• G K Chesterton

    I can keep ten poems and twenty theories in my head at once but I can only think of one practical thing at a time.

  • Charles Du Bos

    The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.

  • Miles Kington

    Knowledge consists of knowing that a tomato is a fruit, and wisdom consists of not putting it in a fruit salad.

  • E E Cummings

    love is more thicker than forget
    more thinner than recall
    more seldom than a wave is wet
    more frequent than to fail

    it is most mad and moonly
    and less it shall unbe
    than all the sea which only
    is deeper than the sea

    love is less always than to win
    less never than alive
    less bigger than the least begin
    less littler than forgive

    it is most sane and sunly
    and more it cannot die
    than all the sky which only
    is higher than the sky

  • Evan Esar

    You can’t do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth.

  • Benjamin Franklin

    They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

  • Edna St. Vincent Millay

    Inland

    People that build their houses inland,
    People that buy a plot of ground
    Shaped like a house, and build a house there,
    Far from the sea-board, far from the sound

    Of water sucking the hollow ledges,
    Tons of water striking the shore —
    What do they long for, as I long for
    One salt smell of the sea once more?

    People the waves have not awakened,
    Spanking the boats at the harbor’s head,
    What do they long for, as I long for, —
    Starting up in my inland bed,

    Beating the narrow walls, and finding
    Neither a window nor a door,
    Screaming to God for death by drowning —
    One salt taste of the sea once more?

  • Arthur C. Clarke

    The best measure of a man’s honesty isn’t his income tax return. It’s the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.

  • George Herbert

    Go not for every grief to the physician, nor for every quarrel to the lawyer, nor for every thirst to the pot.

  • Ogden Nash

    The Ant

    The ant has made himself illustrious
    Through constant industry industrious.
    So what?
    Would you be calm and placid
    If you were full of formic acid?

  • E E Cummings

    maggie and milly and molly and may
    went down to the beach (to play one day)

    and maggie discovered a shell that sang
    so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles, and

    milly befriended a stranded star
    whose rays five languid fingers were;

    and molly was chased by a horrible thing
    which raced sideways while blowing bubbles; and

    may came home with a smooth round stone
    as small as a world and as large as alone.

    For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
    it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

  • Isaac Newton

    If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention, than to any other talent.

  • Albert Einstein

    Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.

  • William Shakespeare

    Winter

    When icicles hang by the wall
    And Dick the shepherd blows his nail
    And Tom bears logs into the hall,
    And milk comes frozen home in pail,
    When Blood is nipped and ways be foul,
    Then nightly sings the staring owl,
    Tu-who;
    Tu-whit, tu-who: a merry note,
    While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

    When all aloud the wind doth blow,
    And coughing drowns the parson’s saw,
    And birds sit brooding in the snow,
    And Marian’s nose looks red and raw
    When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
    Then nightly sings the staring owl,
    Tu-who;
    Tu-whit, tu-who: a merry note,
    While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

  • Elbert Hubble

    A retentive memory may be a good thing, but the ability to forget is the true token of greatness.

  • Ralph Waldo Emerson

    Don’t be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.