More quotes

My collection has grown to acceptable post size again, so here's another installment of quotes that, to me, relate to my fencing life:

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.
-Anais Nin

Fear is not a disease of the body; fear kills the soul.
– Mahatma Gandhi

I loathe the expression "What makes him tick." It is the American mind, looking for simple and singular solution, that uses the foolish expression. A person not only ticks, he also chimes and strikes the hour, falls and breaks and has to be put together again, and sometimes stops like an electric clock in a thunderstorm.
- James Thurber

Try as hard as we may for perfection, the net result of our labors is an amazing variety of imperfectness. We are surprised at our own versatility in being able to fail in so many different ways.
- Samuel McChord Crothers

For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe
And love itself have rest.
-Lord Byron