If you think that only which is your own to be your own, and if you think that what is another's, as it really is, belongs to another, no man will ever compel you, no man will hinder you, you will never blame any man, you will accuse no man, you will do nothing involuntarily, no man will harm you, you will have no enemy, for you will not suffer any harm.
-Epictetus, The Handbook

If you can't look on the bright side of things, you can always slam it into reverse and peel out.

-Jeph Jacques, Questionable Content

Between the hammer and the anvil, that's where steel is forged.

-Scott Oden, A Gathering of Ravens

Nothing is more useful for mortals, than clear-minded skepticism.

-Euripides (translated by Emily Wilson), Helen

I might have to join Tumblr

lolmythesis — the work of scholars everywhere reduced to aphorisms.

that's how it's supposed to be from the beginning

Children come to displace. They live on the earth after you are gone, and forget you. It's not their fault.

-Amanda Coplin, The Orchardist

the following day, no one died

Nothing is ever perfect, however, for alongside those who laugh, there will always be others who weep, and sometimes for the self-same reasons.

One cannot be too careful with words, they change their minds just as people do.

Words move, they change from one day to the next, they are as unstable as shadows, are themselves shadows, which both are and have ceased to be, soap bubbles, shells in which one can barely hear a whisper, mere tree stumps.

Life is an orchestra which is always playing, in tune or out, a titanic that is always sinking and always rising to the surface.

Prudence only serves to postpone the inevitable, sooner or later, it surrenders.

Dissonance also has a role to play in music.

It wasn't true what the proverb said, that what the eyes don't see, the heart doesn't grieve over. Proverbs are so deceiving.

-José Saramago, Death with Interruptions