L

La Rochefoucauld, François, duc de (Duke of)

A word to the wise is unnecessary.

Labelle, Patti

"Sing loud!" my father always told me, "just in case someone is listening."

Lagerfeld, Karl

The purpose of life is life.

Lamarr, Hedy

Any girl can be glamorous. All you have to do is stand still and look stupid.

L'amour, Louis

Victory is not won in miles but in inches. Win a little now, hold your ground, and later win a little more.

Landers, Ann

Keep in mind that the true measure of an individual is how he treats a person who can do him absolutely no good.

Landon, Michael

Whatever it is you want to do, do it now. There are only so many tomorrows.

Lane, Janet

Of all the things you wear, your expression is the most important.

Lane, Rose Wilder

Making the best of things is . . . a damn poor way of dealing with them . . . my whole life has been a series of escapes from that quicksand.

Lang, Andre

He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts&emdash;for support rather than for illumination.

Lao-tzu

Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.

Lao-tzu

To see things in the seed, that is genius.

Lappe, Frances Moore

The only real risk is the risk of thinking too small.

Larson, Doug

A true friend is one who overlooks your failures and tolerates your successes.

Larson, Doug

Some of the world's greatest feats were accomplished by people not smart enough to know they were impossible.

Larson, Doug

Spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush.

Larson, Doug

You're carrying the cholesterol thing too far if you can resist an ice cream cone in August.

Lauretta, Sister Mary

To be successful, the first thing to do is fall in love with your work.

Lavater, Johann Kasper

Never tell evil of a man, if you do not know it for certainty, and if you know it for a certainty, then ask yourself, 'Why should I tell it?'

Lawrence, David Herbert Richard (D. H.)

It is a fine thing to establish one's own religion in one's heart, not to be dependent on tradition and second-hand ideals. Life will seem to you, later, not a lesser, but a greater thing.

Lawrence, T. E.

All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.

Leach, Reggie

Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire.

Leacock, Stephen

Life, we learn too late, is in the living, in the tissue of every day and hour.

Leacock, Stephen

It may be that those who do most, dream most.

Leacock, Stephen

The minute a man is convinced that he's interesting, he isn't.

Lebowitz, Fran

Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about things, and small people talk about wine.

Lebowitz, Fran

Humility is no substitute for a good personality.

Lebowitz, Fran

Life is something that happens when you can't get to sleep.

Lebowitz, Fran

Polite conversation is rarely either.

Lebowitz, Fran

Remember that as a teenager you are at the last stage in your life when you will be happy to hear the phone is for you.

Lebowitz, Fran

Success didn't spoil me; I've always been insufferable.

Lee, Harper

The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.

Leguin, Ursula K.

Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made like bread; remade all the time, made new.

Leguin, Ursula K.

The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next.

Leifer, Carol

I'm not into working out. My philosophy: No pain, no pain.

Leigh, Vivian

Most of us have compromised with life. Those who fight for what they want will always thrill us.

Lennon, John

All you need is love.

Lennon, John and Paul McCartney

I don't care too much for money, for money can't buy me love.

Leno, Jay

You can't stay mad at somebody who makes you laugh.

Leslie, H. T.

The game of life is not so much in holding a good hand as playing a poor hand well.

Lessing, Doris

Think wrongly, if you please, but in all cases think for yourself.

Levant, Oscar

There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.

Levenson, Sam

The reason grandparents and grandchildren get along so well is that they have a common enemy.

Levenson, Sam

You must learn from the mistakes of others. You can't possibly live long enough to make them all yourself.

Levine, Michael

Successful people are very lucky. Just ask any failure.

Levine, Stephen

If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?

Lewin, Kurt

If you want truly to understand something, try to change it.

Lewis, C. S.

Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives.

Lewis, C. S.

Experience: the most brutal of teachers. But you learn; my God, do you learn.

Lewis, Joe E.

You only live once&emdash;but if you work it right, once is enough.

Lichtenberg, Georg Christoph

Nothing is more conducive to peace of mind than not having any opinions at all.

Lincoln, Abraham

Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?

Lincoln, Abraham

He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met.

Lincoln, Abraham

I have found that most people are as happy as they make up their minds to be.

Lincoln, Abraham

I walk slowly, but I never walk backward.

Lincoln, Abraham

'Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.

Lincoln, Abraham

The path was worn and slippery. My foot slipped from under me, knocking the other out of the way, but I recovered and said to myself, "It's a slip and not a fall."

Lincoln, Abraham

The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.

Lincoln, Abraham

Whatever you are, be a good one.

Lincoln, Abraham

Writing is the greatest invention of the world.

Lindbergh, Anne Morrow

I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, for everyone suffers. To suffering must be adding mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness, and the willingness to remain vulnerable.

Lindquist, Raymond

Courage is the power to let go of the familiar.

Linkletter, Art

Things turn out best for those that make the best of the way things turn out.

Little, Mary Wilson

A youth with his first cigar makes himself sick; a youth with his first girl makes everybody sick.

Lombardi, Vince

If winning isn't everything, why do they keep score?

Lombardi, Vince

Winning isn't everything, but wanting to win is.

Lombardi, Vince

Winning isn't everything. It is the only thing.

London, Jack

A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.

London, Jack

I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out than it should be stifled by dry-rot. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

Let us, then, be up and doing, with a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, learn to labor and to wait.

Lord Brabazon

I take the view, and always have, that if you cannot say what you are going to say in twenty minutes you ought to go away and write a book about it.

Loren, Sophia

Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a life.

Lucas, Edward Verrall

I have noticed that the people who are late are often so much jollier than the people who have to wait for them.

Luce, Clare Boothe

Censorship, like charity, should begin at home; but unlike charity, it should end there.

Luckman, Charles

Success is that old A B C&emdash;ability, breaks, and courage.

Lunden, Joan

Holding onto anger only gives you tense muscles.

Luther, Martin

My heart, which is so full to overflowing, has often been solaced and refreshed by music when sick and weary.

Lynes, Russell

The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one.

Lyon, Mary

Trust in God&emdash;and do something.

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