Russell Baker

"The right to be heard does not include the right to be believed."

"Every generation believes it has invented something new, when really it's just reinventing the wheel."

"To love is to risk everything; to refuse to love is to guarantee losing everything."

"The most interesting lives are those lived in contradiction."

"Perfection is the enemy of completion, and completion is what matters."

"The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself, even if you have to do it one sentence at a time."

"Advertisers are the interpreters of our dreams - selling us the medical equivalent of snake oil wrapped in the packaging of our aspirations."

"We are dying from overthinking. We are slowly killing ourselves by drowning in our thoughts."

"The habit of reading is the only enjoyment in which there is no alloy; it lasts when all other pleasures fade."

"In a world of drudgery and sordid ambition, there is a sort of savage nobility in an honest belief in the meaninglessness of it all."

"Happiness is a byproduct of an effort to make someone else happy."

"The only thing more difficult than getting a new idea into the military mind is getting an old one out."

"As we age, we become our own parents - criticizing ourselves with the same harsh voice we once heard."

"A person is a fool to become a writer. His only compensation is absolute freedom."

"There is a kind of victory in good work, however humble."

"The truth is that relative income is what expresses our status; and status is what matters to people."

"All our effort should be toward making the world a better place for those who come after us."

"The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe."

"We labor not just to live, but to give our life some justification."

"Sophistication might be defined as the ability to cope gracefully with the inevitable mess of human existence."

"Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you'll be criticized anyway."

"A childhood without books is like a life without books - incomplete and unnecessarily impoverished."

"The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now."

"In an age of incompetence, a little competence goes a very long way."

"The gravity of life demands that we treat the trivial with seriousness."

"We are all serving a life sentence in the dungeon of self."

"The function of a newspaper is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable."

"Words are the only things that last forever; they are more durable than marble or gold."

"Most of the real events in life happen in your head."

"To observe people is the business of a writer; to observe them constantly and pitilessly."