The body is a house of many windows: there we all sit, showing ourselves and crying on the passers-by to come and love us. ~Robert Louis Stevenson

I remembered a story of how Bach was approached by a young admirer one day and asked, "But Papa Bach, how do you manage to think of all these new tunes?" "My dear fellow," Bach is said to have answered, according to my version, "I have no need to think of them. I have the greatest difficulty not to step on them when I get out of bed in the morning and start moving around my room." ~Laurens Van der Post

I'm afraid that if you look at a thing long enough, it loses all of its meaning. ~Andy Warhol

Nothing so much prevents our being natural as the desire to seem so. ~François, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Maxims, 1678

It wasn't raining when Noah built the ark. ~Howard Ruff, How to Prosper in the Coming Bad Years, 1979

He that hath the name to be an early riser may sleep till noon. ~James Howell, Proverbs, 1659

A variety of nothing is superior to a monotony of something. ~Johann Paul Friedrich Richter

You can never plan the future by the past. ~Edmund Burke, "Letter to a Member of the National Assembly"

Possessions are usually diminished by possession. ~Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Gay Science

After all, the main question will be the opener: "Hello, are you there?" If the reply should turn out to be "Yes, hello," we might want to stop there and think about that, for quite a long time. ~Lewis Thomas, Lives of a Cell, 1974

Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust - we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper. ~Albert Einstein, in The Saturday Evening Post, 26 October 1929

Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous. ~Albert Einstein

We are the products of editing, rather than authorship. ~George Wald, "The Origin of Optical Activity," Annals of the New York Academy of Science, 1975

All our scientific and philosophic ideals are altars to unknown gods. ~William James, The Dilemma of Determinism, 1884

House, n. A hollow edifice erected for the habitation of man, rat, mouse, beetle, cockroach, fly, mosquito, flea, bacillus, and microbe. ~Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary

I can live with doubt and uncertainty. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. ~Richard P. Feynman

[M]y own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. ~J.B.S. Haldane, Possible Worlds and Other Papers, 1927

I simply believe that some part of the human Self or Soul is not subject to the laws of space and time. ~Carl Jung

The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper. ~Eden Phillpotts, A Shadow Passes

The best things said come last. People will talk for hours saying nothing much and then linger at the door with words that come with a rush from the heart. ~Alan Alda

If ifs were gifts, every day would be Christmas. ~Charles Barkley

That guy has muscles in places most people don't have places. ~Bucky Waters, on Tom Hammonds

In small proportions we just beauties see,
And in short measures life may perfect be.
~Ben Jonson, To the Immortal Memory and Friendship of that Noble Pair, Sir Lucius Cary and Sir H. Morison, 1640

Perfect behavior is born of complete indifference. ~Cesare Pavese, This Business of Living: Diaries

Our virtues and vices couple with one another, and get children that resemble both their parents. ~George Savile, Marquess de Halifax, Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections

The most decisive actions of our life... are most often unconsidered actions. ~André Gide, The Counterfeiters, 1926

It is not impossibilities which fill us with the deepest despair, but possibilities which we have failed to realize. ~Robert Mallett, Apostilles, 1972

In skating over thin ice, our safety is in our speed. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every truth passes through three stages before it is recognized. In the first, it is ridiculed, in the second it is opposed, in the third it is regarded as self-evident. ~Arthur Schopenhauer

Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there. ~Eric Hoffer, Passionate State of Mind, 1955

It's pretty hard to be efficient without being obnoxious. ~Kin Hubbard

Any philosophy that can be put in a nutshell belongs there. ~Branch Rickey

Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That signifies nothing. For us believing physicists the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion. ~Albert Einstein

God made everything out of nothing. But the nothingness shows through. ~Paul Valéry, Mauvaises pensées et autres, 1942

It is better to waste one's youth than to do nothing with it at all. ~Georges Courteline, La philosophie de Georges Courteline, 1917

It is impossible to win gracefully at chess. No man has yet said "Mate!" in a voice which failed to sound to his opponent bitter, boastful and malicious. ~A.A. Milne, Not That It Matters, 1919

Doubt is not a pleasant state of mind, but certainty is absurd. ~Voltaire, 1767

We're all hookers. What matters is dignity. ~Mike Farren

We dance round in a ring and suppose,
But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.
~Robert Frost, In the Clearing, 1962

The ideas I stand for are not mine. I borrowed them from Socrates. I swiped them from Chesterfield. I stole them from Jesus. And I put them in a book. If you don't like their rules, whose would you use? ~Dale Carnegie

Passion is universal humanity. Without it religion, history, romance and art would be useless. ~Honoré de Balzac

Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies. ~Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human, 1878

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
~Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken," 1916

No matter what happens... somebody will find a way to take it too seriously. ~Dave Barry, "Things That It Took Me 50 Years to Learn"

Architecture begins where engineering ends. ~Walter Gropius

I've got dreams in hidden places and extra smiles for when I'm blue. ~Author Unknown

I believe in rules. Sure I do. If there weren't any rules, how could you break them? ~Leo Durocher

You never know till you try to reach them how accessible men are; but you must approach each man by the right door. ~Henry Ward Beecher, Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit, 1887

Keep a diary and one day it'll keep you. ~Mae West

He is a true fugitive who flies from reason. ~Marcus Aurelius

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon...
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow
...if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes...
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.
~Oriah Mountain Dreamer, from "The Invitation" (read the rest of the poem on her homepage

A wise man is not governed by others, nor does he try to govern them; he prefers that reason alone prevail. ~La Bruyère, Characters, 1688

The last function of reason is to recognize that there are an infinity of things which surpass it. ~Blaise Pascal, Pensées, 1670

All man's troubles come from not knowing how to sit still in one room. ~Blaise Pascal, Pensées, 1670

Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. ~Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911

All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

And thus I clothe my naked villainy
With odd old ends stolen forth of Holy Writ
And seem a saint when most I play the devil.
~William Shakespeare, Richard III, 1593

From the satisfaction of desire there may arise, accompanying joy and as it were sheltering behind it, something not unlike despair. ~André Gide, The Counterfeiters, 1925

A scholar who loves comfort is not fit to be called a scholar. ~Confucius, Analects

There is nothing noble about being superior to some other person. The true nobility is in being superior to your previous self. ~Hindustani Proverb

Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch, nay, you may kick it all about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at evening. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Professor at the Breakfast Table

To live is in itself a value judgment. To breathe is to judge. ~Albert Camus, The Rebel, 1951

Virtue is an angel, but she is a blind one, and must ask Knowledge to show her the pathway that leads to her goal. ~Horace Mann, "Thoughts for a Young Man," 1859

Virtue is praised, but hated. People run from it, for it is ice-cold and in this world you have to keep your feet warm. ~Denis Diderot, Rameau's Nephew, 1762

No man sees far; the most see no farther than their noses. ~Thomas Carlyle, "Count Cagliostro," 1833

Revolutions are not made: they come. A revolution is as natural as an oak tree. It comes out of the past; its foundations are laid far back. ~Wendell Phillips, Address, Anti-Slavery Society, 1852

The reward of a thing well done is to have done it. ~Emerson, Essays: Second Series, 1844

From a worldly point of view there is no mistake so great as that of being always right. ~Samuel Butler, Note-Books, 1912

I say me, knowing all the while it's not me. ~Samuel Beckett, The Unnamable, 1953

What other dungeon is so dark as one's own heart! What jailer so inexorable as one's self. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of Seven Gables, 1822

He who is allowed to do as he likes will soon run his head into a brick wall out of sheer frustration. ~Robert Musil, The Man without Qualities, 1930

Some minds seem almost to create themselves, springing up under every disadvantage and working their solitary but irresistible way through a thousand obstacles. ~Washington Irving, The Sketch Book, 1820

A play should give you something to think about. When I see a play and understand it the first time, then I know it can't be much good. ~T.S. Eliot, New York Post, 22 September 1963

Theory helps us bear our ignorance of facts. ~George Santayana, The Sense of Beauty, 1896

It is better to emit a scream in the shape of a theory than to be entirely insensible to the jars and incongruities of life and take everything as it comes in a forlorn stupidity. ~Robert Louis Stevenson, "Crabbed Age and Youth," Virginibus Puerisque, 1881

Thoughts, like fleas, jump from man to man. But they don't bite everybody. ~Stanislaw Lec, Unkempt Thoughts, 1962

The thoughts that come often unsought, and, as it were, drop into the mind, are commonly the most valuable of any we have. ~John Locke, 16 May 1699

True generosity consists precisely in fighting to destroy the causes which nourish false charity. ~Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 1970

Biographies are but the clothes and buttons of the man - the biography of the man himself cannot be written. ~Mark Twain, Autobiography, 1924

There is no such thing as a moral or immoral book; books are well written or badly written. ~Oscar Wilde, Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891

A "fraternity" is the antithesis of fraternity. The first... is predicated on the idea of exclusion; the second (that is, the abstract thing) is based on a feeling of total equality. ~E.B. White, One Man's Meat, 1944

While there is a lower class I am in it, while there is a criminal element I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. ~Eugene V. Debs, Cleveland, 1917

We cannot bear to regard ourselves simply as playthings of blind chance; we cannot admit to feeling ourselves abandoned. ~Ugo Betti, Struggle till Dawn, 1949

People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character. ~Emerson, The Conduct of Life, 1860

We confess to little faults only to persuade ourselves that we have no great ones. ~François, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Maxims, 1665

Men never do evil so thoroughly and cheerfully as when they do it for conscience sake. ~Blaise Pascal, Pensées, 1670

The study of crime begins with the knowledge of oneself. ~Henry Miller, The Air-Conditioned Nightmare, 1945

We learn geology the morning after the earthquake. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Conduct of Life, 1860

Let's not forget that the little emotions are the great captains of our lives and we obey them without realizing it. ~Vincent Van Gogh, 1889

The sinning is the best part of repentance. ~Arab Proverb

Most people die at the last minute; others twenty years beforehand, some even earlier. They are the wretched of the earth. ~Louis Céline, Voyage au bout du monde, 1932

Most men are more capable of great actions than of good ones. ~Montesquieu, Variètès

Some defeats [are] more triumphant than victories. ~Montaigne, Essays, 1588

The passion to get ahead is sometimes born of the fear lest we be left behind. ~Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind, 1954

In every age "the good old days" were a myth. No one ever thought they were good at the time. For every age has consisted of crises that seemed intolerable to the people who lived through them. ~Brooks Atkinson, Once Around the Sun, 1951

They... who await
No gifts from Chance, have conquered Fate.
~Matthew Arnold, "Resignation," 1849

Misfortunes one can endure - they come from outside, they are accidents. But to suffer for one's own faults - ah! there is the sting of life. ~Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892

It takes more strength of character to withstand good fortune than bad. ~La Rochefoucauld, Reflections, 1665

The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously. ~Hubert Humphrey, speech, Madison, Wisconsin, 23 August 1965

The future is called "perhaps," which is the only possible thing to call the future. ~Tennessee Williams, Orpheus Descending, 1957

I believe the future is only the past again, entered through another gate. ~Arthur Wing Pinero, The Second Mrs. Tanqueray, 1893

Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same. ~G.B. Shaw, "Maxims for Revolutionists," 1898

No man is truly great who is great only in his own lifetime. The test of greatness is the page of history. ~William Hazlitt, Table Talk, 1822

I think the enemy is here before us.... I think the enemy is simple selfishness and compulsive greed.... I think he stole our earth from us, destroyed our wealth, and ravaged and despoiled our land. ~Thomas Wolfe, You Can't Go Home Again, 1949

There is a sort of man who pays no attention to his good actions, but is tormented by his bad ones. This is the type that most often writes about himself. ~W. Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up, 1938

I find my joy of living in the fierce and ruthless battles of life, and my pleasure comes from learning something. ~Auguste Strindberg, Miss Julie, 1888

Every idea I get I have to deny, that's my way of testing it. ~Alain, Histoire de mes pensées

Others go to bed with their mistresses; I with my ideas. ~José Marti, letter, 1890

Men are idolaters and want something to look at and kiss and hug, or throw themselves down before; they always did, they always will; and if you don't make it out of wood, you must make it out of words. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Poet at the Breakfast Table, 1872

Man has always sacrificed truth to his vanity, comfort and advantage. He lives... by make-believe. ~W. Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up, 1938

We look for some reward of our endeavours and are disappointed; not success, not happiness, not even peace of conscience, crowns our ineffectual efforts to do well. ~Robert Louis Stevenson, "Pulvis et umbra," 1888

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself.
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
~Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 1892

It is human nature to stand in the middle of a thing. ~Mariane Moore, "A Grave," Collected Poems, 1951

"Independence"... [is] middle-class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth. ~G.B. Shaw, Pygmalion, 1912

The whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly to one single individual - namely to You. ~Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, 1892

To have a grievance is to have a purpose in life. ~Alan Coren, The Sanity Inspector, 1974

People wish to be settled: only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, 1841

Say "Yes" to the seedlings and a giant forest cleaves the sky. Say "Yes" to the universe and the planets become your neighbors. Say "Yes" to dreams of love and freedom. It is the password to utopia. ~Brooks Atkinson, Once Around the Sun, 1951