"The possession of unlimited power will make a despot of almost any man. There is a 
possible Nero in the gentlest human creature that walks."

Thomas Bailey Aldrich (1836-1907) Source: Ponkapog Papers, 1903
"One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea." 

Walter Bagehot
"It is not what people eat, but what they digest, that makes them strong. It is not what 
they gain, but what they save, that makes them rich. It is not what they read, but what 
they remember, that makes them learned."

Henry Ward Beecher
"How far you go in life depends on you being tender with the young, compassionate with 
the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because
someday in life you will have been all of these." 

George Washington Carver
"We are all as God made us and frequently much worse."

Miguel de Cervantes, (1547-1616)

"Carlyle said that men were mostly fools. Christianity, with a surer and more reverent realism, says that they are all fools. This doctrine is sometimes called the doctrine of original sin. It may also be described as the doctrine of the equality of men. But the essential point of it is merely this, that whatever primary and far-reaching moral dangers affect any man, affect all men. All men can be criminals, if tempted; all men can be heroes, if inspired. And this doctrine does away altogether with Carlyle's pathetic belief (or any one else's pathetic belief) in 'the wise few.'"

G.K. Chesterton

"In truth, there are only two kinds of people; those who accept dogma and know it, and those who accept dogma and don't know it."

G.K. Chesterton

"We forge the chains we wear in life."

Charles Dickens (1812-1870)

"A man that would expect to train lobsters to fly in a year is called a lunatic; but a man that thinks men can be turned into angels by an election is a reformer and remains at large."

Finley Peter Dunne

"The real problem is in the hearts and minds of men. It is not a problem of physics but of ethics. It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil from the spirit of man."

Albert Einstein

"Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind."

Albert Einstein
"The determining factor of my existence is no longer my past. It is Christ's past."

Sinclair Ferguson

"Life's tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late."

Benjamin Franklin

"Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time; for that's the stuff life is made of."

Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) Poor Richard's Almanac [1746]

"The funny thing about human beings is that we tend to respect the intelligence of, and 
eventually to like, those who listen attentively to our ideas even if they continue to 
disagree with us."

S. I. Hayakawa, Educator and politician

"Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are, and what they ought to be."

William Hazlitt

"Every man is his own ancestor, and every man is his own heir. He devises his own future and he inherits his own past."

Frederick Henry Hedge, (1805-1890) Cleric and educator
"If merely 'feeling good' could decide, drunkenness would be the supremely valid human experience."

William James 

"A person in good health in a Western liberal democracy is, in terms of his objective 
circumstances, one of the most fortunate human beings ever to have walked the surface of 
the earth."

John Lanchester, "Pursuing happiness," The New Yorker, February 27, 2006
"No day should be lived unless it was begun with a prayer of thankfulness and an intercession for guidance."

Robert E. Lee

"Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable."

C.S. Lewis

"Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person's ultimate good as far as it can be obtained."

C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

"...(T)he great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearance, as though they were realities and are often more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are."

Niccolo Machiavelli

"On one issue at least, men and women agree; they both distrust women."

H.L. Mencken

"People do not believe lies because they have to, but because they want to."

Malcolm Muggeridge

"Original sin is that thing about man which makes him capable of conceiving of his own perfection and incapable of achieving it."

Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971)

"It is easy to understand why the cat has eclipsed the dog as modern America's favorite pet. People like pets to possess the same qualities they do. Cats are irresponisible and recognize no authority, yet are completely dependent on others for their material needs. Cats cannot be made to do anything useful. Cats are mean for the fun of it. In fact, cats possess so many of the same qualities as some people that it is often hard to tell the people and the cats apart."

P.J. O'Rourke 

"On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good and not quite all the time."

George Orwell
"Life is part positive and part negative. Suppose you went to hear a symphony orchestra and all they played were the little, happy, high notes? Would you leave soon? Let me hear the rumble of the bass, the crash of the cymbals, and the minor keys."

Jim Rohn 
"If we were all to bring our misfortunes into a common store, so that each person should 
receive an equal share, the majority would be glad to take up their own and depart."

Socrates
"The strength or weakness of a society depends more on the level of its spiritual life than on its level of industrialization. Neither a market economy nor even general abundance constitutes the crowning achievement of human life. If a nation's spiritual energies have been exhausted, it will not be saved from collapse by the most perfect government structure or by any industrial development."

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, National Review, Sept. 23, 1991, p.24

"A desire to resist oppression is implanted in the nature of man."

Tacitus
 
"All human beings should try to learn before they die,
What they are running from, and to, and why."

James Thurber, (1894 - 1961)

"You can fool too many of the people too much of the time."

James Thurber
"The problem of the meaning of life is intractable, but life's purpose becomes very simple when we ask ourselves what we should do."

Leo Tolstoy 

"If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the 
principle difference between a dog and a man."

Mark Twain

"Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because
we are not the person involved."

Mark Twain

"The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter."

Mark Twain

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