I don't do anything that's bad for me. I don't like to be made nervous or angry. Any time you get upset it tears down your nervous system.

MAE WEST

MACBETH: Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, Raze out the written troubles of the brain, and with some sweet oblivious antidote Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff Which weighs upon the heart? DOCTOR: Therein the patient Must minister to himself.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

But how shall we expect charity towards others, when we are uncharitable to ourselves? Charity begins at home, is the voice of the world; yet is every man his greatest enemy, and, as it were, his own executioner.

THOMAS BROWNE

Compassion for myself is the most powerful healer of them all.

THEODORE ISAAC RUBIN, M.D.

An occasional compliment is necessary, to keep up one's self-respect. When you cannot get a compliment any other way, pay yourself one.

MARK TWAIN

. . . to superintend the sick to make them well, to care for the healthy to keep them well, also to care for one's own self.

PART OF THE HIPPOCRATIC OATH

Be careful, and you will save many men from the sin of robbing you.

ED HOWE

Only Irish coffee provides in a single glass all four essential food groups: alcohol, caffeine, sugar, and fat.

ALEX LEVINE

If you're not playing a big enough game, you'll screw up the game you're playing just to give yourself something to do.

ANONYMOUS

Life is like a game of whist, some time ago. From unseen sources the cards are shuffled, and the hands are dealt.

EUGENE HARE

Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well.

JOSH BILLINGS

You cannot step twice into the same river; for other waters are always flowing on to you.

HERACLITUS

Nothing endures but change.

HERACLITUS

Without deviation progress is not possible.

FRANK ZAPPA

Charity creates a multitude of sins.

OSCAR WILDE

Charity degrades those who receive it and hardens those who dispense it.

GEORGE SAND

Charity, as if it didn't have enough trouble in this day and age, will always be suspected of morbidity—sado-masochism, perversity of some sort. All higher or moral tendencies lie under suspicion of being rackets. Things we simply honor with old words, but betray or deny in our very nerves.

SAUL BELLOW

The Eight Grades of Charity:

1. To give reluctantly 2. To give cheerfully but not adequately 3. To give cheerfully and adequately, but only after being asked 4. To give cheerfully, adequately, and of your own free will, but to put it in the recipient's hand in such a way as to make him feel lesser 5. To let the recipient know who the donor is, but not the reverse 6. To know who is receiving your charity but remain anonymous to him 7. To have neither the donor nor the recipient be aware of the other's identity 8. To dispense with charity altogether, by enabling your fellow humans to have the wherewithal to earn their own living

MAIMONIDES

For those who are not hungry, it is easy to palaver about the degradation of charity.

CHARLOTTE BRONTË

Don't use the impudence of a beggar as an excuse for not helping him.

RABBI SCHMELKE OF NICOLSBURG

Anticipate charity by preventing poverty; assist the reduced fellowman, either by a considerable gift, or a sum of money, or by teaching him a trade, or by putting him in the way of business, so that he may earn an honest livelihood, and not be forced to the dreadful alternative of holding out his hand for charity. This is the highest step and the summit of charity's golden ladder.

MAIMONIDES

The highest exercise of charity is charity towards the uncharitable.

J. S. BUCKMINSTER

The contents of Sitting Bull's pockets were often emptied into the hands of small, ragged little boys, nor could he understand how so much wealth should go brushing by, unmindful of the poor.

ANNIE OAKLEY

The white man knows how to make everything, but he does not know how to distribute it.

SITTING BULL

Every charitable act is a stepping stone towards heaven.

HENRY WARD BEECHER

A disciple having asked for a definition of charity, the Master said: Love One Another.

CONFUCIUS

Every good act is charity. Your smiling in your brother's face, is charity; an exhortation of your fellowman to virtuous deeds, is equal to alms-giving; your putting a wanderer in the right road, is charity; your assisting the blind, is charity; your removing stones, and thorns, and other obstructions from the road, is charity; your giving water to the thirsty, is charity. A man's true wealth hereafter, is the good he does in this world to his fellow-man. When he dies, people will say, "What property has he left behind him?" But the angels will ask, "What good deeds has he sent before him?"

MOHAMMED

Be charitable in your thoughts, in your speech and in your actions. Be charitable in your judgments, in your attitudes and in your prayers. Think charitably of your friends, your neighbors, your relatives and even your enemies. And if there be those whom you can help in a material way, do so in a quiet, friendly, neighborly way, as if it were the most common and everyday experience for you. Tongues of men and angels, gifts of prophecy and all mysteries and all knowledge are as nothing without charity.

CARDINAL HAYES

Charity sees the need, not the cause.

GERMAN PROVERB

Charity begins at home, but should not end there.

THOMAS FULLER, M.D.

Charity begins at home, and generally dies from lack of outdoor exercise.

ANONYMOUS

If you haven't got any charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble.

BOB HOPE

Charity is that which opens in each heart a little Heaven.

MATTHEW PRIOR

Never lend your car to anyone to whom you have given birth.

ERMA BOMBECK

I take my children everywhere, but they always find their way back home.

ROBERT ORBEN

Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers.

SOCRATES

The childhood shows the man, As morning shows the day.

JOHN MILTON

Few parents nowadays pay any regard to what their children say to them. The old-fashioned respect for the young is fast dying out.

OSCAR WILDE

Know you what it is to be a child? It is to be something very different from the man of today. It is to have a spirit yet streaming from the waters of baptism; it is to believe in love, to believe in loveliness, to believe in belief; it is to be so little that the elves can reach to whisper in your ear; it is to turn pumpkins into coaches, and mice into horses, lowness into loftiness, and nothing into everything, for each child has its fairy godmother in its soul.

FRANCIS THOMPSON SHELLEY

My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky: So was it when my life began; So is it now I am a man; So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die! The child is father of the man; And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

The denunciation of the young is a necessary part of the hygiene of older people, and greatly assists the circulation of the blood.

LOGAN PEARSALL SMITH

Before I was married I had three theories about raising children. Now I have three children and no theories.

JOHN WILMOT, EARL OF ROCHESTER

BLANCHE: I'm reading this Spock book on baby care, and he says it's very important for a young child to have a male role model around during its formative years. Now what are we gonna do? . . . ROSE: Oh, Blanche, we don't have anything to worry about. If we give that baby love and attention and understanding, it'll turn out fine. DOROTHY: That's beautiful. ROSE: Besides, what does Spock know about raising babies? On Vulcan, all the kids are born in pods.

GOLDEN GIRLS

We are always too busy for our children; we never give them the time or interest they deserve. We lavish gifts upon them; but the most precious gift—our personal association, which means so much to them—we give grudgingly.

MARK TWAIN

I teach my child to look at life in a thoroughly materialistic fashion. If he escapes and becomes the sort of person I hope he will become, it will be because he sees through the hokum that I hand out.

E. B. WHITE

If children grew up according to early indications, we should have nothing but geniuses.

JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

The last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

VIKTOR FRANKL

More than any time in history mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly.

I believe that order is better than chaos, creation better than destruction. I prefer gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta . . . I think knowledge is preferable to ignorance and I am sure that human sympathy is more valuable than ideology . . . And I think we should remember we are part of a great whole, which for convenience we call nature. All living things are our brothers and sisters. Above all I believe in the God-given genius of certain individuals, and I value a society that makes their existence possible.

KENNETH CLARK

Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.

WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.

CHARLES KINGSLEY

The point on the thermostat in which neither heating nor cooling must operate—around 72 degrees—is called "The Comfort Zone." It's also known as "The Dead Zone."

HEATING AIR CONDITIONING LORE

No woman has ever so comforted the distressed—or distressed the comfortable.

CLARE BOOTHE LUCE describing Eleanor Roosevelt

The superior man thinks always of virtue; the common man thinks of comfort.

CONFUCIUS

Minds, like bodies, will often fall into a pimpled, ill-conditioned state from mere excess of comfort.

CHARLES DICKENS

Quotations are comfortable.

THE AUTHOR

I could never think well of a man's intellectual or moral character, if he was habitually unfaithful to his appointments.

NATHANIEL EMMONS

Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.

MARCUS ANTONINUS

Never take a solemn oath. People think you mean it.

NORMAN DOUGLAS

The best way to keep your word is not to give it.

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE

If you never want to see a man again, say, "I love you, I want to marry you. I want to have children . . ." -they leave skid marks.

RITA RUDNER

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: That the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets: "Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it."

W. H. MURRAY THE SCOTTISH HIMALAYAN EXPEDITION

Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY

One person with belief is equal to a force of ninety-nine who have only interests.

JOHN STUART MILL

Common sense is not so common.

VOLTAIRE

Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of a witness.

MARGARET MILLAR

The opposite of talking isn't listening. The opposite of talking is waiting.

FRAN LEBOWITZ

MOTHER: Do you love me, Albert? ALBERT: Yes. MOTHER: Yes—what? ALBERT: Yes, please.

TOM STOPPARD

"What Ho!" I said, "What Ho!" said Motty. "What Ho! What Ho!" "What Ho! What Ho! What Ho!" After that it seemed rather difficult to go on with the conversation.

P. G. WODEHOUSE

When the eagles are silent the parrots begin to jabber.

WINSTON CHURCHILL

When I was born I was so surprised I didn't talk for a year and a half.

GRACIE ALLEN

If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then a third time—a tremendous whack!

WINSTON CHURCHILL

Drawing on my fine command of the English language, I said nothing.

ROBERT BENCHLEY

The journey of ten thousand miles begins with a single phone call.

CONFUCIUS BELL

My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me.

BENJAMIN DISRAELI

I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse.

CHARLES V

By compassion we make others' misery our own, and so, by relieving them, we relieve ourselves also.

THOMAS BROWNE

Spiritual energy brings compassion into the real world. With compassion, we see benevolently our own human condition and the condition of our fellow beings. We drop prejudice. We withhold judgment.

CHRISTINA BALDWIN

I've always thought that the stereotype of the dirty old man is really the creation of a dirty young man who wants the field to himself.

HUGH DOWNS

Competition brings out the best in products, and the worst in people.

DAVID SARNOFF

Do your work with your whole heart, and you will succeed—there's so little competition.

ELBERT HUBBARD

The first time I saw her perform she was so good I wanted to run up to the stage, put my arms around her—and wring her neck. She just has too much talent!

JUDY GARLAND describing Barbra Streisand

We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves to be like other people.

ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER

Confront your enemies, avoid them when you can. A gentleman will walk but never run.

STING about Quentin Crisp

Now that the scriptures have been fulfilled, I shall proceed to beat the hell out of thee.

QUAKER after being slapped on one cheek, turning the other cheek, and being slapped again

If I repent of anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior.

HENRY DAVID THOREAU

The best way out is always through.

ROBERT FROST

The secret of contentment is knowing how to enjoy what you have, and to be able to lose all desire for things beyond your reach.

LIN YUTANG

He is richest who is content with the least, for content is the wealth of nature.

SOCRATES

Do not strain to seek increases. What you have, let it suffice you.

AMENEMOPE

There are some days when I think I'm going to die from an overdose of satisfaction.

SALVADOR DALI

You never know what is enough, until you know what is more than enough.

WILLIAM BLAKE

The fountain of content must spring up in the mind; and he who has so little knowledge of human nature as to see his happiness by changing anything but his own disposition, will waste his life in fruitless efforts, and multiply the griefs which he proposes to remove.

SAMUEL JOHNSON

When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.

EDMUND BURKE

Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads.

ERICA JONG

Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace. The soul that knows it not, knows no release From little things; Knows not the livid loneliness of fear, Nor mountain heights where bitter joy can hear The sound of wings.

AMELIA EARHART

Courage is doing what you're afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you're scared.

EDDIE RICKENBACKER

Be bold—and mighty forces will come to your aid.

BASIL KING

Courage is mastery of fear—not absence of fear.

MARK TWAIN

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.

ANAIS NIN

The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists.

G. K. CHESTERTON

Want to be a composer? If you can think design, you can execute design—it's only a bunch of air molecules, who's gonna check up on you? Just follow these simple instructions:

1. Declare your intention to create a "composition." 2. Start a piece at some time. 3. Cause something to happen over a period of time (it doesn't matter what happens in your "time hole"— we have critics to tell us whether it's any good or not, so we won't worry about that part). 4. End the piece at some time (or keep it going, telling the audience it is a "work in progress"). 5. Get a part-time job so you can continue to do stuff like this.

FRANK ZAPPA

Creative activity could be described as a type of learning process where teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.

ARTHUR KOESTLER

Creativity is merely a plus name for regular activity . . . any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or better.

JOHN UPDIKE

Creativity is a drug I cannot live without.

CECIL B. DEMILLE

Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything.

GEORGE LOIS

Creativity represents a miraculous coming together of the uninhibited energy of the child with its apparent opposite and enemy, the sense of order imposed on the disciplined adult intelligence.

NORMAN PODHORETZ

Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression.

ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER

Passion is in all great searches and is necessary to all creative endeavors.

W. EUGENE SMITH

When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So what the hell, leap.

CYNTHIA HEIMEL

Self criticism must be my guide to action, and the first rule for its employment is that in itself it is not a virtue, only a procedure.

KINGSLEY AMIS

I can take any amount of criticism, so long as it is unqualified praise.

NOËL COWARD

Criticism, as it was first instituted by Aristotle, was meant as a standard of judging well.

SAMUEL JOHNSON

Do not fear when your enemies criticize you. Beware when they applaud.

VO DONG GIANG

To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.

ELBERT HUBBARD

Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger.

FRANKLIN P. JONES

The music that can deepest reach, And cure all ill, is cordial speech.

What we have to do is to be forever curiously testing new opinions and courting new impressions.

WALTER PATER

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.

ALBERT EINSTEIN

The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity.

EDMUND BURKE