This above all: to thine own self be true, / And it must follow, as the night the day, / Thou canst not then be false to any man. –William Shakespeare, poet and dramatist (1564-1616).

This above all: to thine own self be true, / And it must follow, as the night the day, / Thou canst not then be false to any man. –William Shakespeare, poet and dramatist (1564-1616).
I shall live badly if I do not write, and I shall write badly if I do not live. –Francoise Sagan, playwright and novelist (1935-2004)
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.
Ralph Waldo Emerson Español: Ralph Waldo Emerson. Français : Ralph Waldo Emerson Italiano: Ralph Waldo Emerson Nederlands: Fotogravure van Ralph Waldo Emerson Português: Ralph Waldo Emerson Русский: Ральф Уолдо Эмерсон Svenska: Ralph Waldo Emerson (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted. –Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882).
“Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength. ”
—Corrie Ten Boom
Love: a temporary insanity, curable by marriage. –Ambrose Bierce, author and editor (1842-1914)
“To love is not a passive thing. To love is active voice. When I love I do something, I function, I give. I do not love in order that I may be loved back again, but for the creative joy of loving. And every time I do so love I am freed, at least a little, by the outgoing of love, from enslavement to that most intolerable of master, myself.”
—Bernard Iddings Bell
“If some things don’t make you lose your sense of reason, then you have none to lose. ”
—Gotthold Ephraim Lessing
“An investment in knowledge still yields the best returns.”
The finest words in the world are only vain sounds if you cannot understand them. –Anatole France, novelist, essayist, Nobel laureate (1844-1924)
“Some people did what their neighbors did so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them.”
—George Eliot, Middle March
“The wise through excess of wisdom is made a fool.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly it is dearness only that gives everything its value. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.”
—Thomas Paine.
I am only one, / But still I am one. / I cannot do everything, / But still I can do something; / And because I cannot do everything, / I will not refuse to do the something that I can do. –Edward Everett Hale, author (1822-1909)
Jane Austen, Watercolour and pencil portrait by her sister Cassandra, 1810 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been all suffering, nothing but suffering.” – – –Jane Austen, novelist (1775-1817).
Eduardo Hughes Galeano (born September 3, 1940) is a Uruguayan journalist, writer and novelist. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The church says: The body is a sin. Science says: The body is a machine. Advertising says: The body is a business. The body says: I am a fiesta. –Eduardo Galeano, journalist and novelist (b. 1940)
The greatest discovery of our generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind. As you think, so shall you be.
—William James.
What really flatters a man is that you think him worth flattering. –George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)
The best way to become acquainted with a subject is to write a book about it.
—Benjamin Disraeli.
People change and forget to tell each other. –Lillian Hellman, playwright (1905-1984)
What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness. –Leo Tolstoy, novelist and philosopher (1828-1910).
Laugh, and the world laughs with you; / Weep, and you weep alone. / For this brave old earth must borrow its mirth, / But has trouble enough of its own.-Ella Wheeler Wilcox, poet (1850-1919)
“The nose of a mob is its imagination. By this, at any time, it can be quietly led. ”
—Edgar Allan Poe
Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold. –Leo Tolstoy, novelist and philosopher (1828-1910).
“An envious heart makes a treacherous ear.”
Zora Neale Hurston, “Their Eyes Were Watching God“
“Let a man who has to make his fortune in life remember this maxim: Attacking is the only secret. Dare and the world yields, or if it beats you sometimes, dare it again and you will succeed. ”
—William Makepeace Thackeray
“Your faith is what you believe, not what you know. ”
—Mark Twain
Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on “I am not too sure.” –H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)