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Quotations

Quotations about life

My favourite quotations from Summaries of the Year, sent regularly at the end of year to family and friends:

2007
When I look at the present state of the world, a wisdom by Mahatma Gandhi comes to my mind:

“Religion is but one tree with many branches. If you look only upon the branches, then you are tempted to say that there are many religions; but if you look at the whole tree, you understand that there is but one religion.”

2009
A Favourite quotation since my student days:

Life is not what we want, but what we have.

2010
The topic of quotation -  travelling:
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness. – Mark Twain

All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it. – Samuel Johnson

2011
"The life is like a game. It does not matter how long it is, but how you play it."
-
Lucius Annaeus Seneca

2012
To be able to bear a tragedy:
“God,  grant me the courage to change the things I can change, the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

2013
The favourite quotation of the year:
“The policy of being too cautious is the greatest risk in life at all.”
 

MORE QUOTATIONS for 2013, on the same topic:

The life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but also more useful than the life spent doing nothing (G. B. Shaw)

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.


2014

Travelling Again:
“I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like

people or hate them than to travel with them.“
Mark Twain (American Writer)

"To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.”
Freya Stark (British Explorer and Travel Writer)

2015

About books and writing

"I think of life as a good book. The further you get into it, the more it begins to make sense."
Harold Kushner

"One always has a better book in one’s mind than one can manage to get onto paper."
Michael Cunningham

2016

About relations between children and parents:
“Behave to your parents in a way you would want your children to behave to yourself”. (Isocrates)

Something more funny:  
“With young children, it's like with intellectuals: when they make a noise, it is bad, when they are silent, it is suspicious.” (Gabriel Laub) 

2017

About traveling and marriage:
“A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.” 

John Steinbeck

I would be happy if our husbands would always repeat the words said by Winston Churchill:
“My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.”

2018

About health:

"Happiness resembles health. As long as you have it, you will not even notice it."
Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev, Russian writer  

And something a little bit more cheerful:

"There is no good health without good kitchen and no good kitchen without good wine." Alphonse Daudet, French novelist