"Panic: A highly underrated capacity thanks to which individuals are able to indicate clearly that something is wrong... Given their head, most humans panic with great dignity and imagination. This can be called democratic expression or practical common sense."

John Ralston Saul "The Doubter's Companion"

Courage and Fear

Various

"War will exist as long as there's a food chain."

P.J. O`Rourke

Peace and War

"Enthusiasm spells the difference between mediocrity and accomplishment."

Norman Vincent Peale

Various

"A leader is a person you will follow to a place you wouldn't go by yourself."

Joel Barker

Politics and Diplomacy

Various

"You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus."

Mark Twain

Reality and Imagination

"Reality is a poor substitute for my dreams."

Click if you know the author

Dreams and Desires

Reality and Imagination

"Corruption is nature's way of restoring our faith in democracy."

Peter Ustinov

Politics and Diplomacy

"All abstract sciences are nothing but the study of relations between signs."

Denis Diderot

Science and Technology

"I hate writing. But I love having written."

Dorothy Parker

Art and Culture

"Sincerity is an openness of heart; we find it in very few people; what we usually see is only an artful dissimulation to win the confidence of others."

François de La Rochefoucauld

Manners and Ethics

Truth and Falsity

"History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind."

Edward Gibbon

History and Nations

Human

"Interpretation is revenge of the intellect upon art."

Susan Sontag "Evergreen Interpretation"

Art and Culture

Intellect, Judgement

"There is no such crime as a crime of thought; there are only crimes of action."

Clarence Darrow

Law and Crime

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

Thomas Jefferson

Freedom and Servitude

Patriotism

"To be a real philosopher all that is necessary is to hate some one else's type of thinking."

William James "The Letters of William James"

Science and Technology

Various

"Death is a harbor of peace for the just, but is believed a shipwreck for the wicked."

St. Ambrose "De bono mortis"

Justice

Life and Death

"Stop following someone else's path, find your own."

Agnieszka Lisak

Human

Life and Death

Various

"Books are the quietest and most constant of friends, and the most patient of teachers."

Click if you know the author

Art and Culture

Friendship and Hostility

"A smile is a curve that sets things straight."

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Joy and Sadness

Various

"Danger is next neighbour to security."

English Proverbs

Courage and Fear

Various

"No poems can please for long or live that are written by water-drinkers."

Horace "Epistles"

Art and Culture

Health and Alcohol

"It is quite useless knocking at the door of heaven for earthly comfort; it's not the sort of comfort they supply there."

Clive Staples Lewis "Letters of C. S. Lewis"

Happiness

Joy and Sadness

"Too much of anything is bad, but too much Champagne is just right."

Mark Twain

Health and Alcohol

"Every age has its own poetry; in every age the circumstances of history choose a nation, a race, a class to take up the torch by creating situations that can be expressed or transcended only through poetry."

Sartre-Jean-Paul "Black Orpheus"

Art and Culture

"If all men knew what each said of the other, there would not be four friends in the world."

Blaise Pascal

Friendship and Hostility

Oration and Silence

"Man is designed as a perfect device. However, some copies behave as if the manufacturer has forgotten to connect them with all the circuits."

Kazimierz Matan

Defeates and Mistakes

Human

"Choose the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable."

Francis Bacon

Life and Death

Work and Laziness

"It is said that the present is pregnant with the future."

Voltaire

Time and Passing

"Love is a chain of love as nature is a chain of life."

Truman Capote

Love

Nature and Animals

"The truth is not always the same as the majority decision."

John Paul II

Truth and Falsity

"The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a person's determination."

Tommy Lasorda

Dreams and Desires

Optimism and Hope

Success and Fame

"My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me."

Benjamin Disraeli

Egoism

"The word listen contains the same letters as the word silent."

Alfred Brendel

Oration and Silence

"The word poet literally means maker: anything which is not well made doesn't exist."

Théophile Gautier

Art and Culture

"There is nothing new under the sun but there are lots of old things we don't know."

Ambrose Bierce

Knowledge, Ignorance

Wisdom and Stupidity

"Humour is an affirmation of dignity, a declaration of man's superiority to all that befalls him."

Romain Gary

Wit and Humor

"Time spent with cats is never wasted."

Chateaubriand-Francois-Rene-de

Nature and Animals

Time and Passing

"Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers."

Mignon McLaughin "The Neurotic's Notebook"

Manners and Ethics

Various

"Between men and women there is no friendship possible. There is passion, enmity, worship, love, but no friendship."

Oscar Wilde "Lady Windermere's Fan"

Friendship and Hostility

Woman and Man

"A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth."

Michael Kinsley

Manners and Ethics

Politics and Diplomacy

"The law isn't justice. It's a very imperfect mechanism. If you press exactly the right buttons and are also lucky, justice may show up in the answer. A mechanism is all the law was ever intended to be."

Raymond Chandler "The Long Goodbye"

Justice

Law and Crime

"Humor is our way of defending ourselves from life's absurdities by thinking absurdly about them."

Lewis Mumford

Wit and Humor

"Nothing is illegal if a hundred businessmen decide to do it."

Andrew Young

Law and Crime

Richness and Money

"Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me."

Click if you know the author

Manners and Ethics

Wisdom and Stupidity

"Everybody hates me because I'm so universally liked."

Peter De Vries

Friendship and Hostility

"If there were only one religion in England there would be danger of despotism, if there were two, they would cut each other's throats, but there are thirty, and they live in peace and happiness."

Voltaire "Letters on England"

God and Religion

History and Nations

"There are two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want; and, after that, to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second."

Logan Pearsall Smith "Afterthoughts"

Joy and Sadness

Life and Death

"Courage is grace under pressure."

Ernest Hemingway

Courage and Fear