realistic

Friendships aren't perfect and yet they are very precious. For me not expecting perfection all in one place was a great release.

Too many people miss the silver lining because they're expecting gold.

I have nothing to offer but blood toil tears and sweat.

The man with insight enough to admit his limitations comes nearest to perfection.

No country can act wisely simultaneously in every part of the globe at every moment of time.

Moderation in war is imbecility.

I sincerely wish war was a pleasanter and easier business than it is but it does not admit of holidays.

To dream of the person you would like to be is to waste the person you are.

Every writer I know has trouble writing.

Those who aim at great deeds must also suffer greatly.

What we call reality is an agreement that people have arrived at to make life more livable.

If you want a place in the sun you've got to put up with a few blisters.

Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression. The chasm is never completely bridged. We all have the conviction perhaps illusory that we have much more to say than appears on the paper.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they might have been.

Nobody has things just as he would like them. The thing to do is to make a success with what material I have. It is a sheer waste of time and soul-power to imagine what I would do if things were different. They are not different.

Happy the man who early learns the wide chasm that lies between his wishes and his powers.

Real life is to most men ... a perpetual compromise between the ideal and the possible.