You must have this charm to reach the pinnacle. It is made of everything and of nothing, the striving will, the look, the walk, the proportions of the body sound of the voice, the ease of the gestures. It is not at all necessary to be handsome or to be pretty; all that is needful is charm.
—Sarah Bernhardt (French Actress)
To abdicate from the rule of reason and substitute for it an authentication of belief by the intentness and degree of conviction with which we hold it can be perilous and destructive. Religious beliefs give a spurious spiritual dimension to tribal enmities … It goes with the passionate intensity and deep conviction of the truth of a religious belief, and of course of the importance of the superstitious observances that go with it, that we should want others to share it—and the only certain way to cause a religious belief to be held by everyone is to liquidate nonbelievers. The price in blood and tears that mankind generally has had to pay for the comfort and spiritual refreshment that religion has brought to a few has been too great to justify our entrusting moral accountancy to religious belief.
—Peter Medawar (British Immunologist, Writer)
I was born not knowing and have only had a little time to change that here and there.
—Richard Feynman (American Physicist)
It is difficult to steal when the boss is a thief.
—Icelandic Proverb
False notes [on the piano] are human. Why does everything have to be perfect? You know, perfection itself is imperfection.
—Vladimir Horowitz (Russian-born American Pianist)
Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, “Make me feel important.” Not only will you succeed in sales, you will succeed in life.
—Mary Kay Ash (American Entrepreneur)
Any device whatever by which one frees himself from fear is a natural good.
—Epicurus (Greek Philosopher)
Believe that with your feelings and your work you are taking part in the greatest; the more strongly you cultivate this belief, the more will reality and the world go forth from it.
—Rainer Maria Rilke (Austrian Poet)
The especial genius of women I believe to be electrical in movement, intuitive in function, spiritual in tendency.
—Margaret Fuller (American Journalist, Feminist)
If you want the future to be different from the present, study the past.
—Baruch Spinoza (Dutch Philosopher)