Archives for October 2021

Most people can’t think, most of the remainder won’t think, the small fraction who do think mostly can’t do it very well. The extremely tiny fraction who think regularly, accurately, creatively, and without self-delusion—in the long run, these are the only people who count.
—Robert A. Heinlein (American Science Fiction Writer)

I think it is fair to say that it is under a great deal of stress, and if I am asking for significant changes, it is because the world is going through significant changes.
—Mohamed ElBaradei (Egyptian Diplomat)

Let us follow our destiny, ebb and flow. Whatever may happen, we master fortune by accepting it.
—Virgil (Roman Poet)

To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (Indian Hindu Political leader)

I finally realized that being grateful to my body was key to giving more love to myself.
—Oprah Winfrey (American TV Personality)

You can enjoy encouragement coming from outside, but you cannot need for it to come from outside.
—Vladimir K. Zworykin (American Physicist)

The law isn’t justice. It’s a very imperfect mechanism. If you press exactly the right buttons and are also lucky, justice may show up in the answer. A mechanism is all the law was ever intended to be.
—Raymond Chandler (American Novelist)

To know when to be generous and when to be firm—this is wisdom.
—Elbert Hubbard (American Writer)

The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that is the way to bet.
—Damon Runyon (American Writer, Journalist)

Nothing is so hard to understand as that there are human beings in this world besides one’s self and one’s own set.
—William Dean Howells (American Writer, Critic)

The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless.
—Steven Weinberg (American Physicist)

Of course, the illusion of art is to make one believe that great literature is very close to life, but exactly the opposite is true. Life is amorphous, literature is formal.
—Francoise Sagan (French Novelist)

When we lack the will to see things as they really are, there is nothing so mystifying as the obvious.
—Irving Kristol (American Political Writer)

There are no failures—just experiences and your reactions to them.
—Tom Krause (Finnish Opera Singer)

Every advantage in the past is judged in the light of the final issue.
—Demosthenes (Greek Statesman, Orator)

The perfect normal person is rare in our civilization.
—Karen Horney (German Psychoanalyst)

Envy depreciates the genius of the great Homer.
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) (Roman Poet)

It’s discouraging to make a mistake, but it’s humiliating when you find out you’re so unimportant that nobody noticed it.
—Chuck Daly (American Basketball Coach)

The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.
—William Arthur Ward (American Author)

The slum is the measure of civilization.
—Jacob Riis (Danish-born American Social Reformer)

You have to laugh and cry over and over again with someone before you feel comfortable.
—Joan Rivers (American Entertainer)

I am for anything in this world that keeps the problem of finding a substitute for war in people’s minds.
—Ida Tarbell (American Investigative Journalist)

People have to learn sometimes not only how much the heart, but how much the head, can bear.
—Maria Mitchell (American Astronomer)

Students must have initiative; they should not be mere imitators. They must learn to think and act for themselves—and be free.
—Cesar Chavez (American Labor Leader)

But loneliness is as delusive a belief in the pertinence of the world as is love: in choosing to feel lonely, as in choosing to love, one carves a space next to oneself to be filled by others—a friend, a lover, a toy poodle, a violinist on the radio.
—Yiyun Li (Chinese-American Writer)

Familiarity is a magician that is cruel to beauty but kind to ugliness.
—Ouida (Maria Louise Rame) (English Novelist)

The crux of the matter is whether total war in its present form is justifiable, even when it serves a just purpose. Does it not have material and spiritual evil as its consequences which far exceed whatever good might result? When will our moralists give us an answer to this question?
—John Hersey (American Novelist, Journalist)

Here is a mental treatment guaranteed to cure every ill that flesh is heir to: sit for half an hour every night and mentally forgive everyone against whom you have any ill will or antipathy.
—Charles Fillmore (American New Thought Mystic)

No great art has ever been made without the artist having known danger.
—Rainer Maria Rilke (Austrian Poet)

The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win.
—Roger Bannister (British Athlete, Neurologist)