If you would persuade, you must appeal to interest rather than intellect. ~~ Benjamin Franklin
When I was fifteen I was only interested in studying; when I was thirty I began my life; at forty I was self-assured; at fifty I understood my place in the vast scheme of things; at sixty I learned to give up arguing; and now at seventy I can do whatever I like without disrupting my life. ~~ Confucius
A trip to nostalgia now and then is good for the spirit, as long as you don't set up housekeeping. ~~ Dan Bartolovic
Machines seem to sense that I am afraid of them. It makes them hostile. ~~ Sharyn McCrumb [The Windsor Knot]
One of the forms of psychological heroism is the willingness to tolerate anxiety and uncertainty in the pursuit of our values -- whether these values be work goals, the love of another human being, the raising of a family or personal growth. ~~ Samuel Branden
Our lives are written in disappearing ink. ~~ Michelle Cliff
When humor goes, there goes civilization. ~~ Erma Bombeck
[On the woman who raised him after his mother died:] I remember a lot of talk and a lot of laughter. I must have talked a great deal because Martha used to say again and again, "You remember you said this, you said that…" She remembered everything I said, and all my life I've had the feeling that what I think and what I say are worth remembering. She gave me that. ~~ Eric Hoffer
Too many people miss the silver lining because they're expecting gold. ~~ Maurice Setter
What a blessing it would be if we could open and shut our ears as easily as we do our eyes. ~~ Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
The best kind of conversation is that which may be called "thinking aloud." ~~ William Hazlitt
The
face I see is furrowed now.
In fact, it's rather rutty.
Revlon and Clinique just won't do.
I need a can of putty. ~~ Jane Thomas Noland
I appreciate teamwork. I don't like a one-man show. I'm an interpreter, a sort of tool--I don't mean an object. The right tool is quite essential. Try pounding a nail in with a screwdriver. ~~ Gerard Depardieu
Generally, or at least very often, people with a deep interest in animals are the best people around. ~~ Roger Caras
My life has a superb cast, but I can't figure out the plot. ~~ Ashleigh Brilliant
Very powerful [people] have had what I call conscious deaths. Their egos have died a couple of times. Once you've had that, no one can hurt you any more. No one can take anything away from you. You just gain. That kind of understanding is REALLY power. ~~ Rae Dawn Chong
If you want to stand out, don't be different, be outstanding. ~~ Meredith West
Love is the extremely difficult realization that something other than oneself is real. Love, and so art and morals, is the discovery of reality. ~~ Iris Murdoch
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great. ~~ Mark Twain
There is a place where we are always alone with our own mortality, where we must simply have something greater than ourselves to hold onto--God or history or politics or literature or a belief in the healing power of love, or even righteous anger… A reason to believe, a way to take the world by the throat and insist that there is more to this life than we have ever imagined. ~~ Dorothy Allison
The unfortunate thing about this world is that good habits are so much easier to give up than bad ones. ~~ Somerset Maugham
If you're going to get obsessive, be obsessed with your health, living long and having a career you love. When I'm doing that, I feel my best, no matter how much I weigh. ~~ Betty Carmellini
You have to take it as it happens, but you should try to make it happen the way you want it to. ~~Old German proverb
The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time. ~~ Abraham Lincoln
I don't pretend we have all the answers. But the questions are certainly worth thinking about. ~~ Arthur C. Clarke
Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. ~~ Charles Dickens
When you finally go back to your old home, you find it wasn't the old home you missed but your childhood. ~~ Sam Ewing
Life has a practice of living you if you don't live it. ~~ Philip Larkin
If this was adulthood, the only improvement she could detect in her situation was that now she could eat dessert without eating her vegetables. ~~ Lisa Alther
First in importance in the American scene has been the inspiring proof of the great qualities of our fighting men. They have demonstrated these qualities in adversity as well as in victory. As long as our flag flies over this Capitol, Americans will honor the soldiers, sailors, and marines who fought our first battles of this war against overwhelming odds--the heroes, living and dead, of Wake and Bataan and Guadalcanal, of the Java Sea and Midway and the North Atlantic convoys. Their unconquerable spirit will live forever. ~~ Franklin D. Roosevelt
The old days were the old days. And they were great days. But now is now. ~~ Don Rickles