"One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us."
— Kurt Vonnegut

"With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy."
— Max Ehrmann (Desiderata: A Poem for a Way of Life)

"God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?"
— Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

"If the world were perfect, it wouldn't be. "
— Yogi Berra

"Knowin' nothin' in life but to be legit'
Don't quote me boy, cuz i ain't said shit..."
— Eazy E (Boy's-n-the-hood)

"If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!"
— Rudyard Kipling (If: A Father's Advice to His Son)

"Religion is the Opiate of the Masses."
— Karl Marx (Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right)

"Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit."
— Max Ehrmann (Desiderata: A Poem for a Way of Life)

"Were knowledge all, what were our need
To thrill and faint and sweetly bleed?"
— Christopher Brennan

"They called themselves the Munrungs. It meant The People, or The True Human Beings.
It's what most people call themselves, to begin with. And then one day the tribe meets some other People or, if it's not been a good day, The Enemy. If only they'd think up a name like Some More True Human Beings, it'd save a lot of trouble later on"
— Terry Pratchett (The Carpet People)

"[The decay of Logic results from an] untroubled assumption that the particular is real and the universal is not."
— C.S. Lewis

"When the voice of your friend or the page of your book sinks into democratic equality with the pattern of the wallpaper, the feel of your clothes, your memory of last night, and the noises from the road, you are falling asleep. The highly selective consciousness enjoyed by fully alert men, with all its builded sentiments and consecrated ideals, has as much to be called real as the drowsy chaos, and more."
— C.S. Lewis

"You can dance.
You can make me laugh.
You've got x-ray eyes.

You know how to sing.
You're a diplomat.
You've got it all.
Everybody loves you.

You can charm the birds out of the sky, But I, I've got
one thing.

You always know just what to say
And when to go,
But I've got one thing.

You can see in the dark,
But I've got one thing:
I loved you better.

Last night I woke up,
Saw this angel.
He flew in my window.
And he said,
"Girl, pretty proud of yourself, huh?" And I looked around and said,
"Who me?"
And he said, "The higher you fly, the faster you fall."

He said, "Send it up.
Watch it rise.
See it fall,
Gravity's rainbow.
Send it up.
Watch it rise.
See it fall,
Gravity's Angel.""
— Laurie Anderson

"There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths. Almost inevitably some part of him is aware that they are myths and that he believes them only because they are comforting. But he dare not face this thought! Moreover, since he is aware, however dimly, that his opinions are not rational, he becomes furious when they are disputed."
— Bertrand Russell (Human Society in Ethics and Politics)

"Lead the people with administrative injunctions and put them in their place with penal law, and they will avoid punishments but will be without a sense of shame. Lead them with excellence and put them in their place through roles and ritual practices, and in addition to developing a sense of shame, they will order themselves harmoniously"
— Confucius (The Analects)

"I, a universe of atoms, an atom in the universe."
— Richard P. Feynman

"We all can be only who we are, no more, no less."
— Terry Goodkind (Stone of Tears)

"I have a self-made quote: Celebrate diversity, practice acceptance and may we all choose peaceful options to conflict."
— Donzella Michele Malone

"But the only measure that he knows is desire desire for power and so he judges all hearts. Into his heart the thought will not enter that any will refuse it that having the Ring we may seek to destroy it. If we seek this we shall put him out of reckoning."
— J.R.R. Tolkien (The Fellowship of the Ring)

"盛者必衰 The prosperous must decay"
— Heike Monogatari

"Where men can't live gods fare no better."
— Cormac McCarthy (The Road)

"Apprentices Needed, Not Disciples
For many, the knowledge of a Jesus, a Lao-tzu, a Buddha, or a Gandhi is complete and unassailable. But we do them and their vision a disservice when we follow them rather than using what they have taught to build upon as we strive toward our goal of a better society."
— William S. Coperthwaite (A Handmade Life)

"Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies within us while we live."
— Norman Cousins

"Sorry folks, but my husband Rick is my favorite poet/quotes - here are two:

Kindness is the ripple in the ocean that causes the tidal waves of change.

Personal growth started when I stepped out of the sandbox, and personal growth continues every time I resist stepping back in."
— Rick Garlock

"It is always easier to take the words of a Jesus, a Gandhi, a Marx, or a Confucius as constituting Holy Writ. This involves less reading, less study, less thought, less conflict, and less independent searching, but it also means less growth toward maturity."
— William S. Coperthwaite (A Handmade Life)

"People are no damn good"
— William Steig (The Lonely Ones)

"People are not measured by their accomplishments, but by how many times they screw up trying to achieve them."
— James McGregor

"Alan Grant: "There are... far too many words written. Millions and millions of them pouring from the presses every minute. It's a horrible thought."

The Midget (his nurse): "You sound constipated."
"
— Josephine Tey, "The Daughter of Time"

"They say that childhood forms us, that those early influences are the key to everything. Is the peace of the soul so easily won? Simply the inevitable result of a happy childhood. What makes childhood happy? Parental harmony? Good health? Security? Might not a happy childhood be the worst possible preparation for life? Like leading a lamb to the slaughter."
— Josephine Hart (Damage)

"EKDIN JONMER PROYOJONEY CHHOTO HOECHHILAM, EKHON MRITTUR PROYOJONE BORO HOCHCHHI.
[[ I was made small for the sake of my birth, now growing for the sake of my death ]]"
— Nirmolendu Goon

""Where is that man who has forgotten words that I may have a word with him?""
— Chuang Tsu

"Le monde ne vaut que par les ultras et ne dure que par les modérés."
— Valéry

"… in these new days and in these new pages a philosophical tradition of the spontaneity of speculation kind has been rekindled on the sacred isle of Éire, regardless of its creative custodian never having been taught how to freely speculate, how to profoundly question, and how to playfully define.

Spontaneity of speculation being synonymous with the philosophical-poetic, the philosophical-poetic with the rural philosopher-poet, and by roundelay the rural philosopher-poet thee with the spontaneity of speculation be.

And by the way of the rural what may we say?
A philosopher-poet of illimitable space we say.

Iohannes Scottus Ériugena the metaphor of old salutes you; salutes your lyrical ear and your skilful strumming of the rippling harp.

(Source: Hearing in the Write, Canto 19, Ivy-muffled)"
— Richard McSweeney (Hearing in the Write)

"Between a woman's 'yes' an d a woman's 'no, I would not venture to stick a pin"
— Cervantes

"When we merely follow another, we take a potentially creative mind out of service-our own. "
— William S. Coperthwaite (A Handmade Life)

"It is by no means certain that we advance our philosophical quest by reading Plato or Aristotle. It may increase our knowledge of history but not of the world."
— Jostein Gaarder (Sophie's World)

"Good apprentices know that they are in the process of becoming masters and that as responsible artisans they must seek to improve upon the knowledge entrusted to them and go further."
— William S. Coperthwaite (A Handmade Life)

"The world's a headmaster who works on your faults. I don't mean in a mystical or Jesus way. More how you'll keep tripping over a hidden step, over and over, till you finally understand: Watch out for that step! Everything that's wrong with us, if we're too selfish or too Yessir, Nosir, Three bags full sir or too anything, that's a hidden step. Either you suffer the consequences of not noticing your fault forever or, one day, you do notice it, and fix it. Joke is, once you get it into your brain about that hidden step and think, Hey, life isn't such a shithouse after all again, then BUMP! Down you go, a whole new flight of hidden steps.
There are always more."
— David Mitchell

"The comfort of the rich rests upon an abundance of the poor."
— Voltaire

"If you have the power to change the world for the better, you should do it. That's why people who do nothing are idiots, but idiots who do nothing are life-savers."
— James McGregor

"The need to be right all the time is the biggest bar to new ideas. It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong than to be always right by having no ideas at all. "
— Edward De Bono