"Pray look better, sir," quoth Sancho; "those things yonder are no giants, but windmills."

- Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote

 

 

Sentimentality is the emotional promiscuity of those who have no sentiment.

- Norman Mailer

 

 

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

- Oscar Wilde

 

 

The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time.

- Willem De Kooning

 

 

There are several protections against temptation, but the surest is cowardice.

- Mark Twain

 

 

Better to fight for something than to live for nothing.

- George S. Patton

 

 

Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.

- Margaret Thatcher

 

 

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

- Oscar Wilde

 

 

A man thinks that by mouthing hard words, he understands hard things.

- Herman Melville

 

 

Traditions are group efforts to keep the unexpected from happening.

- Barbara Tober

 

 

Facts are the enemy of truth.

- Miguel de Cervantes

 

 

There's no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing.

- Alfred Wainwright

 

 

Enjoy your worries, you may never have them again.

- The Books

 

 

To be good is noble, but to teach others how to be good is nobler - and less trouble.

- Mark Twain

 

 

Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.

- Oscar Wilde

 

 

If God is willing to prevent evil, but is not able to
Then He is not omnipotent.

If He is able, but not willing
Then He is malevolent.

If He is both able and willing
Then whence cometh evil?

If He is neither able nor willing
Then why call Him God?

- Epicurus

 

 

Art is moral passion married to entertainment. Moral passion without entertainment is propaganda, and entertainment without moral passion is television.

- Rita Mae Brown

 

 

The supreme moments of travel are born of beauty and strangeness in equal parts: the first panders to the senses, the second the mind; and it is the rarity of this coincidence which makes the rarity of these moments.

- Robert Byron

 

 

Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.

- John F. Kennedy

 

 

Americans will put up with anything provided it doesn't block traffic.

- Dan Rather

 

 

Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are.

- Bertolt Brecht

 

 

Illusion is the first of all pleasures.

- Volaire

 

 

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak. Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.

- Winston Churchill

 

 

In times like these, it helps to recall that there have always been times like these.

- Paul Harvey

 

 

There are people who, instead of listening to what is being said to them, are already listening to what they are going to say themselves.

- Albert Guinon

 

 

Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.

- Soren Kierkegaard

 

 

There are two ways of spreading the light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.

- Edith Wharton

 

 

History is after all only a pack of tricks we play on the dead.

- Voltaire

 

 

Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.

- Kurt Vonnnegut

 

 

Adversity is the first path to truth.

- Lord Byron

 

 

Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually denegrates into a racket.

- Eric Hoffer

 

 

Mistakes... are the portals of discovery.

- James Joyce, Ulysses

 

 

All truth passes through three stages.
First, it is ridiculed.
Second, it is violently opposed.
Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.

- Arthur Schopenhauer

 

 

We see things not as they are but as we are.

- Anais Nin

 

 

Everyone believes very easily whatever he fears or desires.

- Jean de la Fontaine

 

 

No pleasure is worth giving up for the sake of two or more years in a geriatric home.

- Kingsley Amis

 

 

Inspiration is for amateurs. The rest of us just show up for work.

- Chuck Close

 

 

A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.

- Mark Twain

 

 

You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance.

- Ray Bradbury

 

 

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

- Geeorge Bernard Shaw

 

 

I promise nothing complete; because any human thing supposed to be complete, must for that very reason infallibly be faulty.

- Herman Melville, Moby Dick