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)