quotes for january

She had wandered, without rule or guidance, into a moral wilderness. Her intellect and heart had their home, as it were, in desert places, where she roamed as freely as the wild Indian in his woods. The scarlet letter was her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her teachers - stern and wild ones - and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Chapter XVIII "A Flood of Sunshine"



Most history is guessing, and the rest is prejudice. ~Will and Ariel Durant, Our Oriental Heritage



Man - a being in search of meaning. ~Plato



You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward. ~James Thurber



There are two ways of spreading light - to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. ~Edith Wharton, Vesalius in Zante



In your patience possess ye your souls. ~Luke 21:19



Yesterday brought the beginning, tomorrow brings the end, and somewhere in the middle we became the best of friends. ~Author Unknown



Reason: The arithmetic of the emotions. ~Elbert Hubbard, The Roycroft Dictionary



The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing. ~John Powell



He is a poor patriot whose patriotism does not enable him to understand how all men everywhere feel about their altars and their hearthstones, their flag and their fatherland. ~Harry Emerson Fosdick



It used to be that people needed products to survive. Now products need people to survive. ~Nicholas Johnson



The younger brother must help to pay for the pleasures of the elder. ~Jane Austen, Mansfield Park



Did you hear about the baby born with organs of both sexes? It had a penis and a brain. ~Author Unknown



Dress is at all times a frivolous distinction, and excessive solicitude about it often destroys its own aim. ~Jane Austen



Trust that little voice in your head that says "Wouldn't it be interesting if..." And then do it. ~Duane Michals, "More Joy of Photography"



Like a plant that starts up in showers and sunshine and does not know which has best helped it to grow, it is difficult to say whether the hard things or the pleasant things did me the most good. ~Lucy Larcom



Wisdom comes by disillusionment. ~George Santayana



I wondher why ye can always read a doctor's bill an' ye niver can read his purscription. ~Finley Peter Dunne



Nothing weights lighter than a promise. ~German Proverb



The drops of rain make a hole in the stone not by violence but by oft falling. ~Lucretius