Every happy man should have someone with a little hammer at his door to knock and remind him that there are unhappy people, and that, however happy he may be, life will sooner or later show its claws.
--Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), in "Gooseberries," The Portable Chekhov, translated by S. S. Koteliansky and Gilbert Cannan
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Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering.
--Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)
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What do the gods give that is more to be wished than a happy hour?
--Gaius Valerius Catullus (ca B.C. 84- ca B.C. 54)
Quid datur a Divis felici optatius hora?
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Anyone who does not believe in miracles is not a realist.
--Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993) quoted in How to Be Lovely (2004), by Melissa Hellstern
The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the commonplace.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), in his essay "Nature"
As for me, I know of nothing else but miracles.
--Walt Whitman (1819-1892) in "Miracles"
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You can't be "a man of your time."
--Nikki Giovanni (1943-), poet, on why people must resist the evils of their own era. She was discussing the wife of a 1960s Klansman who had recently said that her husband "was a man of his time" and wouldn't have behaved that way nowadays.
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Where there is fear, there cannot be wisdom.
Ubi timor adest, sapientia adesse nequit.
--Lactantius (ca 240-ca 320)
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He who lives without folly is not as wise as he thinks.
Qui vit sans folie n'est pas si sage qu'il croit.
--French proverb
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Il vaut mieux être fou avec tous que sage tout seul.
Better to be a fool with everyone than wise all alone.
--French proverb
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A friend of mine told me once that he stopped believing in the films that finish when the lights come on, and that he only cared for the films that begin when the lights come on.
--Alfonso Cuarón, director of the film Children of Men, about the last pregnant woman on earth
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