Josh Billings

"Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute."

- Josh Billings, author

Kate York

"You can climb a mountain and reach the top alone,

You can build a mansion and never have a home,

You can keep anything you want and still have nothing to show 
Until you give it away.
That's the thing about love,
You've gotta give it away,
You can't get it back without giving it away."

- Kate York, 'Give It Away'

George Jean Nathan

"Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles."

- George Jean Nathan, critic and editor

Euripides

"Waste not fresh tears over old griefs."

- Euripides, ancient Greek playwright

Fleetwood Mac

"Thunder only happens when it's raining."

- Fleetwood Mac, 'Dreams'

Epictetus

"If you do not wish to be prone to anger, do not feed the habit; give it nothing which may tend to its increase."

- Epictetus, philosopher

Alfred North Whitehead

"There are no whole truths; all truths are half- truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that plays the devil."

- Alfred North Whitehead, mathematician and philosopher

George Santayana

"Music is essentially useless, as life is: but both have an ideal extension which lends utility to its conditions."

- George Santayana, philosopher, poet and author

Heraclitus

"Nothing endures but change."

- Heraclitus, ancient Greek philosopher

Andy Warhol

"Art is anything you can get away with."

- Andy Warhol, artist

Sue Monk Kidd

"Danger, I realised, was a thing you got used to."

- 'The Secret Life of Bees' by Sue Monk Kidd

Ovid

"Chance is always powerful. Let your hook be always cast; in the pool where you least expect it, there will be a fish."

- Ovid, ancient Roman poet

Woody Allen

"Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable."

- Woody Allen, filmmaker, actor, comedian

Herbert Bayard Swope

"I can't give you a sure-fire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time."

- Herbery Bayard Swope, editor and journalist

Paul Valery

"Books have the same enemies as people: fire, humidity, animals, weather, and their own content."

- Paul Valery, poet, philosopher, author

Alan Watts

"Never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command."

- Alan Watts, philosopher, author, orator

Kate York

"It takes a crash to need a rescue."

- Kate York, 'For You'

James Oppenheim

"The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet."

- James Oppenheim, author, poet, editor

Pierre Beaumarchais

"It is not necessary to understand things in order to argue about them."

- Pierre Beaumarchais, playwright

Bertrand Russell

"Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons."

- Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, historian

George Bernard Shaw

"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it."

- George Bernard Shaw, critic and playwright

Mahatma Gandhi

"The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong."

- Mahatma Gandhi, activist, political and spiritual leader

Sarah Bernhardt

"Life engenders life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich."

- Sarah Bernhardt, actress

George Eliot

"I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music."

- George Eliot, author

Sue Monk Kidd

"There is nothing perfect... There is only life."

- 'The Secret Life of Bees' by Sue Monk Kidd

Helen Keller

"Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose."

- Helen Keller, author and activist

Ambrose Bierce

"Optimist, n. A proponent of the doctrine that black is white."

- "The Devil's Dictionary" by Ambrose Bierce, journalist, author and satirist

Bob Hope

"A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don't need it."

- Bob Hope, comedian and actor

Euripides

"Many matters the gods bring to surprising ends.
The things we thought would happen do not happen;
The unexpected God makes possible."

- 'Medea' by Euripides

Henry David Thoreau

"Things do not change; we change."

- Henry David Thoreau, author, poet, developmental critic

Corita Kent

"Love the moment, and the energy of that moment will spread beyond all boundaries."

- Corita Kent, artist and teacher