Frida Kahlo

I drank to drown my pain, but the damned pain learned how to swim…

Respect for sovereignity, for privacy, for total independence. Gentle alliances against loneliness, they were, cool rational love-affairs without the love.

That you may retain your self-respect, it is better to displease the people by doing what you know is right, than to temporarily please them by doing what you know is wrong.

Willpower is a myth. The problem with trying to use willpower to achieve and sustain a behavioral change is that it is fueled by emotion. And as we all know, our emotions are, at best, fickle. They come and go. When your emotions start running down — and they will — even your best-laid plans will fall flat.

One of the greatest discoveries a person makes, one of their great surprises, is to find they can do what they were afraid they couldn’t do.

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

If money is your hope for independence, you will never have it. The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience and ability.

I never hurt nobody but myself and that’s nobody’s business but my own.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

To cease smoking is the easiest thing I ever did; I ought to know because I’ve done it a thousand times.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

History is more or less bunk.

We all have different reasons for forgetting to breathe.

Whenever you get the idea that you are ‘fixed’ or that anything is ‘fixed’ for life, you’d better get ready for a sudden change.

Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.

This is the only reason Greenfield Village exists-to give us a sense of unity with our people through the generations, and to convey the inspiration of American genius to our young men. As a nation we have not depended so much on rare or occasional genius as on the general resourcefulness of our people. That is our true genius, and I am hoping that Greenfield Village will serve that.