Quotations

"It's easy to do anything in victory. It's in defeat that a man reveals himself."

— Floyd Patterson, American boxer, born 1935

"The most powerful weapon to conquer the devil is humility. For, as he does not know at all how to employ it, neither does he know how to defend himself from it."

— Vincent de Paul, French priest, born April 24, 1581

"Optimum nutrition is the medicine of tomorrow."

— Linus Pauling, American chemist, born 1901

"I'm a teller of stories. I put bloody skins on my back and dance around the fire, and I say what the hunt was like. It's not erudite; it's not intellectual. I sail, run dogs, ride horses, play professional poker, and tell stories about the stuff I've been through. And I'm still a romantic; I still want Bambi to make it out of the fire."

— Gary Paulsen, American author, born May 17, 1939

"If we could look through the skull into the brain of a consciously thinking person, and if the place of optimal excitability were luminous, then we should see playing over the cerebral surface, a bright spot with fantastic, waving borders constantly fluctuating in size and form, surrounded by a darkness more or less deep, covering the rest of the hemisphere."

— Ivan Pavlov, Russian physiologist, died February 27, 1936

"Perfect as the wing of a bird may be, it will never enable the bird to fly if unsupported by the air. Facts are the air of science. Without them a man of science can never rise."

— Ivan Pavlov, Russian physician, born September 26, 1849

"It is not accidental that all phenomena of human life are dominated by the search for daily bread - the oldest link connecting all living things, man included, with the surrounding nature."

— Ivan Pavlov, Russian physician, born September 26, 1849

"Get my swan costume ready."

— Anna Pavlova, Russian ballerina, died January 23, 1931

"Dance is the purest expression of every emotion, earthly and spiritual."

— Anna Pavlova, Russian ballerina, died January 23, 1931

"When a small child, I thought that success spelled happiness. I was wrong, happiness is like a butterfly which appears and delights us for one brief moment, but soon flits away."

— Anna Pavlova, Russian prima ballerina, born February 12, 1881

"Look em in the eye. Make a gesture of inclusion, which he did all the time. And above all, have a chorus. So I learned from Pete Seeger to have something for them to sing."

— Tom Paxton, American folk singer, died October 28, 2016

"A suffering world cries for mercy, as far as the eye can see."

— Tom Paxton, American folk singer, born October 31, 1937

"Love is an attempt at penetrating another being, but it can only succeed if the surrender is mutual."

— Octavio Paz, Mexican poet, born March 31, 1914

"Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition. Man is the only being who knows he is alone."

— Octavio Paz, Mexican poet, died April 19, 1998