There must be an ideal world, a sort of mathematician’s paradise
where everything happens as it does in textbooks.
– Bertrand Russell
Also: Experience is something you don’t get until just after you needed it.
My entry: He who laughs lasts.
Be excellent to each other. - Bill S. Preston, Esq.
“Door (n.): Something a dog is always on the wrong side of.” - Mark Twain
“No one can guarantee the actions of another.”
—Spock
You can’t bluff a man who isn’t paying attention.
Regards,
Shodan
“Vulcans never bluff.”
—Spock
“Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it.” - Abraham Lincoln
“Oh Lord, please give me the serenity to accept what cannot be changed, the courage to change what can be changed, and a big pile of money.”
“Those who exchange liberty for security deserve neither.” Benjamin Franklin
“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” - Thomas Jefferson
I like Satchel Paige’s version better: “Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.”
My personal favorite: Today not possible, tomorrow possible.
“If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.”
—Abraham Lincoln
“Women. Can’t live with 'em…”*
—Norm Peterson
*Yes, I know that’s only the first half of the quote, but it’s the one that matters. 
“Anyone who says money can’t buy happiness doesn’t know where to shop.”
—Eunice “Lovey” Howell
“The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.” --James Branch Cabell
He wrote that in 1787. Here’s what he wrote 20 years later.
Letter to John Norvell (11 June 1807) https://www.loc.gov/resource/mtj1.038_0592_0594/?sp=2&st=text
“One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.” --George Orwell, “Notes on Nationalism”
Another Satchel Paige quote: “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?”
One of my favorites and especially now, as I am looking down the barrel of my 75th.
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” – George Bernard Shaw
More from Satchel Paige:
“Ain’t no man can avoid being born average, but there ain’t no man got to be common.”
“Don’t pray when it rains if you don’t pray when the sun shines.”
“Not to be cheered by praise, not to be grieved by blame, but to know thoroughly one’s own virtues or powers are the characteristics of an excellent man.”
Along the same lines: “If violence isn’t your last resort, you didn’t resort to enough of it.”
- From the fictional “70 Maxims of Highly Effective Mercenaries” of Schlock Mercenary.