Skip to main content

Archives - December 2006

December 1, 2006

Love is an attempt at penetrating another being, but it can only succeed if the surrender is mutual.

– Octavio Paz, THE LABYRINTH OF SOLITUDE

December 2, 2006

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 3, 2006

A loud voice cannot compete with a clear voice, even if it's a whisper.

– Barry Neil Kaufman

December 4, 2006

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 5, 2006

A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him.

– David Brink

December 6, 2006

The wise man doesn't give the right answers, he poses the right questions.

– Claude Levi-Strauss

December 7, 2006

Irrationally held truths may be more harmful than reasoned errors.

– Thomas H. Huxley

December 8, 2006

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 9, 2006

It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop.

– Confucius

December 10, 2006

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 11, 2006

If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere.

– Frank A. Clark

December 12, 2006

What I dream of is an art of balance.

– Henri Matisse

December 13, 2006

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 14, 2006

I've never had a humble opinion. If you've got an opinion, why be humble about it?

– Joan Baez

December 15, 2006

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 16, 2006

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 17, 2006

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 18, 2006

There is no mistaking a real book when one meets it. It is like falling in love.

– Christopher Morley

December 19, 2006

Oh, never mind the fashion. When one has a style of one's own, it is always twenty times better.

– Margaret Oliphant

December 20, 2006

The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.

– Linus Pauling

December 21, 2006

Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.

– J. M. Barrie

December 22, 2006

Spring, summer, and fall fill us with hope; winter alone reminds us of the human condition.

– Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook

December 23, 2006

I call architecture frozen music.

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

December 24, 2006

Snowflakes are one of nature's most fragile things, but just look what they can do when they stick together.

– Vesta M. Kelly

December 25, 2006

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 26, 2006

The secret of a good life is to have the right loyalties and hold them in the right scale of values.

– Norman Thomas

December 27, 2006

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.

– Albert Einstein

December 28, 2006

To live happily is an inward power of the soul.

– Marcus Aurelius

December 29, 2006

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 30, 2006

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 31, 2006

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"