The doctor can bury his mistakes but an archictect can only advise his client to plant vines.
      Frank Lloyd Wright

Many are called but few get up.
      Oliver Herford

Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry.
      Gloria Steinem

Where is the love, beauty, and truth we seek,
But in our mind?
      Percy Bysshe Shelley

I don't like money, actually, but it quiets my nerves.
      Joe Louis

We can act as if there were a God; feel as if we were free; consider Nature as if she were full of special designs; lay plans as if we were to be immortal; and we find then that these words do make a genuine difference in our moral life.
      William James

An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why must the pessimist always run to blow it out?
      Michel de Saint-Pierre

Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it.
      Salvador Dali

The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.
      Walter Bagehot

Watch out for emergencies. They are your big chance!
      Fritz Reiner

Politics is the grim jockeying for position, the ceaseless trading, the deliberate use of words not for communication but to screen intention. In short, a splendidly exciting game for those who play it.
      Gore Vidal

My problem lies in reconciling my gross habits withmy net income.
      Errol Flynn

Philanthropy is the refuge of people who wish to annoy their fellow creatures.
      Oscar Wilde

He who hesitates is poor.
      Zero Mostel

To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to study hard, think quiety, talk gently, act frankly; to listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart; to bear all cheerfully, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never. In a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common. This is to be my symphony.
      William Henry Channing

There are few moments during her recital when one can relax and feel confident that she will make her goal, which is the end of the song.
      Paul Hume

After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true.
      Spock, Star Trek

I can believe anything, provided it is incredible.
      Oscar Wilde

Every man has the right to risk his own life in order to save it.
      Jean-Jacques Rousseau

There are two golden rules for an orchestra: start together and finish together. The public doesn't give a damn what goes on in between.
      Thomas Beecham

I don't have a warm personal enemy left. They've all died off. I miss them terribly because they helped define me.
      Claire Booth Luce

Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.
      Samuel Johnson

It is suddenly all right to be a hairdresser. No one really knows how this happened.
      Tony Lang

Poor is the man whose pleasures depend on the permission of another.
      Madonna

The little entourage of friends and relatives whom she completely dominated was fond of saying, "Becky would give you the shirt off her back." And it was true. The only trouble was that she neglected to take it off first, and what you found on your back was not only Becky's shirt but Becky too.
      Margaret Halsey

It's no good running a pig farm badly for thirty years while saying, "Really I was meant to be a ballet dancer." By that time, pigs will be your style.
      Quentin Crisp

If Quentin Crisp had never existed it is unlikely that anyone would have had the nerve to invent him.
      Anonymous reviewer

Act as if it were impossible to fail.
      Dorothea Brande

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.
      M. Kathleen Casey

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/.

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