“I no longer think of it as [writer’s] block. I think that is looking at the problem from the wrong angle. If your wife locks you out of the house, you don’t have a problem with your door.”
Anne Lamott Some Instructions on Writing and Life (her point being that you’re not blocked from getting something out that is inside you, you’re empty)
“Perfection is not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, quoted in The Economist June 15, 1991
“We must not provide against the loss of wealth by poverty, or of friends by refusing all acquaintance, or of children by having none, but by morality and reason.”
Plutarkhos, aka Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus Plutarch’s Lives Vol. I
“All in all, I cannot say enough good things about this candidate or recommend him too highly.”
Another in the “He's an extraordinary man” series of double-edged letter of recommendation phrases that is found in multiple places on the Internet; I do not know the origin.
“The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and, instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.”
Samuel Johnson, quoted as “Thought du jour” in Globe & Mail Nov. 5 1999
“breeding rather than feeding”
John Mercel Robson (my father) summarizing the nature/nurture argument in a letter in 1993
“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”
Not Albert Einstein. As he is a quotation magnet it has stuck to him quite often, but apparently it was actually sociology professor William Bruce Cameron in 1963 (see https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/05/26/everything-counts-einstein/). Would it be any more clever if it had been Einstein?
“Argue for your limitations and, sure enough, they're yours.”
Richard Bach, quoted by Jeff Hayden on Inc. online (www.inc.com/jeff-haden/top-350-inspiring-motivational-quotes-to-tweet-and-share.html)