You do not reform a world by ignoring it.
—George H. W. Bush (American Head of State)
Ideas are invented only as correctives to the past. Through repeated rectification of this kind one may hope to disengage an idea that is valid.
—Gaston Bachelard (French Philosopher)
Old age is like climbing a mountain. The higher you get, the more tired and breathless you become, but your view becomes much more extensive.
—Ingmar Bergman (Swedish Film and Stage Director)
What men value in this world is not rights but privileges.
—H. L. Mencken (American Journalist, Literary Critic)
People who are not in love fail to understand how an intelligent man can suffer because of a very ordinary woman. This is like being surprised that anyone should be stricken with cholera because of a creature so insignificant as the comma bacillus.
—Marcel Proust (French Novelist)
Both the good and the pleasant present themselves to a man. The calm soul examines them well and discriminates. Yeah, he prefers the good to the pleasant; but the fool chooses the pleasant out of greed and avarice.
—The Upanishads (Sacred Books of Hinduism)
If the crisis lasts moments, rapid action is critical. But if it’s simply the beginning of a broader issue, especially one where the root cause isn’t known yet, the worst thing a leader can do is act immediately.
—Brad Feld (American Entrepreneur, Investor)
Speakers who talk about what life has taught them never fail to keep the attention of their listeners.
—Dale Carnegie (American Self-Help Author)
The artist’s role is to raise the consciousness of the people. To make them understand life, the world and themselves more completely. That’s how I see it. Otherwise, I don’t know why you do it.
—Amiri Baraka (American Poet, Playwright)
Writing ought either to be the manufacture of stories for which there is a market demand—a business as safe and commendable as making soap or breakfast foods—or it should be an art, which is always a search for something for which there is no market demand, something new and untried, where the values are intrinsic and have nothing to do with standardized values.
—Willa Cather (American Novelist)
Be convinced that to be happy means to be free and that to be free means to be brave. Therefore do not take lightly the perils of war.
—Thucydides (Greek Historian)
I don’t mind their having a lot of money, and I don’t care how they employ it, but I do think that they damn well ought to admit they enjoy it.
—Ogden Nash (American Comic Poet)