The gem cannot be polished without friction,
nor man perfected without trials.
- Confucius
If life is a trial, who is the judge and jury?
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Only through experience of trial and suffering
can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared,
ambition inspired, and success achieved.
- Helen Keller
Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet.
Only through experiences of trial and suffering
can the soul be strengthened,
vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved.
- Helen Keller
I hope we shall crush in its birth
the aristocracy of our monied corporations
which dare already to challenge our government
to a trial by strength,
and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
- Thomas Jefferson (from a letter to George Logan, Nov. 12th, 1816)
Life is like a ten speed bicycle.
Most of us have gears we never use.
- Charles M. Schulz
Life is like jumping out of an airplane without a parachute -
only the last couple seconds are fatal,
but most people are scared to death the whole way down.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Life ... full of loneliness, and misery,
and suffering, and unhappiness,
and it's all over much too quickly.
- the Woody Allen movie Annie Hall
Morality is simply the attitude we adopt
towards people whom we personally dislike.
- Oscar Wilde
I love being married.
It's so great to find that one special person
you want to annoy for the rest of your life.
- Rita Rudner
Life's like Vegas. You're up, you're down,
but in the end the house always wins.
Doesn't mean you didn't have fun.
- the Woody Allen movie Deconstructing Harry
The only fool bigger than the person who knows it all
is the person who argues with him.
- Stanislaw Jerszy Lec
The trick is growing up without growing old.
- Casey Stengel
It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble.
It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.
- Mark Twain (attributed)
Life is defined more by its contrasts than its samenesses;
Life is defined more by its risks than the many securities.
- Mary Anne Radmacher
One does not leave a convivial party before closing time.
- Winston Churchill
Life is always lived in the eye-of-the-storm
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
To the young child, all life is a great adventure -
when did we grow so dull and brittle.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs.
- Anonymous
Old age is fifteen years older than I am.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
No matter how much cats fight,
there always seem to be plenty of kittens.
- Abraham Lincoln
Live life on the edge, not with an edge.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
The most difficult phase of life
is not when no one understands you,
it is when you don't understand yourself.
- Anonymous
Life is serious, get out your magic wand.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.
- John Lennon
The difference between school and life?
In school, you're taught a lesson and then given a test.
In life, you're given a test that teaches you a lesson.
- Tom Bodett
In the book of life, the answers aren't in the back.
- Charles M. Schulz in his Peanuts cartoon
Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born
at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.
- Mark Twain
Life is a journey - enjoy the journey.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
- Oscar Wilde
Life only
appears to be
rushing toward us
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits.
- Mark Twain
One man's remorse is another man's reminiscence.
- Ogden Nash
It is a truth universally acknowledged that
when one part of your life starts going okay,
another falls spectacularly to pieces.
- the movie Bridget Jones Diary
Life is a reflection of intent.
Love reflects love.
Hate reflects hate.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Nobody can be uncheered with a balloon.
- A. A. Milne (Winnie-The-Pooh)
Bringing a childlike wonder
and a beginner's mind to life
maximizes both success and joy.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
All people know the same truth.
Our lives consist of how we chose to distort it.
- the Woody Allen movie Deconstructing Harry
In critical moments men sometimes see
exactly what they wish to see.
- the character Spock of the television series Star Trek
Life is lived in the living.
Set aside convention, caution,
and arbitrary "rules" about how
life is supposed to be lived.
Choose! Explore! Adventure!
Live life to the fullest.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Feeling sorry for yourself, and your present condition,
is not only a waste of energy
but the worst habit you could possibly have.
- Dale Carnegie
Every man prefers belief to the exercise of judgment.
- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Joy is a choice - but it isn't an easy choice.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Some things will never seem adequate
no matter how hard we try.
- from the movie White Man's Burden
The true meaning of life is to plant trees,
under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
- Nelson Henderson
The power of man has grown in every sphere, except over himself.
- Winston Churchill
Life is really simple,
but we insist on making it complicated.
- Confucius
One can never consent to creep when one feels the impulse to soar.
- Helen Keller
Life is as easy or as hard as you think it is.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
If life is a bowl of cherries, then what am I doing in the pits?
- Erma Bombeck
I never accepted the idea
that I had to be guided by
some pattern or blueprint.
- Little Richard
A big part of letting go is recognizing
when it is time to stay in a situation
and when it is time to move on.
- Darren L. Johnson
I Dream This Day of Wondrous Things,
of Peace and Hope and Pride.
I Dance My Dance with Life Today,
I'm Filled with Love Inside.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
When dealing with people, remember you are
not dealing with creatures of logic,
but creatures of emotion.
- Dale Carnegie
We make our friends; we make our enemies;
but God makes our next-door neighbor.
- Gilbert (G. K.) Chesterton
It takes a big cat to be number 2.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Play with life, laugh with life,
dance lightly with life,
and smile at the riddles of life,
knowing that life's only true lessons
are writ small in the margin.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Knavery and flattery are blood relations.
- Abraham Lincoln
All diseases run into one - old age.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Most men lead lives of quiet desperation
and go to the grave with the song still in them.
- Henry David Thoreau
Is today a day to gather strength from the storm -
a day to to learn life lessons for the next battle?
Or is today a day to sit by the fire
and watch the storm rage outside?
Either way, the storm is just life.
Give thanks for all of Life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
It's not the men in your life that counts,
it's the life in your men.
- Mae West, in the movie I'm No Angel
Time, like life itself, has no inherent meaning.
We give our own meaning to time as to life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Sucking the marrow out of life
doesn't mean choking on the bone.
- Robin Williams as John Keating
in the 1989 movie Dead Poets Society
The essence of all religions is one.
Only their approaches are different.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
You are Never Too Old to Give or Get Gold Stars.
Show Your Honest Appreciation - Today.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle,
and the life of the candle will not be shortened.
Happiness never decreases by being shared.
- The Buddha
It's never too late -
never too late to start over,
never too late to be happy.
- Jane Fonda
Any idiot can face a crisis.
It's the day-to-day living that wears you out.
- Anton Chekhov
You can observe a lot by just watching.
- Yogi Berra
Life is a succession of lessons
which must be lived to be understood.
- Helen Keller
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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
All materials & writings are copyright © Jonathan Lockwood Huie, except for quotes and other specifically identified material which belong to their respective copyright holders if applicable.