Quotes by American Authors - Page 68

What we call reality is an agreement that people have arrived at to make life more livable.
Louise Nevelson
Half the unhappiness in the world is due to the failure of plans which were never reasonable and often impossible.
Edgar Watson Howe
It is impossible to control creation.
Evelyn Scott
Don't spend time beating on a wall hoping to transform it into a door.
Dr. Laura Schlessinger
Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness.
George Santayana
A body shouldn't heed what might be. He's got to do with what is.
Louis L'Amour
Each of us does in effect strike a series of "deals " or compromises between the wants and longings of the inner self and an outer environment that offers certain possibilities and sets certain limitations.
Maggie Scarf
The resistance to the unpleasant situation is the root of suffering.
Ram Dass
Nature is what you may do. There is much you may not do.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Nobody has things just as he would like them. The thing to do is to make a success with what material I have. It is a sheer waste of time and soul-power to imagine what I would do if things were different. They are not different.
Dr. Frank Crane
You never conquer a mountain. You stand on the summit a few moments then the wind blows your footprints away.
Arlene Blum
[Being a parent] is tough. If you just want a wonderful little creature to love you can get a puppy.
Barbara Walters
Of all the young men in America only a few hundred can get into major league baseball and of these only a handful in a decade can get into the Hall of Fame. So it goes in all human activity. ... Some become multimillionaires and chairmen of the board and some of us must be content to play baseball at company picnics or manage a credit union without pay.
William Feather
Don't fool yourself that you are going to have it all. You are not. Psychologically having it all is not even a valid concept. The marvelous thing about human beings is that we are perpetually reaching for the stars. The more we have the more we want. And for this reason we never have it all.
Dr. Joyce Brothers
In nature there are neither rewards or punishments-there are consequences.
Robert G. Ingersoll
Being unready and ill-equipped is what you have to expect in life. It is the universal predicament. It is your lot as a human being to lack what it takes. Circumstances are seldom right. You never have the capacities the strength the wisdom the virtue you ought to have. You must always do with less than you need in a situation vastly different from what you would have chosen as appropriate for your special endowments.
Charlton Ogburn
It is arrogance to expect that life will always be music.... Harmony like a following breeze at sea is the exception. In a world where most things wind up broken or lost our lot is to tack and tune.
Harvey Oxenhorn
Free man is by necessity insecure thinking man is by necessity uncertain.
Erich Fromm
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
Henry David Thoreau
There is no such thing as something for nothing.
Napoleon Hill
We [Americans] cheerfully assume that in some mystic way love conquers all that good outweighs evil in the just balances of the universe and that at the eleventh hour something gloriously triumphant will prevent the worst before it happens.
Brooks Atkinson
Marriage is not just spiritual communion and passionate embraces marriage is also three meals a day sharing the workload and remembering to carry out the trash.
Dr. Joyce Brothers
Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is a little like expecting the bull not to attack you because you're a vegetarian.
Dennis Wholey
Life is made up of sobs sniffles and smiles with sniffles predominating.
o.henry
When I decided to go into politics I weighed the cost: I would get criticism. But I went ahead. So when the virulent criticism came I wasn't surprised. I was better able to handle it.
Herbert Hoover
There are philosophies which are unendurable not because men are cowards but because they are men.
Ludwig Lewisohn
No one from the beginning of time has had security.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Because you're not what I would have you be I blind myself to who in truth you are.
Madeleine L'Engle
To expect too much is to have a sentimental view of life and this is a softness that ends in bitterness.
Flannery O'Connor
Life is not a spectacle or a feast it is a predicament.
George Santayana
The way to achieve happiness is to have a high standard for yourself and a medium one for everyone else.
Marcelene Cox
You can't move so fast that you try to change [a situation] faster than people can accept it. That doesn't mean you do nothing but it means that you do the things that need to be done according to priority.
Eleanor Roosevelt
A pint can't hold a quart-if it holds a pint it is doing all that can be expected of it.
Margaret Deland
If you expect perfection from other people your whole life is a series of disappointments grumbling and complaints. If on the contrary you pitch your expectations low taking folks as the inefficient creatures which they are you are frequently surprised by having them perform better than you had hoped.
Bruce Barton
No one has ever loved anyone the way everyone wants to be loved.
Mignon McLaughlin
What is destructive is impatience haste expecting too much too fast.
May Sarton
Expect nothing and life will be velvet.
Lisa Gardiner
Read the best books first or you may not have a chance to read them at all.
Henry David Thoreau
Friendships aren't perfect and yet they are very precious. For me not expecting perfection all in one place was a great release.
Letty Cottin Pogrebin
Be still sad heart and cease repining Behind the clouds is the sun still shining Thy fate is the common fate of all Into each life some rain must fall Some days must be dark and dreary.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
When I'm good I'm very good but when I'm bad I'm better.
Mae West
Thin people are beautiful but fat people are adorable.
Jackie Gleason
Don't quote me that's what you heard not what I said.
Lawrence K. Frank
I don't see what's wrong with giving Bobby a little experience before he starts to practise law.
John F Kennedy
Equal opportunity is good but special privilege even better.
Anna Chennault
I used to be snow-white . . . but I drifted.
Mae West
There are some people so addicted to exaggeration that they can't tell the truth without lying.
Josh Billings
In the world of mules there are no rules.
Ogden Nash
I never forget a face but in your case I'll make an exception.
Groucho Marx
Too much of a good thing can be wonderful.
Mae West
When you have got an elephant by the hind leg and he is trying to run away it is best to let him run.
Abraham Lincoln
Early to bed early to rise work like hell and advertise.
Laurence J. Peter
If I look like this I need the trip.
Gloria Swanson
Some people approach every problem with an open mouth.
Adlai Stevenson
Epitaph to a waiter: By and by God caught his eye.
David McCord
Parsely is gharsley.
Ogden Nash
While you're saving your face you're losing your ass. Never trust a man whose eyes are too close to his nose. I never trust a man unless I've got his pecker in my pocket. Better inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in.
Lyndon B. Johnson
Automatic simply means that you can't repair it yourself.
Frank Capra
If Roosevelt were alive he'd turn in his grave.
Sam Goldwyn
Every director bites the hand that lays the golden egg.
Sam Goldwyn