Love imposes obligations and these are constant. An intermittent lover is no use to a person of dignity and courage.
—Anita Brookner (English Novelist, Art Historian)
Yet we may constantly do more in what we are than in what we do. We may serve better in the lives we live than in the best service we ever give. The memory of that should bring rest to your spirit when a bit tired, and may be disheartened because tired.
—Samuel Dickey Gordon (American Evangelical Author)
Let every emotion be capable becoming an intoxication to you. If what you eat fails to make you drunk, it is because you are not hungry enough.
—Andre Gide (French Novelist)
At the deepest level people are madder than they want to believe. You will find that they fear being eaten, and are alarmed by their desire to devour others.
—Hanif Kureishi (British Novelist, Screenwriter)
Envy wounds with false accusations, that is with detraction, a thing which scares virtue.
—Leonardo da Vinci (Italian Polymath)
For a long time I found the celebrities of modern painting and poetry ridiculous. I loved absurd pictures, fanlights, stage scenery, mountebanks backcloths, inn-signs, cheap colored prints; unfashionable literature, church Latin, pornographic books badly spelt, grandmothers novels, fairy stories, little books for children, old operas, empty refrains, simple rhythms.
—Arthur Rimbaud (French Poet)
Evil is always possible. Goodness is a difficulty.
—Anne Rice (American Author)
Men are only too ready to be swayed by senseless passion.
—John Macquarrie (British Theologian)
Give it away to get it back. There is a wonderful, almost mystical, law of nature that says three of the things we want most—happiness, freedom, and peace of mind—are always attained when we give them to others.
—John Wooden (American Sportsperson)
Life is like an ever-shifting kaleidoscope; a slight change, and all patterns and configurations alter.
—Sharon Salzberg (Buddhist Teacher)
The man that makes a character, makes foes.
—Edward Young (English Poet)
I count false words the foulest plague of all.
—Aeschylus (Greek Playwright)