As I know more of mankind, I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man, upon easier terms than I was formerly.

Excessive reservations and paralyzing despondency have not helped the sciences to advance nor are they helping them to advance, but a healthy optimism that cheerfully searches for new ways to understand, as it is convinced that it will be possible to find them.

Alois Alzheimer, Alzheimer

If there be such a thing as truth, it must infallibly be struck out by the collision of mind with mind.

William Godwin

Imagination disposes of everything it creates beauty, justice, and happiness, which are everything in this world.

Blaise Pascal

If we want to know what happiness is we must seek it, not as if it were a part of gold at the end of the rainbow, but among human beings who are living richly and fully the good life. If you observe a really happy man you will find him building a boat, writing a symphony, educating his son, growing double Dahlias in his garden. He will not be searching for happiness as if it were a collar gold button that has rolled under the cupboard in his bed room. He will have become aware that he is happy in the course of living 24 crowded hours of the day. If you live only for yourself you are always an immediate danger of being bored to death with the repetition of your own views and interests. No one has learned the meaning of living until he has surrendered his ego to the service of his fellowmen. If your ambition has the momentum of an express train at full speed, if you can no longer stop your mad rush for glory, power, or intellectual supremacy, try to divert your energies into socially useful channels before it is too late.For those who seek the larger happiness and greater effectiveness open to human beings there can be but one philosophy of life, a philosophy of constructive altruism. The truly happy man is always a fighting optimist. Optimism includes not only altruism but also social responsibility, social courage and objectivity. The good life demands a working philosophy as an orientating map of conduct. This is the golden way of life. This is the satisfying life. This is the way to be happy though human.

W. Beran Wolfe, 'How To Be Happy

Don't foul, don't flinch. Hit the line hard.

Theodore Roosevelt

He who has a mind to do mischief will always find a pretense.

Publilius Syrus

There is nothing better than being a parent. It is the most challenging job one could ever ask for. I love being a mom and I love being a friend to my children as well.

Marlee Matlin

In Australia, not reading poetry is the national pastime.

Phyllis McGinley

Learned helplessness is the giving-up reaction, the quitting response that follows from the belief that whatever you do doesn't matter.

Martin Seligan

I am proud of my kids, but I also want to make my mom proud of me. I'm still a momma's girl at the heart of the situation.

Tori Spelling

We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee.

Marian Wright Edleman

People talk about the conscience, but it seems to me one must just bring it up to a certain point and leave it there. You can let your conscience alone if you're nice to the second housemaid.

Henry James