Be master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for the big, worthwhile things. It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out - it's the grain of sand in your shoe.

Avoid extremes: be moderate In saving and in spending; An equable and easy gait Will win an easy ending.

His life, though none too long, Was never dull: Of woman, wine and song Bill had his full.

It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones who win in the lifelong race.

A promise made is a debt unpaid.

Be sure your wisest words are those you do not say.

I have some friends, some honest friends, and honest friends are few; My pipe of briar, my open fire, A book that's not too new.

No man can be a failure if he thinks he's a success; If he thinks he is a winner, then he is.

Be master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for the big, worthwhile things. It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out - it's the grain of sand in your shoe.

Man is an evasive beast given to cultivating strange notions about himself. He is humiliated by his simian ancestry and tries to deny his animal nature to persuade himself that he is not limited by its weaknesses nor concerned in its fate.

I wasn't sure how my dad would react. There was an agent sitting behind them and he told me he was embarrassed to watch the scenes. My parents have always been very open. They trust my decisions.

The world of high-stakes international diplomacy can be rough and tumble, but it's more often than not a procession of suits and summits, protocol sessions and photo ops.

I haven't read a review of one of my films for the best part of 10 years.

Since there is nothing so well worth having as friends, never lose a chance to make them.

People will be able to raise their concerns: what are local officers doing about the drug dealing in the local park? What's happening about the pub where all the trouble is? And the police will have to respond.

Resolve that whatever you do you will bring the whole man to it that you will fling the whole weight of your being into it.

The resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible.

I live a fairly simple life, and that didn't change much after I sold TechCrunch in 2010. I didn't buy a new house or even a new car. The one thing I did splurge on was a boat. Nothing too fancy or large.

I'm not going to make general comments about the British press.

The next time you experience a blackout, take some solace by looking at the sky. You will not recognize it.

Do not bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.

I think we all do have a guardian angel. I believe they work through us all the time when we are thoughtful and good and kind to each other.

Shake any institution of higher learning, and a dozen boycotters will fall out of it.

Love is mutually feeding each other, not one living on another like a ghoul.

I know there are a lot of people who believe in me as a player and a person, and I don't want to let them down.

American power in the world relies on these ideals of openness and critical debate.

In the past, a writer had to go outside and get to know others before learning about their work, but the Internet has made humanity more accessible for misanthropes like me. I read blogs, tweets, Facebook posts and Reddit threads where people detail their jobs.

An optimist sees the doughnut the pessimist sees the whole.

We affect one another quite enough merely by existing. Whenever the stars cross or is it comets Fragments pass briefly from one orbit to another. On rare occasions there is total collision but most often the two simply continue without incident neither losing more than a particle to the other in passing.

I wanted to join the Army when football failed. That was my only realistic form of making an honest living.

I didn't write any music at all, and then, I remember Jon Anderson being very insistent saying that there were two kinds of musicians: the ones who wrote music and the ones who didn't.

I don't know what the future is, but you just do it whilst it's there, don't you?

For my constituents, owning a home is the culmination of many years of hard work and the realization of the American Dream. At no time should a local entity take those years of hard work solely to increase their tax revenue.