Revenge is profitable, gratitude is expensive.
—Edward Gibbon (1737–94) English Historian, Politician
Topics: Gratitude, Revenge
Life without idealism is empty indeed. We just hope or starve to death.
—Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American Novelist, Human Rights Activist
Topics: Hope, Ideal, Ideals
A real gentleman, even if he loses everything he owns, must show no emotion. Money must be so far beneath a gentleman that it is hardly worth troubling about.
—Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–81) Russian Novelist, Essayist, Writer
Topics: Loss, Losers, Losing
My angel, cries Booth, it delights me to hear you talk thus, and for a reason you little guess; for I am assured that one who can so heroically endure adversity, will bear prosperity with equal greatness of soul; for the mind that cannot be dejected by the former, is not likely to be transported with the latter.
—Henry Fielding (1707–54) English Novelist, Dramatist
Topics: Perseverance, Adversity, Character
If you fear making anyone mad, then you ultimately probe for the lowest common denominator of human achievement.
—Jimmy Carter (b.1924) American Head of State, Military Leader
Topics: Achievement, Accomplishment
For what we call illusions are often, in truth, a wider vision of past and present realities –a willing movement of a man’s soul with the larger sweep of the world’s forces –a movement towards a more assured end than the chances of a single life.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
Necessity is often the spur to genius.
—Honore de Balzac (1799–1850) French Novelist
Topics: Adversity, Difficulties, Necessity
No problem can be solved until it is reduced to some simple form. The changing of a vague difficulty into a specific, concrete form is a very essential element in thinking.
—J. P. Morgan (1837–1913) American Financier, Philanthropist, Art Collector
Topics: Thinking, Truth, Difficulty
There cannot live a more unhappy creature than an ill-natured old man, who is neither capable of receiving pleasures, nor sensible of conferring them on others.
—William Temple
Topics: Age, Aging
Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.
—Franz Kafka (1883–1924) Austrian Novelist, Short Story Writer
Topics: Beauty, Time, Youth, Aging
Perseverance is the most overrated of traits, if it is unaccompanied by talent; beating your head against a wall is more likely to produce a concussion in the head than a hole in the wall.
—Sydney J. Harris (1917–86) American Journalist, Columnist, Drama Critic
Topics: Persistence, Perseverance
Man dreams of fame while woman wakes to love.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–92) British Poet
Topics: Men, Men & Women, Women
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