Fun gives you a forcible hug, and shakes laughter out of you, whether you will or no.
—David Garrick (English Playwright, Actor)
The poet enjoys the incomparable privilege of being able to be himself and others, as he wishes.
—Charles Baudelaire (French Poet)
Let those who would affect singularity with success, first determine to be very virtuous, and they will be sure to be very singular.
—Charles Caleb Colton (English Clergyman, Aphorist)
Biology gives you a brain. Life turns it into a mind.
—Jeffrey Eugenides (American Novelist)
Innovators are inevitably controversial.
—Eva Le Gallienne (American Actress)
Breath by breath, let go of fear, expectation, anger, regret, cravings, frustration, fatigue. Let go of the need for approval. Let go of old judgments and opinions. Die to all that, and fly free. Soar in the freedom of desirelessness.
—Lama Surya Das (American Buddhist Scholar)
Love touched her heart, and lo! It beats high, and burns with such brave hearts.
—Richard Crashaw (British Poet)
It’s essential to tell the truth at all times. This will reduce life’s pain. Lying distorts reality. All forms of distorted thinking must be corrected.
—John Bradshaw (American Educator)
You have to deal with the fact that your life is your life.
—Alex Haley (American Novelist, Biographer)
The world consists almost exclusively of people who are one sort and who behave like another sort.
—Zona Gale (American Novelist, Playwright)
With years a richer life begins, the spirit mellow: ripe age gives tones to violins, wine, and good fellows.
—John Townsend Trowbridge (American Author)
He who is prepared for the future and he who deals cleverly with any situation that may arise are both happy; but the fatalistic man who wholly depends on luck is ruined.
—Chanakya Neeti (Anthology of Indian Aphorisms)
We’re all going to die, all of us, what a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn’t. We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.
—Charles Bukowski (American Writer)
Something which we think is impossible now is not impossible in another decade.
—Constance Baker Motley (American Jurist)
Fear of death has been the greatest ally of tyranny past and present.
—Sidney Hook (American Social Philosopher)