“The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you’ve got it made.” - Jean Giraudoux
“Take care of the cojones and the frijoles will take care of themselves.” – another one from Robert A. Heinlein
There’s not just one for me, and I collect quotes which appeal to me, to make things worse. So I debated how I might respond. Then I decided on the poem I memorized in my teens, a year or two after my mother died. I’d encountered the first few lines of Robert Browning’s poem, “Rabbi Ben Ezra,” in Asimov’s book, Pebble in the Sky:
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in his hand
Who saith, “A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!”
Don’t ask me why it seemed so meaningful to me as a 13 or 14 year old; I’ve never understood why. However, I still think it’s good advice, nearly 50 years later. 
One of many places on the Web where the entire poem can be found is here
One of the women I most admired and respected worked as a counsellor for women facing the choice of whether to have an abortion or not (in London). Although we didn’t agree on everything (like “abortion on demand”), we hardly ever talked about it. Somehow, with friends, you don’t have to argue and bicker about these things.
Question for you, though. Do you think a man should live his life by the following: “No man can call himself free who does not own and control his body”?
MixieArmadillo
It’s good someone put that off-topic posting in balance.
Okay my quote to live by:
**
“… but even the Emperor himself cannot buy another day.”
Chinese Proverb**
“If we don’t push our limits, we’ll never know how truly limitless we are.”
(I think several people said something like this.)
“Take it easy, but take it.” -Woody Guthrie
I can’t figure out what sort of logical trap you’re trying to lead me into with this deliberately disingenuous question. So, I will answer: of course I do. And leave this discussion at that.
When I get a little money I buy books and if any is left I buy food and
clothes. - Erasmus
“In the beginning, the Universe was created.
This has made a lot of people very angry and is widely regarded as a bad move.”
Douglas Adams
Not a trap, and you answered my question.
It’s the issues of rights versus responsibilities/obligations that each statement raises that I find interesting.
“This, too, shall pass.”
I LOVE that one. It’s served me well, too: I may regret splurging on dinner, or on clothes, but I’ve never regretted buying a book.
No amount of belief would make something a fact.
– No idea who.
Henry Ford II’s motto was “Never complain, never explain”, so your grandmother might have heard and adapted that quote. It was also often uttered by Jackie Onassis, but dates back to Benjamin Disraeli (if not to someone who lived even earlier).
As for my contribution to the list, I offer one popularized by Jackie O’s first husband: “Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.”
Abe Lincoln is widely credited with a folksier variant:
This is one that got me through my early twenties …
“We must go through bitter waters before we reach the sweet.”
–Abraham Van Helsing
“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.” - Calvin Coolidge
I never knew he said so much in one go. Or is this a compilation of his bon mots over 6 years or so?
I’ve always credited this to Yoda…it was Miss Piggy?
It was Yoda, but Frank Oz does the voice for both characters, and sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.