Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu

If you only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier than other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are.

Mariame Kaba, “We Do This Till We Free Us”

It's less about 'how you feel' and more about the practice of making a decision every day that you're still gonna put one foot in front of the other, that you're still going to get up in the morning. And you're still going to struggle … It's work to be hopeful.

John Dos Passos, Letter to Rumsey Marvin Paris, 29th December 1918

Don't worry about not having an aim. I felt the same way when I first went to college. It took me a good three years to get rid of family bred inhibitions before I realized exactly what I wanted to do. When I think how far I am from doing it I become terrified. Then too I suffer from a multiplicity of desires. I want to swallow the oyster of the world. I want to peel the rind of the orange. I want to drink the cup to the dregs—no—I want to swallow it and still have it to look at. I want to peel off the rind in patterns of my own making. I want to paint with the dregs pictures of gods and demons on the great white curtains of eternity.

George Bernard Shaw

 Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

Desperate hope and desperate fear often seem closer to the centre of such events than balanced judgment and measured insight.

Leonard Bernstein

To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan, and not quite enough time.