George Bernard Shaw

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them.
- George Bernard Shaw

Eric Hoffer

“Nonconformists travel as a rule in bunches. You rarely find a nonconformist who goes it alone. And woe to him inside a nonconformist clique who does not conform with nonconformity.”
- Eric Hoffer

John Dryden

The secret pleasure of a generous act Is the great mind’s great bribe.
- John Dryden

Betty Smith

Look at everything as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time. Then your time on earth will be filled with glory.
- Betty Smith

Henry David Thoreau

"If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unimagined in common hours."
- Henry David Thoreau

Anita Brookner

Existentialism is about being a saint without God; being your own hero, without all the sanction and support of religion or society.
- Anita Brookner

H. L. Mencken

"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."
- H. L. Mencken

Mother Teresa

Love until it hurts. Real love is always painful and hurts; then it is real and pure.
- Mother Teresa

Bernard Meltzer

Blessed are those who give without remembering. And blessed are those who take without forgetting.
- Bernard Meltzer

Philander Johnson

Cheer up, the worst is yet to come.
- Philander Johnson

Bertrand Russell

"Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination."
- Bertrand Russell

Oscar Wilde

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone elses opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
- Oscar Wilde

A. A. Milne

"The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking."
- A. A. Milne

Robert Chapman

"A quotation, like a pun, should come unsought, and then be welcomed only for some propriety of felicity justifying the intrusion."
- Robert Chapman

Friedrich von Schiller

"Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain."
- Friedrich von Schiller

Gore Vidal

Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.
- Gore Vidal

Jim Cathcart

More business is lost every year through neglect than through any other cause.
- Jim Cathcart

Buddha

 In a controversy the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves.
- Buddha

C. S. Lewis

If God thinks this state of war in the universe a price worth paying for free will...then we may take it it is worth paying.
- C. S. Lewis

Tao Te Ching

When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you.
- Tao Te Ching

Ben Stein

"The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: decide what you want."
- Ben Stein

Ambrose Bierce

Orthography: The science of spelling by the eye instead of the ear.
- Ambrose Bierce

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Love gives itself, it is not bought.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Homer Simpson

t's not easy to juggle a pregnant wife and a troubled child, but somehow I managed to fit in eight hours of TV a day.
- Homer Simpson

Steve Martin

A day without sunshine is like, you know, night.
- Steve Martin

Cyril Connolly

“There are only three things which make life worth living: to be writing a tolerably good book, to be in a dinner party of six, and to be travelling south with someone whom your conscience permits you to love.”
- Cyril Connolly

Oliver Wendell Holmes

"The great thing in this world is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are moving in."
- Oliver Wendell Holmes

Terry Pratchett

“Revolutions always come around again. That's why they're called revolutions.”
- Terry Pratchett, Night Watch (1948 -)

Hans Christian Andersen

Nothing is too high for a man to reach, but he must climb with care and confidence.
- Hans Christian Andersen

Truman Capote

A conversation is a dialogue, not a monologue. That's why there are so few good conversations: due to scarcity, two intelligent talkers seldom meet.
- Truman Capote

Mark Twain

It isn't the sum you get, it's how much you can buy with it, that's the important thing; and it's that that tells whether your wages are high in fact or only high in name.
- Mark Twain