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)