I have had my belly full of great men (forgive the expression). I quite like to read about them in the pages of Plutarch, where they don't outrage my humanity. Let us see them carved in marble or cast in bronze, and hear no more about them. In real life they are nasty creatures, persecuters, tempermental, despotic, bitter and suspicious.
      George Sand

The only way to even approach doing something perfectly is through experience, and experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.
      Oscar Wilde

Money, which represents the prose of life, and which is hardly spoken of in parlors without an apology, is, in its effects and laws, as beautiful as roses.
      Ralph Waldo Emerson

Like all weak men, he laid an exaggerated stress on changing one's mind.
      Somerset Maugham

The only reason I always try to meet and know the parents better is because it helps me to forgive their children.
      Louis Johannot

Only the hand that erases can write the true thing.
      Mister Eckhart

Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won't work.
      Thomas Edison

A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.
      Francis Bacon

There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is in having lots to do and not doing it.
      Mary Wilson Little

Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.
      Abraham Lincoln

He promised me earrings, but he only pierced my ears.
      Arabian Saying

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.
      George Bernard Shaw

Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.
      Sydney J. Harris

The man who is tenacious of purpose in a rightful cause is not shaken from his firm resolve by the frenzy of his fellow citizens clamoring for what is wrong, or by the tyrant's threatening countenance.
      Horace

When the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.
      Edith Hamilton

Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash.
      George Patton

Any fool can make a rule, and every fool will mind it.
      Henry David Thoreau

The longer I live the more I see that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains I have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time.
      George Bernard Shaw

I've been promoted to middle management. I never thought I'd sink so low.
      Tim Gould

It is one of the beautiful compensations of this life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
      Charles Dudley Warner

No one can build his security upon the nobleness of another person.
      Willa Cather

If wisdom were offered me with the proviso that I should keep it shut up and refrain from declaring it, I should refuse. There's no delight in owning anything unshared.
      Seneca

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to success is more important than any other one thing.
      Abraham Lincoln

The secret of success is constancy to purpose.
      Benjamin Disraeli

These quotes were loving lifted from several of the books by the late great Peter McWilliams. All of his books are available online for free at http://www.mcwilliams.com/.