Each week, the PALC posts a thought-provoking quote. Here are the quotes from previous weeks.

"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one." George Bernard Shaw (February 28, 2010)

"It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them." Alfred Adler (February 21, 2010)

"We must not just be in the world and above the world, but also of the world. To love it for what it is . . . is the only task. Avoid it and you are lost. Lose yourself in it, and you are free." Henry Miller (February 14, 2010)

"He who cherishes the values of culture cannot fail to be a pacifist." Albert Einstein (February 7, 2010)

"Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead." Charles Bukowski (January 31, 2010)

"Be wiser than other people, if you can, but do not tell them so." Lord Chesterfield (January 24, 2010)

"The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides. Accept life, and you must accept regret." Henri-Frédéric Amiel (January 17, 2009)

"lovers alone wear sunlight" e e cummings (January 10, 2009)

"Desire makes everything blossom; possession makes everything wither and fade." Marcel Proust (January 3, 2009)

"Anyone who takes himself too seriously always runs the risk of looking ridiculous; anyone who can consistently laugh at himself does not." Vaclav Havel (December 27, 2009)

"Freedom is the right to say two plus two make four. If granted, all else follows." George Orwell (December 20, 2009)

"He that can't endure the bad will not live to see the good." Yiddish Proverb (December 13, 2009)

"There is no wealth but life." John Ruskin  (December 6, 2009)

"Courage is fear that has said its prayers." Dorothy Bernard (November 29, 2009)

"Old age is the most unexpected of things that can happen to a man." Leon Trotsky (November 22, 2009)

"Life is a long lesson in humility." James M. Barrie (November 15, 2009)

 "Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority." Thomas H. Huxley (November 8, 2009)

"There is nothing stronger in the world than gentleness." Han Suyin (October 25, 2009)

"It does no harm just once in a while to acknowledge that the whole country isn't in flames, that there are people in the country besides politicians, entertainers, and criminals." Charles Kuralt (October 18, 2009)

"Drama is life with the dull bits cut out."— Alfred Hitchcock (October 11, 2009)

 "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."— Martin Luther King Jr. (September 27, 2009)

"The secret of all success is to know how to deny yourself. Prove that you can control yourself, and you are an educated man; without this all other education is good for nothing."—R.D. Hitchcock (September 20, 2009)

"An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't."—Anatole France (September 13, 2009)

"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing."—George Bernard Shaw (September 6, 2009)

"When the character of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends."—Japanese Proverb (August 23, 2009)

"People who have what they want are fond of telling people who haven't what they want that they really don't want it."—Ogden Nash (August 16, 2009)

 "Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole."—Roger Caras (August 9, 2009)

"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both."—Dwight D. Eisenhower (August 2, 2009)

"Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow."—Oscar Wilde (July 25, 2009)

"Between the wish and the thing life lies waiting."—Unknown (July 19, 2009)

"There is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find peace. You will find that deep place of silence right in your room, your garden or even your bathtub."—Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (July 12, 2009)

"How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live."—Henry David Thoreau (July 5, 2009)

"Personally I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught."—Winston Churchill (June 28, 2009)

"To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle."—George Orwell (June 21, 2009)

"Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind."—Rudyard Kipling (June 14, 2009)

"Time has a wonderful way of showing us what really matters."—Margaret Peters (June 7, 2009)

"Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others."—Cicero (May 31, 2009)

"To conceal ignorance is to increase it. An honest confession of it, however, gives ground for the hope that it will diminish some day or the other."—Mahatma Gandhi (May 24, 2009)

"Justice delayed is democracy denied."—Robert F. Kennedy (May 17, 2009)

"Character - the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life - is the source from which self respect springs."—Joan Didion (May 10, 2009)

"There are some that only employ words for the purpose of disguising their thoughts."—Voltaire (May 3, 2009)

 "Never trust the artist. Trust the tale."—D. H. Lawrence (April 26, 2009)

"Every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it."—George Orwell (April 19, 2009)

"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words."—Philip K. Dick (April 12, 2009)

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on."—Robert Frost (April 5, 2009)

"People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest."—Hermann Hesse (March 29, 2009)

"If man could have half his wishes, he would double his troubles."—Benjamin Franklin (March 22, 2009)

"I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief."—Gerry Spence (March 8, 2009)

"There can be no real individual freedom in the presence of economic insecurity."—Chester Bowles (March 1, 2009)

"A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart."—Jonathan Swift (February 22, 2009)

"The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it."—Jean Paul Sartre (February 15, 2009)

"Ever notice that anyone going slower than you is an idiot, but anyone going faster is a maniac?"—George Carlin (February 8, 2009)

"Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new."—Henry David Thoreau (February 1, 2009)

"Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory."—John Kenneth Galbraith (January 25, 2009)

"Success is that old ABC—ability, breaks, and courage."—Charles Luckman (January 18, 2009)

"Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth."—Blaise Pascal (January 10, 2009)

"Only the educated are free."—Epictetus (January, 3, 2009)

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it."—Thomas Jefferson (December 27, 2008)

"We shall find peace. We shall hear the angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds."—Anton Chekhov (December 20, 2008)

"I am patient with stupidity but not with those who are proud of it."—Edith Sitwell (December 13, 2008)

"We must not allow the clock and the calendar to blind us to the fact that each moment of life is a miracle and mystery."—H.G. Wells (December 6, 2008)

"For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream."—Vincent Van Gogh (November 30, 2008)

 "Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace."—Albert Schweitzer (November 23, 2008)

 "We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are."—Anais Nin (November 16, 2008)

"If only we'd stop trying to be happy we'd have a pretty good time."—Edith Wharton (November 9, 2008)

"Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy."—Ann Frank (November 2, 2008)

"Have no fear of perfection -- you will never reach it."—Salvador Dali (October 26, 2008)

"Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live."—Mark Twain (October 19, 2008)

"People do not like to think. If one thinks, one must reach conclusions. Conclusions are not always pleasant."—Helen Keller (October 12, 2008)

"Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt."—Clarence Darrow (October 5, 2008)

 "By desiring little, a poor man makes himself rich."—Democritus (September 28, 2008)

"Only passions, great passions, can elevate the soul to great things."—Denis Diderot (September 21, 2008)

"In politics, absurdity is not a handicap."—Napoleon Bonaparte (September 14, 2008)

"Experience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you."—Aldous Huxley (September 8, 2008)

"They must often change who would be constant in happiness or wisdom."—Confucius (September 1, 2008)

"The tragedy of life is what dies in the hearts and souls of people while they live."—Albert Einstein (August 24, 2008)

"There is always a well-known solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong."—H.L. Mencken (August 17, 2008)

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."—Krishnamurti (August 10, 2008)

"Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better."—Albert Camus (August 3, 2008)

"What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure."—Samuel Johnson (July 27, 2008)

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. "—Franklin Delano Roosevelt (July 20, 2008)

"Where is there dignity unless there is honesty?"—Cicero (July 13, 2008)

"The wisest mind has something yet to learn."—George Santayana (July 6, 2008)

"Those who don't know how to weep with their whole heart, don't know how to laugh either."—Golda Meir (June 29, 2008)

 "Things do not change; we change."—Henry David Thoreau (June 22, 2008)

"What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only consequence is what we do."—John Ruskin (June 15, 2008)

"A free society is a place where it's safe to be unpopular."—Adlai Stevenson Jr. (June 8, 2008)

"Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one."—Malcolm Forbes (June 1, 2008)

"Everything you can imagine is real."—Pablo Picasso (May 25, 2008)

"I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center."—Kurt Vonnegut (May 18, 2008)

I am not a great cook, I am not a great artist, but I love art, and I love food, so I am the perfect traveller."—Michael Palin (May 3, 2008)

"I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues."—Dr. Seuss (April 27, 2008)

"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."—George Orwell (April 20, 2008)

"The more opinions you have, the less you see."—Wim Wenders (April 13, 2008)

"Let no man pull you low enough to hate him."—Martin Luther King Jr. (April 6, 2008)

"Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong."—Oscar Wilde (March 29, 2008)

"Truth crushed to the earth is truth still and like a seed will rise again."—Jefferson Davis (March 22, 2008)

"Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinions of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth."—Katherine Mansfield (March 16, 2008)

 "A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury."—John Stuart Mill (March 9, 2008)

"When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."—Jonathan Swift (March 2, 2008)

 "After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music."—Aldous Huxley (February 24, 20008)

"We cannot change anything unless we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses."—Carl Jung (February 17, 2008)

 "Goodness is the only investment that never fails."—Henry David Thoreau (February 10, 2008)

"Doubt is not a pleasant condition but certainty is an absurd one."—Voltaire (February 3, 2008)

"In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant."—Charles de Gaulle (January 27, 2008)

"The wise man thinks about his troubles only when there is some purpose in doing so; at other times he thinks about other things."—Bertrand Russell (January 20, 2008)

"Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or else you say something true, and it will sound like it's from Neptune."—Noam Chomsky (January 13, 2008)

"There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle."—Albert Einstein (January 6, 2008)

"Egotism is the anaesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity."—Frank Leahy (December 30, 2007)

"Nothing's a gift; it's all on loan."—Wislawa Szymborska (December 23, 2007)

 "Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing."—Oscar Wilde (December 16, 2007)

"Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind."—Ralph Waldo Emerson (December 9, 2007)

"If A is success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut."—Albert Einstein (December 2, 2007)

"Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps, for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be."—William Hazlitt (November 26, 2007)

 "There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all."—Peter Drucker (November 19, 2007)

"He who is afraid to ask is ashamed of learning."—Danish Proverb (November 12, 2007)

"Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion. "—Edward Abbey (November 5, 2007)

 "You can fool too many of the people too much of the time."—James Thurber (October 28, 2007)

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."—Charles Darwin (October 21, 2007)

"What's reality anyway? Nothing but a collective hunch."—Lily Tomlin (October 14, 2007)

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."—Thomas A. Edison (October 7, 2007)

 "Platitude: an idea (a) that is admitted to be true by everyone, and (b) that is not true."—H.L. Mencken (September 30, 2007)

"The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously."—Hubert H. Humphrey (September 23, 2007)

"When in doubt, observe and ask questions. When certain, observe at length and ask many more questions."—George S. Patton (September 16, 2007)

"It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers."—James Thurber (September 9, 2007)

 "A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do."—Bob Dylan (September 2, 2007)

"Forgive me my nonsense as I also forgive the nonsense of those who think they talk sense. "—Robert Frost (August 26, 2007)

"All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others. "—George Orwell (August 19, 2007)

"Any fool can know. The point is to understand."—Albert Einstein (August 12, 2007)

"All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire."—Aristotle (August 5, 2007)

"Live simply that others may simply live." —Mahatma Gandhi (July 29, 2007)

"The more we study the more we discover our ignorance." —Percy Bysshe Shelley (July 22, 2007)

"A great truth is a truth whose opposite is also a truth." —Thomas Mann (July 15, 2007)

"If a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man." —Anthony Burgess (July 8, 2007)

"Life is a perpetual instruction in cause and effect." —Ralph Waldo Emerson (June 24, 2007)

"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." —William Butler Yeats (June 19, 2007)

"If people cannot write well, they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them." —George Orwell (June 12, 2007)

"We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light." —Plato (June 5, 2007)

 "Here's what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey." —Kurt Vonnegut (May 27, 2007)

"The illiterate of the future will not be the person who cannot read. It will be the person who does not know how to learn." —Alvin Toffler (May 20, 2007)

 "He who doesn't lose his wits over certain things has no wits to lose." —Gotthold Lessing (May 12, 2007)

 "The best preparation for the future, is the present well seen to, and the last duty done." —George MacDonald (May 6, 2007)

"Some things have to be believed to be seen." —Ralph Hodgson (April 29, 2007)

"If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair." —C. S. Lewis (April 22, 2007)

"The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear. —Aung San Suu Kyi (April 15, 2007)

"Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself."—Charlie Chaplin (April 8, 2007)

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."—Dr. Seuss (April 1, 2007)

"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men. "— Plato (March 25, 2007)

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. "— Aristotle (March 18, 2007)

"I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent."— Mahatma Gandhi (March 11, 2007)

"When one has much to put into them, a day has a hundred pockets."— Friedrich Nietzsche (March 4, 2007)

 "We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities. "— Oscar Wilde (February 25, 2007)

"The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining."— John F. Kennedy (February 18, 2007)

"Journalism without a moral position is impossible. Every journalist is a moralist. It's absolutely unavoidable."— Marguerite Duras (February 11, 2007)

 "Men of power have no time to read; yet the men who do not read are unfit for power."—Michael Foot (February 4, 2007)

"Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest. "— Mark Twain (January 27, 2007)

 "A lie told often enough becomes the truth." Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov Lenin (January 20, 2007)

"Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction." Antoine de Saint-Exupery (January 13, 2007)

"Security is mostly a superstition.  It does not exist in nature . . . Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."— Helen Keller (December 31, 2007)

 "Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time."— Steven Wright (December 24, 2006)

"If you don't get everything you want, think of the things you don't get that you don't want."— Oscar Wilde (December 17, 2006)

"Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain—and most do."— Dale Carnegie (December 10, 2006)

"Never discourage anyone who continually makes progress, no matter how slow." —Plato (December 3, 2006

 "All we know is still infinitely less than all that remains unknown."— William Harvey (November 25, 2006)

"I am one of the people who love the why of things." —Catherine the Great (November 18, 2006)

"It is only the dead who have seen the end of war."— Plato (November 11, 2006)

"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."— George Orwell (November 4, 2006)

"The best thing that can come with success is the knowledge that it is nothing to long for."— Liv Ullmann (October 29, 2006)

"Sometimes it is more important to discover what one cannot do, than what one can do." — Lin Yutang (October 22, 2006)

"A writer should have the precision of a poet and the imagination of a scientist."—Vladimir Nabokov (October 15, 2006)

"It may be those who do most, dream most."—Stephen Leacock (October 8, 2006)

"To have realized your dream makes you feel lost."— Oriana Fallaci (September 24, 2006)

“Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power." —René Descartes (September 17, 2006)

"The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant.” —Plato (September 10, 2006)

"Truth, like surgery, may hurt, but it cures." —Han Suyin (September 3, 2006)

"Literature is the question minus the answer."— Roland Barthes (August 26, 2006)

"He who laughs most, learns best."— John Cleese (August 19, 2006)

"There's no limit to how complicated things can get, on account of one thing always leading to another." —E.B. White (August 12, 2006)

"As a rule, I always look for what others ignore." —Marshall McLuhan (August 5, 2006)

"The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend." —Robertson Davies (July 30, 2006)

 "Indifference is the invisible giant of the world." —Ouida (July 24, 2006)

"The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up."— Paul Valery (July 15, 2006)

"If you can't change your fate, change your attitude." —Amy Tan (July 9, 2006)

"Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason." —Novalis (June 24, 2006)

"The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month."— Fyodor Dostoyevsky (June 17, 2006)

There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do."— Freya Stark (June 10, 2006)

"Spring is nature's way of saying, 'Let's party!'"— Robin Williams (June 3, 2006)

"I disapprove of what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it." —Voltaire (May 28, 2006)

"Remember, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday."—Dale Carnegie (May 21, 2006)

"Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also."—Carl Gustav Jung (May 17, 2006)

“Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.”—Maya Angelou (May 10, 2006)

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes." —Marcel Proust (April 29, 2006)

"It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question." —Eugene Ionesco (April 22, 2006)

"The harder you work, the luckier you get." —Gary Player (April 15, 2006)

 "One of the many things nobody ever tells you about middle age is that it's such a nice change from being young."—Dorothy Canfield Fisher (April 8, 2006)

"Dare to be wrong and to dream." —Friedrich von Schiller (April 1, 2006)

"Laughter is the tonic, the relief, the surcease for pain."—Charlie Chaplin (March 26, 2006)

"An idea is always a generalization, and generalization is a property of thinking. To generalize means to think."—Georg Hegel (March 19, 2006)

"It is a miserable state of mind to have few things to desire and many things to fear." —Sir Francis Bacon (March 13, 2006)

"Poetry is the algebra of the heart." —E.E. Cummings (March 6, 2006)

"Imagination grows by exercise, and contrary to common belief, is more powerful in the mature than in the young."—W. Somerset Maugham (February 26, 2006)

"Ignorance is the night of the mind, but a night without moon or star."—Confucius (February 19, 2006)

"Since in order to speak, one must first listen, learn to speak by listening. "—Mevlana Rumi (February 12, 2006)

"Happiness is the longing for repetition."—Milan Kundera (February 5, 2006)

"He who asks a question is a fool for a minute; he who does not remains a fool forever."—Chinese Proverb (January 28, 2006)

"As a rule, men worry more about what they can't see than about what they can."—Julius Caesar (January 21, 2006)

“To get where you want to go you can't only do what you like.” Peter Abrahams (January 14, 2006)

“Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.” Aristotle (January 7, 2006)

 "Intolerance of ambiguity is the mark of an authoritarian personality."—Theodor W. Adorno (December 31, 2005)

"I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart."—Anne Frank (December 24, 2005)

"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."—Aldous Huxley (December 18, 2005)

"Imagine all the people living life in peace."—John Lennon (December 11, 2005)

"Truth is what stands the test of experience."—Albert Einstein (December 4, 2005)

"A different language is a different vision of life."—Federico Fellini (November 27, 2005)

"If we could be twice young and twice old, we could correct all our mistakes."—Euripides (November 20, 2005)

"Two things inspire me to awe -- the starry heavens above and the moral universe within." Albert Einstein (November 13, 2005)

"If you shut up truth, and bury it underground, it will but grow. "— Emile Zola (November 6, 2005)

"The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of childhood into maturity."— Thomas Henry Huxley (October 30, 2005)

"Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts. "— Aristotle (October 23, 2005)

"There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them."— Joseph Brodsky (October 1, 2005)

"If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less but to dream more, to dream all the time." Marcel Proust (September 24, 2005)

 "The subject who is truly loyal to the Chief Magistrate will neither advise nor submit to arbitrary measures."  —Junius (September 17, 2005)

 "Silence is the real crime against humanity." —Nadezhda Mandelstam (September 10, 2005)