True

A thing is not necessarily true because someone dies for it.
--Oscar Wilde

Meaning

To invent your own life's meaning is not easy, but it's still allowed, and I think you'll be happier for the trouble.
--Bill Watterson

Dream Deferred

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?
--Langston Hughes

Position

When White House advisers formulate a position that they believe is correct but which manages to repel everyone, they say that they have "hit the sweet spot."
--David Remnick

Whole

I'd rather be whole than good.
--Carl Jung

Judgmental

You're judgmental, and I mean that in the best possible way. We're told it's good to make judgments about everything else: music, food, politics, clothing. Well, why the hell not judge people? People can be irrational and ignorant and irritating.
--Kim Brooks

Virtues

Adulation of our imaginary virtues, despite all the evidence to the contrary, continues to be one of the oddest things about this country.
--Charles Simic

Why

The day will finally arrive. It may come early in life or it may be the last day of your life, but sooner or later you will ask some very simple questions, to wit--What does my life mean? Why am I the way I am?
--Dr. Harvey "Gizmo" Rosenberg

Loving

Folks, I'm telling you,
birthing is hard
and dying is mean--
so get yourself
a little loving
in between.
--Langston Hughes

Staging

Religion is close to theatre; much of its power comes from the effects of staging and framing.
--Teju Cole

Business

There is one and only one social responsibility of business--to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits.
--Milton Friedman

Wrong

Big Data allows us to be wrong with infinite precision.
--Nicola Hughes

Knowing

I was doing, I believed, what we all want to do, which is find a way to capture things before they dissolve, to not lose our lives to the relentless pace that keeps us from knowing who we are and what we want.
--Michael Paterniti

Small Change

It is a terrible thing, this kindness that human beings do not lose. Terrible, because when we are finally naked in the dark and cold, it is all we have. We, who are so rich, so full of strength, we end up with that small change. We have nothing else to give.
--Ursula K. Le Guin

Maturity

A man's maturity consists of regaining the seriousness one had when a child at play.
--Friedrich Nietzsche

Suspicions

I don't believe anything, but I have many suspicions.
--Robert Anton Wilson

Entropy

No structure, even an artificial one, enjoys the process of entropy. It is the ultimate fate of everything, and everything resists it.
--Philip K. Dick

History

The point of history is to learn from it, not to proceed as if we were still living in it.
--Jelani Cobb

Time and Memory

Back at the beginning, as I see now, my life was all time and almost no memory...And now, nearing the end, I see that my life is almost entirely memory and very little time.
--Wendell Berry

Failures

What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness. Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering, and I responded...sensibly. Reservedly. Mildly.
--George Saunders

Effrontery

As we read the newspapers, and we see the effrontery with which money and power carry their ends, and ride over honesty and good-meaning, morals and religion seem to become mere shrieking and impotence.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Too Young

But just before the end, even treason might be worth a try.
This country is too young to die.
--Phil Ochs