Wit & Wisdom

“I am a kind of paranoid in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.”

J.D. Salinger, quoted in the London Independent

“The trouble with words is that you never know whose mouth they’ve been in.’’

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

British dramatist Dennis Potter, quoted in the London Daily Telegraph

“There is no such uncertainty as a sure thing.”

Robert Burns, quoted in NYTimes.com

“It is very simple to be happy, but it is very difficult to be simple.”

Poet Rabindranath Tagore, quoted in the Montreal Gazette

“You don’t get anything clean without getting something else dirty.”

Author Cecil Baxter, quoted in Forbes.com

“Originality and a feeling of one’s own dignity are achieved only through work and struggle.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quoted in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”

Management expert Peter Drucker, quoted in The New Republic