A man's life is interesting primarily when he has failed -- I well know. For it is a sign that he has tried to surpass himself.

~ Georges Clemenceau, statesman (28 Sep 1841-1929) 

A writer needs three things, experience, observation, and imagination, any two of which, at times any one of which, can supply the lack of the others. 
~ William Faulkner, novelist (25 Sep 1897-1962) 

In my youth I thought of writing a satire on mankind; but now in my age I think I should write an apology for them. 

~ Horace Walpole, novelist and essayist (24 Sep 1717-1797) 

Our conscience is not the vessel of eternal verities. It grows with our social life, and a new social condition means a radical change in conscience. 

~ Walter Lippmann, journalist (23 Sep 1889-1974) 

Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket, and do not pull it out and strike it merely to show you have one. If you are asked what o'clock it is, tell it, but do not proclaim it hourly and unasked, like the watchman. 

~  Lord Chesterfield, statesman and writer (22 Sep 1694-1773)

Invention requires an excited mind; execution, a calm one. 

~ Johann Peter Eckermann, poet (21 Sep 1792-1854) 

Be not too hasty to trust or admire the teachers of morality; they discourse like angels but they live like men. 

~ Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (18 Sep 1709-1784) 

Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation. Tooting, howling, screeching, booming, crashing, whistling, grinding, and trilling bolster his ego. 

~ Jean Arp, artist and poet (16 Sep 1887-1948) 

Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. 

~ Napoleon Hill

Patriotism is proud of a country's virtues and eager to correct its deficiencies; it also acknowledges the legitimate patriotism of other countries, with their own specific virtues. The pride of nationalism, however, trumpets its country's virtues and denies its deficiencies, while it is contemptuous toward the virtues of other countries. It wants to be, and proclaims itself to be, "the greatest", but greatness is not required of a country; only goodness is. 

~ Sydney J. Harris, journalist and author (14 Sep 1917-1986) 

Write while the heat is in you. The writer who postpones the recordings of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience. 

~ Henry David Thoreau

Our memories are card indexes consulted and then returned in disorder by authorities whom we do not control. 
~ Cyril Connolly, critic and editor (10 Sep 1903-1974) 

I am patient with stupidity but not with those who are proud of it. 

~ Edith Sitwell, poet (7 Sep 1887-1964) 

The rightness of a thing isn't determined by the amount of courage it takes. 

~ Mary Renault, novelist (4 Sep 1905-1983) 

Progressive societies outgrow institutions as children outgrow clothes. 

~ Henry George, economist, journalist, philosopher (2 Sep 1839-1897) 

The greatest sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say, "The children are now working as if I did not exist." 

~ Maria Montessori, educator (31 Aug 1870-1952) 

If only the sun-drenched celebrities are being noticed and worshiped, then our children are going to have a tough time seeing the value in the shadows, where the thinkers, probers and scientists are keeping society together. 

~ Rita Dove, poet (b. 28 Aug 1952) 

When you're traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don't have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road. 

~ William Least Heat-Moon, travel writer (b. 27 Aug 1939)

We can pay our debt to the past by putting the future in debt to ourselves. 

~ John Buchan, poet, novelist, and politician (26 Aug 1875-1940)