"Too many died. War isn’t worth one life."

Henry John "Harry" Patch

Life and Death

Peace and War

"We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents."

Eric Hoffer

Dreams and Desires

Talent and Genius

"[...] politicians who took us to war should have been given the guns and told to settle their differences themselves, instead of organising nothing better than legalised mass murder."

Henry John "Harry" Patch

Life and Death

Peace and War

Politics and Diplomacy

"You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it."

Maya Angelou

Defeates and Mistakes

"Vulgarity in a king flatters the majority of the nation."

George Bernard Shaw "Man and Superman"

Authority, Government

Manners and Ethics

"Modern morality and manners suppress all natural instincts, keep people ignorant of the facts of nature and make them fighting drunk on bogey tales."

Aleister Crowley "The Confessions of Aleister Crowley"

Manners and Ethics

"Don't use that foreign word "ideals." We have that excellent native word "lies.""

Henrik Ibsen "The Wild Duck"

Truth and Falsity

Various

"Habit is necessary; it is the habit of having habits, of turning a trail into a rut, that must be incessantly fought against if one is to remain alive."

Edith Wharton

Human

Manners and Ethics

"There exist only three respectable beings: the priest, the warrior, the poet. To know, to kill, and to create."

Charles Baudelaire "My Heart Laid Bare"

Happiness

Various

"Fashion is the science of appearances, and it inspires one with the desire to seem rather than to be."

Michel de Montaigne

Manners and Ethics

"A fool and his money are soon parted."

English Proverbs

Richness and Money

Wisdom and Stupidity

"Truth is the shortest and nearest way to our end, carrying us thither in a straight line."

John Tillotson

Truth and Falsity

"Greatness, in order to gain recognition, must all too often consent to ape greatness."

Jean Rostand "The Substance of Man"

Talent and Genius

Various

"Liberty, equality - bad principles! The only true principle for humanity is justice; and justice to the feeble is protection and kindness."

Amiel-Henri-Frederic

Justice

"God has such a deep reverence for our freedom that he'd rather let us freely go to Hell than be compelled to go to Heaven."

Desmond Tutu

Freedom and Servitude

God and Religion

"It is good to have an end to journey towards, but it is the journey that matters in the end."

Ursula K. Le Guin

Various

"He, who will not reason, is a bigot; he, who cannot, is a fool; and he, who dares not, is a slave."

William Drummond

Freedom and Servitude

Intellect, Judgement

Wisdom and Stupidity

"Courage is never to let your actions be influenced by your fears."

Arthur Koestler

Courage and Fear

"Laws are sand, customs are rock. Laws can be evaded and punishment escaped, but an openly transgressed custom brings sure punishment."

Mark Twain

Law and Crime

Manners and Ethics

"Money was never a big motivation for me, except as a way to keep score. The real excitement is playing the game."

Donald Trump "Trump: Art of the Deal"

Richness and Money

"There are some defeats more triumphant than victories."

Michel de Montaigne

Defeates and Mistakes

Peace and War

"Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by hitting back."

Piet Hein

Question and Problem

"Fiction is the truth inside the lie."

Stephen King

Reality and Imagination

Truth and Falsity

"An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see."

James A. Michener

History and Nations

Various

"The girl with a future avoids a man with a past."

Evan Esar

Woman and Man

"Man needs to go outside himself in order to find repose and reveal himself."

José Martí

Human

"The drama of life begins with a wail and ends with a sigh."

Minna Antrim "Naked Truth and Veiled Allusions"

Life and Death

Pain and Tears

"To an ordinary human being, love means nothing if it does not mean loving some people more than others."

George Orwell "Shooting an Elephant"

Love

"The heart, like the stomach, wants a varied diet."

Gustave Flaubert "Pensées de Gustave Flaubert"

Health and Alcohol

Love

"I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time."

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

God and Religion

"Vote for the man who promises least; he'll be the least disappointing."

Bernard Mannes Baruch

Authority, Government

Politics and Diplomacy

"If you were the only person on earth, Christ would have still suffered and died for you."

St. Augustine of Hippo

God and Religion

"When you lose, don't lose the lesson."

H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

Defeates and Mistakes

Education

"The machine does not isolate us from the great problems of nature but plunges us more deeply into them. "

Saint-Exupery-Antoine-de "Wind, Sand, and Stars"

Nature and Animals

Question and Problem

Science and Technology

"The poet begins where the man ends. The man's lot is to live his human life, the poet's to invent what is nonexistent."

Jose Ortega y Gasset "The Dehumanization of Art"

Art and Culture

Education

Human

"The greatest tragedy is when man gives up what he wants most for what he wants now!"

Click if you know the author

Dreams and Desires

"Some things you don't need until they leave you; they're the things that you miss."

Rob Thomas

Various

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go."

T.S. Eliot

Courage and Fear

Various

"Forgiveness is unlocking the door to set someone free and realising you were the prisoner!"

Max Lucado

Forgiveness

"When I disagree with a rational man, I let reality be our final arbiter; if I am right, he will learn; if I am wrong, I will; one of us will win, but both will profit."

Ayn Rand "Atlas Shrugged"

Question and Problem

Reality and Imagination

Wisdom and Stupidity

"The whole duty of man consists in being reasonable and just."

Gertrude Stein

Human

Intellect, Judgement

Justice

"We must make the best of those ills which cannot be avoided."

Alexander Hamilton

Health and Alcohol

Question and Problem

"Success is a consequence and must not be a goal."

Gustave Flaubert "Pensées de Gustave Flaubert"

Success and Fame

"Life was not a valuable gift, but death was. Life was a fever-dream made up of joys embittered by sorrows, pleasure poisoned by pain, a dream that was a nightmare-confusion of spasmodic and fleeting delights, ecstasies, exultations, happinesses, interspersed with long-drawn miseries, griefs, perils, horrors, disappointments, defeats, humiliations, and despairs - the heaviest curse devisable by divine ingenuity; but death was sweet, death was gentle, death was kind; death healed the bruised spirit and the broken heart, and gave them rest and forgetfulness; death was man's best friend; when man could endure life no longer, death came and set him free."

Mark Twain "Letters From the Earth"

Life and Death

"When poverty comes in at the door, love flies out of the window."

English Proverbs

Love

Richness and Money

"The disastrous feature of our civilization is that it is far more developed materially than spiritually. Its balance is disturbed."

Albert Schweitzer

Various

"I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love."

Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Love

Pain and Tears

"There are worse things than being fat, and one of them is worrying about it all the time."

Peg Bracken

Health and Alcohol