Philip K. Dick

Great abilities are not requisite for an Historian; for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent. He has facts ready to his hand; so there is no exercise of invention. Imagination is not required in any degree; only about as much as is used in the lowest kinds of poetry. Some penetration, accuracy, and coloring, will fit a man for the task, if he can give the application which is necessary.

There is then creative reading as well as creative writing. When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion. Every sentence is doubly significant, and the sense of our author is as broad as the world.

Men are respectable only as they respect.

Be yourself. Follow your instincts. Success depends, at least in part, on the ability to carry it off.

Every time I think I have reached the peak, I look up and see I still have a ways to go. But I look back and see just how far I have come.

You are braver than you believe. Stronger than you seem. And smarter than you think.

I would live to study, and not study to live.

Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman, but believing what he read made him mad.

This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge keeps his wounds green, which otherwise would heal and do well.

What is the matter with the poor is poverty; what is the matter with the rich is uselessness.

Love is the hardest lesson in Christianity; but, for that reason, it should be most our care to learn it.

There’s a great joy in my giving. It’s thrilling. It’s exhilarating. It’s important to be a part of sharing. It is my love. It is my joy.

Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices.

I heartily accept the motto,That government is best which governs least; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which I also believe,That government is best which governs not at all; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.

The resistance to the unpleasant situation is the root of suffering.