Anyone can be passionate, but it takes real lovers to be silly. 
~ Rose Franken, author and playwright (28 Dec 1895-1988) 

Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

~ Theodore Roosevelt

What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult to each other ? 

 ~ George Eliot (pen name of Mary Ann Evans), novelist (22 Nov 1819-22 Dec 1880) 

If we would have new knowledge, we must get us a whole world of new questions. 

~ Susanne Langer, philosopher (20 Dec 1895-1985) 

One of the oldest human needs is having someone to wonder where you are when you don't come home at night. 

~ Margaret Mead, anthropologist (16 Dec 1901-1978) 

The universe is made of stories, not of atoms. 

~ Muriel Rukeyser, poet and activist (15 Dec 1913-1980) 

The walls of books around him, dense with the past, formed a kind of insulation against the present world and its disasters. 

~ Ross Macdonald, novelist (13 Dec 1915-1983) 

The ring always believes that the finger lives for it. 

~ Malcolm De Chazal, writer and painter (12 Dec 1902-1981) 

The real index of civilization is when people are kinder than they need to be. 

~ Louis de Bernieres, novelist (b. 8 Dec 1954) 

Students who acquire large debts putting themselves through school are unlikely to think about changing society. When you trap people in a system of debt, they can't afford the time to think. 

~ Noam Chomsky, linguistics professor and political activist (b. 7 Dec 1928) 

A timid question will always receive a confident answer. 

~ Charles John Darling, lawyer, judge, and politician (6 Dec 1849-1936) 

Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes, work never begun. 

~ Christina Rossetti, poet (5 Dec 1830-1894) 

The question is whether or not you choose to disturb the world around you, or if you choose to let it go on as if you had never arrived. 

~ Ann Patchett, writer (b. 2 Dec 1963) 

The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been. 

~ Madeleine L'Engle, writer (29 Nov 1918-2007) 

One law for the lion and ox is oppression. 

~ William Blake, poet, engraver, and painter (28 Nov 1757-1827) 

Surplus wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is bound to administer in his lifetime for the good of the community. 
~ Andrew Carnegie, industrialist (25 Nov 1835-1919) 

Anger is a great force. If you control it, it can be transmuted into a power which can move the whole world. 

~ William Shenstone, poet (18 Nov 1714-1763) 

Though boys throw stones at frogs in sport, the frogs die not in sport, but in earnest. 

~ Bion of Borysthenes, philosopher (c. 325-250 BCE) 

Remember, when the judgment's weak, the prejudice is strong. 

~ Kane O'Hara, composer and playwright (1711/1712-1782) 

No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed, and love of power. 

~ P.J. O'Rourke, writer (b. 14 Nov 1947) 

Brothers and sisters are as close as hands and feet. 

~ Vietnamese proverb 

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. 

~ Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer (9 Nov 1934-1996) 

Your voice dries up if you don't use it. 

~ Patti Page, singer (8 Nov 1927-2013) 

Humanity also needs dreamers, for whom the disinterested development of an enterprise is so captivating that it becomes impossible for them to devote their care to their own material profit. Without doubt, these dreamers do not deserve wealth, because they do not desire it. Even so, a well-organized society should assure to such workers the efficient means of accomplishing their task, in a life freed from material care and freely consecrated to research. 

~ Marie Curie, scientist, Nobel laureate (7 Nov 1867-1934) 

A king can stand people fighting but he can't last long if people start thinking. 

~ Will Rogers, humorist (4 Nov 1879-1935) 

Our cemeteries are full of people who prayed to live. 

~ Annie Laurie Gaylor, freethinker and activist (b. 2 Nov 1955) 

The wisest man is he who does not fancy that he is so at all. 

~ Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux, poet and critic (1 Nov 1636-1711) 

Time engraves our faces with all the tears we have not shed. 

~ Natalie Clifford Barney, poet, playwright, and novelist (31 Oct 1876-1972) 

It is a curious thing that every creed promises a paradise which will be absolutely uninhabitable for anyone of civilized taste. 

~ Evelyn Waugh, novelist (28 Oct 1903-1966) 

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 (25 Oct 1800-1859) 

I have no riches but my thoughts, yet these are wealth enough for me. 

~ Sarah Josepha Hale, writer and editor (24 Oct 1788-1879) 

If you would stand well with a great mind, leave him with a favorable impression of yourself; if with a little mind, leave him with a favorable impression of himself. 

~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet, and philosopher (21 Oct 1772-1834) 

Life is mostly froth and bubble, 

Two things stand like stone,

Kindness in another's trouble, 

Courage in your own.

~ Adam Lindsay Gordon, poet (19 Oct 1833-1870) 

A sister is a gift to the heart, a friend to the spirit, a golden thread to the meaning of life. 

~ Isadora James 

Don't be seduced into thinking that that which does not make a profit is without value. 

~ Arthur Miller, playwright and essayist (17 Oct 1915-2005) 

To read fast is as bad as to eat in a hurry. 

~ Vilhelm Ekelund, poet (14 Oct 1880-1949) 

Most men resemble great deserted palaces: the owner occupies only a few rooms and has closed off wings where he never ventures. 

~ François Mauriac, writer, Nobel laureate (11 Oct 1885-1970) 

When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means that the sun is about to set. 

~ Lin Yutang, writer and translator (10 Oct 1895-1976) 

An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field. 

~ Niels Bohr, physicist, Nobel laureate (7 Oct 1885-1962) 

It's good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it's good, too, to check up once in a while and make sure that you haven't lost the things that money can't buy. 

~ George H. Lorimer, editor (6 Oct 1867-1937) 

You have reached the pinnacle of success as soon as you become uninterested in money, compliments, or publicity. 

~ Thomas Wolfe, novelist (3 Oct 1900-1938) 

No fathers or mothers think their own children ugly; and this self-deceit is yet stronger with respect to the offspring of the mind. 

~ Miguel de Cervantes, novelist (29 Sep 1547-1616) 

The central function of imaginative literature is to make you realize that other people act on moral convictions different from your own. 

~ William Empson, literary critic and poet (27 Sep 1906-1984) 

Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm but the harm does not interest them. 

~ T.S. Eliot, poet (26 Sep 1888-1965) 

The radical novelty of modern science lies precisely in the rejection of the belief... that the forces which move the stars and atoms are contingent upon the preferences of the human heart. 

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

The characteristic of a well-bred man is, to converse with his inferiors without insolence, and with his superiors with respect and with ease. 

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

Good books don't give up all their secrets at once. 

~ Stephen King, novelist (b. 21 Sep 1947) 

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. 

~ Upton Sinclair, novelist and reformer (20 Sep 1878-1968) 

We all have our time machines. Some take us back, they're called memories. Some take us forward, they're called dreams. 

~ Jeremy Irons, actor (b. 19 Sep 1948)

Would the boy you were be proud of the man you are? 

~ Laurence J. Peter, educator and author (16 Sep 1919-1990) 

Those who are incapable of committing great crimes do not readily suspect them in others. 

~ Francois de La Rochefoucauld, aphorist (15 Sep 1613-1680) 

Men make counterfeit money; in many more cases, money makes counterfeit men. 

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

Much of writing might be described as mental pregnancy with successive difficult deliveries. 

~ J.B. Priestley, author (13 Sep 1894-1984) 

Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on "I am not too sure." 

~ H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (12 Sep 1880-1956) 

A man is like a fraction whose numerator is what he is and whose denominator is what he thinks of himself. The larger the denominator, the smaller the fraction. 

~ Leo Tolstoy, novelist and philosopher (9 Sep 1828-1910) 

If more politicians in this country were thinking about the next generation instead of the next election, it might be better for the United States and the world. 

~ Claude Pepper, senator and representative (8 Sep 1900-1989) 

America has been called a melting pot, but it seems better to call it a mosaic, for in it each nation, people, or race which has come to its shores has been privileged to keep its individuality, contributing at the same time its share to the unified pattern of a new nation. 

~ King Baudouin of Belgium (7 Sep 1930-1993) 

When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kind of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt. 

~ Robert M. Pirsig, author and philosopher (b. 6 Sep 1928) 

I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones. 

~ John Cage, composer (5 Sep 1912-1992) 

Progressive societies outgrow institutions as children outgrow clothes. 

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

It seems like the less a statesman amounts to the more he adores the flag. 

~ Kin Hubbard, humorist (1 Sep 1868-1930) 

The fingers of your thoughts are molding your face ceaselessly. 

~ Charles Reznikoff, poet (31 Aug 1894-1976) 

The term 'working mother' is ridiculously redundant. 

~ Donna Reed, actress (1921-1986) 

The mind of a bigot to the pupil of the eye; the more light you pour on it, the more it contracts.

~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., poet, novelist, essayist, and physician (29 Aug 1809-1894) 

In the new version of the law of supply and demand, jobs are so cheap - as measured by the pay - that a worker is encouraged to take on as many of them as she possibly can. 

~ Barbara Ehrenreich, journalist and author (b. 26 Aug 1941) 

A certain amount of opposition is a great help to a man. Kites rise against, not with, the wind. 

~ John Neal, author and critic (25 Aug 1793-1876) 

How can you have a war on terrorism when war itself is terrorism? 

~ Howard Zinn, historian, playwright, and social activist (24 Aug 1922-2010) 

There is no such thing as a 'self-made' man. We are made up of thousands of others. Everyone who has ever done a kind deed for us, or spoken one word of encouragement to us, has entered into the make-up of our character and of our thoughts. 

~ George Matthew Adams, newspaper columnist (23 Aug 1878-1962) 

The problem in our country isn't with books being banned, but with people no longer reading. ... You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them. 

~ Ray Bradbury, science-fiction writer (22 Aug 1920-2012) 

If you be pungent, be brief; for it is with words as with sunbeams - the more they are condensed the deeper they burn. 

~ John Dryden, poet and dramatist (19 Aug 1631-1700) 

A good storyteller is the conscience-keeper of a nation. 

~ Gulzar, poet, lyricist, and film director (b. 18 Aug 1934) 

I speak two languages, Body and English. 

~ Mae West, actress, playwright, singer, screenwriter, and comedian (17 Aug 1893-1980) 

It is fortunate to be of high birth, but it is no less so to be of such character that people do not care to know whether you are or are not. 

~ Jean de la Bruyere, essayist and moralist (16 Aug 1645-1696) 

There is no human being who, as a result of desiring to build a better life, should be named or declared illegal. 

~ Alejandro G. Inarritu, film director, producer, screenwriter, and composer (b. 15 Aug 1963) 

People share a common nature but are trained in gender roles. 

~ Lillie Devereux Blake, novelist, essayist, and reformer (12 Aug 1833-1913) 

Courage without conscience is a wild beast. 

~ Robert Green Ingersoll, lawyer and orator (11 Aug 1833-1899) 

Monsters remain human beings. In fact, to reduce them to a subhuman level is to exonerate them of their acts of terrorism and mass murder -- just as animals are not deemed morally responsible for killing. Insisting on the humanity of terrorists is, in fact, critical to maintaining their profound responsibility for the evil they commit. And, if they are human, then they must necessarily not be treated in an inhuman fashion. You cannot lower the moral baseline of a terrorist to the subhuman without betraying a fundamental value. 

~ Andrew Sullivan, writer (b. 10 Aug 1963) 

The principal goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other generations have done; men and women who are creative, inventive and discoverers, who can be critical and verify, and not accept, everything they are offered. 

~ Jean Piaget, psychologist (9 Aug 1896-1980) 

Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you. 

~ Wendell Berry, farmer and author (b. 5 Aug 1934) 

America has changed over the years. But these values my grandparents taught me - they haven't gone anywhere. They're as strong as ever; still cherished by people of every party, every race, every faith. They live on in each of us. What makes us American, what makes us patriots, is what's in here. That's what matters. And that's why we can take the food and music and holidays and styles of other countries, and blend it into something uniquely our own. That's why we can attract strivers and entrepreneurs from around the globe to build new factories and create new industries here. That's why our military can look the way it does - every shade of humanity, forged into common service. That's why anyone who threatens our values, whether fascists or communists or jihadists or homegrown demagogues, will always fail in the end. 

~ Barack Obama, US President (b. 4 Aug 1961)

What a child doesn't receive he can seldom later give.

~ P.D. James, novelist (3 Aug 1920-2014) 

I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually. 

~ James Baldwin, writer (2 Aug 1924-1987) 

I have noticed that when chickens quit quarreling over their food they often find that there is enough for all of them I wonder if it might not be the same with the human race. 

~ Don Marquis, humorist and poet (29 Jul 1878-1937) 

We are social creatures to the inmost centre of our being. The notion that one can begin anything at all from scratch, free from the past, or unindebted to others, could not conceivably be more wrong. 

~ Karl Popper, philosopher and a professor (28 Jul 1902-1994) 

In any free society, the conflict between social conformity and individual liberty is permanent, unresolvable, and necessary. 

~ Kathleen Norris, novelist and columnist (27 Jul 1880-1966) 

I have never thought much of the courage of a lion tamer. Inside the cage he is at least safe from other men. There is not much harm in a lion. He has no ideals, no religion, no politics, no chivalry, no gentility; in short, no reason for destroying anything that he does not want to eat. 

~ George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (26 Jul 1856-1950) 

I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after. 

~ Ernest Hemingway, author, journalist, Nobel laureate (21 Jul 1899-1961) 

The most valuable possession you can own is an open heart. The most powerful weapon you can be is an instrument of peace. 

~ Carlos Santana, musician (b. 20 Jul 1947) 

It is never my custom to use words lightly. If twenty-seven years in prison have done anything to us, it was to use the silence of solitude to make us understand how precious words are and how real speech is in its impact on the way people live and die. 

~ Nelson Mandela, activist, South African president, Nobel laureate (18 Jul 1918-2013) 

Choose only one master - Nature. 

~ Rembrandt, painter and etcher (15 Jul 1606-1669) 

The man dies in all who keep silent in the face of tyranny. 

~ Wole Soyinka, playwright, poet, Nobel laureate (b. 13 Jul 1934) 

It’s impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well have not lived at all.
~ J.K. Rowling

Words ,as slippery as smooth grapes, 

words exploding in the light

like dormant seeds waiting 

in the vaults of vocabulary, 

alive again, and giving life:  once again the heart distills them. 

~ Pablo Neruda, poet, diplomat, Nobel laureate (12 Jul 1904-1973) 

People are like stained glass windows: they sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light within. 

~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, psychiatrist and author (8 Jul 1926-2004) 

Men rarely (if ever) managed to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child. 

~ Robert A. Heinlein, science-fiction author (7 Jul 1907-1988) 

All the arguments to prove man's superiority cannot shatter this hard fact: in suffering the animals are our equals. 

~ Peter Singer, philosopher and professor (b. 6 Jul 1946) 

It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning. 

~ Bill Watterson, comic strip artist (b. 5 Jul 1958) [Calvin & Hobbes] 

Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn-out soil. My children have had other birthplaces, and, so far as their fortunes may be within my control, shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth. 

~ Nathaniel Hawthorne, writer (4 Jul 1804-1864) 

The American who first discovered Columbus made a bad discovery. 

~ Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, scientist and philosopher (1 Jul 1742-1799) 

Not that I want to be a god or a hero. Just to change into a tree, grow for ages, not hurt anyone. 

~ Czeslaw Milosz, poet and novelist (30 Jun 1911-2004) 

Transport of the mails, transport of the human voice, transport of flickering pictures - in this century, as in others, our highest accomplishments still have the single aim of bringing men together.

~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author and aviator (29 Jun 1900-1944) 

What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness? 

~ Jean Jacques Rousseau, philosopher and author (28 Jun 1712-1778) 

There is no greater fallacy than the belief that aims and purposes are one thing, while methods and tactics are another. 

~ Emma Goldman, social activist (27 Jun 1869-1940) 

History is a vast early warning system. 

~ Norman Cousins, editor and author (24 Jun 1915-1990) 

Love is the whole thing. We are only pieces.

~ Rumi

Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you're alive, it isn't. 

~ Richard Bach, writer (b. 23 Jun 1936) 

I feel we are all islands - in a common sea. 

~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh, writer (22 Jun 1906-2001) 

Once you hear the details of victory, it is hard to distinguish it from a defeat. 

~ Jean-Paul Sartre, writer and philosopher (21 Jun 1905-1980) 

Who thinks little, errs much. - Leonardo da Vinci

The ultimate sense of security will be when we come to recognize that we are all part of one human race. Our primary allegiance is to the human race and not to one particular color or border. I think the sooner we renounce the sanctity of these many identities and try to identify ourselves with the human race the sooner we will get a better world and a safer world. 

~ Mohamed ElBaradei, diplomat, Nobel laureate (b. 17 Jun 1942) 

H. sapiens is the species that invents symbols in which to invest passion and authority, then forgets that symbols are inventions. 

~ Joyce Carol Oates, writer (b. 16 Jun 1938) 

Of all nature's gifts to the human race, what is sweeter to a man than his children? 

~ Marcus Tullius Cicero, statesman, orator, writer (106-43 BCE) 

Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry. 

~ William Butler Yeats, writer, Nobel laureate (13 Jun 1865-1939) 

Ethics, decency, and morality are the real soldiers. 

~ Kiran Bedi, police officer and social activist (b. 9 Jun 1949) 

The true birthplace is that wherein for the first time one looks intelligently upon oneself; my first homelands have been books, and to a lesser degree schools. 

~ Marguerite Yourcenar, novelist (8 Jun 1903-1987) 

There is always something to do. There are hungry people to feed, naked people to clothe, sick people to comfort and make well. And while I don't expect you to save the world, I do think it's not asking too much for you to love those with whom you sleep, share the happiness of those whom you call friend, engage those among you who are visionary, and remove from your life those who offer you depression, despair, and disrespect. 

~ Nikki Giovanni, poet and professor (b. 7 Jun 1943) 

If Galileo had said in verse that the world moved, the Inquisition might have let him alone. 

~ Thomas Hardy, novelist and poet (2 Jun 1840-1928) 

The Pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. The leader adjusts the sails.

~ John Maxwell

There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them.

~ Denis Waitley

Let your mind be like a tightly woven net to catch emotions and feelings that come, and investigate them before you react.

~ Ajahn Chah

Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present.

~ Jim Rohn

A professional is someone who can do his best work when he doesn't feel like it.

~ Alistair Cook

When writing the story of your life, don't let anyone else hold the pen.

~ Harley Davidson

Those who say it can not be done, should not interrupt those doing it.

~ Chinese Proverb

Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry. 

~ William Butler Yeats, writer, Nobel laureate (13 Jun 1865-1939) 

Your life is determined not so much by what life brings you, as by the attitude you bring to life. Not so much by what happens to you, as by the way your mind looks at what happens.

~ Khalil Gibran

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

~ Thomas Edison

Someone once told me that 'time' is a predator that stalks us all our lives. But I rather believe that time is a companion who goes with us on the journey and reminds us to cherish every moment because it will never come again.

~ Jean-Luc Picard

Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresea, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.

~ H. Jackson Brown Jr.

Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.

~ Steve Jobs

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself, any direction you choose.

~ Dr. Seuss

Happiness is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong. The amount of work is the same.

~ Carlos Castaneda

A career is wonderful, but you can't curl up with it on a cold night. 

~ Marilyn Monroe, actress (1 Jun 1926-1962) 

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars. 

~ Walt Whitman, poet (31 May 1819-1892) 

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.

~ Thomas A. Edison

Speculation is perfectly all right, but if you stay there you've only founded a superstition. If you test it, you've started a science. 

~ Hal Clement, science fiction author (30 May 1922-2003) 

To swear off making mistakes is very easy. All you have to do is swear of having ideas.

~ Leo Burnett

Historians tell the story of the past, novelists the story of the present. 

~ Edmond de Goncourt, writer, critic, and publisher (26 May 1822-1896) 

A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do. 

~ Bob Dylan, singer-songwriter (b. 24 May 1941) 

If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it. 

~ Margaret Fuller, author (23 May 1810-1850) 

Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true. 

~ Honore de Balzac, novelist (20 May 1799-1850) 

Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.

~ Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate (18 May 1872-1970)

A change in perspective is worth 80 IQ points. 

~ Alan Kay, computer scientist (b. 17 May 1940) 

I want people to talk to one another no matter what their difference of opinion might be. 

~ Studs Terkel, author and broadcaster (16 May 1912-2008)

I do not torture animals, and I do not support the torture of animals, such as that which goes on at rodeos: cowardly men in big hats abusing simple beasts in a fruitless search for manhood. 

~ George Carlin, comedian, actor, and author (12 May 1937-2008) 

The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.

~ Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird

The higher up you go, the more mistakes you are allowed. Right at the top, if you make enough of them, it's considered to be your style. 

~ Fred Astaire, dancer, actor, singer, musician, and choreographer (10 May 1899-1987) 

Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves. 

~ James Matthew Barrie, author (9 May 1860-1937) 

Thinking is an experimental dealing with small quantities of energy, just as a general moves miniature figures over a map before setting his troops in action. 

~ Sigmund Freud, neurologist, founder of psychoanalysis (6 May 1856-1939) 

Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it. 

~ Christopher Morley, journalist, novelist, essayist, and poet (5 May 1890-1957) 

It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence. 

~ William Kingdon Clifford, mathematician and philosopher (4 May 1845-1879) 

The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him. 

~ Niccolo Machiavelli, political philosopher and author (3 May 1469-1527)

Man can be the most affectionate and altruistic of creatures, yet he's potentially more vicious than any other. He is the only one who can be persuaded to hate millions of his own kind whom he has never seen and to kill as many as he can lay his hands on in the name of his tribe or his God. 

~ Benjamin Spock, pediatrician and author (2 May 1903-1998) 

Science is built with facts as a house is with stones, but a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house. 

~ Jules Henri Poincaré, mathematician, physicist, and philosopher (29 Apr 1854-1912) 

If you don't turn your life into a story, you just become a part of someone else's story. 

~ Terry Pratchett, novelist (28 Apr 1948-2015) 

It's the will that's awakened in the darkness, that brings us to a more permanent light. 

~ Doniel Katz

A new word is like a fresh seed sown on the ground of the discussion. 

~ Ludwig Wittgenstein, philosopher (26 Apr 1889-1951) 

Everything you need to know you have learned through your journey.

~ Paulo Coehlo

Do not commit the error, common among the young, of assuming that if you cannot save the whole of mankind, you have failed. 

~ Jan de Hartog, playwright and novelist (22 Apr 1914-2002) 

As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand. 

~ Josh Billings, columnist and humorist (21 Apr 1818-1885) 

Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. 

~ Fred Brooks, computer scientist (b. 19 Apr 1931) 

You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free. 

~ Clarence Darrow, lawyer and author (18 Apr 1857-1938) 

Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all. 

~ Thomas Szasz, author, professor of psychiatry (15 Apr 1920-2012) 

The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play. 

~ Arnold J. Toynbee, historian (14 Apr 1889-1975) 

There is also an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents... The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provisions should be made to prevent its ascendancy. 

~ Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect, and author (13 Apr 1743-1826)

Certain things catch your eye, but pursue only those that capture the heart. 

~ Ancient Indian Proverb

Nature never did betray the heart that loved her. 

~ William Wordsworth (7 Apr 1770-1850)

Conscience is a dog that does not stop us from passing but that we cannot prevent from barking. 

~ Nicolas de Chamfort, writer (6 Apr 1741-1794) 

Curiosity is the lust of the mind. 

~ Thomas Hobbes, philosopher (5 Apr 1588-1679) 

We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color. 

~ Maya Angelou, poet (b. 4 Apr 1928) 

Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals. And in this respect mankind has suffered a fundamental debacle, a debacle so fundamental that all others stem from it. 

~ Milan Kundera, novelist, playwright, and poet (b. 1 Apr 1929) 

Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.

~ Lyndon B. Johnson

It is paradoxical that many educators and parents still differentiate between a time for learning and a time for play without seeing the vital connection between them. 

~ Leo Buscaglia, author (31 Mar 1924-1998) 

Real love begins where nothing is expected in return.

~ Antoine Del Saint - Exupery

Conscience is a man's compass, and though the needle sometimes deviates, though one often perceives irregularities when directing one's course by it, one must still try to follow its direction. 

~ Vincent van Gogh, painter (30 Mar 1853-1890) 

A scholar is just a library's way of making another library. 

~ Daniel Dennett, philosopher, writer, and professor (b. Mar 28 1942)