Famous Quotes

Read. Read anything. Read the things they say are good for you, and the things they claim are junk. You'll find what you need to find. Just read.

~ Neil Gaiman

God helps those who strut their stuff.

~ Dan Sofer

These people fail to realize that it is on the inside that God must be defended, not on the outside. They should direct their anger at themselves. For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out. The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart.

~ Yann Martel

I give myself a good cry if I need it. But then I concentrate on the good things still in my life. I don't allow myself any more self-pity than that. A little each every morning, a few tears, and that's all.

~ Mitch Albom

The purpose of life is not to be happy—but to matter, to be productive, to be useful, to have it make some difference that you lived at all.

~ Leo Rosten

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.

~ Henry David Thoreau

Although I am a typical loner in my daily life, my awareness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice has prevented me from feelings of isolation.

~ Albert Einstein

Undisturbed calmness of mind is attained by cultivating friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and indifference toward the wicked.

~ Patañjali

Most people die with their music still locked up inside them.

~ Benjamin Disraeli

Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard.

~ Kevin Durant

It is the useless things that make life worth living and that make life dangerous too: wine, love, art, beauty. Without them life is safe, but not worth bothering with.

~ Stephen Fry

Friends can make you feel that the world is smaller and less sneaky than it really is, because you know people who have similar experiences.

~ Lemony Snicket

The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box. As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don't you forget it - whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash.

~ Harper Lee

Death comes to us all, we can only choose how to face it when it comes.

~ Robert Jordan

Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance. If the dispositions of the parties are ever so well known to each other or ever so similar beforehand, it does not advance their felicity in the least. They always continue to grow sufficiently unlike afterwards to have their share of vexation; and it is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life.

~ Jane Austen

In the deepest hour of the night, confess to yourself that you would die if you were forbidden to write. And look deep into your heart where it spreads its roots, the answer, and ask yourself, must I write?

~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Make every effort to change things you do not like. If you cannot make a change, change the way you have been thinking. You might find a new solution.

~ Maya Angelou

The best kind of humans are the ones who stay.

~ Robert M. Drake

It had never occurred to me that our lives, which had been so closely interwoven, could unravel with such speed.

~ Kazuo Ishiguro

You don't always have to kiss a lot of frogs to recognize a prince when you find one -Henrietta Barett

~ Julia Quinn

If we don't change the direction we are headed, we will end up where we are going.

~ Jodi Picoult

I am fallen, flawed and imperfect. Yet drenched in the grace and mercy that is found in Jesus Christ, there is strength

~ Adam Young

Libraries store the energy that fuels the imagination. They open up windows to the world and inspire us to explore and achieve, and contribute to improving our quality of life. Libraries change lives for the better.

~ Sidney Sheldon

We have to pray with our eyes on God, not on the difficulties.

~ Oswald Chambers

Those who travel to mountain-tops are half in love with themselves, and half in love with oblivion.

~ Robert Macfarlane

Books. They are lined up on shelves or stacked on a table. There they are wrapped up in their jackets, lines of neat print on nicely bound pages. They look like such orderly, static things. Then you, the reader come along. You open the book jacket, and it can be like opening the gates to an unknown city, or opening the lid of a treasure chest. You read the first word and you're off on a journey of exploration and discovery.

~ David Almond

A child may not know how to feed itself, or what to eat, yet it knows hunger.

~ Daniel Keyes

Not only is there often a right and wrong, but what goes around does come around, Karma exists, chickens do come home to roost, and as my mother, Phyllis, liked to say, “There is always a day of reckoning.” The good among the great understand that every choice we make adds to the strength or weakness of our spirits—ourselves, or to use an old fashioned word for the same idea, our souls. That is every human’s life work: to construct an identity bit by bit, to walk a path step by step, to live a life that is worthy of something higher, lighter, more fulfilling, and maybe even everlasting.

~ Donald Van De Mark

May my heart be kind, my mind fierce, and my spirit brave.

~ Kate Forsyth

And I think that's what our world is desperately in need of - lovers, people who are building deep, genuine relationships with fellow strugglers along the way, and who actually know the faces of the people behind the issues they are concerned about.

~ Shane Claiborne

We crave for new sensations but soon become indifferent to them. The wonders of yesterday are today common occurrences

~ Nikola Tesla

It’s funny. I met a man once who did a lot of mountain climbing. I asked him which was harder, ascending or descending? He said without a doubt descending, because ascending you were so focused on reaching the top, you avoided mistakes.The backside of a mountain is a fight against human nature,” he said. “You have to care as much about yourself on the way down as you did on the way up.

~ Mitch Albom

Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourslef or to gossip about others. Use your power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

~ Miguel Ruiz

We humans do not understand compassion. In each moment of our lives, we betray it. Aye, we know of its worth, yet in knowing we then attach to it a value, we guard the giving of it, believing it must be earned, T’lan Imass. Compassion is priceless in the truest sense of the wold. It must be given freely. In abundance.

~ Steven Erikson

Act as if! Act as if you're a wealthy man, rich already, and then you'll surely become rich. Act as if you have unmatched confidence and then people will surely have confidence in you. Act as if you have unmatched experience and then people will follow your advice. And act as if you are already a tremendous success, and as sure as I stand here today - you will become successful.

~ Jordan Belfort

For the world is in a bad state, but everything will become still worse unless each of us does his best.

~ Viktor E. Frankl

Don't turn over the rocks if you don't want to see the pale creatures who live under them.

~ Janet Fitch

Were I a Roman Catholic, perhaps I should on this occasion vow to build a chapel to some saint, but as I am not, if I were to vow at all, it should be to build a light-house.[Letter to his wife, 17 July 1757, after narrowly avoiding a shipwreck; often misquoted as Lighthouses are more helpful than churches.]

~ Benjamin Franklin

Never give a sword to a man who can't dance.

~ Confucius

The question is very understandable, but no one has found a satisfactory answer to it so far. Yes, why do they make still more gigantic planes, still heavier bombs and, at the same time, prefabricated houses for reconstruction? Why should millions be spent daily on the war and yet there's not a penny available for medical services, artists, or for poor people?Why do some people have to starve, while there are surpluses rotting in other parts of the world? Oh, why are people so crazy?

~ Anne Frank