"Gratitude is the memory of the heart."

Lydia Maria Child

Manners and Ethics

Memory

"You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake."

Jeannette Rankin

Peace and War

"Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is."

Albert Camus

Human

"Skill without imagination is craftsmanship and gives us many useful objects such as wickerwork picnic baskets. Imagination without skill gives us modern art."

Tom Stoppard

Art and Culture

Reality and Imagination

"The crown of literature is poetry. It is its end and aim. It is the sublimest activity of the human mind. It is the achievement of beauty and delicacy. The writer of prose can only step aside when the poet passes."

William Somerset Maugham

Art and Culture

"Punctuality is the soul of business."

Thomas C. Haliburton "Sam Slick's Wise Saws"

Time and Passing

"The trouble with being a parent is that by the time you are experienced, you are unemployed."

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Family and Loneliness

"Men of age object too much, consult too long, adventure too little, repent too soon, and seldom drive business home to the full period, but content themselves with a mediocrity of success."

Francis Bacon "Essays"

Success and Fame

Youth and Age

"We die of too much life."

Herman Melville "Mardi"

Life and Death

"There are only two styles of portrait painting; the serious and the smirk."

Charles Dickens "Nicholas Nickleby"

Art and Culture

"Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle; Old Age a regret."

Benjamin Disraeli "Coningsby"

Sorrow and Nostalgia

Youth and Age

"Education [...] has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading, an easy prey to sensations and cheap appeals."

G. M. Trevelyan "English Social History"

Education

Intellect, Judgement

"Perhaps nature is our best assurance of immortality."

Eleanor Roosevelt

Nature and Animals

"The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month."

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky "A Writer's Diary"

Intellect, Judgement

Wisdom and Stupidity

"The ordinary man looking at a mountain is like an illiterate person confronted with a Greek manuscript."

Aleister Crowley "The Confessions of Aleister Crowley"

Beauty and Ugliness

Nature and Animals

"Pray that your loneliness may spur you into finding something to live for, great enough to die for."

Dag Hammarskjöld

Family and Loneliness

Life and Death

"If my body is enslaved, still my mind is free."

Sophocles "Fragments"

Freedom and Servitude

"The life of the wealthy is one long Sunday."

Georg Büchner "The Hessian Messenger"

Life and Death

Richness and Money

"America is a large, friendly dog in a very small room. Every time it wags its tail, it knocks over a chair."

Arnold Toynbee

History and Nations

Politics and Diplomacy

"Good advice is an insult that should be forgiven."

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Forgiveness

"No battle plan survives contact with the enemy."

Colin Powell

Peace and War

"Psychoanalysis is confession without absolution."

Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Manners and Ethics

Sin and Conscience

"A retired husband is a wife's full time job."

Ella Harris

Marriage

Work and Laziness

"Do not envy a sinner; you don't know what disaster awaits him."

Bible

Envy

Sin and Conscience

"The offender never pardons."

English Proverbs

Forgiveness

"I get little enjoyment out of women, more out of alcohol, most out of ideas."

Henry Louis Mencken "Prejudices"

Health and Alcohol

Joy and Sadness

Woman and Man

"The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised."

George F. Will

Optimism and Hope

"Compassion is the basis of all morality."

Arthur Schopenhauer

Manners and Ethics

"All the works of man have their origin in creative fantasy."

Carl Gustav Jung

Reality and Imagination

Talent and Genius

"Never cut what you can untie."

Joseph Joubert

Various

"Life is eternal, and love is immortal; and death is only a horizon; and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight."

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Life and Death

Love

"Discretion is being able to raise your eyebrow instead of your voice."

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Manners and Ethics

"Worry is interest paid in advance for a debt you may never owe."

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Joy and Sadness

"Hell is other people."

Sartre-Jean-Paul

Good and Evil

"A library is thought in cold storage."

Lord Samuel

Knowledge, Ignorance

"If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail."

Abraham Maslow

Question and Problem

"With every word unspoken each moment comes undone."

Tarkan "Come Closer"

Various

"A pessimist is one who burns bridges before the enemy gets to them."

Navjot Singh Sidhu

Optimism and Hope

"If we find a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Intellect, Judgement

Wisdom and Stupidity

"The hat is the pride of man; for he who cannot keep his hat on before kings and emperors is no free man."

Friedrich von Schiller "Wallenstein"

Various

"The silence of a wise man is always meaningful."

Leo Strauss

Oration and Silence

Wisdom and Stupidity

"Remember that as a teenager you are in the last stage of your life when you will be happy to hear the phone is for you."

Fran Lebowitz

Science and Technology

Youth and Age

"Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success."

Albert Schweitzer

Happiness

Success and Fame

"Suicide is the permanent solution to a temporary problem."

Phil Donahue

Life and Death

Question and Problem

"Saintliness is also a temptation."

Jean Anouilh "Becket"

Sin and Conscience

"[...] parables are unnecessary for recognizing the blatant absurdity of everyday life. Reality is lesson enough."

Jane O`Reilly "The Girl I Left Behind"

Life and Death

Reality and Imagination

"Life is not meant to be easy, my child; but take courage: it can be delightful."

George Bernard Shaw "Back to Methuselah"

Life and Death

"Never be afraid to laugh at yourself, after all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century."

Dame Edna Everage

Wit and Humor