Micawber’s First Law
Charles Dickens
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.
Oppenheimer’s Observation
J. Robert Oppenheimer
The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds and the pessimist knows it.
Shakespeare’s Fifth Law
William Shakespeare
Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.
Sophocles’s First Law
Sophocles
The greatest griefs are those we cause ourselves.
Sophocles’s Second Law
Sophocles
Time eases all things.
Tilton’s Law
Theodore Tilton
Even this shall pass away.
Wilcox’s Law
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Laugh and the world laughs with you; / Weep and you weep alone.
Baker’s Law
Anon
Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it.
