A poor man was so distressed at how small and crowded his house was that he went to see his rabbi for advice. The rabbi told him to go home and move his goat into the house, then to come visit the rabbi again in a week. The man did as he was told and returned to the rabbi a week later.
"How is it now?" asked the rabbi.
"Impossible," said the man.
The rabbi instructed the man to go home and move all his chickens into the house, then to return again in a week. A week later the man was banging on the rabbi's door.
"How is it now?" asked the rabbi.
"Impossible," the man replied. "I cannot go on like this."
The rabbi told the man to go home, take the chickens and the goat out of the house, and return again in a week. Once more the man did as instructed. The next week the man stood at the rabbi's door with a broad grin and a well-rested manner.
"So," the rabbi said, "now how is it?"
"A blessing on you, Rabbi," the man said. "My life is so much better. I don't know how to thank you.
—Hasidic folktale
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some hire public-relations officers.
—Daniel Boorstin
If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.
—Abraham Maslow
When you're too close to people, when you spend too much time with them and love them too dearly, sometimes you can't see them.
—Tana French in The Likeness
That's how it is when a person develops an attraction toward someone. He's nowhere, then suddenly he's everywhere, whether you want him to be or not.
—Colleen Hoover in Ugly Love
You cannot step into the same river twice.
—Heraclitus
You're not boring. You've got to stop saying that, or people will start believing you.
—John Green in An Abundance of Katherines
People travel to faraway places to watch in fascination the kind of people they ignore at home.
—Dagobert D. Runes
Why does he have to be my boyfriend? Are you inferior if you don't have a boyfriend? Why does everybody have to be in love with somebody?
—Ann Brashares in Girls In Pants
People who need help sometimes look a lot like people who don't need help.
—Glennon Doyle Melton in Warrior
Every hero becomes a bore at last.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
I'm kind of jealous of the life I'm supposedly leading.
—Zach Braff
My great-grandfather… came to Washington with the Union Army during the Civil War. He stopped at my great grandmother's house to get some water and she was the one who handed him the glass of water. He put his hand over hers, and then he got off the horse, and after that, they got married.
—Helen Tenchi
Never be afraid to laugh at yourself, after all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century.
—Dame Edna Everage
I couldn't tell the difference between what was real and what I wanted to be real.
—Erin Morgenstern in The Night Circus