Henry David Thoreau

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan- like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to "glorify God and enjoy him forever."

Henry Ford

It's not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It's the customer who pays the wages.

Aragorn, son of Arathorn

Hold your ground! Hold your ground! Sons of Gondor, of Rohan, my brothers. I see it in your eyes, the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day! An hour of wolves and shattered shields when the age of men comes crashing down, but it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand! Men of the West!

Miles Davis

If you understood everything I said, you'd be me.

Kurt Vonnegut

We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.

Zig Ziglar

For every sale you miss because you're too enthusiastic, you will miss a hundred because you're not enthusiastic enough.

Penn Jillette

Every time something really bad happens, people cry out for safety, and the government answers by taking rights away from good people.

Ronald Reagan

Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.

Thomas Jefferson

For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.

John Stuart Mill

The worst offence of this kind which can be committed by a polemic, is to stigmatize those who hold the contrary opinion as bad and immoral men.

Ronald Reagan

If we love our country, we should also love our countrymen.

Stelios

Our ancestors built this wall using ancient stones from the bosom of Greece herself. And with a little Spartan help, your Persian scouts supplied the mortar.

Albert Einstein

I am absolutely convinced that no wealth in the world can help humanity forward, even in the hands of the most devoted worker. The example of great and pure individuals is the only thing that can lead us to noble thoughts and deeds. Money only appeals to selfishness and always tempts its owners irresistibly to abuse it. Can anyone imagine Moses, Jesus, or Gandhi armed with the money-bags of Carnegie?

Eskimo Proverb

Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy.

Elizabeth Edwards

If you know someone who has lost a child or lost anybody who's important to them, and you're afraid to mention them because you think you might make them sad by reminding them that they died, they didn't forget they died. You're not reminding them. What you're reminding them of is that you remember that they lived, and that's a great, great gift.

The Joker

Do you want to know why I use a knife? Guns are too quick. You can't savor all the... little emotions. In... you see, in their last moments, people show you who they really are. So in a way, I know your friends better than you ever did. Would you like to know which of them were cowards?

Clayton Christensen

You may hate gravity, but gravity doesn't care.

Friedrich Nietzsche

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

Voltaire

To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.

Found via Reddit.

Eric Schmidt, Google's Chief Executive Officer

If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.

H. L. Mencken

Misogynist: A man who hates women as much as women hate one another.

Miles Davis

At least one day out of the year all musicians should just put their instruments down, and give thanks to Duke Ellington.

Mark Twain

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.

Banksy

via The Curious Brain

People are taking the piss out of you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you’re not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They are on TV making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are The Advertisers and they are laughing at you.

You, however, are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with total impunity.
Fuck that. Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It’s yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head.

You owe the companies nothing. Less than nothing, you especially don’t owe them any courtesy. They owe you. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don’t even start asking for theirs.

Benjamin Franklin

Speak little, do much.

Peter McArthur

Some people have so much respect for their superiors they have none left for themselves.

Jerry Holkins a.k.a. Tycho Brahe

Every creative act is open war against The Way It Is. What you are saying when you make something is that the universe is not sufficient, and what it really needs is more you. And it does, actually; it does. Go look outside. You can’t tell me that we are done making the world.

George Gershwin

Life is a lot like jazz… it's best when you improvise.

Winston Churchill

Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it.

Malcolm X

You're not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong no matter who does it or who says it.

George Lucas

I have come to the conclusion that there is a force larger than the individual. It is controlled by the individuals, and it controls them. All I'm saying is that the pure soul is connected to a larger energy field that you would begin to understand if you went all the way back and saw yourself in your purest sense.

Conrad Hilton

Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don't quit.

Publilius Syrus

Everything is worth what its purchaser will pay for it.

David Weidner, MarketWatch

Whether or not you support the Occupy movement, it’s stomach-turning to think about the NYPD ripping up camp sites, spraying mace and manhandling the disenfranchised, while the mayor dines with a Wall Street CEO who not only bet against U.S. homeowners in the mortgage meltdown but structured deals for his favorite billionaire clients, only to shaft investors on the other side of the deal.

Found via: Reddit

Maya Angelou

People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel.

Rush Limbaugh

What does it say about the college co-ed Susan Fluke [sic] who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex -- what does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute.

Epictetus, Greek Philosopher (55AD - 135 AD)

It is not external events themselves that cause us distress, but they way in which we think about them, our interpretation of their significance. It is our attitudes and reactions that give us trouble. We cannot choose our external circumstances, but we can always choose how we respond to them.

Lao Tzu

Resisting change is like holding your breath. If you're really successful at it, you'll die.

Bill Cosby

I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.

Steven Wright

My theory of evolution is that Darwin was adopted.

Tom Waits

I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things.

Ben Franklin

Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors and let each new year find you a better man.