It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

~ Aristotle, philosopher (384-322 BCE)

Why is it that one can look at a lion or a planet or an owl or at someone's finger as long as one pleases, but looking into the eyes of another person is, if prolonged past a second, a perilous affair?

~ Walker Percy, author (1916-1990)

When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stone-cutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it would split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before together.

~ Jacob A. Riis, journalist and social reformer (1849-1914)

It is well to know something of the manners of various peoples, in order more sanely to judge our own, and that we do not think that everything against our modes is ridiculous, and against reason, as those who have seen nothing are accustomed to think.

~Rene Descartes, philosopher and mathematician (1596-1650)

All that glisters is not gold;
Often have you heard that told:
Many a man his life hath sold
But my outside to behold:
Gilded tombs do worms enfold.

~ William Shakespeare, playwright and poet (1564-1616)

Only the good doubt their own goodness, which is what makes them good in the first place. The bad know they are good, but the good know nothing. They spend their lives forgiving others, but they can't forgive themselves.

~Paul Auster, novelist and poet (b. 1947)

It never hurts to ask. Assumptions destroy more lives than disease.

~ Robin Sharma

The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.

~Thomas Babington Macaulay, author and statesman (1800-1859)

A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.

~ Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)

What a pitiable thing it is that our civilization can do no better for us than to make us slaves to indoor life, so that we have to go and take artificial exercise in order to preserve our health.

~George Wharton James, journalist, author, and speaker (1858-1923)

Reading is sometimes an ingenious device for avoiding thought.

~ Arthur Helps, writer (1813-1875)

The reward of our work is not what we get, but what we become.

From the book - (Aleph) - Paulo Coelho

There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.

~ Edith Wharton, novelist (1862-1937)

Life is a bridge. Cross over it, but build no house on it.

~ Indian proverb

My wife and I were happy for 20 years. Then we met.

~ Rodney Dangerfield, comedian (1921-2004)

My wife and I were happy for 20 years. Then we met.


~Rodney Dangerfield, comedian (1921-2004)

To do the opposite of something is also a form of imitation.


~ Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, scientist and philosopher (1742-1799)

Every man possesses three characters: that which he exhibits, that which he really has, and that which he believes he has.

~ Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, novelist and journalist (1808-1890)

You'll never change the world if you care what people think of you.

It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.

~Jonathan Swift, satirist (1667-1745)