Anais Nin on failure and adversity

Life is truly known only to those who suffer, lose, endure adversity and stumble from defeat to defeat.

~ Anais Nin

Anais Nin on life

Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.

~ Anais Nin

Anais Nin on death

I postpone death by living, by suffering, by error, by risking, by giving, by losing.

~ Anais Nin

Anais Nin on dreams

Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living.

~ Anais Nin

Anais Nin on love and aging

Age does not protect you from love. But love, to some extent, protects you from age.

~ Anais Nin

Anais Nin on friendship

What I cannot love, I overlook. Is that real friendship?

~ Anais Nin

Thomas Paine on politicians

The trade of governing has always been monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of mankind.

~ Thomas Paine

Mencken on government

The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is apt to spread discontent among those who are.

~ H.L. Mencken

CBS News president Richard Salant on the role of the mainstream media

Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have.

~ CBS News president Richard Salant, 1961-64, 1966-79

Ludwig von Mises on civilization and cooperation

Civilization is a work of peaceful co-operation.

~ Ludwig von Mises, Socialism

Ludwig von Mises on civilization

All the marvelous achievements of Western civilization are fruits grown on the tree of liberty.

~ Ludwig von Mises, The Theory of Money and Credit

Ludwig von Mises on progress and risk taking

Every step of progress is a change involving heavy risks.

~ Ludwig von Mises, Bureaucracy

Ludwig von Mises on progress

Men always strive for an improvement in their conditions and always will.  This is man's inescapable destiny.

~ Ludwig von Mises, Liberalism

Ludwig von Mises on education and innovation

Innovators and creative geniuses cannot be reared in schools.  They are precisely the men who defy what the school has taught them.

~ Ludwig von Mises, Human Action

Ludwig von Mises on living standards and culture

A higher standard of living also brings about a higher standard of culture and civilization.

~ Ludwig von Mises, Economic Policy