Anglican Novelist)
Innovation by definition will not be accepted at first. It takes repeated attempts, endless demonstrations, monotonous rehearsals before innovation can be accepted and internalized by an organization. This requires ‘courageous patience’.
—Warren Bennis (American Management Consultant)
You find yourself refreshed in the presence of cheerful people. Why not make an honest effort to confer that pleasure on others? Half the battle is gained if you never allow yourself to say anything gloomy.
—Lydia Maria Child (American Abolitionist)
The desire for true happiness is nothing to feel ashamed about.
—Thanissaro Bhikkhu (American Buddhist Monk)
The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves. We cannot force love.
—William Hazlitt (English Essayist)
The father of a daughter is nothing but a high-class hostage. A father turns a stony face to his sons, berates them, shakes his antlers, paws the ground, snorts, runs them off into the underbrush, but when his daughter puts her arm over his shoulder and says, ‘Daddy, I need to ask you something,’ he is a pat of butter in a hot frying pan.
—Garrison Keillor (American Broadcaster, Writer)
I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.
—Harper Lee (American Novelist)