Great Writers', Great Thinkers, and Great Patriots' Quotes

Inspiration from writers, artists, patriots, and thinkers:

• Engrave this in your brain: EVERY WRITER GETS REJECTED. You will be no different. (John Scalzi)
• In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. (George Orwell)
• I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it. (Voltaire)
• Courage is being scared to death and saddling up anyway. (John Wayne)
• Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not his own facts. (Daniel Moynihan)
• Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia. (E.L. Doctorow)
• You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you. (Ray Bradbury)
• Everybody walks past a thousand story ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don't see any. (Orson Scott Card)
• If my books had been any worse I should not have been invited to Hollywood and if they had been any better I should not have come. (Raymond Chandler)
• Talent is God-given; be humble. Fame is man-given; be thankful. Conceit is self-given; be careful. (John Wooden)
• Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing. (Robert Charles Benchley)
• Always remember you’re unique, just like everyone else. (Anonymous)
• We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
 (Aristotle)
• There is a crack in everything.  That's how the light gets in. (Leonard Cohen)
• Whenever you write, whatever you write, never make the mistake of assuming the audience is any less intelligent than you are. (Rod Serling)
• It’s none of their business that you have to learn to write. Let them think you were born that way. (Ernest Hemingway)

• When in doubt, make a fool of yourself. There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on earth. So what the hell, leap. (
Cynthia Heimel
)
• I pray thee, O God, that I may be beautiful within. (Socrates)

·         I was not the lion, but it fell to me to give the lion's roar. (Winston Churchill)

·         What people are ashamed of usually makes a good story. (F. Scott Fitzgerald)

·         Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire. (St. Catherine of Siena)

·         The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness. (Michel De Montaigne)

·         Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing. (Mother Teresa)

·         Remember that guy that gave up? Neither does anyone else. (Anonymous)

·         Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way. (Satchel Paige)

·         It's an accepted fact that all writers are crazy, even the normal ones are weird. (William Goldman)

·         Artists don't talk about art. Artists talk about work. (Paddy Chayefsky)

·         The great thing about revision is that it's your opportunity to fake being brilliant. (Will Shetterly)

·         Talent is helpful in writing, but guts are absolutely essential. (Jessamyn West)

·         Accept the challenges so that you can feel the exhilaration of victory. (General George S. Patton)

·         The faster I write the better my output. If I'm going slow I'm in trouble. It means I'm pushing 
the words instead of being pulled by them. (Raymond Chandler)

·         No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave. (Calvin Coolidige)

·         Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending. (Carl Bard)

·         When you laugh you are not afraid. When you are not afraid you are free. (Gregorius Nekschot)

·         I think that people, in circumstances of stress, can behave like swine, and that this, indeed, is not only a fit subject, but the only subject, of drama. (David Mamet)

·         Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not the absence of fear. (Mark Twain)

·         Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. (Aldous Huxley)

·         To find yourself, think for yourself. (Socrates)

·         You can pick out actors by the glazed look that comes into their eyes when the conversation wanders away from themselves. (Michael Wilding)

·         Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere. (Albert Einstein)

·         Do just once what others say you can't, and you will never pay attention to their limitations again. (James R. Cook)

·         Your vision will become clear when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens. (Carl Jung)

·         We can do anything we want to do if we stick to it long enough. (Helen Keller)

·         You are never a loser until you quit trying. (Mike Ditka)

·         A well-developed sense of humor is the pole that adds balance to your steps as you walk the tightrope of life. (William A. Ward)

·         If you have built your castles in the air, your work need not be lost. That is where they should be. Now put foundations under them. (Henry David Thoreau)

·         Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing. (Theodore Roosevelt)

·         Drama, instead of telling us the whole of a man's life, must place him in such a situation, tie such a knot, that when it is untied, the whole man is visible. (Leo Tolstoy)

·         Artists are just children who refuse to put down the crayons. (Al Hirschfeld)

·         First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. Then they attack you. Then you win. (Mahatma Gandhi)

·         I have never understood why it is greed to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money. (Thomas Sowell)

·         It’s God’s job to judge the terrorists. It’s our job to arrange the meeting. (United States Marine Corps)

·         One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up. (Arthur Koestler)

·         Refuse to fail. Keep smiling, keep punching. Don't quit your dream job. (Stephen Cannell)

·         Your talent is God’s gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God. (Leo Buscaglia)

·         Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. (Martin Luther King)

·         A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have. (Thomas Jefferson)

·         When small men begin to cast long shadows, it's a sure sign the sun is setting. (Rush Limbaugh)

·         A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. (Edward R. Murrow)

• For business reasons, I must preserve the outward sign of sanity. (Mark Twain)
• You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go around repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the great struggle for independence. (Charles Austin Beard)
• When prosperity comes, do not use all of it. (Confucius)
• Laws control the lesser man. Right conduct controls the greater one. (Mark Twain)
• Should one point out that from ancient times a decline in courage has been considered the beginning of the end? (Alexander Solzhenitsyn)
• We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence upon those who would do us harm. (George Orwell)
• Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive. (William F. Buckley)
• A love for tradition has never weakened a nation, indeed it has strengthened nations in their hour of peril. (
Winston Churchill)
• I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed. (Jonathan Swift)
• When I examine myself and my methods of thought I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing knowledge. (Albert Einstein)
• Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. (Will Rogers)
• Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views. (William F. Buckley)
• Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe. (Albert Einstein)
• There's not much to say about acting but this. Never settle back on your heels. Never relax. If you relax, the audience relaxes. And always mean everything you say. (James Cagney)
• Fans are people who let an actor know he's not alone in the way he feels about himself. (Jack Carson)
• Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. The Marines don’t have that problem. 
(Ronald Reagan)
• Hold every decent person, every decent idea, close, because one day you may realize you lost a diamond while  collecting stones - Anonymous