“There is more to be gained by producing more opportunities than by optimizing existing ones.”

“i find nothing more depressing than optimism.”

Paul Fussell (1924–2012) Recipient of the Purple Heart medal

“Every cause produces more than one effect.”

Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) English philosopher, biologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist

“One reads books in order to gain the privilege of living more than one life….”

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

“Time, dear friend, time brings round opportunity; opportunity is the martingale of man. The more we have ventured the more we gain, when we know how to wait.”

Alexandre Dumas book The Three Musketeers

“Knowing how to keep a friend is more important than gaining a new one.”

Baltasar Gracián book The Art of Worldly Wisdom

“One is more certain to influence men, to produce more effect on them, by absurdities than by sensible ideas.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

“Nothing is better than reading and gaining more and more knowledge.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

“Ideas, as the raw material from which knowledge is produced, exist in superabundance, but that makes the production of knowledge more difficult rather than easier.”

Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

“Nothing is more expensive than a missed opportunity.”

H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (1940) American writer