Every human being on this earth is born with a tragedy, and it isn't original sin. He's born with the tragedy that he has to grow up. That he has to leave the nest, the security, and go out to do battle. He has to lose everything that is lovely and fight for a new loveliness of his own making, and it's a tragedy. A lot of people don't have the courage to do it.

About Helen Hayes

Portrait of Helen Hayes

Helen Hayes MacArthur (née Brown; October 10, 1900 – March 17, 1993) was an American actress. Often referred to as the "First Lady of American Theatre", she was the second person and first woman to win the EGOT (an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony Award), and the...

More quotations from Helen Hayes

My mother drew a distinction between achievement and success. She said that 'achievement is the knowledge that you have studied and worked hard and done the best that is in you. Success is being praised by others, and that's nice, too, but not as important or satisfying. Always aim for achievement and forget about success.

Age is not important unless you're a cheese.

We relish news of our heroes, forgetting that we are extraordinary to somebody too.

heroism specialness

I cry out for order and find it only in art.

More quotations tagged with “maturity”

To be mature means to face, and not evade, every fresh crisis that comes.

—Fritz Kunkel

By the time I'd grown up, I naturally supposed that I'd be grown up.

There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes.

What I look forward to is continued immaturity followed by death.

Another unsettling element in modern art is that common symptom of immaturity, the dread of doing what has been done before.

—Edith Wharton

maturity art novelty