“What a chimera then is man! What a novelty, what a monster, what a chaos, what a contradiction, what a prodigy! judge of all things, feeble earthworm, repository of truth, sewer of uncertainty and error, the glory and the scum of the universe.”
~ Blaise Pascal; french mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and philosopher.
“My dad told me that no one could ever make it as a writer, that my chances were equivalent to winning the lottery – which was good for me, because I like to have something to prove.”
~ Billy Martin “Poppy Z. Brite”; american author.
“If you live by perception, as all artists must, then you sometimes have to wait a long time for your mind to tell you the next step to take. When you’re with other people, your mind isn’t your own.”
~ Agnes Martin; american abstract painter.
“Happiness lies neither in vice nor in virtue; but in the manner we appreciate the one and the other, and the choice we make pursuant to our individual organization.”
~ Marquis (Donatien Alphonse Francois) de Sade; French aristocrat, philosopher and author.
“To the man who loves art for its own sake, it is frequently in its least important and lowliest manifestations that the keenest pleasure is to be derived.”
~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; scottish author and physician.
“It is right that he too should have his little chronicle, his memories, his reason, and be able to recognize the good in the bad, the bad in the worst, and so grow gently old down all the unchanging days, and die one day like any other day, only shorter.”
~ Samuel Beckett; irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, poet and theater director.
“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.”
~ George Bernard Shaw; irish writer and playwright.
“The more one listens to ordinary conversations the more apparent it becomes that the reasoning faculties of the brain take little part in the direction of the vocal organs.”
~ Edgar Rice Burroughs; american author.
“Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”
~ Vaclav Havel; czech writer, philosopher and statesman.
“I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.”
~ Robert Anson Heinlein; american science fiction author.