You know you have influence when people start noticing your absence more than the presence of others. - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. - Steve Jobs

Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer`s loneliness, but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day. - Ernest Hemingway

The world expects results. Don't tell them about the labour pains. Show them the baby. - Arnold Glasow

I can resist everything but temptation. - Oscar Wilde

People talk behind your back because you are ahead of them. - Anon

I like men who have a future and women who have a past. - Oscar Wilde

Love is a gift, and gifts are given without attachment. When I say I love you, it does not mean you'll stay, but rather I'll miss you if you go. - Barbara Morris Jensen (in her father's memoirs)

The difficult we do immediately. The impossible takes a little while longer. - U.S. Navy Seabees

There are many things in life that will catch your eye, but only a few will catch your heart. Pursue those. - Michael Nolan

I have a woman's body and a child's emotions. - Elizabeth Taylor

If your anger decreases with time, you did injustice; if it increases, you suffered injustice. - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Decadence is a difficult word to use since it has become little more than a term of abuse applied by critics to anything they do not yet understand or which seems to differ from their moral concepts. - Ernest Hemingway

Don't do drugs, don't have unprotected sex, don't be violent. Leave that to me. - Eminem

In any continuing relationship, any persistent feeling had better be expressed. - Carl Rogers

The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree is the presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other. - Burton Hills

It is supposed to be hard; if it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great. - Tom Hanks

Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it. - William Arthur Ward

I have no control over the future, breathe a sigh of relief as it opens the door to a powerful way of living. - Anon

Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship naked personalities. - C.S. Lewis

Virtue is a state of war, and to live in it we have always to combat with ourselves. - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Know yourself and you will win all battles. - Sun Tzu

You cannot plough a field by turning it over in your mind. - Anon

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is therefore not an act but a habit. - Aristotle

If you knew how much work went into it, you wouldn't call it genius. - Michelangelo

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up. - Thomas Edison

The indispensable first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: decide what you want. - Ben Stein

To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream, not only plan, but also believe. - Anatole France

Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most. - Mark Twain

The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible -- and achieve it, generation after generation. - Pearl S. Buck

Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. - William Faulkner

A smile is worth nothing until you give it away :) - Anon

Dealing with people is a lot like digging for gold: When you go digging for an ounce of gold you have to move tons of dirt. But when you go digging, you don't go looking for the dirt, you go looking for the gold. - Andrew Carnegie

Every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving. - Albert Einstein

Growing old is inevitable but growing up is optional. - Dr. Fleinhardt

It is easy enough to be friendly to one`s friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. - Mahatma Gandhi

Be humble. A lot was achieved before you were born, and a lot would be after you are gone. - N.S. Murty

Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. - Mark Twain

Time has a wonderful way of showing us what really matters. - Margaret Peters

The things you own end up owning you. - Chuck Palahniuk

The better I get to know men, the more I find myself loving dogs. - Charles de Gaulle

Instead of trying to live a risk-free existence, let me tell you a few things that are truly worth worrying about: 1. The road not taken. 2. The destination not explored. 3. The adventure not pursued. 4. The life unlived. - Chris Guillebeau

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. - Albert Einstein

If we take care of the moments, the years will take care of themselves. - Maria Edgeworth

The mind is everything. What you think you become. - Lord Buddha

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. - William Butler Yeats

The greatest conflicts are not between two people but between one person and himself. - Garth Brooks

Love and hatred are not about sanity. If you haven't gone insane loving or hating someone, you haven't yet loved or hated with all your heart. - Aparna Chatterjee

People sometimes throw stones and you convert them into milestones. - Sachin Tendulkar

In true friendship, one can express anything and everything without feeling ashamed or afraid of being rejected. - Aparna Chatterjee

You alone can do it, but you can't do it alone. - Frank Vizzare

If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things. - Rene Descartes

If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. - Abraham Maslow

Success is not permanent and failure is not final. - Anon

The measure of love is to love without measure. - St. Francis de Sales

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot Learn, Unlearn and Relearn. - Alvin Toffler

It is not enough to create good words. The real value of values comes from consistently walking the talk. - David Cottrell

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. - Eleanor Roosevelt

If we exchange one rupee, we both will have one rupee. If we exchange one good thought, we both will have two good thoughts. - Swami Vivekananda



Compiled by Aparna Chatterjee

Photograph © Getty Images