December 31st
For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
— T.S. Eliot, "Little Gidding"
December 30th
We can be sure that the greatest hope for maintaining equilibrium in the face of any situation rests within ourselves.
— Francis J. Braceland, O Magazine, April 2003
December 29th
If what Proust says is true, that happiness is the absence of fever, then I will never know happiness. For I am possessed by a fever for knowledge, experience, and creation.
— Anais Nin
December 28th
To live happily is an inward power of the soul.
— Marcus Aurelius
December 27th
Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.
— Albert Einstein
December 26th
The secret of a good life is to have the right loyalties and hold them in the right scale of values.
— Norman Thomas
December 25th
One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day. Don't clean it up too quickly.
— Andy Rooney
December 24th
Snowflakes are one of nature's most fragile things, but just look what they can do when they stick together.
— Vesta M. Kelly
December 23rd
I call architecture frozen music.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
December 22nd
Spring, summer, and fall fill us with hope; winter alone reminds us of the human condition.
— Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook
December 21st
Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.
— J. M. Barrie
December 20th
The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.
— Linus Pauling
December 19th
Oh, never mind the fashion. When one has a style of one's own, it is always twenty times better.
— Margaret Oliphant
December 18th
There is no mistaking a real book when one meets it. It is like falling in love.
— Christopher Morley
December 17th
To yackety-yak about the past is for me time lost. Every morning I wake up saying, 'I'm still alive --- a miracle.' And so I keep on pushing.
— Jacques-Yves Cousteau
December 16th
Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood...Make big plans, aim high in hope and work.
— Daniel H. Burnham
December 15th
It is foolish to wish for beauty. Sensible people never either desire it for themselves or care about it in others. If the mind be but well cultivated, and the heart well disposed, no one ever cares for the exterior.
— Anne Bronte, AGNES GREY
December 14th
I've never had a humble opinion. If you've got an opinion, why be humble about it?
— Joan Baez
December 13th
There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under the influence of imagination.
— Edmund Burke
December 12th
What I dream of is an art of balance.
— Henri Matisse
December 11th
If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere.
— Frank A. Clark
December 10th
What a blessing it would be if we could open and shut our ears as easily as we open and shut our eyes!
— Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
December 9th
It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop.
— Confucius
December 8th
Whenever evil befalls us, we ought to ask ourselves, after the first suffering, how we can turn it into good. So shall we take occasion, from one bitter root, to raise perhaps many flowers.
— Leigh Hunt
December 7th
Irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors.
— Thomas H. Huxley
December 6th
The wise man doesn't give the right answers, he poses the right questions.
— Claude Levi-Strauss
December 5th
A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him.
— David Brink
December 4th
There is something about words. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner. Wind themselves around your limbs like spider silk, and when you're so enthralled you cannot move, they pierce your skin, enter your blood, numb your thoughts. Inside you they work their magic.
— Diane Setterfield, THE THIRTEENTH TALE
December 3rd
A loud voice cannot compete with a clear voice, even if it's a whisper.
— Barry Neil Kaufman
December 2nd
We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don't know anything and can't read.
— Mark Twain
December 1st
Love is an attempt at penetrating another being, but it can only succeed if the surrender is mutual.
— Octavio Paz, THE LABYRINTH OF SOLITUDE
