"The glory of great men should always be measured by the means they have used to acquire it."

 

-- Francois de La Rochefoucauld

"Stoop and you'll be stepped on; stand tall and you'll be shot at."  

-- Carlos A. Urbizo

“The miracles of Jesus were the ordinary works of his Father, wrought small and swift that we might take them in.”

-- George MacDonald

"Ye know, doan't ye, what it feels like when ye burn yer hand . . wi' a match when ye're lightin' one of they godless cigarettes? Aye. It stings wi' a fearful pain, doan't it? And ye run away to clap a bit o' butter on it . . . Ah but there'll be no butter in hell!"

-- Amos Starkadder, in the novel Cold Comfort Farm (Stella Gibbons, author)

"Character is what you have left when you've lost everything you can lose."  

 

-- Evan Esar

"If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee." 

 

-- Abraham Lincoln

“Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one--the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts...”

-- C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

"My pessimism extends to the point of even suspecting the sincerity of the pessimists." 

 

-- Jean Rostand

"The graveyards are full of indispensable men." 

-- Charles de Gaulle

"What is a poet? An unhappy person who conceals profound anguish in his heart but whose lips are so formed that as sighs and cries pass over them they sound like beautiful music."

-- Soren Kierkegaard

"He observed that the people drinking alcohol would just get drunk and sing and be jolly, whereas the people drinking coffee remained sober and plotted against the government."

-- Stewart Allen

"Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom."

-- Soren Kierkegaard

"Papa used to tell me as a little child,
the only reason we're here is to make 'em smile." 

-- Wendy Waldman, Vaudeville Man

“The eternal silence of these infinite spaces frightens me.” 

-- Blaise Pascal

"When I was young, I believed in three things: Marxism, the redemptive power of cinema, and dynamite. Now I just believe in dynamite."

-- Sergio Leone, Italian film director

"A principle isn't a principle until it costs you something."

-- Bill Bernbach

"In this very real world, good doesn't drive out evil. Evil doesn't drive out good. But the energetic displaces the passive."

-- Bill Bernbach

"Disbelief in magic can force a poor soul into believing in government and business."

 

-- Tom Robbins

"Herr, lehre uns Bedenken, dass wir alle einmal sterben müssen, auf das wir im Leben klug werden."

"Lord, teach us to understand we all have to die sometime, that we become wiser in our lives." 

-- Psalm 90:12

"Another unsettling element in modern art is that common symptom of immaturity, the dread of doing what has been done before."  

-- Edith Wharton