Archives for December 2021

We have, as human beings, a storytelling problem. We’re a bit too quick to come up with explanations for things we don’t really have an explanation for.
—Malcolm Gladwell (Canadian Journalist, Author)

Fullness of knowledge always and necessarily means some understanding of the depths of our ignorance, and that is always conducive to both humility and reverence.
—Robert Andrews Millikan (American Physicist)

God has so made the mind of man that a peculiar deliciousness resides in the fruits of personal industry.
—William Wilberforce (English Social Reformer)

What you lose as you age is witnesses, the ones that watched from early on and cared, like your own little grandstand.
—John Updike (American Author)

Go on—but don’t think you can kill my confidence. I’ve had experts doing it for years.
—John Osborne (English Playwright, Actor)

The one predominant duty is to find one’s work and do it.
—Charlotte Perkins Gilman (American Feminist, Writer)

Self esteem is the reputation we acquire with ourselves.
—Nathaniel Branden (American Psychotherapist)

So great is the effect of cleanliness upon man, that it extends even to his moral character.—Virtue never dwelt long with filth; nor do I believe there ever was a person scrupulously attentive to cleanliness who was a consummate villain.
—Benjamin Thompson (American-British Scientist)

An “unemployed” existence is a worse negation of life than death itself.
—Jose Ortega y. Gasset (Spanish Philosopher)

Persecution was at least a sign of personal interest. Tolerance is composed of nine parts of apathy to one of brotherly love.
—Frank Moore Colby (American Writer, Editor)

Persevering mediocrity is much more respectable, and unspeakably more useful, than talented inconstancy.
—James Hamilton (Scottish Protestant Minister)

You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.
—Darren Hardy (American Author)

Human memory is a marvelous but fallacious instrument. The memories which lie within us are not carved in stone; not only do they tend to become erased as the years go by, but often they change, or even increase by incorporating extraneous features.
—Primo Levi (Italian Novelist, Poet)

The criterion of simplicity requires that the minimum number of assumptions be postulated.
—Albert Low (Canadian Zen Master)

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American Poet)

The paradox is really the pathos of intellectual life and just as only great souls are exposed to passions it is only the great thinker who is exposed to what I call paradoxes, which are nothing else than grandiose thoughts in embryo.
—Soren Kierkegaard (Danish Philosopher, Theologian)

Although there may be nothing new under the sun, what is old is new to us and so rich and astonishing that we never tire of it. If we do tire of it, if we lose our curiosity, we have lost something of infinite value, because to a high degree it is curiosity that gives meaning and savour to life.
—Robertson Davies (Canadian Novelist, Playwright)

You can’t start worrying about what’s going to happen. You get spastic enough worrying about what’s happening now.
—Lauren Bacall (American Actress)

When trouble arises and things look bad, there is always one individual who perceives a solution and is willing to take command. Very often, that person is crazy.
—Dave Barry (American Humorist)

Smiles are the language of love.
—David Hare (British Playwright, Director)

If I had my career over again? Maybe I’d say to myself, speed it up a little.
—James Maitland Stewart (American Film Actor)

Good writers define reality; bad ones merely restate it. A good writer turns fact into truth; a bad writer will, more often than not, accomplish the opposite.
—Edward Albee (American Playwright)

A “just war” is hospitable to every self-deception on the part of those waging it, none more than the certainty of virtue, under whose shelter every abomination can be committed with a clear conscience.
—Alexander Claud Cockburn (Irish American Journalist)

Hard work has made it easy. That is my secret. That is why I win.
—Nadia Comaneci (Romanian-American Gymnast)

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord: He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.
—Julia Ward Howe (American Poet, Author)

There are two great rules of life: never tell everything at once.
—Ken Venturi (American Golfer, Sportscaster)

Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love.
—Hamilton Wright Mabie (American Essayist, Editor)