On Disappointment
"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them." Henry David Thoreau
"You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try." Beverly Sills
"If you have made mistakes, even serious ones, there is always another chance for you. What we call failure is not the falling down but the staying down." Mary Pickford
"Success isn't permanent, and failure isn't fatal." Mike Ditka
On Friendship
"If you make it plain you like people, it's hard for them to resist liking you back." Lois McMaster Bujold
"Friendship makes prosperity more shining and lessens adversity by dividing and sharing it." Cicero
"In prosperity our friends know us; in adversity we know our friends." John Churton Collins
On Fulfillment
"We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give." Sir Winston Churchill
"Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose." Hellen Keller
"The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet." James Oppenheim
On Love
"To love deeply in one direction makes us more loving in all others." Anne-Sophie Swetchine
"Clarity of mind means clarity of passion, too; this is why a great and clear mind loves ardently and sees distinctly what it loves." Blaise Pascal
"All love that has not friendship for its base is like a mansion built upon sand." Ella Wheeler Wilcox
"'Tis the most tender part of love, each other to forgive." John Sheffield
"The first duty of love is to listen." Paul Tillich
On Change
"It's not that some people have willpower and some don't. It's that some people are ready to change and others are not." James Gordon, M.D.
"Change your thoughts and you change your world." Norman Vincent Peale
"Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me." Carol Burnett
"There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered." Nelson Mandela
"I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestioned ability of a man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor." Henry David Thoreau
"The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want." Ben Stein
On Aging
"Age is opportunity no less/ Than youth itself; though in another dress,/ And as the evening twilight fades away/ The sky is filled with stars invisible by day." Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"Cherish all your happy moments: they make a fine cushion for old age." Christopher Morley
On Dying
"Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome." Isaac Asimov
"It is impossible that anything so natural, so necessary, and so universal as death should ever have been designed by Providence as an evil to mankind." Jonathan Swift
"We run, hopefully as fast as we can, and then everyone must stop. We can only choose how we handle the race." Hugh Elliott