"Excuses are the nails used to build a house of failure."

Don Wilder, quoted on www.hound-dog-media.com/

“H.L. Mencken’s definition of the pessimist as a man who, if he smells a rose, looks around for a coffin.”

Matthew Scully in National Review October 27, 1997

“Happiness is a hard master – particularly other people’s happiness. A much harder master, if one isn’t conditioned to accept it unquestioningly, than truth.”

Mustapha Mond in Aldous Huxley Brave New World

“On ne devrait s’étonner que de pouvoir encore s’étonner.” ("The only thing that should astonish us is that we can still be astonished.")

La Rochefoucauld “Réflexions morales #384” in Maximes

“the best assumption with regard to the men and women of the fifteenth or any other medieval century is that in essentials they were like-minded with ourselves. We should not be deceived by different conventions, or by contrasts which may be only superficial. Both the pomp and artificiality of court life in the fifteenth century, and the extravagances of the baronial households, often commented on, had a logic of their own in the circumstances of the times; they were far from being the product of men and women whose motives were very different from our own. Life may have been more colourful, unrestrained, and uncertain, in the fifteenth century than at later times; but this did not really change the inner nature of the men and women of the age.’”

Bertie Wilkinson Constitutional History of England in the Fifteenth Century 1399-1485 (Wilkinson was my grandfather)

“The perishable nature of opportunity.”

Brian Lee Crowley to the Institute for Liberal Studies "Canadian Property Rights" Conference Oct. 17, 2014 (the specific reference was to resource projects in Canada but it applies far more broadly in government and in life generally)

“only a quarrel can interrupt a good argument”

G.K. Chesterton, quoted in Gilbert! Magazine Vol. 3 #5 (March 2000)

“If you are willing to do more than you are paid to do, eventually you will be paid to do more than you do."

"Anonymous” quoted by Jeff Hayden on Inc. online (www.inc.com/jeff-haden/top-350-inspiring-motivational-quotes-to-tweet-and-share.html)