"'How did you go bankrupt?' Bill asked. 'Two ways,' Mike said. 'Gradually and then suddenly.'"
Ernest Hemingway The Sun Also Rises (frequently misquoted or misattributed including to Mark Twain or F. Scott Fitzgerald according to www.sovereignman.com/offshore/slowly-at-first-then-all-at-once-12909, which warned that it applies to nations too)
"If you do not do what you say you will do, you can only rule, never lead."
"Thought for today” on the blackboard of the Pacific Coffee Company in Exchange Square, Hong Kong, quoted by Charles Gordon in Ottawa Citizen November 11, 1999
"it’s more important to make a difference than to make a point."
Andrew Cohen in Ottawa Citizen October 11, 200511/10/05
“Here is a simple truth: humanity has been far better to me than I have been to humanity. All this through the gifts of God. And if I talk about this endlessly it is because God and the angels He has sent to protect me merit endless praise and glory.”
Benjamin J. Stein in The American Spectator June 2005
"When I was 17, I read a quote somewhere that went something like: 'If you live each day as if it were your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.' It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: ‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ And when the answer has been ‘No’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something."
Steve Jobs, June 12, 2005 commencement address at Stanford University, reprinted in National Post June 30, 2005
"Things work out best for those who make the best of how things work out."
Legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, quoted by Jeff Hayden on www.inc.com
“Goodness me! Humans don't go to heaven! No, someone made that up to prevent you all from going nuts!”
Kryten the robot butler in the Red Dwarf episode "Last Day" (as a side note, Kryten firmly believes in a "silicon heaven" for everything from robots to calculators to toasters)
“Do you know that disease and death must needs overtake us, no matter what we are doing?... What do you wish to be doing when it overtakes you?... If you have anything better to be doing when you are overtaken, get to work on that."
Epictetus, quoted in Jon Winokur Zen to Go