Bernard Berenson

"I would if I could, stand on a busy corner, hat in hand and beg people to throw me all their wasted hours."

--Bernard Berenson

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Hohn Greenleaf Whittier

"For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
the saddest are these: ‘It might have been!’"

--Hohn Greenleaf Whittier
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Robert G. Ingersoll

"Justice is the only worship. Ignorance is the only slavery. Happiness is the only good. The time to be good is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make other people so."

--Robert G. Ingersoll

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A.L. Kitselman

"The words 'I am...' are potent words; be careful what you hitch them to. The thing you’re claiming has a way of reaching back and claiming you."

--A.L. Kitselman

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Reflections on Life

"What would you do if you knew you could not fail?"

--Anonymous
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Mother Teresa

"It is not how much you do but how much love you put into what you are doing."

--Mother Teresa


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Phillip Adams

"When people say to me: 'How do you do so many things?' I often answer them, without meaning to be cruel: 'How do you do so little?' It seems to me that people have vast potential. Most people can do extraordinary things if they have the confidence to take the risks. Yet most people don’t. They sit in front of the telly and treat life as if it goes on forever."

--Phillip Adams

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Walter Bagehot

"The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."

--Walter Bagehot

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Denis Waitley

"Since the mind is a specific bio-computer, it needs specific instructions and directions. The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don’t define them, or ever consider them as believable or achievable."

--Denis Waitley

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Margaret Young

"Often people attempt to live their lives backwards; they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want."

--Margaret Young

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H.L. Hunt

"Decide what you want, decide what you are willing to exchange for it. Establish your priorities and go to work."

--H.L. Hunt

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Georges Rouault

"Anyone can revolt. It is more difficult silently to obey our own inner promptings, and to spend our lives finding sincere and fitting means of expression for our temperament and our gifts."

--Georges Rouault

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Alexis Carrel

"To accomplish our destiny it is not enough to merely guard against road accidents. We must also cover before nightfall the distance assigned to each of us."

--Alexis Carrel

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Erica Jong

"Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads."

--Erica Jong

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David Lloyd George

"Don’t be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps."

--David Lloyd George

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African proverb

"Do not look where you fell, but where you slipped."

--African proverb

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Erich Fromm

"Man’s main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is."

--Erich Fromm

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Jewish Theological Seminary

"A life is a single letter in the alphabet. It can be meaningless. Or it can be part of great meaning."

--Jewish Theological Seminary

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Samuel Butler

"Life is playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on."

--Samuel Butler

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Primo Levi

"Sooner or later in life everyone realizes that perfect happiness is unattainable, but there are few who pause to consider the antithesis: that perfect unhappiness is equally unattainable. The obstacles preventing the realization of both of those extreme states are of the same nature: they derive from our human condition which is opposed to everything infinite. The ever-insufficient knowledge of the future opposes it. The certainty of death opposes it: for it places a limit on every joy, but also on every grief."
--Primo Levi

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Marcel Proust

"We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us."

--Marcel Proust

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Henry David Thoreau

"I think there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business."

--Henry David Thoreau

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H. L. Mencken

"There is only one honest impulse at the bottom of Puritanism, and that is the impulse to punish the man with a superior capacity for happiness."

--H. L. Mencken

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Bertrand Russell

"Contempt for happiness is usually contempt for other people’s happiness, and is an elegant disguise for hatred of the human race."

--Bertrand Russell

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Aldous Huxley

"Happiness is like coke -- something you get as a by-product in the process of making something else."

--Aldous Huxley

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R. H. Tawney

"If man has important work, and enough leisure and income to enable him to do it properly, he is in possession of as much happiness as is good for any of the children of Adam."

--R. H. Tawney

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Robert Frost

"Happiness makes up in height what it lacks in length."

--Robert Frost

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Countess of Blessington

"There is no cosmetic for beauty like happiness."

--Countess of Blessington

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