Wag

Everything matters more than we think it does, and, at the same time, nothing matters so much as we think it does. The merest spark may set all Europe in a blaze, but though all Europe be set in a blaze twenty times over, the world will wag itself right again.
--Samuel Butler

Something Nice

To say something nice about yourself, this is the hardest thing in the world for people to do. They'd rather take their clothes off.
--Nancy Friday

Sociable

The sociable solitary is an easily pained but far from unusual breed; one distinguishing characteristic is that farewells are forever on the brink of being made.
--Anthony Lane

Avoid

Don't worry about avoiding temptation. As you grow older, it will avoid you.
--Winston Churchill

Pretend

I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be until finally I became that person. Or he became me.
--Cary Grant

Right

Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct.
--Viktor E. Frankl

Rare

What would humans be without love? "Rare," said Death.
--Terry Pratchett

Thanks

I'm still an atheist, thank God.
--Luis Bunuel

Approximately

It is better to be approximately correct, than precisely wrong.
--Sam Kash Kachigan

Instincts

Telling us to obey instinct is like telling us to obey "people." People say different things: so do instincts. Our instincts are at war...Each instinct, if you listen to it, will claim to be gratified at the expense of the rest.
--C. S. Lewis

Gradual

Gradual disintegration, not sudden catastrophic collapse, is the way civilizations end.
--John Michael Greer

Initiations

Marriage is not unadulterated happiness, but is rather another of life's initiations.
--Thomas Moore

Can't Steer

The will is never free--it is always attached to an object, a purpose. It is simply the engine in the car--it can't steer.
--Joyce Cary

Variation of Wave

It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure.
--Albert Einstein

Movement

Learning is movement from moment to moment.
--J. Krishnamurti

Perfect Sense

To spend time with these Indiana community bankers is to step into an alternate universe, where everything sounds a little strange because it makes perfect sense. You hear things like, "If you don't understand the risk you're taking, don't take it." And, "We want to be around for decades, so we're not focused on the next quarter."
--David Segal

Serious and Studious

I am still of opinion that only two topics can be of the least interest to a serious and studious mood--sex and the dead.
--William Butler Yeats

Dust

Beauty is everlasting and dust is for a time.
--Marianne Moore

J.S. Bach

Any species capable of producing, at this earliest, juvenile stage of its development, the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, cannot be all bad.
--Dr. Lewis Thomas

Deep Impulses

It is essential to happiness that our way of living should spring from our own deep impulses and not from the accidental tastes and desires of those who happen to be our neighbors, or even our relations.
--Bertrand Russell

What Is It Really?

This universe of ours, what is it really? Here we are, centers of consciousness, surrounded by a buzzing confusion which we must try to understand. But we are of the selfsame stuff of the universe--perhaps ultimately a cloud of energy interacting with other clouds of energy--and on that account we are in the role more of participants than observers. We cannot distance ourselves from our ambient, hold it at arm's length for impartial scrutiny. This fact has been heavily underlined by modern physics since it sets limits to our knowledge. What we experience is not external reality per se but our interaction with it, so that in a very real sense we are constructing our universe from ourselves.
--Dennis Elwell

Seize It, Let Go Of It

Sartaj was thinking about how uncanny an animal this life was, that you had to seize it and let go of it at the same time, that you had to enjoy but also plan, live every minute and die every moment.
--Vikram Chandra

Planted the Tree

When eating a fruit, think of the person who planted the tree.
--Vietnamese proverb

Bread

Bread was what you wanted over the long haul, when you got right down to it. When you got right down to it, you wouldn't want a lifetime of cake.
--Alice McDermott

The Passage

All the tragedies which we can imagine return in the end to the one and only tragedy: the passage of time.
--Simone Weil

Unknown Unknowns

There are known knowns. There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don't know.
--Donald Rumsfeld

As If

It is as if happiness or unhappiness stem in large part from how we address what happens in the world, not what actually happens.
--Daniel Nettle

Stories

We often fail to honor stories.
--Cary Tennis

Being Born

He not busy being born is busy dying.
--Bob Dylan

The World Anew

If my heart could do my thinking
And my head begin to feel
I would look upon the world anew
And know what's truly real.
--Van Morrison

Capable of Living

Surely every one realizes, at some point along the way, that he is capable of living a far better life than the one he has chosen.
--Henry Miller

The Pauses

The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes--ah, that is where the art resides.
--Artur Schnabel

From Scratch

If you wish to make an apple pie truly from scratch, you must first invent the universe.
--Carl Sagan

Remind Me

Man needs more to be reminded than instructed.
--Samuel Johnson

Taxation Is Mortal

This is the Great Theatre of Life. Admission is free but taxation is mortal. You come when you can and leave when you must. The show is continuous.
--Robertson Davies

Fast & Shallow

The faster our news, the shallower our history, the more frantic our panic.
--Jill Lepore

All Pleasures

I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for joy.
--C. S. Lewis

Whole

Be really whole
And all things will come to you.
--Lao-Tzu

Elevates the Very Concept

Humanity is exalted not because we are so far above other living creatures but because knowing them well elevates the very concept of life.
--Edward O. Wilson

Not Penance

Environmental stewardship need not be a form of penance for past errors. And it's too late to save the planet by reverting to primitivism.
--Cary Tennis

Sharply Unexpected

We now boast genome research which makes clear that every individual is a genetic chef's salad, often with sharply unexpected contributions.
--Lionel Tiger

Then Return

At baseball's heart lies one simple goal: to leave home and then return.
--Alan Schwartz

Customs and Habits

Customs are generally unselfish. Habits are nearly always selfish.
--G. K. Chesterton

The Test

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.
--F. Scott Fitzgerald

Sleeping Around

Participants seeking to dodge troubles face the same problem as someone seeking to avoid venereal disease: It's not just whom you sleep with, but also whom they are sleeping with. Sleeping around, to continue our metaphor, can actually be useful for large derivatives dealers because it assures them government aid if trouble hits.
--Warren Buffett

Surpass Myself

Finally I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be what I already am. That I will never fulfill my obligation to surpass myself unless I first accept myself, and if I accept myself fully in the right way, I will already have surpassed myself.
--Thomas Merton

Essential Condition

The essential condition of youth is to be mind-visionary: to see everything as though it might have a mind.
--Adam Gopnick

The Greatest Mistake

The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you
will make one.
--Elbert Hubbard

No Fixed Plans

A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent upon arriving.
--Lao Tzu

Deliberate

Silence requires not simply failing to notice something, it's a deliberate effort to refrain from noticing it.
--Eviatar Zerubavel

Denial

The most dangerous thing in any economic crisis is denial.
--Simon Johnson

Quite Insane

Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music.
--Angela Monet

So Welcome

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.
--Anne Bradstreet

Real Good

Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.
--Simone Weil

Barely Sketch

What goes on inside is just too fast and huge and all interconnected for words to do more than barely sketch the outlines of at most one tiny little part of it at any given instant.
--David Foster Wallace

The Evolution

The evolution of man is the evolution of his consciousness, and "consciousness" cannot evolve unconsciously. The evolution of man is the evolution of his will, and "will" cannot evolve involuntarily. The evolution of man is the evolution of his power of doing, and "doing" cannot be the result of things which "happen."
--G. I. Gurdjieff

As If

Act as if the future of the universe depends on what you do, while laughing at yourself for thinking that your actions make any difference.
--Buddhist saying

The Egg

Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix.
--Christina Baldwin

Desire Changes

We do not succeed in changing things according to our desire, but gradually our desire changes.
--Marcel Proust

Clearly

We did not change as we grew older; we just became more clearly ourselves.
--Lynn Hall

Fill Forms

We fill pre-existing forms and when we fill them we change them and are changed.
--Frank Bidart

Often

To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.
--Winston Churchill

Actor Actress

An actor is something less than a man, while an actress is something more than a woman.
--Richard Burton

Learn How

To philosophize is to learn how to die.
--Cicero

To Be Tough

Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.
--Franklin Delano Roosevelt

The Word

Money is the word of the Devil.
--Martin Luther

Inhabit Time

Humans are amphibians--half spirit and half animal. As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time.
--C. S. Lewis

Solo

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

History Lesson

Insofar as there is a lesson in history, it's that human beings are not good with large sums of money, anything over $136.
--James Grant

Not

Not always so.
--Suzuki Roshi

Teach Yourself Stuff

That's what research is: You teach yourself stuff. The true, true discovery--you've got to just do it yourself. You can't read about it.
--Daniel Nocera

Where You Are

If you don't know where you are, you don't know who you are.
--Wallace Stegner

Love Many

The best way to know God is to love many things.
--Vincent van Gogh

The Feeling

Maybe they even indulged the feeling that they each must have a double in some parallel universe, happily living the life they'd imagined for themselves in their youth.
--Richard Russo

It's A Shame

It's a shame that the only thing a man can do for eight hours a day is work. He can't eat for eight hours; he can't drink for eight hours; he can't make love for eight hours. The only thing a man can do for eight hours is work.
--William Faulkner

Long and Short

The days are long, but the years are short.
--Gretchen Rubin

Blind, Pitiless Indifference

The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
--Charles Darwin

Good One

Whatever you are, be a good one.
--Abraham Lincoln

Adaptable

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.
--Charles Darwin

Recovery

Recovery keeps people from being junkies and keeps people out of mental hospitals and keeps them from drinking and assaulting each other. But it does not explain all our pains and all our madness. In fact, I think it is the modesty of its purposes that keeps the recovery movement from slipping into cultish insanity. We resist the seductive assumption that any one system might solve everything.
--Cary Tennis

Times of Change

In times of change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.
--Eric Hoffer

Exists In The Mind

Beauty in things exists in the mind which contemplates them.
--David Hume

Natural Speech

Symbols are nothing but the natural speech of drama.
--Tennessee Williams

To Be Lived

Life is not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be lived.
--William Butler Yeats

Keep Going

If you are going to go through hell, keep going.
--Winston Churchill

The Reverse

Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man. Socialism is the reverse.
--Soviet Union joke

Open Heart

Everybody's heart is open...when they have recently escaped from severe pain, or are recovering the blessing of health.
--Jane Austen

Proof

The proof of gold is fire.
--Benjamin Franklin

Last Word

Never say you know the last word about any human heart.
--William James

Let Go

If you're going to change the politics, you must change people's understandings of what it means to be human, to make them let go of the possessive individualism that has led to such disaster.
--Linda Hirshman

Naked

Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship naked personalities.
--C. S. Lewis

All Children

Rosa Parks sat so that Martin Luther King could walk. Martin Luther King walked so that Barack Obama could run. Barack Obama ran so that all children could fly.
--Various, combined

Not Give Them Up

Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake.
--Barack Obama (first inaugural address; January 20, 2009)

Support

In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory.
--Franklin Delano Roosevelt (first inaugural address; March 4, 1932)

The Arc Is Long

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
--Martin Luther King, Jr.

Not The End

This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
--Winston Churchill

Meaning of Life

The meaning of life is that it ends.
--Franz Kafka

Eternal Hanging

Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.
--William James

Love and Pity

Love and pity and wish well to every soul in the world.
--William Law

Suffer Less

I didn't become a Buddhist because I wanted to be a good meditator. I wanted to suffer less.
--Sylvia Boorstein