Johann Hari

"We cannot put off living until we are ready. Life is fired at us point-blank." - Jose Ortega y Gasset

"Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent" - Eleanor Roosevelt

"When you are going through hell, keep going" - Winston Churchill

"A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything." - Friedrich Nietzsche

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better." - Samuel Beckett

"Happiness is a hound dog in the sun. We are not here to be happy but to experience great and wonderful things." - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead

"Not to know what has been transacted in former times is to always be a child. If no use is made of the labours of past ages, the world must remain always in the infancy of knowledge." - Cicero

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." - J.K. Galbraith

"If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods, keep going. If they're shouting after you, keep going. Don't ever stop. Keep going." - advice given by ex-slave Harriet Tubman, to slaves she was helping to escape

"Every step that the intelligence of Europe has taken, has been in spite of the clerical party" - Victor Hugo

"Strive not to be a man of success, but a man of value." - Albert Einstein

"The champ may have lost his stuff temporarily or permanently, he can't be sure. When he can no longer throw his high hard one, he throws his heart instead. He throws something. He just doesn't walk off the mound and weep." - Raymond Chandler

"I am disgusted to see Dos [Passos] said that writers should not write now. If a writer has any guts he should write all the time, and the lousier the world the harder a writer should work. For if he can do nothing positive, to make the world more liveable or less cruel or stupid, he can at least record truly, and that is something no one else will do, and it a job that must be done. It is the only revenge that all the bastardized people will ever get: that somebody writes down clearly what happened to them." - Martha Gellhorn, 1941

"The last three decades of this century have witnessed the ignition of the most significant internal conflict ever to engage the human species. It is not the struggle between capitalism and communism or between any other set of 'isms'. It is the conflict between those who possess the means and will to exploit the living world to destruction, and those who are banding together in a desperate and last-ditch attempt to prevent the New Juggernaut from trashing our small planet." - Farley Mowat

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." - Martin Luther King

- "Never let anyone think they're worth more than you, and never let anyone think they're worth less than you" - Violet Hari (my mum)

"To see what is in front of one's nose is a constant struggle." - George Orwell

"Right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant." - Martin Luther King, 1963

"The greatest and worst words in the English language are: Nothing lasts." - Blanche Hunt, Coronation Street

"Things are always darkest before they are completely black and you die." - Chairman Mao

"This isn't a smile. It's the lid on a scream." - Bet Lynch, Coronation Street.

"Fuck your Parliament and your Constitution. America is an elephant. Cyprus is a flea. If these two fleas continue itching the elephant, they may just get whacked by the elephant's trunk, whacked good.... We pay a lot of good American dollars to the Greeks, Mr. Ambassador. If your Prime Minister gives me talk about Democracy, Parliament and Constitutions, he, his Parliament and his Constitution may not last very long." - President Lyndon Johnson, to the Greek Ambassador

"Tell people something they know already and they will thank you for it. Tell them something new and they will hate you for it." - George Monbiot

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities" - Voltaire

"But I've got a job to do, too. Where I'm going, you can't follow. What I've got to do, you can't be any part of. Ilsa, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that." - Rick, Casablanca

"Each time you smile/
It'll only last a while./
Life may be scary/
But it's only temporary./
Everything in life/
Is only for now." - A chorus of puppets and humans, 'Avenue Q'

"Life is an experience to be lived, not a problem to be solved" - Soren Kierkegaard

"If you've got a hunchback, sprinkle some glitter on it, honey, and make a feature out of it"
- James St. James

"If you are going to tell people the truth, you had better make them laugh. Otherwise they'll kill you." - George Bernard Shaw

"Fuck em if they can't take a joke" - Bette Midler

Send your favourite quotes to johann@johannhari.com and if I'm gripped by a rare burst of efficiency I'll post them here...