Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute.
I swear to you gentlemen, that to be overly conscious is a sickness, a real, thorough sickness.
He was one of the numerous and varied legion of dullards, of half-animated abortions, conceited, half-educated coxcombs, who attach themselves to the idea most in fashion only to vulgarize it and who caricature every cause they serve, however sincerely.
Every man has some reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone, but only to his friends. He has others which he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and that in secret. But finally there are still others which a man is even afraid to tell himself, and every decent man has a considerable number of such things stored away. That is, one can even say that the more decent he is, the greater the number of such things in his mind.
There is immeasurably more left inside than what comes out in words.
Men like to to count their troubles; few calculate their happiness.
To love is to suffer and there can be no love otherwise.
Hard work pays off. When someone tells you otherwise, beware the sales pitch for something "fast and easy" that's about to come next. The greater your capacity for hard work, the more rewards fall within your grasp. The deeper you can dig, the more treasure you can potentially find.
I grew up in the church, with traditional hymns, but at the same time I was beginning to listen to pop music, the mid-60s, The Beatles, which had just as much influence on me as those hymns did. Then the hippy stuff like Pink Floyd started to raise questions about how I lived my life and the world in which I lived.
Hard work, honesty, if you keep at it, will get you almost anything.
The intelligent man is one who has successfully fulfilled many accomplishments, and is yet willing to learn more.