Death is our eternal companion. It is always to our left, an arm’s length behind us. Death is the only wise adviser that a warrior has. Whenever he feels that everything is going wrong and he’s about to be annihilated, he can turn to his death and ask if that is so. His death will tell him that he is wrong, that nothing really matters outside its touch. His death will tell him, I haven’t touched you yet.’
—Carlos Castaneda (Peruvian-born American Anthropologist)
We are slow to believe that which if believed would hurt our feelings.
—Louis Nizer (American Lawyer, Author)
It is base to filch a purse, daring to embezzle a million, but it is great beyond measure to steal a crown. The sin lessens as the guilt increases.
—Friedrich Schiller (German Poet)
Most decisions should probably be made with somewhere around 70% of the information you wish you had. If you wait for 90%, in most cases, you’re probably being slow.
—Jeff Bezos (American Businessman)
Understanding is the first step to acceptance, and only with acceptance can there be recovery.
—J. K. Rowling (English Novelist)
All formal dogmatic religions are fallacious and must never be accepted by self-respecting persons as final.
—Hypatia of Alexandria (Greek Philosopher, Mathematician)
They learn in suffering what they teach in song.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (English Poet)
Let your self go. If you can approach the world’s complexities, both its glories and its horrors, with an attitude of humble curiosity, acknowledging that however deeply you have seen, you have only scratched the surface, you will find worlds within worlds, beauties you could not heretofore imagine, and your own mundane preoccupations will shrink to proper size, not all that important in the greater scheme of things.
—Daniel C. Dennett (American Philosopher, Atheist)
When you lose a couple of times, it makes you realize how difficult it is to win.
—Steffi Graf (German Tennis Player)
If you steal something small you are a petty thief, but if you steal millions you are a gentleman of society.
—Greek Proverb
What is the price of experience?. Do men buy it for a song?. Or wisdom for a dance in the street?. No, it is bought with the price of all the man hath, his house, his wife, his children.
—William Blake (English Poet)
You will not become a saint through other people’s sins.
—Anton Chekhov (Russian Short Story Writer)