Thus we feed on genius, and refresh ourselves from too much conversation with our mates, and exult in the depth of nature in that direction in which he leads us. What indemnification is one great man for populations of pigmies! Every mother wishes one son a genius, though all the rest should be mediocre. But a new danger appears in the excess of influence of the great man. His attractions warp us from our place. We have become underlings and intellectual suicides. Ah! yonder in the horizon is our help;- other great men, new qualities, counterweights and checks on each other. We cloy of the honey of each peculiar greatness. Every hero becomes a bore at last. Perhaps Voltaire was not bad-hearted, yet he said of the good Jesus, even, I pray you, let me never hear that man's name again. They cry up the virtues of George Washington,- Damn George Washington! is the poor Jacobin's whole speech and confutation. But it is human nature's indispensable defense. The centripetence augments the centrifugence. We balance one man with his opposite, and the health of the state depends on the see-saw.

My motto was always to keep swinging. Whether I was in a slump or feeling badly or having trouble off the field, the only thing to do was keep swinging.

Hank Aaron

I came to realize that exaggerated concern about what others are doing can be foolish. It can paralyze effort, and stifle a good idea. One finds that in the history of science almost every problem has been worked out by someone else. This should not discourage anyone from pursuing his own path.

Theodore von Kármán

God's way of answering the Christian's prayer for more patience, experience, hope and love often is to put him into the furnace of affliction.

Richard Cecil

She had heard it said that, before you could understand anybody, you needed to walk a mile in their shoes, which did not make a whole lot of sense, because probably AFTER you had walked a mile in their shoes, you would understand that they were chasing you and accusing you of the theft of a pair of shoes--although, of course, you could probably outrun them, owing to their lack of footwear.

Terry Pratchett

If it weren't for the fact that the TV set and the refrigerator are so far apart, some of us wouldn't get any exercise at all.

Joey Adams

In general it can be said that a nation's art is greatest when it most reflects the character of its people.

Edward Hopper

Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife he is always proud of himself as the source of it.

Samuel Johnson

The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be.

Marcel Pagnol

You can sacrifice and not love. But you cannot love and not sacrifice.

Kris Vallotton

All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.

H. L. Mencken

Our civilization is now in the transition stage between the age of warring empires and a new age of world unity and peace.

John Boyd Orr

Within me, and in others, what I seek to know is the darkness and the glory of all humanity. My vulnerability leads me to Truth, which is the ultimate defense.

Vanna Bonta