An original idea. That can’t be too hard. The library must be full of them.
—Stephen Fry (English Actor, Writer)
We have to encourage the future we want rather than trying to prevent the future we fear.
—Bill Joy (American Computer Engineer)
A man’s genius is always, in the beginning of life, as much unknown to himself as to others; and it is only after frequent trials, attended with success, that he dares think himself equal to those undertakings in which those who have succeeded have fixed the admiration of mankind.
—David Hume (Scottish Philosopher, Historian)
The prospect of success in achieving our most cherished dream is not without its terrors. Who is more deprived and alone than the man who has achieved his dream?
—Brendan Behan (Irish Poet)
There is no original truth, only original error.
—Gaston Bachelard (French Philosopher)
Gratitude is not only the memory but the homage of the heart rendered to God for his goodness.
—Nathaniel Parker Willis (American Poet, Playwright)
War is like love, it always finds a way.
—Bertolt Brecht (German Poet)
As rivers, when they overflow, drown those grounds and ruin those husbandmen, which, whilst they flowed calmly betwixt their banks they fertilized and enriched, so our passions, when they grow exorbitant and unruly, destroy those virtues to which they might be very serviceable whilst kept within their bounds.
—Robert Boyle (Irish Scientist, Philosopher)
Ideal conversation must be an exchange of thought, and not, as many of those who worry most about their shortcomings believe, an eloquent exhibition of wit or oratory.
—Emily Post (American Writer, Socialite)
There is nothing so strong or safe in an emergency of life as the simple truth.
—Charles Dickens (English Novelist)
I believe love produces a certain flowering of the whole personality which nothing else can achieve.
—Ivan Turgenev (Russian Novelist, Playwright)
Men’s fortunes are on a wheel, which in its turning suffers not the same man to prosper for ever.
—Herodotus (Ancient Greek Historian)
Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined.
—Toni Morrison (American Novelist)
When you give power to an executive you do not know who will be filling that position when the time of crisis comes.
—Ernest Hemingway (American Author)
Land and sea, weakness and decline are great separators, but death is the great divorcer for ever.
—John Keats (English Poet)