Roald Dahl

If you have good thoughts, they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.

Having power is not nearly as important as what you choose to do with it.

There is no life I know to compare with pure imagination. Living there, you’ll be free if you truly wish to be.

You’ll never get anywhere if you go about what-iffing like that. Would Columbus have discovered America if he’d said ‘What if I sink on the way over? What if I meet pirates? What if I never come back?’ He wouldn’t even have started.

Don’t forget what happened to the man who suddenly got everything he wanted. He lived happily ever after.

The more risks you allow children to take, the better they learn to take care of themselves. If you never let them take any risks, then I believe they become very prone to injury.

None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.

See only that thou work and thou canst not escape the reward.

Moral of the Work. In war: resolution. In defeat: defiance. In victory: magnanimity. In peace: goodwill.

It is seldom that the miserable of the world can help regarding their misery as a wrong inflicted by those who are less miserable.

Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit.

From a worldly point of view, there is no mistake so great as that of being always right.

The greatest part of a writer’s time is spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book.

God enters by a private door into every individual.

In Boston they ask, How much does he know? In New York, How much is he worth? In Philadelphia, Who were his parents?

Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.

If you can’t forgive and forget, pick one.

Optimism is the madness of insisting that all is well when we are miserable.

Wake up, lift your head, open your eyes, and dream. Gaze softly into your heart’s whispers. Notice the pull of your belly and that which makes you come alive. Let your soul speak, beckoning you to embark on that one voyage you can no longer let lie.

Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves.

Slavery it is that makes slavery; freedom, freedom. The slavery of women happened when the men were slaves of kings.