There are two kinds of light — the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures. -James Thurber
Most people think that shadows follow, precede, or surround beings or objects. The truth is that they also surround words, ideas, desires, deeds, impulses and memories. -Elie Wiesel, writer, Nobel laureate (b. 1928)
Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials. -Lin Yutang, writer and translator (1895-1976)
I did try very hard to tell the whole truth without violating my literary instincts. One can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one’s own personality. Good prose is like a window pane. -George Orwell, writer (1903-1950)
Time has a wonderful way of weeding out the trivial. -Richard Ben Sapir, novelist (1936-1987)
Absence diminishes commonplace passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and kindles fire. -Francois, duc de La Rochefoucauld, moralist (1613-1680
Out of the quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry. -William Butler Yeats
How far should one accept the rules of the society in which one lives? To put it another way: at what point does conformity become corruption? Only by answering such questions does the conscience truly define itself. -Kenneth Tynan, critic and writer (1927-1980)
How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these. -George Washington Carver, scientist (1864-1943)
There are many people who reach their conclusions about life like schoolboys; they cheat their master by copying the answer out of a book without having worked out the sum for themselves. -Soren Kierkegaard, philosopher (1813-1855)
