In the mountains of truth you will never climb in vain: either you will get up higher today or you will exercise your strength so as to be able to get up higher tomorrow. 

- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, philosopher (15 Oct 1844-1900)

Life is just a short walk from the cradle to the grave and it sure behooves us to be kind to one another along the way. 

- Alice Childress, playwright, author, and actor (12 Oct 1916-1994)

Even a purely moral act that has no hope of any immediate and visible political effect can gradually and indirectly, over time, gain in political significance. 

- Vaclav Havel, writer, Czech Republic president (5 Oct 1936-2011)

The heart of man is like the sea; it has its storms, it has its tides, and in its depths it has its pearls too. 

- Vincent van Gogh, Dutch painter (1853-1890)

The unrestricted competition so commonly advocated does not leave us the survival of the fittest. The unscrupulous succeed best in accumulating wealth. 

- Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th US president (4 Oct 1822-1893)

Once a country is habituated to liars, it takes generations to bring the truth back. 

- Gore Vidal, writer (3 Oct 1925-2012)

Where it is a duty to worship the sun, it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the laws of heat. 

- John Morley, statesman and writer (24 Dec 1838-1923)

The past is a stepping stone not a milestone.

- Robert Plant

Seven blunders of the world that lead to violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics without principle. 

- Mahatma Gandhi (2 Oct 1869-1948)

It is by character and not by intellect the world is won. 

- Evelyn Beatrice Hall, biographer (28 Sep 1868-1956)

There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in. 

- Leonard Cohen, musician and writer (21 Sep 1934-2016)

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)

There are days, months, years without end where hardly anything happens. There are minutes and seconds that contain a whole world. 

- Jean d'Ormesson, French novelist (1925-2017)

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

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

To cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life. 

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

To have and not to give is often worse than to steal. 

- Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, writer (13 Sep 1830-1916)

The man who can make others laugh secures more votes for a measure than the man who forces them to think. 

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

In hatred as in love, we grow like the thing we brood upon. What we loathe, we graft into our very soul. 

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