If you ask me which is the real hereditary sin of human nature, do you imagine I shall answer pride, or luxury, or ambition, or egotism? No; I shall answer indolence. Who conquers indolence will conquer all the rest. Indeed, all good principles must stagnate without mental activity.
—Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann (Public Domain)
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It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards. — Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland (Image licensed by Penn Wealth) While we don’t know for certain what the future will bring, some...
He that lives upon hope will die fasting. — Benjamin Franklin (1778, by Joseph Duplessis; Public Domain)
Times of general calamity and confusion have ever been productive of the greatest minds. The purest ore is produced from the hottest furnace, and the brightest thunderbolt is elicited from the...
Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars. — Khalil Gibran (Image licensed by Penn Wealth)
Necessity of action takes away the fear of the act, and makes bold resolution the favorite of fortune. — Francis Quarles, 17th century English poet (Image licensed by Penn Wealth)
From the moment I picked your book up until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Someday I intend on reading it. — Groucho Marx (by ABC Photo; Public Domain)
No matter our current situation or perceived shortcomings, we alone determine the amount of baggage we carry through life, and the extent to which it weighs us down. —Mike Hazell (Image licensed...
Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose—a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye. — Mary Shelley (Image 1818 frontispiece to frankenstein; licensed by...
I have made a ceaseless effort not to ridicule, not to bewail, not to scorn human actions, but to understand them. — Baruch Spinoza (1665, by anonymous; Public Domain)
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them. — Henry David Thoreau (Image licensed by Penn Wealth)
Well, I don’t know as I want a lawyer to tell me what I cannot do. I hire him to tell me how to do what I want to do. — John Pierpont Morgan (Image licensed by Penn Wealth)
It is a mortifying reflection for a man to consider what he has done, compared to what he might have done. — Samuel Johnson (by Joshua Reynolds, Public Domain)
We must not always talk in the market-place of what happens to us in the forest. — Nathaniel Hawthorne (1862, Image licensed by Penn Wealth) An essential personal attribute—made exceedingly...
Irresolution on the schemes of life which offer themselves to our choice, and inconstancy in pursuing them, are the greatest causes of all our unhappiness. — Joseph Addison (Image licensed by Penn...
We ought not to look back, unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors and for the purpose of profiting by dear bought experience. — George Washington (Image licensed by Penn Wealth)...
He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas better than any man I ever met. — Abraham Lincoln (November 1863, by Alexander Gardner; Public Domain)
“The thoughts that come often unsought, and, as it were, drop into the mind, are commonly the most valuable of any we have, and therefore should be secured, because they seldom return again.”...
Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith. We should live for the future, and yet should find our life in the fidelities of the...
Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts. — Marcus Aurelius (Image licensed by Penn Wealth)
Since you cannot do good to all, you are to pay special attention to those who, by the accidents of time, or place, or circumstances, are brought into closer connection with you. — Saint...
