"The thing that I'm always left with is this overwhelming desire for people to be rooted and the only way that they feel rooted is through another person." - John Allen

"When we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves." - Confucius

"In the absence of clearly-defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it. " - Robert Heinlein

"You have to dream before your dreams can come true." - Abdul Kalam

"Each day provides its own gifts." - Marcus Aurelius

"What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure." - Samuel Johnson

"Be careful that victories do not carry the seed of future defeats." - Ralph W. Sockman

"Do definite good; first of all to yourself, then to definite persons." - John Lancaster Spalding

"We are advertised by our loving friends." - William Shakespeare

"A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends." - Baltasar Gracian

"A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends." - Baltasar Gracian

"The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone." - Harriet Beecher Stowe

"Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence." - Abigail Adams

"Take the first step in faith. You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort." - Franklin D. Roosevelt

"It's all knowing what to start with. If you start in the right place and follow all the steps, you will get to the right end." - Elizabeth Moon

"Go as far as you can see; when you get there you'll be able to see farther." - Thomas Carlyle

"There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it." - Denis Diderot

Twenty years

"Twenty years now
Where'd they go?
Twenty years
I don't know
Sit and I wonder sometimes
Where they've gone"
- Bob Seger

"Live neither in the past nor in the future, but let each day's work absorb your entire energies, and satisfy your widest ambition." - Sir William Osler

"Be not ashamed of thy virtues; honor's a good brooch to wear in a man's hat at all times." - Ben Jonson

"One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive." - Thomas Jefferson

"The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug." - Mark Twain

"All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them." - Galileo Galilei

"You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do." - Henry Ford

"Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves." - Dale Carnegie

"Every exit is an entry somewhere else." - Tom Stoppard

"We know what we are, but know not what we may be." - William Shakespeare

"Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight." - Phyllis Diller

An ox with long horns, even if he does not butt, will be accused of butting. ~ Proverb, (Malay)

The rich are more envied by those who have a little, than by those who have nothing. ~ Charles Caleb Colton

Nature is the master of talents; genius is the master of nature. - Josiah Gilbert Holland

"Do not accustom yourself to use big words for little matters." - Samuel Johnson

"Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live." - Oscar Wilde

"A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on." - William S. Burroughs

"Rightly to be great is not to stir without great argument, but to find quarrel in a straw when honor's at the stake." - Shakespeare, Hamlet

"A little drama wins more friends than boring." - Scott Westerfield

"The only thing I was fit for was to be a writer, and this notion rested solely on my suspicion that I would never be fit for real work, and that writing didn't require any." - Russell Baker

"Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious." - Peter Ustinov

"Never does the human soul appear so strong and noble as when it foregoes revenge and dares to forgive an injury." - Edward Chapin

He is separated from the water by a plank. ~ Proverb, (Latin)

"...in order that a man may be happy, it is necessary that he should not only be capable of his work, but a good judge of his work." - John Ruskin

"Joy is prayer - Joy is strength - Joy is love - Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls." - Mother Teresa

"Beware of the man who won't be bothered with details." - William Feather

"Moments of kindness and reconciliation are worth having, even if the parting has to come sooner or later." - Alice Munro

"Part of being a Master is learning how to sing in nobody else's voice but your own." - Hugh Macleod

"Ask yourself: Have you been kind today? Make kindness your daily modus operandi and change your world." - Annie Lennox

"Time does not change us. It just unfolds us." - Max Frisch

"Sometimes a slow gradual approach does more good than a large gesture." - Craig Newmark

"They can conquer who believe they can." - Virgil

"Marvelous Truth, confront us at every turn, in every guise." - Denise Levertov

"Living is having ups and downs and sharing them with friends." - Trey Parker and Matt Stone

"Goodness is the only investment that never fails." - Henry David Thoreau

"Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle, but you shall be the miracle." - Phillips Brooks

"If you're trying to take a roomful of people by surprise, it's a lot easier to hit your targets if you don't yell going through the door." - Lois McMaster Bujold

"Love doesn't sit there like a stone, it has to be made, like bread: remade all the time, made new." - Og Mandino

"I've arrived at this outermost edge of my life by my own actions. Where I am is thoroughly unacceptable. Therefore, I must stop doing what I've been doing." - Alice Koller

"Give all to love; obey thy heart." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power." - Seneca

"Most of the time I don't have much fun. The rest of the time I don't have any fun at all." - Woody Allen

"Human beings are the only creatures that allow their children to come back home." - Bill Cosby

"Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia." - Charles M. Schulz

"Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children and no theories." - John Wilmot

"I always find it more difficult to say the things I mean than the things I don't." - W. Somerset Maugham

"Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of witnesses." - Margaret Millar

"The great tragedy of Science - the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact." - Thomas H. Huxley

"You talk to God, you're religious. God talks to you, you're psychotic." - Doris Egan

"Most people would like to be delivered from temptation but would like it to keep in touch." - Robert Orben

"I am determined that my children shall be brought up in their father's religion, if they can find out what it is." - Charles Lamb

"Women want mediocre men, and men are working hard to become as mediocre as possible." - Margaret Mead

Fortune

"Fortune can, for her pleasure, fools advance,
And toss them on the wheels of Chance."
- Juvenal

"Charm is the quality in others that makes us more satisfied with ourselves." - Henri-Frederic Amiel

"Anger is the feeling that makes your mouth work faster than your mind." - Evan Esar

"Love is whatever you can still betray. Betrayal can only happen if you love." ~ John Le Carre

"What ripens fast does not last." ~ Proverb, (German)

"Sentiment is the ripened fruit of fantasy." ~ Madame Belazy

"It is a malady confined to man, and not seen in any other creature, to hate and despise ourselves." - Montaigne

The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion. ~ Thomas Paine

"You have not converted a man because you have silenced him." - John Viscount Morley

"Purchase not friends by gifts; when you cease to give, such will cease to love." - Thomas Fuller

"Confidence is the sexiest thing a woman can have. It's much sexier than any body part." - Aimee Mullins

"The summit of happiness is reached when a person is ready to be what he is." - Desiderius Erasmus

"I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief." - Gerry Spence

"Don't think of retiring from the world until the world will be sorry that you retire. I hate a fellow whom pride or cowardice or laziness drives into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let him come out as I do, and bark." - Samuel Johnson

"When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable." - Clifton Fadiman

"You will never be alone with a poet in your pocket." - John Adams

"The best of us must sometimes eat our words." - J. K. Rowling

"Never take the advice of someone who has not had your kind of trouble." - Sidney J. Harris

"Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing." - Abraham Lincoln

"Do not speak of your happiness to one less fortunate than yourself." - Plutarch

"Many people weigh the guilt they will feel against the pleasure of the forbidden action they want to take." - Peter McWilliams

"A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor." - Victor Hugo

"Civilization is the process of reducing the infinite to the finite." - Oliver Wendell Holmes

"Few people can see genius in someone who has offended them." - Robertson Davies

"There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes." - Doctor Who

"If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you." - Oscar Wilde

"Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens." - Epictetus

"I have learned that to be with those I like is enough." - Walt Whitman

"Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter, try again--fail again, fail better." - Samuel Beckett

"Desire is the most important factor in the success of any athlete." - Willie Shoemaker

"I am more and more convinced that our happiness or unhappiness depends more on the way we meet the events of life than on the nature of those events themselves." Alexander Humboldt

"The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think." - Edwin Schlossberg

"What we play is life." - Louis Armstrong

"Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousand of miles and all the years you have lived." Helen Keller

"Guard your honor. Let your reputation fall where it will. And outlive the bastards." - Lois McMaster Bujold

"Nothing happens by itself... it all will come your way, once you understand that you have to make it come your way, by your own exertions." ~ Ben Stein

Better is one "Take this," than two "I will give you." ~Proverb, (Portuguese)

Pessimism never won any battle. ~ Dwight D Eisenhower

Every theory of love, from Plato down, teaches that each individual loves in the other sex what he lacks in himself. ~G. Stanley Hall

There is no coming to consciousness without pain. ~ Carl Jung

A hundred wagon loads of thoughts will not pay a single ounce of debt. ~Italian Proverb

"The ass and the driver never think alike." ~ Proverb, (Dutch)

In wine there is truth. ~Proverb, (Roman)

You will come across hope and despair in almost every situation. Only one of them wins each time. ~ Unknown

Smooth words make smooth ways. ~ Proverb, (Italian)~

"Give neither counsel nor salt till you are asked for it." ~ Proverb, (English)

To Althea, from Prison

Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage,
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage.
~Richard Lovelace, To Althea, from Prison (IV)~

"Too much wine will make a sane man mad." ~ Proverb, (Latin)

"You have to have confidence in your ability, and then be tough enough to follow through." Rosalyn Carter

"With slight efforts, how can we obtain great results? It is foolish even to desire it." Euripides

"When it's all over, it's not who you were, it's whether or not you made a difference." Bob Dole

"When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on." Franklin D. Roosevelt

"Victory belongs to the most persevering." Napoleon Bonaparte

"To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance." Oscar Wilde

"The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes." - Frank Lloyd Wright

"Never let yesterday use up too much of today." -Will Rogers

"Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man's desire to understand." - Neil Armstrong

"Looking forward to things is half the pleasure of them." - Lucy Maud Montgomery

"Life is like playing a violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on." - Samuel Butler

"I've never been hurt by something I didn't say." - Calvin Coolidge

"If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes--only sooner." - Tallulah Bankhead

"The aging process has you firmly in its grasp if you never get the urge to throw a snowball." - Doug Larson

"You know, everybody is ignorant--only on different subjects." - Will Rogers

"Talk sense to a fool, and he calls you foolish." - Euripides

"Government is too big and too important to be left to the politicians." Chester Bowles

"Too many have dispensed with generosity in order to practice charity." - Albert Camus

"Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired." - Robert Frost

"Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one." - Jane Howard

"Throughout life, one does not miss any chance to hold onto the things that are really precious, if one is truly wise." - Ed Greenwood

"Quit now, you'll never make it. If you disregard this advice, you'll be halfway there." David Zucker

"Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable." Sidney J. Harris

"Blessed are those who can give without remembering, and take without forgetting." Princess Elizabeth Asquith Bibesco

"Friendship makes prosperity more shining and lessens adversity by dividing and sharing it." Cicero

"It is well to give when asked but it is better to give unasked, through understanding." Kahlil Gibran

"The only joy in the world is to begin." -- Cesare Pavese

"It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out - it's the grain of sand in your shoe." -- Robert Service

"It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out - it's the grain of sand in your shoe." -- Robert Service

"Laughter is an instant vacation." -- Milton Berle

"Laughter is an instant vacation." -- Milton Berle

"To be alone is to be different, to be different is to be alone." -- Suzanne Gordon

"To be alone is to be different, to be different is to be alone." -- Suzanne Gordon

"Fall seven times, stand up eight." -- Japanese proverb

"Fall seven times, stand up eight." -- Japanese proverb

"There's something amazing about the passion of youth and its power to sustain. If there's a more powerful energy source, I don't know about it." - Takayuki Ikkaku, Arisa Hosaka and Toshihiro Kawabata

"There's something amazing about the passion of youth and its power to sustain. If there's a more powerful energy source, I don't know about it." - Takayuki Ikkaku, Arisa Hosaka and Toshihiro Kawabata

"Keeping your body healthy is an expression of gratitude to the whole cosmos - the trees, the clouds, everything." - Thich Nhat Hanh

"Keeping your body healthy is an expression of gratitude to the whole cosmos - the trees, the clouds, everything." - Thich Nhat Hanh

"The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness." - Joseph Conrad

"The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness." - Joseph Conrad

"The follies which a man regrets most, in his life, are those which he didn't commit when he had the opportunity." - Helen Rowland

"Acting is not being emotional, but being able to express emotion." - Kate Reid

"The bravest thing you can do when you are not brave is to profess courage and act accordingly." - Corra Harris

"Live well. It is the greatest revenge." - The Talmud

"Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"We should manage our fortunes as we do our health - enjoy it when good, be patient when it is bad, and never apply violent remedies except in an extreme necessity." - Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"Flying may not be all plain sailing, but the fun of it is worth the price." - Amelia Earhart

"Even on the highest throne in the world, we are still sitting on our ass." - Michel de Montaigne

"Curious things, habits. People themselves never knew they had them." - Agatha Christie

"If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is "thank you," that would suffice." - Meister Eckhart

"Irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors." - Thomas H. Huxley

"Who said life was fair? Where is that written?" - Grandpa, The Princess Bride

"Laughter is the closest distance between two people." - Victor Borge

"He that can't endure the bad, will not live to see the good." ~ Jewish Proverb

"The art of life lies in a constant readjustment to our surroundings." ~ Okakura Kakuzo

Clothes make the man

"Costly thy habit [dress] as thy purse can buy;
But not expressed in fancy - rich, not gaudy.
For the apparel oft proclaims the man."
~ William Shakespeare

"Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure." ~ William Saroyan

"The best way to escape from a problem is to solve it." ~ Alan Saporta

"Take what you can use and let the rest go by." ~ Ken Kesey

"A love of tradition has never weakened a nation, indeed it has strengthened nations in their hour of peril; but the new view must come, the world must roll forward." ~ Winston Churchill

"To resist the frigidity of old age one must combine the body, the mind and the heart - and to keep them in parallel vigor one must exercise, study and love." ~ Karl von Bonstetten

"If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend." ~ Abraham Lincoln

"Every day holds the possibility of a miracle." ~ Elizabeth David

The forest will answer you in the way you call to it. ~ Proverb, (Finnish)

"If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail." ~ Abraham Maslow

"The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one." ~ Albert Einstein

"Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success." ~ Christopher Lasch

"He attacked everything in life with a mix of extraordinary genius and naive incompetence, and it was often difficult to tell which was which." ~ Douglas Adams

"Many a man who falls in love with a dimple make the mistake of marrying the whole girl." ~ Evan Esar

"To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage." Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The little unremembered acts of kindness and love are the best parts of a person's life." William Wordsworth

"The trees that are slow to grow bear the best fruit." Moliere

"The difficult I can do today. The impossible will take a little longer." Billie Holiday

"Nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion." G.W.F. Hegel

"Let us not look not back in anger, or forward with fear, but around in awareness." James Thurber

"It is more rewarding to watch money change the world than watch it accumulate." Gloria Steinem

My daughter-in-law tucked up her sleeves, and upset the kettle into the fire. ~ Proverb (Spanish)

Come, woo me, woo me; for now I am in holiday humor and like enough to consent. ~William Shakespeare, As You Like It (Rosalind at IV, i)

Experience is the teacher of all things. ~ Julius Caesar

There is nothing like staying at home for real comfort. -- Jane Austen

"We can't command our love, but we can our actions." -- Arthur Conan Doyle

"You hit home runs not by chance but by preparation." - Roger Maris

"When you relinquish the desire to control your future, you can have more happiness." - Nicole Kidman

"What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?" - Jean Jacques Rousseau

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world." - Anne Frank

"The longer I live, the more keenly I feel that whatever was good enough for our fathers is not good enough for us." ~Oscar Wilde

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. ~ Margaret Mead

Husbands are awkward things to deal with; even keeping them in hot water will not make them tender. ~ Mary Buckley

Who cannot fight, wins nought by right. ~ Proverb, (German)

"Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit." - Aristotle

"What we anticipate seldom occurs. What we least expected usually happens." - Benjamin Disraeli

"When a decision has to be made, make it. There is no totally right time for anything." - General George Patton

"We cannot control the evil tongues of others, but a good life enables us to disregard them." - Cato the Elder

"Those who don't know how to weep with their whole heart, don't know how to laugh either." - Golda Meir

""Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose." - Bill Gates

"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other." - Mother Teresa

"I do not think much of a man who does not know more today than he did yesterday." - Abraham Lincoln

A Day in June

And what is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then Heaven tries earth if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays.
~James Russell Lowell

"Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes." - Oscar Wilde

"Better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness." - Chinese Proverb

"At the center of your being you have the answer. You know who you are and you know what you want." - Lao-Tzu

"Curiosity is the very basis of education and if you tell me that curiosity killed the cat, I say only the cat died nobly." ~ Arnold Edinborough

"Do more than is required. What is the distance between someone who achieves their goals consistently and those who spend their lives and careers merely following? The extra mile." ~ Gary Ryan Blair