Quotes

You can't love anyone until you understand that you can't love everyone. -- Real Live Preacher, RealLivePreacher.com Weblog, October 20, 2003

Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend. -- Theophrastus

It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day-to-day basis. -- Margaret Bonnano

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn. -- John Muir

You're alive. Do something. The directive in life, the moral imperative was so uncomplicated. It could be expressed in single words, not complete sentences. It sounded like this: Look. Listen. Choose. Act. -- Barbara Hall, A Summons to New Orleans, 2000

Do give books - religious or otherwise - for Christmas. They're never fattening, seldom sinful, and permanently personal. -- Lenore Hershey

Whenever evil befalls us, we ought to ask ourselves, after the first suffering, how we can turn it into good. So shall we take occasion, from one bitter root, to raise perhaps many flowers. -- Leigh Hunt

To achieve great things we must live as though we were never going to die. -- Marquis de Vauvenargues

You need only claim the event of your life to make yourself yours. When you truly possess all you have been and done, which may take some time, you are fierce with reality. -- Florida Scott-Maxwell, Oprah Magazine, May 2004

A tactical retreat is not a bad response to a surprise assault, you know. First you survive. Then you choose your own ground. Then you counterattack. -- Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campain, 1999

We know truth, not only by reason, but also by the heart. -- Blaise Pascal

One must also accept that one has 'uncreative' moments. The more honestly one can accept that, the quicker these moments will pass. -- Etty Hillesum

It is wonderful how quickly you get used to things, even the most astonishing. -- Edith Nesbitt

Trouble is only opportunity in work clothes. -- Henry J. Kaiser

For all that has been, thanks. For all that will be, yes. -- Dag Hammarskjold

Perhaps I am a bear, or some hibernating animal underneath, for the instinct to be half asleep all winter is so strong in me. -- Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Indolence is a delightful but distressing state; we must be doing something to be happy. -- Mahatma Gandhi

You do ill if you praise, but worse if you censure, what you do not understand. -- Leonardo da Vinci

Use your enemy's hand to catch a snake. -- Persian Proverb

We shall find peace. We shall hear the angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds. -- Anton Chekhov, 1897

You only live once - but if you work it right, once is enough. -- Joe E. Lewis

A human being must have occupation if he or she is not to become a nuisance to the world. -- Dorothy L. Sayers

You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm. -- Colette, in New York World-Telegram and Sun, 1961

The future is an opaque mirror. Anyone who tries to look into it sees nothing but the dim outlines of an old and worried face. -- Jim Bishop, New York Journal-American, March 14, 1959

Tradition is a guide and not a jailer. -- W. Somerset Maugham

A successful individual typically sets his next goal somewhat but not too much above his last achievement. In this way he steadily raises his level of aspiration. -- Kurt Lewin

About the only thing that comes to us without effort is old age. -- Gloria Pitzer, in Reader's Digest, 1979

Only the mediocre are always at their best. -- Jean Giraudoux

Silence is one of the great arts of conversation, as allowed by Cicero himself, who says, 'there is not only an art, but an eloquence in it.' A well bred woman may easily and effectually promote the most useful and elegant conversation without speaking a word. The modes of speech are scarcely more variable than the modes of silence. -- Tom Blair

If you know how to spend less than you get, you have the philosopher's stone. -- Benjamin Franklin

A love of tradition has never weakened a nation, indeed it has strengthened nations in their hour of peril; but the new view must come, the world must roll forward. -- Sir Winston Churchill, speech in the House of Commons, November 29, 1944

Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn't people feel as free to delight in whatever sunlight remains to them? -- Rose Kennedy

If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm. -- Vince Lombardi

The cost of a things is the amount of what I call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run. -- Henry David Thoreau

A man may well bring a horse to the water but he cannot make him drink. -- John Heywood

While the fates permit, live happily; life speeds on with hurried step, and with winged days the wheel of the headlong year is turned. -- Seneca

Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look there. -- Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

It is folly to punish your neighbor by fire when you live next door. -- Publilius Syrus

It has all been very interesting. -- Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, last words, 1762

Do not speak of your happiness to one less fortunate than yourself. -- Plutarch