"It is sometimes well for a blatant error to draw attention to overmodest truths."

Jean Rostand "The Substance of Man"

Defeates and Mistakes

Truth and Falsity

"Religion differs from magic in that it is not concerned with control or manipulation of the powers confronted. Rather it means submission to, trust in, and adoration of, what is apprehended as the divine nature of ultimate reality."

Joachim Wach "The Comparative Study of Religions"

God and Religion

Power and Weakness

"Common sense is the measure of the possible; it is composed of experience and prevision; it is calculation appled to life."

Amiel-Henri-Frederic "Journal Intime"

Intellect, Judgement

"If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel."

Will Kommen

Various

Youth and Age

"The secret of being a bore is to tell everything."

Voltaire

Various

"The surest way to ruin a man who doesn't know how to handle money is to give him some."

George Bernard Shaw "Heartbreak House"

Richness and Money

"Most misfortunes are the results of misused time."

Napoleon Hill

Defeates and Mistakes

Time and Passing

"The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting."

Charles Bukowski

Authority, Government

Politics and Diplomacy

"Fear makes us feel our humanity."

Benjamin Disraeli "Vivian Grey"

Courage and Fear

Human

"Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement; nothing can be done without hope."

Helen Keller

Optimism and Hope

"Feminine passion is to masculine as an epic is to an epigram."

Karl Kraus

Love

Woman and Man

"Cooking is just like religion. Rules don't no more make a cook than sermons make a saint."

Click if you know the author

Various

"Happy the people whose annals are tiresome."

Charles Louis de Montesquieu

History and Nations

"God will not look you over for medals, degrees, or diplomas, but for scars."

Elbert Green Hubbard

God and Religion

"God wants man to fulfill his commands as a human being and with the quality peculiar to human beings."

Martin Buber

God and Religion

Human

"We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems."

John W. Gardner

Question and Problem

Various

"Perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add but when there is no longer anything to take away, when a body has been stripped down to its nakedness."

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

Various

"Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains."

Rousseau-Jean-Jacques

Freedom and Servitude

Human

"Fame is but the breath of people, and that often unwholesome."

Rousseau-Jean-Jacques

Success and Fame

"To write a good love letter, you ought to begin without knowing what you mean to say, and to finish without knowing what you have written."

Rousseau-Jean-Jacques

Love

"He who would teach men to die would teach them to live."

Michel de Montaigne

Life and Death

"The man who has ceased to fear has ceased to care."

Francis Herbert Bradley "Aphorisms"

Courage and Fear

"Genius is the ability to see things invisible, to manipulate things intangible, to paint things that have no features."

Joseph Joubert

Talent and Genius

"Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities."

Aldous Huxley

Happiness

"To make woman unhappy only need to do nothing."

Lidia Jasinska

Happiness

"Late romance is an invitation to film's end."

Lidia Jasinska

Love

"Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it."

William Somerset Maugham

Life and Death

"How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?"

Charles de Gaulle

Authority, Government

History and Nations

"Take risks: if you win, you will be happy; if you lose, you will be wise."

Click if you know the author

Courage and Fear

"I wish to thank my parents for making it all possible...and I wish to thank my children for making it necessary."

Victor Borge

Family and Loneliness

"Government: a dangerous servant and a fearful master."

George Washington

Authority, Government

Power and Weakness

"Literature flourishes best when it is half a trade and half an art."

William Ralph Inge (Dean Inge)

Art and Culture

"Of course there is no formula for success except perhaps an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings."

Arthur Rubinstein

Success and Fame

"The only thing that stops God sending a second Flood is that the first one was useless."

Chamfort

God and Religion

"America is the only country in the world where the poor have a parking problem."

Click if you know the author

Question and Problem

Richness and Money

"Faith is, at one and the same time, absolutely necessary and altogether impossible."

Stanisław Lem

God and Religion

"My imagination makes me human and makes me a fool; it gives me all the world and exiles me from it."

Ursula K. Le Guin

Human

Reality and Imagination

"To be able to say how much you love is to love but little."

Francesco Petrarca

Love

"Some things that cost $5 to buy several years ago now costs $10 just to repair."

Click if you know the author

Various

"If you haven't got charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble."

Bob Hope

Good and Evil

"Never drive faster than your guardian angel can fly."

Click if you know the author

Various

"I never speak ill of dead people or live judges."

Edwin W. Edwards

Law and Crime

Life and Death

"They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself."

Andy Warhol "The Philosophy of Andy Warhol"

Time and Passing

Work and Laziness

"Television is more interesting than people. If it were not, we would have people standing in the corners of our rooms."

Alan Corenk

Various

"Variety is the spice of love."

Helen Rowland "Reflections of a Bachelor Girl"

Love

"Disease is a vital expression of the human organism."

Georg Groddeck "The Book of the It"

Health and Alcohol

"Man is an intelligence, not served by, but in servitude to his organs."

Aldous Huxley "Themes and Variations"

Human

"Few things are more satisfying than seeing your own children have teenagers of their own."

Doug Larson

Family and Loneliness

Youth and Age