David McCullough: Once upon...

Once upon a time in the dead of winter in the Dakota territory, Theodore Roosevelt took off in a makeshift boat down the Little Missouri River in pursuit of a couple of thieves who had stolen his prized rowboat. After several days on the river, he caught up and got the draw on them with his trusty Winchester, at which point they surrendered. Then Roosevelt set off in a borrowed wagon to haul the thieves cross-country to justice. They headed across the snow-covered wastes of the Badlands to the railhead at Dickinson, and Roosevelt walked the whole way, the entire 40 miles. It was an astonishing feat, what might be called a defining moment in Roosevelt's eventful life. But what makes it especially memorable is that during that time, he managed to read all of Anna Karenina.I often think of that when I hear people say that they haven't time to read.
/David McCullough/

Leif Garrett: I've always...

I've always written songs, even when I wasn't doing anything with my personal life in music.
/Leif Garrett/

Helen Keller: Security is...

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature... Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.
/Helen Keller/

Eric Hoffer: When you...

When you automate an industry you modernize it; when you automate a life you primitivize it.
/Eric Hoffer/

Joseph Addison: What sunshine...

What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but, scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable.
/Joseph Addison/

Barry J. Farber: There's no...

There's no reward in life without risk.
/Barry J. Farber/

Gaylord Nelson: Teddy Roosevelt...

Teddy Roosevelt of course was a great outdoorsman all his life.
/Gaylord Nelson/

Corin Nemec: I have...

I have not thought too much about the psychology or life of the character Jonas in some time.
/Corin Nemec/

Carol Kane: Work is...

Work is the most nourishing thing so far in my life.
/Carol Kane/

Marcus Aurelius: Mark how...

Mark how fleeting and paltry is the estate of man--yesterday in embryo, tomorrow a mummy or ashes. So for the hairsbreadth of time assigned to thee, live rationally, and part with life cheerfully, as drops the ripe olive, extolling the season that bore it and the tree that matured it.
/Marcus Aurelius/

William Hazlitt: Good temper...

Good temper is an estate for life.
/William Hazlitt/

Henri-Frédéric Amiel: The best...

The best path through life is the highway.
/Henri-Frédéric Amiel/

Muriel Spark: When a...

When a noble life has prepared old age, it is not decline that it reveals, but the first days of immortality.
/Muriel Spark/

Friedrich Schlegel: In actual...

In actual life every great enterprise begins with and takes its first forward step in faith.
/Friedrich Schlegel/

John Berger: A man's...

A man's death makes everything certain about him. Of course, secrets may die with him. And of course, a hundred years later somebody looking through some papers may discover a fact which throws a totally different light on his life and of which all the people who attended his funeral were ignorant. Death changes the facts qualitatively but not quantitatively. One does not know more facts about a man because he is dead. But what one already knows hardens and becomes definite. We cannot hope for ambiguities to be clarified, we cannot hope for further change, we cannot hope for more. We are now the protagonists and we have to make up our minds.
/John Berger/