A quotation from Ferenc Molnar

Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for the love of it, then you do it for a few friends, and finally you do it for money.

Ferenc Molnár (1878-1952) Hungarian-American author, stage director, dramatist [a.k.a. Franz Molnar]
Quoted in George Jean Nathan, Intimate Notebooks (1932)

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A quotation from La Rochefoucauld

It is generally pride rather than lack of intelligence which prompts men to dispute so obstinately generally accepted opinions; they find all the front seats taken on the popular side, and do not wish to sit behind.
 
[C’est plus souvent par orgueil que par défaut de lumières qu’on s’oppose avec tant d’opiniâtreté aux opinions les plus suivies: on trouve les premières places prises dans le bon parti, et on ne veut point des dernières.]

François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) French epigrammatist, memoirist, noble
Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales [Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims], ¶234 (1665-1678) [tr. Stevens (1939)]

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A quotation from Adlai Stevenson

I’m not an old, experienced hand at politics. But I am now seasoned enough to have learned that the hardest thing about any political campaign is how to win without proving that you are unworthy of winning.

Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965) American diplomat, statesman
Speech (1956-06-02), Fresno, California

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A quotation from Terry Pratchett

   Carrot often struck people as simple. And he was.
   Where people went wrong was thinking that simple meant the same thing as stupid.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 15, Men at Arms (1993)

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A quotation from Samuel Johnson

To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity; the next is, to strive, and deserve to conquer: but he whose life has passed without a contest, and who can boast neither success nor merit, can survey himself only as a useless filler of existence; and if he is content with his own character, must owe his satisfaction to insensibility.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Essay (1753-11-27), The Adventurer, No. 111

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A quotation from Robert Ingersoll

   What would we think of a father, who should give a farm to his children, and before giving them possession should plant upon it thousands of deadly shrubs and vines; should stock it with ferocious beasts, and poisonous reptiles; should take pains to put a few swamps in the neighborhood to breed malaria; should so arrange matters, that the ground would occasionally open and swallow a few of his darlings, and besides all this, should establish a few volcanoes in the immediate vicinity, that might at any moment overwhelm his children with rivers of fire? Suppose that this father neglected to tell his children which of the plants were deadly; that the reptiles were poisonous; failed to say anything about the earthquakes, and kept the volcano business a profound secret; would we pronounce him angel or fiend?
   And yet this is exactly what the orthodox God has done.

Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899) American lawyer, agnostic, orator
Lecture (1872-01-29), “The Gods,” Fairbury Hall, Fairbury, Illinois

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A quotation from Thomas Bastard

Age is deformed, youth unkinde,
We scorn their bodies, they our minde.

Thomas Bastard (1565–1618) English clergyman, epigrammist
Chrestoleros, Book 7, Epigram 9 “De senectute & juventute” (7.9) (1598)

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A quotation NOT from Mark Twain

I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.

Mark Twain (1835-1910) American writer [pseud. of Samuel Clemens]
(Misattributed)

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A quotation from C. C. Colton

A prodigal starts with ten thousand pounds, and dies worth nothing; a miser starts with nothing, and does worth ten thousand pounds. It has been asked which has had the best of it? I should presume the prodigal; he has spent a fortune — but the miser has only left one; — he has lived rich, to die poor; the miser has lived poor, to die rich; and if the prodigal quits life in debt to others, the miser quits it, still deeper in debt to himself.

Charles Caleb "C. C." Colton (1780-1832) English cleric, writer, aphorist
Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Vol. 2, § 131 (1822)

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A quotation from Horace

Away with complaints; for he is not poor, who has enough of things to use. If stomach, lungs, and feet are all in health, the wealth of kings can give you nothing more.
 
                                       [Tolle querellas:
Pauper enim non est, cui rerum suppetit usus.
si ventri bene, si lateri est pedibusque tuis, nil
divitiae poterunt regales addere maius.]

Horace (65-8 BC) Roman poet, satirist, soldier, politician [Quintus Horatius Flaccus]
Epistles [Epistularum, Letters], Book 1, ep. 12 “To Iccius,” l. 4ff (1.12.4-6) (20 BC) [tr. Fairclough (Loeb) (1926)]

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