12/31/19

Never give in and never give up. -Hubert H. Humphrey

12/30/19

If you care about something you have to protect it – If you’re lucky enough to find a way of life you love, you have to find the courage to live it. -John Irving

12/27/19

Surprising what you can dig out of books if you read long enough, isn't it? -Robert Jordan

12/26/19

Petting, scratching, and cuddling a dog could be as soothing to the mind and heart as deep meditation and almost as good for the soul as prayer. -Dean Koontz

12/25/19

Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmastime. -Laura Ingalls Wilder

12/24/19

The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere. -Anne Morrow Lindbergh

12/23/19

There is one tradition in America I am proud to inherit. It is our first freedom and the truest expression of our Americanism: the ability to dissent without fear. It is our right to utter the words, "I disagree." We must feel at liberty to speak those words to our neighbors, our clergy, our educators, our news media, our lawmakers and, above all, to the one among us we elect President. -Natalie Merchant

12/20/19

Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure. -Henri Nouwen

12/19/19

Today you will say things you can predict and other things you could never imagine this minute. Don't reject them, let them come through when they're ready, don't think you can plan it all out. This day will never, no matter how long you live, happen again. It is exquisitely singular. It will never again be exactly repeated. -Naomi Shihab Nye

12/18/19

Closing your eyes to the cruelty of life is, in my opinion, both stupid and sinful. There's very little we can do about it. So we have to at least acknowledge it. -Amos Oz

12/17/19

Standing before the refrigerator: If I have to ask myself if I am hungry, I’m not. -Hugh Prather

12/16/19

In fact, of course, there is no secret knowledge; no one knows anything that can't be found on a shelf in the public library. -Daniel Quinn

12/13/19

When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece. -John Ruskin

12/12/19

Among men, it seems, historically at any rate, that processes of co-ordination and disintegration follow each other with great regularity, and the index of the co-ordination is the measure of the disintegration which follows. There is no mob like a group of well-drilled soldiers when they have thrown off their discipline. And there is no lostness like that which comes to a man when a perfect and certain pattern has dissolved about him. There is no hater like one who has greatly loved. -John Steinbeck

12/11/19

What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness. -Leo Tolstoy

12/10/19

All you have the right to ask of life is to choose a battle in this war, make the best you can, and leave the field with honor. -Leon Uris

12/09/19

I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center. -Kurt Vonnegut

12/06/19

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth. -Oscar Wilde

12/05/19

Hope is a path on the mountainside. At first there is no path. But then there are people passing that way. And there is a path. -Lu Xun

12/04/19

Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing. -William Butler Yeats

12/03/19

If people can just love each other a little bit, they can be so happy. -Émile Zola

12/02/19

Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible. -Frank Zappa

11/29/19

Some things you can never leave behind. They don't belong to the past. They belong to you. -Rick Yancey

11/28/19

In my experience, men who respond to good fortune with modesty and kindness are harder to find than those who face adversity with courage. For in the very nature of things, success tends to create pride and blindness in the hearts of men, while suffering teaches them to be patient and strong. -Xenophon

11/27/19

A lexicographer's business is solely to collect, arrange, and define the words that usage presents to his hands. He has no right to proscribe words; he is to present them as they are. -Noah Webster

11/26/19

What separates the successful from the unsuccessful are the expectations that they had for their own lives. -J.D. Vance

11/25/19

I learned...that inspiration does not come like a bolt, nor is it kinetic, energetic striving, but it comes into us slowly and quietly and all the time, though we must regularly and every day give it a little chance to start flowing, prime it with a little solitude and idleness. -Brenda Ueland

11/22/19

We should not be simply fighting evil in the name of good, but struggling against the certainties of people who claim always to know where good and evil are to be found. -Tzvetan Todorov

11/21/19

The best theology is probably no theology; just love one another. -Charles M. Schulz

11/20/19

I feel very strongly that change is good because it stirs up the system. -Ann Richards

11/19/19

Not letting the world destroy you. That’s a daily battle. -Matthew Quick

11/18/19

Setting a good example is a far better way to spread ideals than through force of arms. -Ron Paul

11/15/19

I believe in kindness. Also in mischief. Also in singing, especially when singing is not necessarily prescribed. -Mary Oliver

11/14/19

A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of. -Ogden Nash

11/13/19

The hardest-learned lesson: that people have only their kind of love to give, not our kind. -Mignon McLaughlin

11/12/19

There must always be those with the fire of rebellion in their blood! There must always be those who will dare to fight an unbeatable enemy! Only thus can the race of man remain strong and fearless! -Stan Lee

11/11/19

Art should be like a holiday: something to give a man the opportunity to see things differently and to change his point of view. -Paul Klee

11/08/19

It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to do. Wasting time is merely an occupation then, and a most exhausting one. Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen. -Jerome K. Jerome

11/07/19

You cannot stop the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can stop them nesting in your hair. -Eva Ibbotson

11/06/19

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

11/05/19

One doesn't have a sense of humor. It has you. -Larry Gelbart

11/04/19

[N]o one ever considers himself expert if he really knows his job. A man who knows a job sees so much more to be done than he has done, that he is always pressing forward and never gives up an instant of thought to how good and how efficient he is. Thinking always ahead, thinking always of trying to do more, brings a state of mind in which nothing is impossible. The moment one gets into the "expert" state of mind a great number of things become impossible. -Henry Ford

11/01/19

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. -Mohamed El Baradei

10/31/19

Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first. -Charles de Gaulle

10/30/19

That is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. -Willa Cather

10/29/19

Although a democracy must often fight with one hand tied behind its back, it nonetheless has the upper hand. -Aharon Barak

10/28/19

I don't want to be a great leader; I want to be a man who goes around with a little oil can and when he sees a breakdown, offers his help. To me, the man who does that is greater than any holy man in saffron-colored robes. The mechanic with the oilcan: that is my ideal in life. -Baba Amte

10/25/19

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

10/24/19

Life would be unbearably dull if we had answers to all our questions. -Jim Butcher

10/23/19

I have always supported measures and principles and not men. I have acted fearless and independent and I never will regret my course. I would rather be politically buried than to be hypocritically immortalized. -Davy Crockett

10/22/19

The most dangerous strategy is to jump a chasm in two leaps. -Benjamin Disraeli

10/21/19

Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? -T.S. Eliot

10/18/19

If I had four hours to chop down a tree I would spend three hours sharpening the axe. -Benjamin Franklin

10/17/19

The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best -- and therefore never scrutinize or question. -Stephen Jay Gould

10/16/19

To see ourselves as others see us is a most salutary gift. Hardly less important is the capacity to see others as they see themselves. -Aldous Huxley

10/15/19

If you are under the impression you have already perfected yourself, you will never rise to the heights you are no doubt capable of. -Kazuo Ishiguro

10/14/19

Nothing which does not transport is poetry. The lyre is a winged instrument. -Joseph Joubert

10/11/19

I smile because there are tiny dreams that play hopscotch at the corners of my mouth, and every time I breathe they float and every time I laugh they fly kites. -Shane Koyczan

10/10/19

One unerring mark of the love of truth is not entertaining any proposition with greater assurance than the proofs it is built upon will warrant. -John Locke

10/09/19

To stimulate life, leaving it free, however, to unfold itself, that is the first duty of the educator. -Maria Montessori

10/08/19

It’s funny how we try so hard to hide from the truth. We tell ourselves that it didn’t happen. We say it enough times that we start to believe it. We live in a lie that exists only for ourselves. But the Truth is still there—dangling above us, hanging on a very weary thread. Out of sight. Out of mind. Until the thread of our self-denial breaks, and the Truth comes crashing back down. -Preston Norton

10/07/19

The best way to know the soul of another country is to read its literature. -Amos Oz

10/04/19

What matters is not the idea a man holds, but the depth at which he holds it. -Ezra Pound

10/03/19

You have to live each hour as if it's your last and each day as if you were immortal. -Julia Quinn

10/02/19

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

10/01/19

A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it. -William Styron

09/30/19

When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship. -Harry S. Truman

09/27/19

Longing for something that you once had is a mistake because the pictures in your mind are never the same as whatever it is you are longing for. -Jane Urquhart

09/26/19

We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down. -Kurt Vonnegut

09/25/19

Many who have spent a lifetime in it can tell us less of love than the child that lost a dog yesterday. -Thornton Wilder

09/24/19

It is extraordinary how extraordinary the ordinary person is. -George F. Will

09/23/19

Lies written in ink cannot disguise facts written in blood. -Lu Xun

09/20/19

Time may heal all wounds, but it does not erase the scars. -Jane Yolen

09/19/19

The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work. -Émile Zola

09/18/19

I never set out to be weird. It was always other people who called me weird. -Frank Zappa

09/17/19

Cruelty isn't a personality trait. Cruelty is a habit. -Rick Yancey

09/16/19

I don’t understand why people are such snobs about books. If you enjoy romances, read them. I don’t want Thanksgiving dinner every day. Some days I want a ham sandwich and a dozen chocolate chip cookies. And some days I want to read Jane Austen, and other days I want to read Agatha Christie, or maybe some author that no one has ever heard of who writes fun books that make me smile. -Diana Xarissa

09/13/19

I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him. -Booker T. Washington

09/12/19

The inclination to believe in the fantastic may strike some as a failure in logic, or gullibility, but it’s really a gift. A world that might have Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster is clearly superior to one that definitely does not. -Chris Van Allsburg

09/11/19

The secret to wisdom is curiosity. -Yoshiko Uchida

09/10/19

My soul is a broken field, plowed by pain. -Sara Teasdale

09/09/19

I believe the greatest gift I can conceive of having from anyone is to be seen, heard, understood, and touched by them. The greatest gift I can give is to see, hear, understand, and touch another person. -Virginia Satir

09/06/19

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

09/05/19

Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet. -Ellery Queen

09/04/19

One does not ask of one who suffers: What is your country and what is your religion? One merely says: You suffer, that is enough for me. -Louis Pasteur

09/03/19

Loneliness is like starvation: you don't realize how hungry you are until you begin to eat. -Joyce Carol Oates

09/02/19

True religion is the life we lead, not the creed we profess. -Louis Nizer

08/30/19

I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant. -Robert McCloskey