Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.

~ Charles de Montesquieu, philosopher and writer (1689-1755) 

Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination.

~ Voltaire

One who condones evils is just as guilty as the one who perpetrates it.

~ Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., civil-rights leader (1929-1968)

No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same.

~ Viktor Frankl, author, neurologist, and psychiatrist (1905-1997)

That sorrow which is the harbinger of joy is preferable to the joy which is followed by sorrow. 

~ Saadi, poet (c.1213-1291) [Gulistan] 

Society is like a lawn, where every roughness is smoothed, every bramble eradicated, and where the eye is delighted by the smiling verdure of a velvet surface; he, however, who would study nature in its wildness and variety, must plunge into the forest, must explore the glen, must stem the torrent, and dare the precipice.

~ Washington Irving, writer (1783-1859)

Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.

~ Leo Tolstoy, novelist and philosopher (1828-1910)

Better than a thousand days of diligent study is one day with a great teacher.

~ Japanese proverb

Ordinary riches can be stolen; real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.
~ Oscar Wilde

Art is the elimination of the unnecessary.

~ Pablo Picasso, painter, and sculptor (1881-1973)

Only mediocrity can be trusted to be always at its best. Genius must always have lapses proportionate to its triumphs.

~ Max Beerbohm, essayist, parodist, and caricaturist (1872-1956)

A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.

~ Walt Whitman, poet (1819-1892) 

If words are to enter men's minds and bear fruit, they must be the right words shaped cunningly to pass men's defenses and explode silently and effectually within their minds.

~ J.B. Phillips, writer and clergyman (1906-1982)

The world, we are told, was made especially for man -- a presumption not supported by all the facts... Why should man value himself as more than a small part of the one great unit of creation?

~ John Muir, naturalist and explorer (1838-1914)

Everyone, in some small sacred sanctuary of the self, is nuts.

~  Leo Rosten, author (1908-1997) 

Flatter me, and I may not believe you. Criticize me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I will not forget you.

~ William Arthur Ward, college administrator, writer (1921-1994)

Ambition is like hunger; it obeys no law but its appetite.

~ Josh Billings, columnist and humorist (1818-1885)

We should be slower to think that the man at his worst is the real man, and certain that the better we are ourselves the less likely is he to be at his worst in our company. Every time he talks away his own character before us he is signifying contempt for ours.

~ James M. Barrie, novelist, short-story writer, and playwright (1860-1937)

It has been said that a pretty face is a passport. But it's not, it's a visa, and it runs out fast.

~ Julie Burchill, writer and journalist (b. 1959) 

In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.

~ Albert Schweitzer, philosopher, physician, musician, Nobel laureate (1875-1965)