quotes on life and happiness

I have been my own disciple and my own master. And I have been a good disciple but a bad master. ~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin



"I think I'll be a clown when I get grown," said Dill. "Yes, sir, a clown.... There ain't one thing in this world I can do about folks except laugh, so I'm gonna join the circus and laugh my head off." "You got it backwards, Dill," said Jem. "Clowns are sad, it's folks that laugh at them." "Well, I'm gonna be a new kind of clown. I'm gonna stand in the middle of the ring and laugh at the folks." ~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 22



The cat does not offer services. The cat offers itself. Of course he wants care and shelter. You don't buy love for nothing. Like all pure creatures, cats are practical. ~William S. Burroughs



For want of a Nail the Shoe was lost; for want of a Shoe the Horse was lost; and for want of a Horse the Rider was lost; being overtaken and slain by the Enemy, all for want of Care about a Horse-shoe Nail. ~Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, June 1758



As long as there are tests, there will be prayer in schools. ~Author Unknown



We've had bad luck with our kids - they've all grown up. ~Christopher Morley



Ink on paper is as beautiful to me as flowers on the mountains; God composes, why shouldn't we? ~Terri Guillemets



Mistakes fail in their mission of helping the person who blames them on the other fellow. ~Henry S. Haskins



A woman's best love letters are always written to the man she is betraying. ~Lawrence Durrell



I value my garden more for being full of blackbirds than of cherries, and very frankly give them fruit for their songs. ~Joseph Addison, The Spectator, 1712



I'm now as free as the breeze - with roughly the same income. ~Gene Perret



There may be a great fire in our soul, yet no one ever comes to warm himself at it, and the passers-by see only a wisp of smoke. ~Vincent van Gogh



A mere compilation of facts presents only the skeleton of History; we do but little for her if we cannot invest her with life, clothe her in the habiliments of her day, and enable her to call forth the sympathies of succeeding generations. ~Hannah Farnham Lee, The Huguenots in France and America



I regularly read Internet user groups filled with messages from people trying to solve software incompatibility problems that, in terms of complexity, make the U.S. Tax Code look like Dr. Seuss. ~Dave Barry



Any excuse will serve a tyrant. ~Aesop



The place was always cold, and I got the feeling that the fans would have enjoyed baseball more if it had been played with a hockey puck. ~Andre Dawson, on Montreal



No one ever really dies as long as they took the time to leave us with fond memories. ~Chris Sorensen



Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others. ~Buddha



Whenever science makes a discovery, the devil grabs it while the angels are debating the best way to use it. ~Alan Valentine



Love is blind, but marriage restores its sight. ~Samuel Lichtenberg