Improvisation is too good to leave to chance.
—Paul Simon (American Musician)
Never have anything to do with an unlucky place, or an unlucky man. I have seen many clever men, very clever men, who had not shoes to their feet. I never act with them. Their advice sounds very well, but they cannot get on themselves; and if they cannot do good to themselves, how can they do good to me?
—Mayer Amschel Rothschild (German Financier)
The test of any man lies in action.
—Pindar (Greek Lyric Poet)
There must be more to life than having everything.
—Maurice Sendak (American Writer, Illustrator)
Perfection consists not in doing extraordinary things, but in doing ordinary things extraordinarily well. Neglect nothing; the most trivial action may be performed to God.
—Marie Angelique Arnauld (French Abbess)
The art of resting the mind and the power of dismissing from it all care and worry is probably one of the secrets of energy in our great men.
—James Arthur Hadfield (British Psychoanalysts)
Discover the centre of your being and hold fast to it; only from there can you describe the perfect circle of life rounded into its absolute fullness.
—Nolini Kanta Gupta (Indian Hindu Revolutionary)
As human beings, we are endowed with freedom of choice, and we cannot shuffle off our responsibility upon the shoulders of God or nature. We must shoulder it ourselves. It is up to us.
—Arnold J. Toynbee (British Historian)
The real man is one who always finds excuses for others, but never excuses himself.
—Henry Ward Beecher (American Protestant Clergyman)
We ought to fear a man who hates himself, for we are at risk of becoming victims of his anger and revenge. Let us then try to lure him into self-love.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (German Philosopher, Scholar)
Simply by making the effort to start something, you will be miles ahead of almost everyone else.
—Gary Player (South African Golfer)
Private interpretation in religion is like cutting your own hair.
—Austin O’Malley (American Aphorist, Ophthalmologist)
What others think of us would be of little moment did it not, when known, so deeply tinge what we think of ourselves.
—Paul Valery (French Critic, Poet)
He is not poor that has little, but he that desires much.
—Samuel Daniel (English Poet)