“The world, unfortunately, rarely matches our hopes and consistently refuses to behave in a reasonable manner.”

Stephen Jay Gould, American paleontologist,
evolutionary biologist, and historian of science

“We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”

E.M. Forster,writer

“I have been complimented myself a great many times, and they always embarrass me — I always feel that they have not said enough.”

– Mark Twain, humorist and writer

“Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd US president

“If men are to be precluded from offering their sentiments … the freedom of speech may be taken away, and dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”

George Washington, first US president

“There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse; as I have found in traveling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift one’s position, and be bruised in a new place.”

-Washington Irving, Writer

“The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize.”

Robert Hughes, art critic.

“Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.”

Will Rogers, 20th century humorist.

“Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”

Malachy McCourt, Irish-American actor, writer and politician

“It is utterly false and cruelly arbitrary to put all the play and learning into childhood, all the work into middle age, and all the regrets into old age.”

Margaret Mead, American anthropologist