“Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in the face of certain defeat.”
Ralph Ellison Invisible Man
“For everywhere, above and below, you will find nothing but the selfsame things; they fill the pages of all history, ancient, modern, and contemporary; and they fill our cities and homes today. There is no such thing as novelty; all is as trite as it is transitory.”
Marcus Aurelius Meditations VII.1
“When people can stand up, they’re thinking of killing you. Whereas when they’re ill, there’s no doubt about it, they’re less dangerous.”
“Louis-Fernand Celine, doctor turned novelist” quoted by Florence King in National Review March 29, 1993
“If you cannot prevent your enemies from swallowing you whole, at least you must do what you can to prevent them from digesting you.”
“Rousseau’s famous charge to the Poles” quoted by George Weigel in Witness to Hope (saying that in World War II it “was tested as never before.”)
“truthache”
Something a mirror can cause according to Walter Winchell, quoted in The New Republic November 5, 1990
“There is nothing useless in nature; not even uselessness itself.”
Montaigne, quoted in Jon Winokur Zen To Go
“Even a paranoid can have enemies.”
Henry Kissinger, cited by Michiko Kukutani, “Bound by Suspicion,” The New York Times Magazine, January 1, 1997 and requoted in Quotes, Notes and Anecdotes (The Write File Quarterly) Spring 1997
“The important thing is not to win but to take part.”
The refounder of the Olympics, Pierre de Coubertin, quoted in Maclean’s Dec, 7 1992