Eh, gentlemen, let us reckon upon accidents! Life is a chaplet of little miseries which the philosopher counts with a smile. Be philosophers, as I am, gentlemen; sit down at the table and let us drink. Nothing makes the future look so bright as surveying it through a glass of chambertin.

With all great deceivers there is a noteworthy occurrence to which they owe their power. In the actual act of deception... they are overcome by belief in themselves. It is this which then speaks so miraculously and compellingly to those who surround them.

Friedrich Nietzsche

People are not measured by their accomplishments, but by how many times they screw up trying to achieve them.

James McGregor

I was taught very early that I would have to depend entirely upon myself; that my future lay in my own hands.

Darius Ogden Mills

Blessed are the people whose leaders can look destiny in the eye without flinching but also without attempting to play God.

Henry Kissinger

It seemed to travel with her, to sweep her aloft in the power of song, so that she was moving in glory among the stars, and for a moment she, too, felt that the words Darkness and Light had no meaning, and only this melody was real.

Madeleine L'Engle

Failure comes only when we forget our ideals and objectives and principles.

Jawaharlal Nehru

All species capable of grasping this fact manage better in the struggle for existence than those which rely upon their own strength alone: the wolf, which hunts in a pack, has a greater chance of survival than the lion, which hunts alone.

Christian Lous Lange

I have had a dream my whole life... and it was not this good.

Joss Whedon

A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.

Lao Tzu

A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love.

St. Basil

Fame and power are the objects of all men. Even their partial fruition is gained by very few; and that, too, at the expense of social pleasure, health, conscience, life.

Benjamin Disraeli

The very stone one kicks with one's boot will outlast Shakespeare.

Virginia Woolf