“A man has to BE something; he has to matter.”

“Always have something to say. The man who has something to say and who is known never to speak unless he has, is sure to be listened to.”

Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) American writer and lecturer

“The good man is the man who, no matter how morally unworthy he has been, is moving to become better.”

John Dewey (1859–1952) American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer

“I submit to you that if a man has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

“What is a highbrow? He is a man who has found something more interesting than women.”

Edgar Wallace (1875–1932) British crime writer, journalist and playwright

“The artist tries to see what there is to be interested in… He has not created something, he has seen something.”

T. E. Hulme (1883–1917) English Imagist poet and critic

“When Sinatra sits to dine, his trusted friends are close; and no matter where he is, no matter how elegant the place may be, there is something of the neighborhood showing because Sinatra, no matter how far he has come, is still something of the boy from the neighborhood — only now he can take his neighborhood with him.”

Gay Talese (1932) American writer

“No man burdens his mind with small matters unless he has some very good reason for doing so.”

Arthur Conan Doyle book A Study in Scarlet

“It does not matter much what a man hates provided he hates something.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

“Who was it who said that a wise man speaks when he has something to say, but a fool speaks because he must?”

Alastair Reynolds book Chasm City