There comes a time in a man's life when to get where he has to -- if there are no doors or windows -- he walks through a wall.
- Bernard Malamud, novelist and short-story writer (1914-1986)


Don't be yourself. Be someone a little nicer.
- Mignon McLaughlin, journalist and author (1913-1983)

I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.

- Kahlil Gibran, poet, and artist (1883-1931)
As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.
- Abraham Lincoln, 16th US President (1809-1865)


The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
- Anatole France, novelist, essayist, Nobel laureate (1844-1924)

To blame the poor for subsisting on welfare has no justice unless we are also willing to judge every rich member of society by how productive he or she is. Taken individual by individual, it is likely that there's more idleness and abuse of government favours among the economically privileged than among the ranks of the disadvantaged.
​- Norman Mailer, author (1923-2007)

The great thing about getting older is that you don't lose all the other ages you've been.
- Madeleine L'Engle, writer (1918-2007)


Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won't come in.
- Alan Alda, actor and director (b. 1936)

The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life -- the sick, the needy and the handicapped.
- Hubert Horatio Humphrey, US Vice President (1911-1978)


In the face of suffering, one has no right to turn away, not to see.
- Elie Wiesel, writer, Nobel laureate (b. 1928)