David

“My optimism and confidence come not from feeling I'm luckier than other mortals, and they sure don't come from visualizing victory. They're the result of a lifetime spent visualizing defeat and figuring out how to prevent it.

Like most astronauts, I'm pretty sure that I can deal with what life throws at me because I've thought about what to do if things go wrong, as well as right. That's the power of negative thinking.”
― Chris Hadfield, An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth

“I realize today that nothing in the world is more distasteful to a man than to take the path that leads to himself.”
― Hermann Hesse, Demian: Die Geschichte von Emil Sinclairs Jugend

“I do not see how it is possible for a man to die worth fifty million of dollars, or ten million of dollars, in a city full of want, when he meets almost every day the withered hand of beggary and the white lips of famine. How a man can withstand all that, and hold in the clutch of his greed twenty or thirty million of dollars, is past my comprehension. I do not see how he can do it. I should not think he could do it any more than he could keep a pile of lumber on the beach, where hundreds and thousands of men were drowning in the sea.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child

“Every step was a victory. He had to remember that.”
― George Saunders, Tenth of December