"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 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

"No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous."

Henry Brooks Adams

Oration and Silence

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

Alexander Hamilton

Health and Alcohol

Question and Problem

"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

"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

"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

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

José Martí

Human

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

Max Lucado

Forgiveness

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

Rob Thomas

Various

"There are some defeats more triumphant than victories."

Michel de Montaigne

Defeates and Mistakes

Peace and War

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

Gertrude Stein

Human

Intellect, Judgement

Justice

"Sometimes I know that there is intelligent life on other planets because they haven't tried to contact us."

Click if you know the author

Human

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

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

God and Religion

"That is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great."

Willa Cather

Happiness

"Humour is the describing the ludicrous as it is in itself; wit is the exposing it, by comparing or contrasting it with something else. Humour is, as it were, the growth of nature and accident; wit is the product of art and fancy."

William Hazlitt "Lectures on the English Comic Writers"

Wit and Humor

"A man is known by the books he reads, by the company he keeps, by the praise he gives, by his dress, by his tastes, by his distastes, by the stories he tells, by his gait, by the notion of his eye, by the look of his house, of his chamber; for nothing on earth is solitary but every thing hath affinities infinite."

Ralph Waldo Emerson "Journals"

Human

"Music is something that makes you feel, makes you think, and if you're really lucky, it makes you move."

Peter Gabriel

Art and Culture

"Tests are a gift. And great tests are a great gift. To fail the test is a misfortune. But to refuse the test is to refuse the gift, and something worse, more irrevocable, than misfortune."

Lois McMaster Bujold

Question and Problem

"If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, 'Thank You', that would suffice."

Meister Eckhart

God and Religion

"A legal kiss is never as good as a stolen one."

Guy de Maupassant

Love

"The reward for work well done is the opportunity to do more."

Jonas Salk

Work and Laziness

"The path of least resistance is the path of the loser."

Herbert George Wells

Defeates and Mistakes

Work and Laziness

"The pleasure of those who injure you lies in your pain. Therefore they will suffer if you take away their pleasure by not feeling pain."

Tertullian "De patientia"

Pain and Tears

"The most disadvantageous peace is better than the most just war."

Erasmus

Justice

Peace and War

"Don't gain the world and lose your soul, wisdom is better than silver and gold."

Bob Marley

Wisdom and Stupidity

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."

Theodore Roosevelt

Work and Laziness

"War is what happens when language fails."

Margaret Atwood

Peace and War

"Do not wait for the Last Judgment. It takes place every day."

Albert Camus

Justice

Life and Death

"The universe is made of stories, not of atoms."

Muriel Rukeyser

Human

Nature and Animals

Various

"The past is to be respected and acknowledged, but not to be worshipped. It is our future in which we will find our greatness."

Pierre Trudeau

Time and Passing

"The only people to profit from the mistakes of others are biographers."

Click if you know the author

Defeates and Mistakes

"Resentment and anger are bad for your blood pressure and your digestion."

Desmond Tutu

Anger

Health and Alcohol

"When there are too many policemen, there can be no liberty. When there are too many soldiers, there can be no peace. When there are too many lawyers, there can be no justice."

Lin Yutang

Freedom and Servitude

Justice

Peace and War

"We promise according to our hopes; we fulfill according to our fears."

François de La Rochefoucauld

Courage and Fear

Optimism and Hope

"Those who suppress freedom always do so in the name of law and order."

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Freedom and Servitude

Law and Crime

"Happiness is an imaginary condition, formerly often attributed by the living to the dead, now usually attributed by adults to children, and by children to adults."

Thomas Szasz "The Second Sin"

Happiness

"An alcoholic has been lightly defined as a man who drinks more than his own doctor."

Alvan L. Barach

Health and Alcohol

"When I wished to sing of love it turned to sorrow. And when I wished to sing of sorrow it was transformed for me into love."

Franz Schubert

Art and Culture

Love

Sorrow and Nostalgia

"Good and evil keep very exact accounts [...] and the face of every man is their ledger."

James Branch Cabell

Good and Evil

"All war represents a failure of diplomacy."

Tony Benn

Peace and War

Politics and Diplomacy

"A merry heart makes a long life."

English Proverbs

Joy and Sadness

Wit and Humor

"Optimists are badly informed pessimists."

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Optimism and Hope

"Destiny is a lie. Destiny is justification for atrocity. It is the means by which murderers armour themselves against reprimand. It is a word intended to stand in place of ethics, denying all moral context."

Steven Erikson

Destiny and Fate

"A bad workman always blames his tools."

English Proverbs

Work and Laziness

"The fate of love is that it always seems too little or too much."

Amelia E. Barr "The Belle of Bolling Green"

Destiny and Fate

Love

"Man is made by the places in which he lives."

Graham Greene "Brighton Rock"

Human

Life and Death

"It is easier to know men than to know a man."

François de La Rochefoucauld

Human