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Mistakes are the portals of discovery.

James Joyce, in Success and Failure

I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, the one great instinct for revenge for which no expedient is sufficiently poisonous, secret, subterranean, petty -- I call it the one mortal blemish of mankind.

Friedrich Nietzsche, in Science and Religion

To be prepared against surprise is to be trained. To be prepared for surprise is to be educated.

James Carse, in Life and Death

The wind and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.

Edward Gibbon, in Success and Failure

I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works.

Samuel Johnson, in Art and Literature

To know is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.

Confucius, in Wisdom and Ignorance

Boring people are a reflection of boring people.

Doug Horton, in Altruism and Cynicism

A book is a mirror; if an ass peers into it, you can't expect an apostle to look out.

G. C. Lichtenberg, in Art and Literature and Wisdom and Ignorance

Conscience is the window of our spirit, evil is the curtain.

Doug Horton, in Vice and Virtue

A painting in a museum probably hears more foolish remarks than anything else in the world.

Edmond Jules Goncourt, in Art and Literature

Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.

Jules de Gaultier, in Wisdom and Ignorance

The difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to make sense.

Tom Clancy, in Art and Literature

It is by will alone that I set my mind in motion.

Frank Herbert, Dune, in Work and Recreation

I never think of the future -- it will come soon enough.

Albert Einstein, in Life and Death

I will answer anything I can with honor, but not about others.

John Brown, in Vice and Virtue

We would often be sorry if our wishes were gratified.

Aesop, in Happiness and Misery and Success and Failure

Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life.

Eric Hoffer, in Love and Hate

You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there.

Yogi Berra, in Success and Failure

Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.

Thomas Jefferson, in Wisdom and Ignorance

Egoist: A person of low taste, more interested in themselves than in me.

Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, in Altruism and Cynicism