Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.
—Jean-Paul Sartre (French Philosopher)
Modesty is to merit, what shade is to figures in a picture; it gives it strength and makes it stand out.
—Jean de La Bruyere (French Author)
Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it.
—Russell Baker (American Journalist, Humorist)
There are, strictly speaking, no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity.
—Shunryu Suzuki (Buddhist Monk, Author)
Every human life involves an unfathomable mystery, for man is the riddle of the universe, and the riddle of man in his endowment with personal capacities. The stars are not so strange as the mind that studies them, analyzes their light, and measures their distance.
—Harry Emerson Fosdick (American Baptist Minister)
One thing only has been lent to youth and age in common—discontent.
—Matthew Arnold (English Poet, Critic)
The first principle of success is desire—knowing what you want. Desire is the planting of your seed. Very few persons, comparatively, know how to Desire with sufficient intensity. They do not know what it is to feel and manifest that intense, eager, longing, craving, insistent, demanding, ravenous Desire which is akin to the persistent, insistent, ardent, overwhelming desire of the drowning man for a breath of air; of the shipwrecked or desert-lost man for a drink of water; of the famished man for bread and meat.
—Robert Collier (American Self-Help Author)
Flow with whatever may happen and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.
—Zhuang Zhou (Chinese Taoist Philosopher)
When you are a pessimist and the bad thing happens, you live it twice. Once when you worry about it, and the second time when it happens.
—Amos Tversky (Israeli Cognitive Psychologist)
Pleasure is a poor substitute for happiness.
—Akbarali H. Jetha (Indian Author)
A living entity cannot derive real benefit by reading hundreds of books or pretending to render devotional service according to his own ideas.
—Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura (Indian Hindu Religious Leader)
You believe easily that which you hope for earnestly.
—Terence (Roman Comic Dramatist)
Like other traditions, the tradition of reason is learnt, not innate. It too lies between instinct and reason; and the question of the real reasonableness and truth of this tradition of proclaimed reason and truth must now also scrupulously be examined.
—Friedrich Hayek (British Economist, Social Philosopher)