I think we all wish we could erase some dark times in our lives. But all of life's experiences, bad and good, make you who you are. Erasing any of life's experiences would be a great mistake.

We're not that much smarter than we used to be, even though we have much more information - and that means the real skill now is learning how to pick out the useful information from all this noise.

Nate Silver

Not to the curious or impatient soul That in the start, demands the end be shown, And at each step, stops waiting for a sign; But to the tireless toiler toward the goal, Shall the great miracles of God be known And life revealed, immortal and divine.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

There is no mistaking a real book when one meets it. It is like falling in love, and like that colossal adventure it is an experience of great social import. Even as the tranced swain, the booklover yearns to tell others of his bliss. He writes letters about it, adds it to the postscript of all manner of communications, intrudes it into telephone messages, and insists on his friends writing down the title of the find. Like the simple-hearted betrothed, once certain of his conquest,

Christopher Morley

In Mexico an air conditioner is called a politician because it makes a lot of noise but doesn't work very well.

Len Deighton

Optimism is essential to achievement and it is also the foundation of courage and true progress.

Nicholas M. Butler

Yet in the most mean, cowardly, hypocritical way the British ruling class did all they could to hand Spain over to Franco and the Nazis. Why? Because they were pro-Fascist, was the obvious answer.

George Orwell

The fact my relationship with my son is so good makes me forgiving of my father and also appreciative.

Anthony Kiedis

If you sit down at set of sun And count the acts that you have done, And counting find One self-denying deed, one word That eased the heart of him who heard One glance most kind That fell like sunshine where it went- Then you may count that day well spent.

George Eliot

Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.

John Stuart Mill

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.

Confucius

It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.

Voltaire

We did not learn how to feel or experience our bodies, how to appreciate our own strengths, how to value or respect or understand the packages we came in. Instead, we learned how to look at them, to pair sexuality with desirability, to measure the worth of our bodies by their capacity to elicit admiration from others.

Caroline Knapp