Unprovided with original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition, I resolved to write a book. (Edward Gibbon)
No one can speak well, unless he thoroughly understands his subject. (Cicero)
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others. (Groucho Marx)
There's folks 'ud stand on their heads and then say the fault was i' their boots. (George Eliot)
Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible. (Paul Klee)
A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them. (P. J. O Rourke)
No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently. (Agnes de Mille)
The great secret that all old people share is that you really haven't changed in 70 or 80 years. Your body changes, but you don't change at all. (Doris Lessing)
Winter lies too long in country towns; hangs on until it is stale and shabby, old and sullen. (Willa Cather)
The young have aspirations that never come to pass, the old have reminiscences of what never happened. (Saki)