"Life doesn't come with erasers. You can't make something that has happened, not happen. "
The sum of human wisdom is not contained in any one language, and no single language is capable of expressing all forms and degrees of human comprehension.
-Ezra Pound, poet (1885-1972)
Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.
-George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), novelist (1819-1880)
God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.
-Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778)
When women love us, they forgive us everything, even our crimes; when they do not love us, they give us credit for nothing, not even our virtues.
-Honore de Balzac, novelist (1799-1850)
Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience.
-George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)
There is also this benefit in brag, that the speaker is unconsciously expressing his own ideal. Humor him by all means, draw it all out, and hold him to it.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher
He who establishes his argument by noise and command, shows that his Reason is weak.
-Michel De Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)
Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.
-William Arthur Ward, college administrator, writer (1921-1994)
Dictionaries are like watches: the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.
-Samuel Johnson
One can pay back the loan of gold, but one dies forever in debt to those who are kind.
-Malayan Proverb
It is a difficult matter to argue with the belly since it has no ears.
-Cato The Elder, statesman and writer (234-149 BCE)
Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity.
-Socrates,philosopher (469?-399 BCE)
If all men knew what others say of them, there would not be four friends in the world.
-Blaise Pascal, philosopher and mathematician (1623-1662)
Every increased possession loads us with new weariness.
-John Ruskin, author, art critic, and social reformer (1819-1900)
We aim above the mark to hit the mark.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks.
-Phillips Brooks, bishop and orator (1835-1893)
Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.
-Mahatma Gandhi(1869-1948)
Intellectuals solve problems: geniuses prevent them.
-Albert Einstein,physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)
" A man thinks he amounts to a lot but to a mosquito a man is merely something to eat"
- Don Marquis
"The golden opportunity you are seeking is in yourself. It is not in your environment; it is not in luck or chance, or the help of others; it is in yourself alone."
- Orison Swett Marden –
The things we remember best are those best forgotten.
- Baltasar Gracian, Spanish priest and writer
The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress.
-Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)
Efficiency is intelligent laziness.
-David Dunham
>
>1. Thou shall not worry,
> for worry is the most unproductive of all human activities.
>2. Thou shall not be fearful,
> for most of the things we fear never come to pass.
>3. Thou shall not cross bridges before you come to them,
> for no one yet has succeeded in accomplishing this.
>
>4. Thou shall face each problem as it comes.
> You can only handle one at a time anyway.
>5. Thou shall not take problems to bed with you,
> for they make very poor bedfellows.
>6. Thou shall not borrow other people's problems.
> They can better care for them than you can.
>7. Thou shall not try to relive yesterday for good or ill,
> it is forever gone. Concentrate on what is happening
> in your life and be happy now!
>8. Thou shall be a good listener,
> for only when you listen do you hear ideas different from
> your own. It is hard to learn something new when you are
> talking, and some people do know more than you do.
>9. Thou shall not become "bogged down" by frustration,
> for 90% of it is rooted in self-pity and will only
> interfere with positive action.
>10. Thou shall count thy blessings,
> never overlooking the small ones,
> for a lot of small blessings add up to a big one
>
>~By Ruth Bourdon~
The only way around is through.
- Frost, Robert - 1875-1963, American Poet
Castles in the air - -they are so easy to take refuge in. And so easy to build as well.
- Ibsen, Henrik - 1828-1906, Norwegian Dramatist
Faith moves mountains, but you have to keep pushing while you are praying.
- Cooley, Mason
The wise only possess ideas; the greater part of mankind are possessed by them.
- Coleridge, Samuel Taylor - 1772-1834, British Poet
I am invariably of the politics of the people at whose table I sit, or beneath whose roof I sleep.
- Borrow, George - 1803-1881, British Author
As regards intellectual work, it remains a fact, indeed, that great decisions in the realms of thought and momentous discoveries and solutions of problems are only possible to an individual working in solitude.
-Sigmund Freud, neurologist, founder of psychoanalysis (1856-1939)
"UR brain is divided into 2 parts-Left & Right, of the left nothing is right, of the right nothing is left "
- ???
"Nothing is required, and nothing will avail, except a little, a very little clear thinking."
- John Maynard Keynes -
In order for something to become clean, something else must become dirty.
-Imbesi's Law of Conservation of Filth
With money in your pocket, you are wise and you are handsome and you sing well too.
- Yiddish Proverb
If I am walking with two other men, each of them will serve as my teacher. I will pick out the good points of the one and imitate them, and the bad points of the other and correct them in myself.
-Confucius, philosopher and teacher (c. 551-478 BCE)
Trees are not known by their leaves, nor even by their blossoms, but by
their fruits.
-Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122-1204)
The tears of strangers are only water.
-Russian proverb
To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo - 1803-1882, American Poet
Character contributes to beauty. It fortifies a woman as her youth fades.
- Bisset, Jacqueline - 1946-, American Screen Actor
Before your dreams can come true, you have to have those dreams.
- Brothers, Dr. Joyce - 1927-, American Psychologist
The Buddhas do but tell the way; it is for you to swelter at the task.
- Buddha - 568-488 BC
Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we may diet.
- Kurnitz, Harry
To sit alone in the lamplight with a book spread out before you, and hold intimate converse with men of unseen generations--such is a pleasure beyond compare.
-Kenko Yoshida, essayist (1283-1352)
If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the military, nothing is safe.
-Lord Salisbury, British prime minister(1830-1903)
"It may be a mistake to mix old and new wines, but old and new wisdom mix admirably"
- Bertolt Brecht
A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.
-Robertson Davies, writer (1913-1995)
"We must be the change we want to see in the world".
- Mahatma Gandhi
There is a saying: “ The best thing you can give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent tolerance; to a friend your heart; to your child a good example; and to yourself respect “
He who wishes to secure the good of others has already secured his own.
-Confucius (c. 551-479? BC)
Too much sanity may be madness. And maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be! -Miguel de Cervantes, writer (1547-1616)
Rewards and punishments are the lowest form of education.
-Chuang-Tzu, philosopher (4th c. BCE)
The secret of joy is the mastery of pain.
-Anais Nin, writer (1903-1977)
Television has done much for psychiatry by spreading information about it, as well as contributing to the need for it.
-Alfred Hitchcock, film-maker (1899-1980)
I like not only to be loved, but to be told that I am loved; the realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave.
-George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans), novelist (1819-1880)
The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of thegreatest virtues.
-Rene Descartes, philosopher and mathematician(1596-1650)
For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, "It might have been."
-John Greenleaf Whittier, poet (1807-1892)
To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust.
-Henry DavidThoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)
Be yourself and do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; In the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.
-Max Ehrmann, writer and lawyer (1872-1945)
"The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right place but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment."
- Dorothy Nervil –
The road to wisdom? Well it plain and simple to express: Err and err and err again, but less and less and less.
-Piet Hein, poet and scientist (1905-1996)
Wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair and all the terrible things that happen to us happen because we really deserve them?
M. Straczynski
The innocent and the beautiful have no enemy but time.
-William Butler Yeats, writer, Nobel laureate (1865-1939)
Say oh wise man how you have come to such knowledge? Because I was never ashamed to confess my ignorance and ask others.
-Johann Gottfried Von Herder, critic and poet (1744-1803)
Those who failed to oppose me, who readily agreed with me, accepted all my views, and yielded easily to my opinions, were those who did me the most injury, and were my worst enemies, because, by surrendering to me so easily, they encouraged me to go too far... I was then too powerful for any man, except myself, to injure me.
-Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of France(1769-1821)
There is no kind of dishonesty into which otherwise good people more easily and frequently fall than that of defrauding the government.
-Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)
The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.
-Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)
To confront a person with his own shadow is to show him his own light.
-Carl G. Jung, psychiatrist (1875-1961)
Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.
-George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)
It is the greatest of all advantages to enjoy no advantage at all.
-HenryDavid Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)
"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody."
- Bill Cosby
When you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other.
-Chinese proverb
When I approach a child, he inspires in me two sentiments; tenderness for what he is, and respect for what he may become.
-Louis Pasteur, chemist and bacteriologist (1822-1895)
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
-Galileo Galilei, physicist and astronomer (1564-1642)
Excellence in any department can be attained only by the labor of a lifetime; it is not to be purchased at a lesser price.
-Samuel Johnson,lexicographer (1709-1784)
"Think big thoughts, but relish small pleasures."
- H. Jackson Browne, Jr. –
"Little progress can be made by merely attempting to repress what is evil; our great hope lies in developing what is good."
- Calvin Coolidge –
"The only thing that will stop you from fufilling your dreams is you."
- Tom Bradley -
"Genius is nothing but a great aptitude for patience."
- Georges Louis Leclerc -
"A visionary is one who can find his way by moonlight, and see the dawn before the rest of the world."
- Oscar Wilde –
"Show me a person who has never made a mistake and I'll show you somebody who has never achieved much."
- Joan Collins –
"Never let dreams die, for if you do, life will only be a broken-winged bird that cannot fly."
- Langston Hughes –
Friday, March 30, 2007
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
IV
Excellence in any department can be attained only by the labor of a lifetime; it is not to be purchased at a lesser price.
-Samuel Johnson,lexicographer (1709-1784)
If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything.
- Darell Huff, How to Lie With Statistics
"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so"
- Douglas Adams –
"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
- Michael Jordan -
"Think big thoughts, but relish small pleasures."
- H. Jackson Browne, Jr. –
"Little progress can be made by merely attempting to repress what is evil; our great hope lies in developing what is good."
- Calvin Coolidge –
"The only thing that will stop you from fufilling your dreams is you."
- Tom Bradley -
"Genius is nothing but a great aptitude for patience."
- Georges Louis Leclerc -
"A visionary is one who can find his way by moonlight, and see the dawn before the rest of the world."
- Oscar Wilde –
"Show me a person who has never made a mistake and I'll show you somebody who has never achieved much."
- Joan Collins –
"Never let dreams die, for if you do, life will only be a broken-winged bird that cannot fly."
- Langston Hughes –
Perfect love is rare indeed - for to be a lover will require that you continually have the subtlety of the very wise, the flexibility of the child, the sensitivity of the artist, the understanding of the philosopher, the acceptance of the saint, the tolerance of the scholar and the fortitude of the certain.
-Leo Buscaglia, author, speaker and professor
(1924-1998)
Few people think more than two or three times a year. I've made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.
-George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)
A man's style in any art should be like his dress--it should attract as little attention as possible.
-Samuel Butler, writer (1835-1902)
Silence will save me from being wrong (and foolish), but it will also deprive me of the possibility of being right.
-Igor Stravinsky, composer (1882-1971)
The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
-Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)
Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
-Leo Buscaglia, author (1924-1998)
Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.
-Thomas Henry Huxley, biologist (1825-1895)
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
-Kahlil Gibran, mystic, poet, and artist (1883-1931)
To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.
-Theodore Roosevelt, 26th US President (1858-1919)
Every reader finds himself. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself.
-Marcel Proust, novelist (1871-1922)
Never bear more than one trouble at a time. Some people bear three kinds - all they have had, all they have now, and all they expect to have.
-Edward Everett Hale, clergyman and author (1822-1909)
He alone may chastise who loves.
-Rabindranath Tagore, poet, philosopher, author, songwriter, painter, educator, composer, Nobel laureate (1861-1941)
The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, /
And all the sweet serenity of books.
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet (1807-1882)
Courtship to marriage, as a very witty prologue to a very dull play.
-William Congreve, dramatist (1670-1729)
Self-esteem is the reputation we acquire with ourselves.
–Nathaniel Branden, psychotherapist (1930- )
Who is content with nothing possesses all things.
-Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux, poet (1636-1711)
To know how to hide one's ability is great skill.
-Francois de La Rochefoucauld, writer (1613-1680)
Nobody trips over mountains. It is the small pebble that causes you to stumble. Pass all the pebbles in your path and you’ll find that you’ve crossed the mountain.
- Anon
Life is mostly froth and bubble, /
Two things stand like stone, /
Kindness in another's trouble, /
Courage in your own.
-Adam Lindsay Gordon, poet
(1833-1870)
I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.
-Abraham Lincoln, 16th U.S. President (1809-1865)
"I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am."
- Samuel Johnson, lexicographer extraordinaire,
A good cook is like a sorceress who dispenses happiness.
-Elsa Schiaparelli, fashion designer (1890-1973)
A bit of fragrance always clings to the hand that gives the rose.
-Chinese proverb
Do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach.
-Elizabeth Barrett Browning, poet(1806-1861)
The Credit Goes To The One Who Tries
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out
how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could
have done them better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose
face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly;
who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is not
effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who
knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends
himself in a worthy cause; who at best knows in the end the
triumphs of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails,
at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall
never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither
victory nor defeat.
-- Theodore Roosevelt. Leadership
It is easier to exclude harmful passions than to rule them, and to deny them admittance than to control them after they have been admitted.
-Lucius Annaeus Seneca, philosopher and writer (c. 3 BCE-AD 65)
Swords and guns have no eyes.
-Chinese proverb
Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another.
-Anatole France, novelist, essayist, Nobel laureate (1844-1924)
The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.
-Chinese Proverb
Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living.
-Anais Nin, writer (1903-1977)
Although gold dust is precious, when it gets in your eyes, it obstructs your vision.
-Hsi-Tang
A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.
-Charles Robert Darwin, naturalist (1809-82)
One of the strongest characteristics of genius is the power of lighting its own fire.
-John W. Foster, clergyman (1770-1843)
When you have to make a choice and don't make it, that is in itself a choice.
-William James, psychologist (1842-1910)
Belief like any other moving body follows the path of least resistance.
-Samuel Butler, poet (1612-1680)
The body is a house of many windows: there we all sit, showing ourselves and crying on the passers-by to come and love us.
-Robert Louis Stevenson, writer (1850-1894)
No man is an Island, entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less,
as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were;
any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in Mankind;
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.
-John Donne, poet (1573-1631)
A man has to live with himself, and he should see to it that he always has good company.
-Charles Evans Hughes, jurist (1862-1948)
What is the purpose of the giant sequoia tree? The purpose of the giant sequoia tree is to provide shade for the tiny titmouse.
-Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927-1989)
One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul, and yet no one ever comes to sit by it.
-Vincent van Gogh, painter (1853-1890)
Danger and delight grow on one stalk.
-English Proverb
Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the spaces between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.
-Maya Angelou, poet (1928- )
If the rich could hire someone else to die for them, the poor would make a wonderful living.
-Jewish Proverb
It is in deep solitude that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brothers. The more solitary I am the more affection I have for them. Solitude and silence teach me to love my brothers for what they are, not for what they say.
-Thomas Merton, writer (1915-1968)
No one has ever become poor by giving.
-Anne Frank, Holocaust diarist (1929-1945)
Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit.
-Peter Ustinov, actor, writer and director (1921- )
Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.
-Paulo Freire, educator (1921-1997)
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?
-Kahlil Gibran, mystic, poet, and artist (1883-1931)
We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.
-Kahlil Gibran, mystic, poet, and artist (1883-1931)
In the eye of God, mountain ranges rise and fall like waves on the ocean
- Zimmer
Him that I love, I wish to be free -- even from me.
-Anne Morrow Lindbergh, writer (1906-2001)
An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy.
-Spanish proverb
The believer is happy; the doubter is wise.
-Hungarian proverb
Do you love me because I'm beautiful, or am I beautiful because you love me?
-Oscar Hammerstein II, lyricist (1895-1960)
His mother had often said, When you choose an action, you choose the consequences of that action. She had emphasized the corollary of this axiom even more vehemently: when you desired a consequence you had damned well better take the action that would create it.
-Lois McMaster Bujold, writer (1949- )
To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not, rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common--this is my symphony.
-William Henry Channing, clergyman, reformer (1810-1884)
Without darkness there are no dreams.
-Karla Kuban, novelist
A poem begins with a lump in the throat.
-Robert Frost, poet (1874-1963)
When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.
-George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)
It is with words as with sunbeams, the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.
-Robert Southey (1774-1843)
Little Strokes, Fell great Oaks.
-Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)
Beware the fury of the patient man.
-John Dryden, poet and dramatist(1631-1700)
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
-Viktor Frankl, author, neurologist and psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor (1905-1997)
God never occurs to you in person but always in action.
– Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do ... Explore. Dream. Discover."
~ Mark Twain
Compassion is the basis of morality.
-Arnold Schopenhauer, philosopher (1788-1860)
No metaphysician ever felt the deficiency of language so much as the grateful.
-Charles Caleb Colton, author and clergyman (1780-1832)
The only gift is giving to the poor; /
All else is exchange.
-Thiruvalluvar, poet (c. 30 BCE)
To do great work a man must be very idle as well as very industrious.
-Samuel Butler, poet (1612-1680)
Words are things; and a small drop of ink /
Falling like dew upon a thought, produces /
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.
-Lord Byron, poet (1788-1824)
You can sometimes count every orange on a tree but never all the trees in a single orange.
-A.K. Ramanujan, poet (1929-1993)
To see a world in a grain of sand, /
And a heaven in a wild flower, /
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, /
And eternity in an hour.
-William Blake, poet, engraver, and painter (1757-1827)
Recently, I was asked if I was going to fire an employee who made a mistake that cost the company $600,000. No, I replied, I just spent $600,000 training him. Why would I want somebody to hire his experience?
-Thomas J. Watson, industrialist (1874-1956)
No two persons ever read the same book.
-Edmund Wilson, critic (1895-1972)
There are two kinds of fool. One says, "This is old, and therefore good." And one says, "This is new, and therefore better."
-John Brunner, science fiction writer (1934-1995)
Everything you've learned in school as `obvious' becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe. For example, there are no solids in the universe. There's not even a suggestion of a solid. There are no absolute continuums. There are no surfaces. There are no straight
lines.
-R. Buckminster Fuller, engineer, designer, and architect (1895-1983)
No man is useless who has a friend, and if we are loved we are indispensable.
-Robert Louis Stevenson, novelist, essayist, and poet
(1850-1894)
Nothing that grieves us can be called little: by the eternal laws of proportion a child's loss of a doll and a king's loss of a crown are events of the same size.
-Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)
-Samuel Johnson,lexicographer (1709-1784)
If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything.
- Darell Huff, How to Lie With Statistics
"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so"
- Douglas Adams –
"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
- Michael Jordan -
"Think big thoughts, but relish small pleasures."
- H. Jackson Browne, Jr. –
"Little progress can be made by merely attempting to repress what is evil; our great hope lies in developing what is good."
- Calvin Coolidge –
"The only thing that will stop you from fufilling your dreams is you."
- Tom Bradley -
"Genius is nothing but a great aptitude for patience."
- Georges Louis Leclerc -
"A visionary is one who can find his way by moonlight, and see the dawn before the rest of the world."
- Oscar Wilde –
"Show me a person who has never made a mistake and I'll show you somebody who has never achieved much."
- Joan Collins –
"Never let dreams die, for if you do, life will only be a broken-winged bird that cannot fly."
- Langston Hughes –
Perfect love is rare indeed - for to be a lover will require that you continually have the subtlety of the very wise, the flexibility of the child, the sensitivity of the artist, the understanding of the philosopher, the acceptance of the saint, the tolerance of the scholar and the fortitude of the certain.
-Leo Buscaglia, author, speaker and professor
(1924-1998)
Few people think more than two or three times a year. I've made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.
-George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)
A man's style in any art should be like his dress--it should attract as little attention as possible.
-Samuel Butler, writer (1835-1902)
Silence will save me from being wrong (and foolish), but it will also deprive me of the possibility of being right.
-Igor Stravinsky, composer (1882-1971)
The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
-Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)
Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.
-Leo Buscaglia, author (1924-1998)
Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.
-Thomas Henry Huxley, biologist (1825-1895)
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
-Kahlil Gibran, mystic, poet, and artist (1883-1931)
To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.
-Theodore Roosevelt, 26th US President (1858-1919)
Every reader finds himself. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself.
-Marcel Proust, novelist (1871-1922)
Never bear more than one trouble at a time. Some people bear three kinds - all they have had, all they have now, and all they expect to have.
-Edward Everett Hale, clergyman and author (1822-1909)
He alone may chastise who loves.
-Rabindranath Tagore, poet, philosopher, author, songwriter, painter, educator, composer, Nobel laureate (1861-1941)
The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, /
And all the sweet serenity of books.
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet (1807-1882)
Courtship to marriage, as a very witty prologue to a very dull play.
-William Congreve, dramatist (1670-1729)
Self-esteem is the reputation we acquire with ourselves.
–Nathaniel Branden, psychotherapist (1930- )
Who is content with nothing possesses all things.
-Nicolas Boileau-Despreaux, poet (1636-1711)
To know how to hide one's ability is great skill.
-Francois de La Rochefoucauld, writer (1613-1680)
Nobody trips over mountains. It is the small pebble that causes you to stumble. Pass all the pebbles in your path and you’ll find that you’ve crossed the mountain.
- Anon
Life is mostly froth and bubble, /
Two things stand like stone, /
Kindness in another's trouble, /
Courage in your own.
-Adam Lindsay Gordon, poet
(1833-1870)
I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.
-Abraham Lincoln, 16th U.S. President (1809-1865)
"I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am."
- Samuel Johnson, lexicographer extraordinaire,
A good cook is like a sorceress who dispenses happiness.
-Elsa Schiaparelli, fashion designer (1890-1973)
A bit of fragrance always clings to the hand that gives the rose.
-Chinese proverb
Do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach.
-Elizabeth Barrett Browning, poet(1806-1861)
The Credit Goes To The One Who Tries
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out
how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could
have done them better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose
face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly;
who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is not
effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who
knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends
himself in a worthy cause; who at best knows in the end the
triumphs of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails,
at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall
never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither
victory nor defeat.
-- Theodore Roosevelt. Leadership
It is easier to exclude harmful passions than to rule them, and to deny them admittance than to control them after they have been admitted.
-Lucius Annaeus Seneca, philosopher and writer (c. 3 BCE-AD 65)
Swords and guns have no eyes.
-Chinese proverb
Man is so made that he can only find relaxation from one kind of labor by taking up another.
-Anatole France, novelist, essayist, Nobel laureate (1844-1924)
The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.
-Chinese Proverb
Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living.
-Anais Nin, writer (1903-1977)
Although gold dust is precious, when it gets in your eyes, it obstructs your vision.
-Hsi-Tang
A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.
-Charles Robert Darwin, naturalist (1809-82)
One of the strongest characteristics of genius is the power of lighting its own fire.
-John W. Foster, clergyman (1770-1843)
When you have to make a choice and don't make it, that is in itself a choice.
-William James, psychologist (1842-1910)
Belief like any other moving body follows the path of least resistance.
-Samuel Butler, poet (1612-1680)
The body is a house of many windows: there we all sit, showing ourselves and crying on the passers-by to come and love us.
-Robert Louis Stevenson, writer (1850-1894)
No man is an Island, entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less,
as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were;
any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in Mankind;
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.
-John Donne, poet (1573-1631)
A man has to live with himself, and he should see to it that he always has good company.
-Charles Evans Hughes, jurist (1862-1948)
What is the purpose of the giant sequoia tree? The purpose of the giant sequoia tree is to provide shade for the tiny titmouse.
-Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927-1989)
One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul, and yet no one ever comes to sit by it.
-Vincent van Gogh, painter (1853-1890)
Danger and delight grow on one stalk.
-English Proverb
Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the spaces between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.
-Maya Angelou, poet (1928- )
If the rich could hire someone else to die for them, the poor would make a wonderful living.
-Jewish Proverb
It is in deep solitude that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brothers. The more solitary I am the more affection I have for them. Solitude and silence teach me to love my brothers for what they are, not for what they say.
-Thomas Merton, writer (1915-1968)
No one has ever become poor by giving.
-Anne Frank, Holocaust diarist (1929-1945)
Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit.
-Peter Ustinov, actor, writer and director (1921- )
Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.
-Paulo Freire, educator (1921-1997)
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?
-Kahlil Gibran, mystic, poet, and artist (1883-1931)
We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.
-Kahlil Gibran, mystic, poet, and artist (1883-1931)
In the eye of God, mountain ranges rise and fall like waves on the ocean
- Zimmer
Him that I love, I wish to be free -- even from me.
-Anne Morrow Lindbergh, writer (1906-2001)
An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy.
-Spanish proverb
The believer is happy; the doubter is wise.
-Hungarian proverb
Do you love me because I'm beautiful, or am I beautiful because you love me?
-Oscar Hammerstein II, lyricist (1895-1960)
His mother had often said, When you choose an action, you choose the consequences of that action. She had emphasized the corollary of this axiom even more vehemently: when you desired a consequence you had damned well better take the action that would create it.
-Lois McMaster Bujold, writer (1949- )
To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not, rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common--this is my symphony.
-William Henry Channing, clergyman, reformer (1810-1884)
Without darkness there are no dreams.
-Karla Kuban, novelist
A poem begins with a lump in the throat.
-Robert Frost, poet (1874-1963)
When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.
-George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)
It is with words as with sunbeams, the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.
-Robert Southey (1774-1843)
Little Strokes, Fell great Oaks.
-Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)
Beware the fury of the patient man.
-John Dryden, poet and dramatist(1631-1700)
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
-Viktor Frankl, author, neurologist and psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor (1905-1997)
God never occurs to you in person but always in action.
– Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do ... Explore. Dream. Discover."
~ Mark Twain
Compassion is the basis of morality.
-Arnold Schopenhauer, philosopher (1788-1860)
No metaphysician ever felt the deficiency of language so much as the grateful.
-Charles Caleb Colton, author and clergyman (1780-1832)
The only gift is giving to the poor; /
All else is exchange.
-Thiruvalluvar, poet (c. 30 BCE)
To do great work a man must be very idle as well as very industrious.
-Samuel Butler, poet (1612-1680)
Words are things; and a small drop of ink /
Falling like dew upon a thought, produces /
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.
-Lord Byron, poet (1788-1824)
You can sometimes count every orange on a tree but never all the trees in a single orange.
-A.K. Ramanujan, poet (1929-1993)
To see a world in a grain of sand, /
And a heaven in a wild flower, /
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, /
And eternity in an hour.
-William Blake, poet, engraver, and painter (1757-1827)
Recently, I was asked if I was going to fire an employee who made a mistake that cost the company $600,000. No, I replied, I just spent $600,000 training him. Why would I want somebody to hire his experience?
-Thomas J. Watson, industrialist (1874-1956)
No two persons ever read the same book.
-Edmund Wilson, critic (1895-1972)
There are two kinds of fool. One says, "This is old, and therefore good." And one says, "This is new, and therefore better."
-John Brunner, science fiction writer (1934-1995)
Everything you've learned in school as `obvious' becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe. For example, there are no solids in the universe. There's not even a suggestion of a solid. There are no absolute continuums. There are no surfaces. There are no straight
lines.
-R. Buckminster Fuller, engineer, designer, and architect (1895-1983)
No man is useless who has a friend, and if we are loved we are indispensable.
-Robert Louis Stevenson, novelist, essayist, and poet
(1850-1894)
Nothing that grieves us can be called little: by the eternal laws of proportion a child's loss of a doll and a king's loss of a crown are events of the same size.
-Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
III
We allow our ignorance to prevail upon us and make us think we can survive alone, alone in patches, alone in groups, alone in races, even alone in genders.
-Maya Angelou, poet (1928- )
In a perfect union the man and woman are like a strung bow. Who is to say whether the string bends the bow, or the bow tightens the string?
-Cyril Connolly, critic and editor (1903-1974)
Every dewdrop and raindrop had a whole heaven within it.
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet (1807-1882)
Nothing contributes so much to tranquilizing the mind as a steady purpose - a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.
-Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, author (1797-1851)
If you don't execute your ideas, they die.
-Roger von Oech, author and consultant
Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned.
-Buddha (c. 566-480 BCE)
To be well informed, one must read quickly a great number of merely instructive books. To be cultivated, one must read slowly and with a lingering appreciation the comparatively few books that have been written by men who lived, thought, and felt with style.
-Aldous Huxley, writer (1894-1963)
Many people take no care of their money till they come nearly to the end of it, and others do just the same with their time.
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832)
When Alexander the Great visited Diogenes and asked whether he could do anything for the famed teacher, Diogenes replied: 'Only stand out of my light.' Perhaps some day we shall know how to heighten creativity. Untilthen, one of the best things we can do for creative men and women is to stand out of their light.
-John W. Gardner, author and educator (1912-2002)
Nature does nothing uselessly.
-Aristotle (384-322 BCE)
The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.
-e.e. cummings, poet (1894-1962)
The instinct of a man is to pursue everything that flies from him, and to fly from all that pursue him.
-Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778)
We would often be ashamed of our finest actions if the world understood all the motives which produced them.
-Duc de La Rochefoucauld, writer(1613-1680)
Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood or appreciated.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
There are times when we must sink to the bottom of our misery to understand truth, just as we must descend to the bottom of a well to see the stars in broad daylight.
-Vaclav Havel, writer, Czech Republic president (1936- )
Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
-Carl Jung, psychiatrist (1875-1961)
Kindness makes a fellow feel good whether it's being done to him or by him.
-Frank A. Clark
Letter writing is the only device for combining solitude with good company.
-George Gordon Byron, poet (1788-1824)
A lot of people mistake a short memory for a clear conscience.
-Doug Larson
Humility like darkness reveals the heavenly lights.
-Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)
I believe that the first test of a truly great man is his humility. I do not mean by humility, doubt of his own powers. But really great men have a curious feeling that the greatness is not in them, but through them. And they see something divine in every other man and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful.
-John Ruskin, author, art critic, and social reformer(1819-1900)
Here's an oblique sports reference culled from an old music review:
"The X Symphony played Brahms last night. Brahms lost."
A man does not show his greatness by being at one extremity, but rather by touching both at once.
-Blaise Pascal, philosopher and mathematician (1623-1662)
"Life doesn't come with erasers. You can't make something that has happened, not happen. "
Remember when life's path is steep to keep your mind even.
-Horace, poet and satirist (65-8 BCE)
The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions--the little, soon-forgotten charities of a kiss or smile, a kind look or heartfelt compliment.
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet (1772-1834)
The bamboo that bends is stronger than the oak that resists.
-Japanese proverb
No disguise can hide love for long where it exists, nor feign it where it does not.
--- La Rochefoucauld
The happiest is the person who suffers the least pain; the most miserable who enjoys the least pleasure.
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau, philosopher and author (1712-1778)
Solitude, though it may be silent as light, is like light, the mightiest of agencies; for solitude is essential to man. All men come into this world alone; all leave it alone.
-Thomas De Quincey, writer (1785-1859)
Let proportion be found not only in numbers and measures, but also in sounds, weights, times, and positions, and what ever force there is.
-Leonardo Da Vinci, painter, engineer, musician, and scientist (1452-1519)
Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.
-Albert Schweitzer, philosopher, physician, and musician (1875-1965)
The mind commands the body and the body obeys. The mind commands itself and finds resistance.
-St. Augustine (354-430)
I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the
intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.
-Kahlil Gibran, mystic, poet and artist (1883-1931)
Never be haughty to the humble; never be humble to the haughty.
-Jefferson Davis, confederate president (1808-1889)
"Love is what happens to men and women who don't know each other."
Somerset Maugham
Every man is a damned fool for at least five minutes every day. Wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit.
-Elbert Hubbard, author, editor, printer (1856-1915)
To understand your parents' love, bear your own children.
-Chinese saying
"History is fables agreed upon"
Voltaire
I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies, for the hardest victory is over self.
-Aristotle, philosopher(384-322 BCE)
The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.
-Henry Miller, novelist (1891-1980)
By words the mind is winged.
-Aristophanes, dramatist (c. 448-385 BCE)
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance
- Ruth B. Love
A word in earnest is as good as a speech.
-Charles Dickens, novelist (1812-1870)
In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life. It goes on.
- Robert Frost
Work saves us from three great evils: boredom, vice and need.
-Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778)
I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.
-Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author(1743-1826)
In words are seen the state of mind and character and disposition of the speaker.
-Plutarch, biographer and philosopher (circa 46-120)
Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others
- Ambrose Bierce
Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercises over himself.
-Elie Wiesel, writer, Nobel laureate (1928- )
Wit is cultured insolence
- Aristotle
Clay is moulded to make a vessel, but the utility of the vessel lies in the space where there is nothing. Thus, taking advantage of what is, we recognize the utility of what is not.
-Lao Tzu, philosopher (circa 600 BCE)
To resist the frigidity of old age one must combine the body, the mind and the heart - and to keep them in parallel vigor one must exercise, study and love.
-Karl Viktor von Bonstetten, author(1745-1832)
Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.
-Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)
A man who uses a great many words to express his meaning is like a bad marksman who, instead of aiming a single stone at an object, takes up a handful and throws at it in hopes he may hit.
-Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)
A full cup must be carried steadily.
-English proverb
Words are the legs of the mind; they bear it about, carry it from point to point, bed it down at night, and keep it off the ground and out of the marsh and mists.
-Richard Eder
Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.
-Carl Sandburg, poet (1878-1967)
Luck never gives; it only lends.
-Swedish proverb
I don't want any yes-men around me. I want everyone to tell me the truth - even if it costs him his job
- Samuel Goldwyn
He that uses many words for explaining any subject, doth, like the cuttlefish, hide himself for the most part in his own ink.
-John Ray, naturalist (1627-1705)
Simplicity doesn't mean to live in misery and poverty. You have what you need, and you don't want to have what you don't need.
-Charan Singh, mystic (1916-1990)
"If you run after things, nothing will come to you. Let things run after you. The sea never sends an invitation to the rivers. That's why they run to the sea. The sea is content. It doesn't want anything. That's the secret in life."
- Swami Satchidananda
"It is not necessary that you leave the house. Remain at your table and listen. Do not even listen, only wait. Do not even wait, be wholly still and alone. The world will present itself to you for its unmasking, it can do no other, in ecstasy it will writhe at your feet."
- Kafka - that noted happiness-hound
Many people hear voices when no-one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stare at the walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing.
-Margaret Chittenden, writer
Never lend books -- nobody ever returns them; the only books I have in my library are those which people have lent me.
-Anatole France, novelist, essayist, Nobel laureate (1844-1924)
Language is the apparel in which your thoughts parade in public. Never clothe them in vulgar and shoddy attire.
-Dr. George W. Crane
"The length of a film should be directly propotional to the endurance of the human bladder"?
- Stanley Kubrick
The more we live by our intellect, the less we understand the meaning of life.
-Leo Tolstoy, author (1828-1910)
Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.
-William Butler Yeats, poet, dramatist, essayist, Nobel laureate (1865-1939)
It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: "And this, too, shall pass away." How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction!
-Abraham Lincoln, 16th U.S. President (1809-1865)
We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like?
-Jean Cocteau, author and painter (1889-1963)
After I'm dead I'd rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one.
-Cato the Elder, statesman, soldier, and writer (234-149 BCE)
" The real art of communication is not to say the right thing at the right time, but to leave the wrong thing unsaid at the tempting moment. "
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
- Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)
It is the characteristic of the most stringent censorships that they give credibility to the opinions they attack.
-Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778)
The man who is a pessimist before forty-eight knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.
-Mark Twain, author (1835-1910)
Minds, like bodies, will often fall into a pimpled, ill-conditioned state from mere excess of comfort.
-Charles Dickens, novelist (1812-1870)
If the camel once gets his nose in a tent, his body will soon follow.
-Arabian proverb
A handful of sand is an anthology of the universe.
-David McCord, poet (1897-1997)
The supreme happiness in life is the conviction that we are loved.
-Victor Hugo, poet, novelist, and dramatist (1802-1885)
It doesn't much signify whom one marries, for one is sure to find next morning that it was someone else.
- Samuel Rogers.
Laws are the spider's webs which, if anything small falls into them they ensnare it, but large things break through and escape.
-Solon, statesman(c. 638-c558 BCE)
Words, like nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within.
-Alfred, Lord Tennyson, poet (1809-1892)
There is no fire like passion, there is no shark like hatred, there is no snare like folly, there is no torrent like greed.
-Buddha
The man who is denied the opportunity of taking decisions of importance begins to regard as important the decisions he is allowed to take.
-C. Northcote Parkinson, author and historian (1909-1993)
Shall I tell you the secret of the true scholar? It is this: every man I meet is my master in some point, and in that I learn of him.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
You desire to know the art of living, my friend? It is contained in one phrase: make use of suffering.
-Henri Frederic Amiel, philosopher and writer (1821-1881)
"Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not, and a sense of humor was provided to console him for what he is."
- Oscar Wilde
The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent upon it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as it if had nothing else in the universe to do.
-Galileo Galilei, physicist and astronomer (1564-1642)
It is with words as with sunbeams, the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.
-Robert Southey (1774-1843)
Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.
-Lao Tzu, philosopher (6th century B.C.)
If the aborigine drafted an IQ test, all of Western civilization would presumably flunk it.
-Stanley Marion Garn, anthropologist (1922- )
If you would stand well with a great mind, leave him with a favorable impression of yourself; if with a little mind, leave him with a favorable impression of himself.
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet and philosopher (1772-1834)
All zoos actually offer the public, in return for the taxes spent upon them, is a form of idle witless amusement, compared to which a visit to the state penitentiary, or even a state legislature in session, is informing, stimulating and ennobling.
-H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic(1880-1956)
> Watch your thoughts; they become words.
> Watch your words; they become actions.
> Watch your actions; they become habits.
> Watch your habits; they become character.
> Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
-Maya Angelou, poet (1928- )
In a perfect union the man and woman are like a strung bow. Who is to say whether the string bends the bow, or the bow tightens the string?
-Cyril Connolly, critic and editor (1903-1974)
Every dewdrop and raindrop had a whole heaven within it.
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet (1807-1882)
Nothing contributes so much to tranquilizing the mind as a steady purpose - a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.
-Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, author (1797-1851)
If you don't execute your ideas, they die.
-Roger von Oech, author and consultant
Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned.
-Buddha (c. 566-480 BCE)
To be well informed, one must read quickly a great number of merely instructive books. To be cultivated, one must read slowly and with a lingering appreciation the comparatively few books that have been written by men who lived, thought, and felt with style.
-Aldous Huxley, writer (1894-1963)
Many people take no care of their money till they come nearly to the end of it, and others do just the same with their time.
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832)
When Alexander the Great visited Diogenes and asked whether he could do anything for the famed teacher, Diogenes replied: 'Only stand out of my light.' Perhaps some day we shall know how to heighten creativity. Untilthen, one of the best things we can do for creative men and women is to stand out of their light.
-John W. Gardner, author and educator (1912-2002)
Nature does nothing uselessly.
-Aristotle (384-322 BCE)
The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.
-e.e. cummings, poet (1894-1962)
The instinct of a man is to pursue everything that flies from him, and to fly from all that pursue him.
-Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778)
We would often be ashamed of our finest actions if the world understood all the motives which produced them.
-Duc de La Rochefoucauld, writer(1613-1680)
Every man supposes himself not to be fully understood or appreciated.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
There are times when we must sink to the bottom of our misery to understand truth, just as we must descend to the bottom of a well to see the stars in broad daylight.
-Vaclav Havel, writer, Czech Republic president (1936- )
Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
-Carl Jung, psychiatrist (1875-1961)
Kindness makes a fellow feel good whether it's being done to him or by him.
-Frank A. Clark
Letter writing is the only device for combining solitude with good company.
-George Gordon Byron, poet (1788-1824)
A lot of people mistake a short memory for a clear conscience.
-Doug Larson
Humility like darkness reveals the heavenly lights.
-Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)
I believe that the first test of a truly great man is his humility. I do not mean by humility, doubt of his own powers. But really great men have a curious feeling that the greatness is not in them, but through them. And they see something divine in every other man and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful.
-John Ruskin, author, art critic, and social reformer(1819-1900)
Here's an oblique sports reference culled from an old music review:
"The X Symphony played Brahms last night. Brahms lost."
A man does not show his greatness by being at one extremity, but rather by touching both at once.
-Blaise Pascal, philosopher and mathematician (1623-1662)
"Life doesn't come with erasers. You can't make something that has happened, not happen. "
Remember when life's path is steep to keep your mind even.
-Horace, poet and satirist (65-8 BCE)
The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions--the little, soon-forgotten charities of a kiss or smile, a kind look or heartfelt compliment.
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet (1772-1834)
The bamboo that bends is stronger than the oak that resists.
-Japanese proverb
No disguise can hide love for long where it exists, nor feign it where it does not.
--- La Rochefoucauld
The happiest is the person who suffers the least pain; the most miserable who enjoys the least pleasure.
-Jean-Jacques Rousseau, philosopher and author (1712-1778)
Solitude, though it may be silent as light, is like light, the mightiest of agencies; for solitude is essential to man. All men come into this world alone; all leave it alone.
-Thomas De Quincey, writer (1785-1859)
Let proportion be found not only in numbers and measures, but also in sounds, weights, times, and positions, and what ever force there is.
-Leonardo Da Vinci, painter, engineer, musician, and scientist (1452-1519)
Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.
-Albert Schweitzer, philosopher, physician, and musician (1875-1965)
The mind commands the body and the body obeys. The mind commands itself and finds resistance.
-St. Augustine (354-430)
I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the
intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.
-Kahlil Gibran, mystic, poet and artist (1883-1931)
Never be haughty to the humble; never be humble to the haughty.
-Jefferson Davis, confederate president (1808-1889)
"Love is what happens to men and women who don't know each other."
Somerset Maugham
Every man is a damned fool for at least five minutes every day. Wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit.
-Elbert Hubbard, author, editor, printer (1856-1915)
To understand your parents' love, bear your own children.
-Chinese saying
"History is fables agreed upon"
Voltaire
I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies, for the hardest victory is over self.
-Aristotle, philosopher(384-322 BCE)
The moment one gives close attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome, indescribably magnificent world in itself.
-Henry Miller, novelist (1891-1980)
By words the mind is winged.
-Aristophanes, dramatist (c. 448-385 BCE)
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance
- Ruth B. Love
A word in earnest is as good as a speech.
-Charles Dickens, novelist (1812-1870)
In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life. It goes on.
- Robert Frost
Work saves us from three great evils: boredom, vice and need.
-Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778)
I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.
-Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author(1743-1826)
In words are seen the state of mind and character and disposition of the speaker.
-Plutarch, biographer and philosopher (circa 46-120)
Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others
- Ambrose Bierce
Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercises over himself.
-Elie Wiesel, writer, Nobel laureate (1928- )
Wit is cultured insolence
- Aristotle
Clay is moulded to make a vessel, but the utility of the vessel lies in the space where there is nothing. Thus, taking advantage of what is, we recognize the utility of what is not.
-Lao Tzu, philosopher (circa 600 BCE)
To resist the frigidity of old age one must combine the body, the mind and the heart - and to keep them in parallel vigor one must exercise, study and love.
-Karl Viktor von Bonstetten, author(1745-1832)
Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.
-Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)
A man who uses a great many words to express his meaning is like a bad marksman who, instead of aiming a single stone at an object, takes up a handful and throws at it in hopes he may hit.
-Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)
A full cup must be carried steadily.
-English proverb
Words are the legs of the mind; they bear it about, carry it from point to point, bed it down at night, and keep it off the ground and out of the marsh and mists.
-Richard Eder
Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.
-Carl Sandburg, poet (1878-1967)
Luck never gives; it only lends.
-Swedish proverb
I don't want any yes-men around me. I want everyone to tell me the truth - even if it costs him his job
- Samuel Goldwyn
He that uses many words for explaining any subject, doth, like the cuttlefish, hide himself for the most part in his own ink.
-John Ray, naturalist (1627-1705)
Simplicity doesn't mean to live in misery and poverty. You have what you need, and you don't want to have what you don't need.
-Charan Singh, mystic (1916-1990)
"If you run after things, nothing will come to you. Let things run after you. The sea never sends an invitation to the rivers. That's why they run to the sea. The sea is content. It doesn't want anything. That's the secret in life."
- Swami Satchidananda
"It is not necessary that you leave the house. Remain at your table and listen. Do not even listen, only wait. Do not even wait, be wholly still and alone. The world will present itself to you for its unmasking, it can do no other, in ecstasy it will writhe at your feet."
- Kafka - that noted happiness-hound
Many people hear voices when no-one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stare at the walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing.
-Margaret Chittenden, writer
Never lend books -- nobody ever returns them; the only books I have in my library are those which people have lent me.
-Anatole France, novelist, essayist, Nobel laureate (1844-1924)
Language is the apparel in which your thoughts parade in public. Never clothe them in vulgar and shoddy attire.
-Dr. George W. Crane
"The length of a film should be directly propotional to the endurance of the human bladder"?
- Stanley Kubrick
The more we live by our intellect, the less we understand the meaning of life.
-Leo Tolstoy, author (1828-1910)
Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.
-William Butler Yeats, poet, dramatist, essayist, Nobel laureate (1865-1939)
It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: "And this, too, shall pass away." How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction!
-Abraham Lincoln, 16th U.S. President (1809-1865)
We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like?
-Jean Cocteau, author and painter (1889-1963)
After I'm dead I'd rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one.
-Cato the Elder, statesman, soldier, and writer (234-149 BCE)
" The real art of communication is not to say the right thing at the right time, but to leave the wrong thing unsaid at the tempting moment. "
You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you.
- Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)
It is the characteristic of the most stringent censorships that they give credibility to the opinions they attack.
-Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778)
The man who is a pessimist before forty-eight knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.
-Mark Twain, author (1835-1910)
Minds, like bodies, will often fall into a pimpled, ill-conditioned state from mere excess of comfort.
-Charles Dickens, novelist (1812-1870)
If the camel once gets his nose in a tent, his body will soon follow.
-Arabian proverb
A handful of sand is an anthology of the universe.
-David McCord, poet (1897-1997)
The supreme happiness in life is the conviction that we are loved.
-Victor Hugo, poet, novelist, and dramatist (1802-1885)
It doesn't much signify whom one marries, for one is sure to find next morning that it was someone else.
- Samuel Rogers.
Laws are the spider's webs which, if anything small falls into them they ensnare it, but large things break through and escape.
-Solon, statesman(c. 638-c558 BCE)
Words, like nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within.
-Alfred, Lord Tennyson, poet (1809-1892)
There is no fire like passion, there is no shark like hatred, there is no snare like folly, there is no torrent like greed.
-Buddha
The man who is denied the opportunity of taking decisions of importance begins to regard as important the decisions he is allowed to take.
-C. Northcote Parkinson, author and historian (1909-1993)
Shall I tell you the secret of the true scholar? It is this: every man I meet is my master in some point, and in that I learn of him.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
You desire to know the art of living, my friend? It is contained in one phrase: make use of suffering.
-Henri Frederic Amiel, philosopher and writer (1821-1881)
"Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not, and a sense of humor was provided to console him for what he is."
- Oscar Wilde
The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent upon it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as it if had nothing else in the universe to do.
-Galileo Galilei, physicist and astronomer (1564-1642)
It is with words as with sunbeams, the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.
-Robert Southey (1774-1843)
Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.
-Lao Tzu, philosopher (6th century B.C.)
If the aborigine drafted an IQ test, all of Western civilization would presumably flunk it.
-Stanley Marion Garn, anthropologist (1922- )
If you would stand well with a great mind, leave him with a favorable impression of yourself; if with a little mind, leave him with a favorable impression of himself.
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet and philosopher (1772-1834)
All zoos actually offer the public, in return for the taxes spent upon them, is a form of idle witless amusement, compared to which a visit to the state penitentiary, or even a state legislature in session, is informing, stimulating and ennobling.
-H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic(1880-1956)
> Watch your thoughts; they become words.
> Watch your words; they become actions.
> Watch your actions; they become habits.
> Watch your habits; they become character.
> Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
GROUCHO MARX
A man's only as old as the woman he feels.
Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?
Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others.
He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot.
I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception.
The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it, and then misapplying the wrong remedies.
"I love my cigar, but I take it out of my mouth once in a while."
You've got the brain of a four-year-old boy, and I'll bet he was glad to get rid of it.
I need a doctor immediately. Ring the nearest golf course.
You've got the brain of a four-year-old boy, and I'll bet he was glad to get rid of it.
I need a doctor immediately. Ring the nearest golf course.
1
If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?
-Alexander Solzhenitsyn, novelist, Nobel laureate (1918- )
There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.
-Edith Wharton, novelist (1862-1937)
Dreams have only one owner at a time. That's why dreamers are lonely.
-Erma Bombeck, author (1927-1996)
May you have...
Enough happiness to keep you sweet,
Enough trials to keep you strong,
Enough sorrow to keep you human,
Enough hope to keep you happy,
Enough failure to keep you humble,
Enough success to keep you eager,
Enough friends to give you comfort,
Enough wealth to meet your needs,
Enough enthusiasm to look forward,
Enough faith to banish depression,
Enough determination to make each day better than yesterday!
- Anonymous
The best effect of fine persons is felt after we have left their presence.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
Charity sees the need not the cause.
-German proverb
All the world's a stage, /
And the men and women merely players: /
They have their exits and their entrances; /
And one man in his time plays many parts.
-William Shakespeare, poet and dramatist (1564-1616)
A house is no home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.
-Sarah Margaret Fuller, author (1810-1850)
All the time a person is a child he is both a child and learning to be a parent. After he becomes a parent he becomes predominantly a parent reliving childhood.
-Benjamin Spock, pediatrician and author (1903-1998)
...............
In seeking wisdom, the first step is silence, the second listening, the third remembering, the fourth practicing, the fifth -- teaching others.
-Ibn Gabirol, poet and philosopher (c. 1022-1058)
To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy
child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
The best cure for worry, depression, melancholy, brooding, is to go deliberately forth and try to lift with one's sympathy the gloom of somebody else.
-Arnold Bennett, novelist (1867-1931)
Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
-Will Durant, historian (1885-1981)
...............
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
-Abraham Lincoln, U.S. president (1809-1865)
............................................................................
Content thyself to be obscurely good. When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, the post of honor is a private station.
-Joseph Addison, essayist and poet (1672-1719)
When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
He is the best physician who is the most ingenious inspirer of hope.
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet, critic, and philosopher (1772-1834)
Men of genius are often dull and inert in society, as a blazing meteor when it descends to earth, is only a stone.
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet(1819-1892)
Until you've lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was or what freedom really is.
-Margaret Mitchell, novelist (1900-1949)
Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a mighty bloodless substitute for life.
-Robert Louis Stevenson, novelist, essayist, and poet (1850-1894)
There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.
-Leo Tolstoy, novelist and philosopher (1828-1910)
People are like stained glass windows: they sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light within.
-Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, psychiatrist and author(1926- )
Time engraves our faces with all the tears we have not shed.
-Natalie Clifford Barney, Author (1876-1972)
He who sacrifices his conscience to ambition burns a picture to obtain the ashes.
-Chinese Proverb
Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.
-Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the U.S (1809-1865)
To have and not to give is often worse than to steal.
-Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach
They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse.
-Emily Dickinson, poet (1830-1886)
Omit needless words. Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.
-William Strunk, Jr., professor and author (1869-1946)
.............................................................
It is a shameful thing to insult a little child. It has its feelings, it has its small dignity; and since it cannot defend them, it is surely an ignoble act to injure them.
-Mark Twain
Live a balanced life - Learn some and think some, and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
-Robert Fulghum, author (1937- )
It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others.
-John Andrew Holmes
A man too busy to take care of his health is like a mechanic too busy to take care of his tools.
-Spanish proverb
For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him he must regard himself as greater than he is.
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist,and philosopher (1749-1832)
One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture and, if it were possible, speak a few reasonable words.
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832)
Reason often makes mistakes, but conscience never does.
-Josh Billings,columnist and humorist (1818-1885)
The only real way to look younger is not to be born so soon.
-Charles Schulz, cartoonist (1922-2000)
My precept to all who build, is, that the owner should be an ornament to the house, and not the house to the owner.
-Cicero, statesman, orator, writer (106-43 B.C)
If any man wishes to write in a clear style, let him be first clear in his thoughts; and if any would write in a noble style, let him first possess a noble soul.
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832)
The most happy marriage I can picture or imagine to myself would be the union of a deaf man to a blind woman.
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet, critic, and philosopher (1772-1834)
Everyone is born with genius, but most people only keep it a few minutes.
-Edgard Varese, composer (1885-1965)
No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same.
-Viktor Frankl, author, neurologist and psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor (1905-1997)
That sorrow which is the harbinger of joy is preferable to the joy which is followed by sorrow.
-Saadi, poet (c.1213-1291) [Gulistan]
One's first step in wisdom is to question everything - and one's last is to come to terms with everything.
-Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well.
-Rene Descartes, "Le Discours de la Methode," 1637
******
" A problem cannot be solved at the level of awareness that created it"
- Alfred Einstein.
At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.
-W. Somerset Maugham, novelist, dramatist, and short-story writer (1874-1965)
If pleasures are greatest in anticipation, just remember that this is also true of trouble.
-Elbert Hubbard, author, editor, printer (1856-1915)
Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.
-John Nichols, novelist (1940- )
Courage is the price that life extracts for granting peace. The soul that knows it not, knows no release from little things.
-Amelia Earhart, aviator (1897-1937)
A ship ought not to be held by one anchor, nor life by a single hope.
-Epictetus, philosopher (c. 60-120)
Courage is the price that life extracts for granting peace. The soul that knows it not, knows no release from little things.
-Amelia Earhart, aviator (1897-1937)
It is criminal to steal a purse, daring to steal a fortune, a mark of greatness to steal a crown. The blame diminishes as the guilt increases.
-Johan Christoph Friedrich von Schiller, poet and dramatist (1759-1805)
What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
To live for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain that sustain life, not the top.
-Robert M. Pirsig, author [Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance]
It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.
-Edmund Hillary, mountaineer and explorer (1919- )
The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.
-Aristotle, philosopher (384-322 B.C.)
.............................................................
The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization.
-Sigmund Freud, neurologist, founder of psychoanalysis (1856-1939)
Appreciation is a wonderful thing; it makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.
-Voltaire, philosopher, historian, satirist, dramatist, and essayist (1694-1778)
.............................................................
Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength, mastering yourself is true power.
-Lao-Tzu, philosopher (6th century B.C.)
There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.
-Elie Wiesel, writer, Nobel laureate (1928- )
A man there was, tho' some did count him mad /
The more he cast away, the more he had.
-John Bunyan, preacher (1628-1688) [Pilgrim's Progress]
The palest ink is better than the best memory.
-Chinese proverb
It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.
-Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)
*****
In the midst of great joy, do not promise anyone anything. In the midst of great anger, do not answer anyone's letter.
-Chinese proverb
Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.
-Henry David Thoreau,naturalist and author (1817-1862)
The value of marriage is not that adults produce children, but that children produce adults.
-Peter De Vries, editor, novelist (1910-1993) [TheTunnel of Love, 1954]
Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow; He who would search for pearls must dive below.
-John Dryden
Truth comes out of error more readily than out of confusion.
- Francis Bacon
It is one Thing, to show a Man that he is in an Error, and another, to put him in possession of Truth.
- John Locke
Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age 18.
- Albert Einstein
*****
The ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obstructs the understanding.
- Francis Bacon
You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.
- Albert Einstein
Education is what you have left when you have forgotten everything you learned in school.
- Albert Einstein, 1936
It is as fatal as it is cowardly to blink facts because they are not to our taste.
- Tyndall
Many errors, of a truth, consist merely in the application of the wrong names of things.
- Spinoza
When even the brightest mind in our world has been trained up from childhood in a superstition of any kind, it will never be possible for that mind, in its maturity, to examine sincerely, dispassionately, and conscientiously any evidence or any circumstance which shall seem to cast a doubt upon the validity of that superstition. I doubt if I could do it myself.
- Mark Twain
I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong.
- Richard Feynman
Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler.
- Albert Einstein
The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best--and therefore never scrutinize or question.
-Stephen Jay Gould
There are many hypotheses in science which are wrong. That's perfectly all right; they're the aperture to finding out what's right.
- Carl Sagan
An easily understood, workable falsehood is more useful than a complex incomprehensible truth.
- Thumb's Postulates
"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."
-Einstein
Many errors, of a truth, consist merely in the application of the wrong names of things.
- Spinoza
_________________
Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832)
*****
It is not what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable.
-Moliere, actor and playwright (1622-1673)
Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors, and the most patient of teachers.
-Charles W. Eliot, educator (1834-1926)
A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it.
-Rabindranath Tagore, poet, philosopher, author, songwriter,
painter,educator, composer, Nobel laureate (1861-1941)
“Moral indignation is a technique used to endow the idiot with dignity.”
-Marshal McLuhan
A penny will hide the biggest star in the universe if you hold it close enough to your eye. -Samuel Grafton
All sunshine makes a desert.
-Arabic proverb
We are not retreating - we are advancing in another direction.
-General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964)
A youth is to be regarded with respect. How do you know that his future will not be equal to our present?
-Confucius, philosopher and teacher (551-497 BC)
D'you call life a bad job? Never! We've had our ups and downs, we've had our struggles, we've always been poor, but it's been worth it, ay, worth it a hundred times I say when I look round at my children.
-W. Somerset Maugham, novelist, dramatist, short-story writer (1874-1965) [Of Human Bondage]
Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs, and they will then be powerless to vex your mind.
-Leonardo da Vinci, painter, engineer, musician, and scientist (1452-1519)
*****
What is to give light must endure burning.
-Viktor Frankl, author,neurologist and psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor (1905-1997)
Observe your enemies, for they first find out your faults.
-Antisthenes
*****
"We don't see things as they are - we see things as we are."
- Anias Nin
I wish I were either rich enough or poor enough to do a lot of things that are impossible in my present comfortable circumstances.
-Don Herold
If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.
-Anne Bradstreet
If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.
-Rene Descartes
"He who asks is a fool for 5 minutes, but he who does not ask is a fool forever..."
- Old Chinese saying
No horse gets anywhere until he is harnessed. No stream or gas drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined.
-Harry Emerson Fosdick
"Innocence and Beauty have but one enemy - Time"
- W.B. Yeats
Men seek out retreats for themselves in the country, by the seaside, on the moutains... But all this is unphilosophical to the last degree... when thou canst at a moment's notice retire into thyself.
-Marcus Aelius Aurelius
Never look down on anybody unless you're helping him up.
-Jesse Louis Jackson
*****
In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep.
-Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relative to other matter; second, telling other people to do so. The first is unpleasant and ill-paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid.
-Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, and author (1872-1970)
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice; In practice, there is.
-Chuck Reid
By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher. -Socrates
Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.
-Cicero
We are usually convinced more easily by reasons we have found ourselves than by those which have occurred to others.
-Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) [Pensees]
Well-timed silence is the most commanding expression.
-Mark Helprin
An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don't.
-Anatole France
Be very circumspect in the choice of thy company. In the society of thine equals thou shalt enjoy more pleasure; in the society of thine superiors thou shalt find more profit. To be the best in the company is the way to grow worse; the best means to grow better is to be the worst there. -Francis Quarles (1592-1644)
Children aren't happy without something to ignore,
And that's what parents were created for.
-Ogden Nash (1902-1971)
Be aware that a halo has to fall only a few inches to be a noose. -Dan McKinnon
As a well spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.
-Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
A torn jacket is soon mended; but hard words bruise the heart of a child.
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
*****
The mind is its own place, and in itself / Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
-John Milton (1608-1674) [Paradise Lost]
Just as a cautious businessman avoids tying up all his capital in one concern, so, perhaps, worldly wisdom will advise us not to look for the whole of our satisfaction from a single aspiration.
-Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
No man is clever enough to know all the evil he does.
-La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
Contentment is a pearl of great price, and whoever procures it at the expense of ten thousand desires makes a wise and a happy purchase.
-John Balguy
If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart.
-Socrates (469?-399 B.C.)
Kindness is loving people more than they deserve.
-Joseph Joubert, French moralist and essayist (1754-1824)
Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed be doing at that moment.
-Robert Benchley
A woman's head is always influenced by heart; but a man's heart by his head.
-Lady Marguerite Blessington (1789-1849)
Those who are incapable of committing great crimes do not readily suspect them in others.
-Francois De La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
If I can stop one Heart from breaking / I shall not live in vain / If I can ease one Life the Aching / Or cool one Pain / Or help one fainting Robin /Unto his Nest again / I shall not live in Vain.
-Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
Man is harder than iron, stronger than stone and more fragile than a rose.
-Turkish proverb
Memory moderates prosperity, decreases adversity, controls youth and delights old age.
-Lactantius Firmianus
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
-T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)
If you want something really important to be done you must not merely satisfy the reason, you must move the heart also.
-Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)
*****
Strange that creatures without backbones have the hardest shells.
-Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) [Sand and Foam]
It is difficult to begin without borrowing, but perhaps it is the most generous course thus to permit your fellow-men to have an interest in your enterprise.
-Henry David Thoreau [Walden]
*****
Nothing produces such odd results as trying to get even.
-Franklin P. Jones
The greatest sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say, "The children are now working as if I did not exist."
-Maria Montessori, Italian educator (1870-1952)
Pessimist: One who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both.
-Oscar Wilde
If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.
-Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young,compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these.
-George Washington Carver (1864?-1943)
He who does not attempt to make peace / When small discords arise, / Is like the bee's hive which leaks drops of honey / Soon, the whole hive collapses.
-Nagarjuna (c. 100-200 A.D.)
He who asks of life nothing but the improvement of his own nature...is less liable than anyone else to miss and waste life.
-Henri Frederic Amiel (1821-1881)
Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.
-Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
Was there ever any domination that did not appear natural to those who possessed it?
-John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true.
-Honore de Balzac (1799-1850)
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
To teach is to learn twice.
-Joseph Joubert (1754-1824)
In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question
mark on the things you have long taken for granted.
-Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
I shut my eyes in order to see.
-Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
A book must be an axe for the frozen sea inside of us.
-Franz Kafka, Austrian Writer (1883-1924)
When you want to test the depths of a stream, don't use both feet.
-Chinese Proverb
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
-Calvin Coolidge
Flatter me, and I may not believe you. Criticize me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I will not forget you.
-William Arthur Ward, American newspaper editor, writer
A man is truly ethical only when he obeys the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist, and shrinks from injuring anything that lives.
-Albert Schweitzer [The Philosophy of Civilization]
*****
Contentment consisteth not in adding more fuel, but in taking away some fire.
-Thomas Fuller (1608-1661)
All humanity is divided into three classes: those who are immovable, those who are movable, and those who move!
-Benjamin Franklin
The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one.
-J. Russell Lynes (1910-1991)
I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter.
-Blaise Pascal (1623-1962)
One's reach must exceed their grasp, or what's a heaven for?
-Robert
Browning
Most people are mirrors, reflecting the moods and emotions of the times; few are windows, bringing light to bear on the dark corners where troubles fester. The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.
-Sydney J. Harris
The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives.
-Robert Maynard Hutchins
Seven blunders of the world that lead to violence: wealth without work,pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics without principle.
-Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)
Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, American writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
It ill becomes us to invoke in our daily prayers the blessings of God, the Compassionate, if we in turn will not practice elementary compassion towards our fellow creatures.
-Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)
Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself to it.
-Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
I will love the light for it shows me the way, Yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars.
-Og Mandino
Success is not measured by the position one has reached in life, rather by the obstacles overcome while trying to succeed.
-Booker T. Washington
Old books that have ceased to be of service should no more be abandoned than should old friends who have ceased to give pleasure.
-Peregrine Worsthorne
Fanaticism consists of redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim.
-George Santayana
Whenever people say 'We mustn't be sentimental,' you can take it they are about to do something cruel. And if they add 'We must be realistic,’they mean they are going to make money out of it.
-Brigid Brophy
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
-Aristotle
If you would lift me up you must be on higher ground.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
-Alexander Solzhenitsyn, novelist, Nobel laureate (1918- )
There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.
-Edith Wharton, novelist (1862-1937)
Dreams have only one owner at a time. That's why dreamers are lonely.
-Erma Bombeck, author (1927-1996)
May you have...
Enough happiness to keep you sweet,
Enough trials to keep you strong,
Enough sorrow to keep you human,
Enough hope to keep you happy,
Enough failure to keep you humble,
Enough success to keep you eager,
Enough friends to give you comfort,
Enough wealth to meet your needs,
Enough enthusiasm to look forward,
Enough faith to banish depression,
Enough determination to make each day better than yesterday!
- Anonymous
The best effect of fine persons is felt after we have left their presence.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
Charity sees the need not the cause.
-German proverb
All the world's a stage, /
And the men and women merely players: /
They have their exits and their entrances; /
And one man in his time plays many parts.
-William Shakespeare, poet and dramatist (1564-1616)
A house is no home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.
-Sarah Margaret Fuller, author (1810-1850)
All the time a person is a child he is both a child and learning to be a parent. After he becomes a parent he becomes predominantly a parent reliving childhood.
-Benjamin Spock, pediatrician and author (1903-1998)
...............
In seeking wisdom, the first step is silence, the second listening, the third remembering, the fourth practicing, the fifth -- teaching others.
-Ibn Gabirol, poet and philosopher (c. 1022-1058)
To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy
child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
The best cure for worry, depression, melancholy, brooding, is to go deliberately forth and try to lift with one's sympathy the gloom of somebody else.
-Arnold Bennett, novelist (1867-1931)
Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.
-Will Durant, historian (1885-1981)
...............
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
-Abraham Lincoln, U.S. president (1809-1865)
............................................................................
Content thyself to be obscurely good. When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, the post of honor is a private station.
-Joseph Addison, essayist and poet (1672-1719)
When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
He is the best physician who is the most ingenious inspirer of hope.
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet, critic, and philosopher (1772-1834)
Men of genius are often dull and inert in society, as a blazing meteor when it descends to earth, is only a stone.
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet(1819-1892)
Until you've lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was or what freedom really is.
-Margaret Mitchell, novelist (1900-1949)
Books are good enough in their own way, but they are a mighty bloodless substitute for life.
-Robert Louis Stevenson, novelist, essayist, and poet (1850-1894)
There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.
-Leo Tolstoy, novelist and philosopher (1828-1910)
People are like stained glass windows: they sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light within.
-Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, psychiatrist and author(1926- )
Time engraves our faces with all the tears we have not shed.
-Natalie Clifford Barney, Author (1876-1972)
He who sacrifices his conscience to ambition burns a picture to obtain the ashes.
-Chinese Proverb
Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.
-Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the U.S (1809-1865)
To have and not to give is often worse than to steal.
-Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach
They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse.
-Emily Dickinson, poet (1830-1886)
Omit needless words. Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.
-William Strunk, Jr., professor and author (1869-1946)
.............................................................
It is a shameful thing to insult a little child. It has its feelings, it has its small dignity; and since it cannot defend them, it is surely an ignoble act to injure them.
-Mark Twain
Live a balanced life - Learn some and think some, and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
-Robert Fulghum, author (1937- )
It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others.
-John Andrew Holmes
A man too busy to take care of his health is like a mechanic too busy to take care of his tools.
-Spanish proverb
For a man to achieve all that is demanded of him he must regard himself as greater than he is.
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist,and philosopher (1749-1832)
One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture and, if it were possible, speak a few reasonable words.
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832)
Reason often makes mistakes, but conscience never does.
-Josh Billings,columnist and humorist (1818-1885)
The only real way to look younger is not to be born so soon.
-Charles Schulz, cartoonist (1922-2000)
My precept to all who build, is, that the owner should be an ornament to the house, and not the house to the owner.
-Cicero, statesman, orator, writer (106-43 B.C)
If any man wishes to write in a clear style, let him be first clear in his thoughts; and if any would write in a noble style, let him first possess a noble soul.
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832)
The most happy marriage I can picture or imagine to myself would be the union of a deaf man to a blind woman.
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet, critic, and philosopher (1772-1834)
Everyone is born with genius, but most people only keep it a few minutes.
-Edgard Varese, composer (1885-1965)
No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same.
-Viktor Frankl, author, neurologist and psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor (1905-1997)
That sorrow which is the harbinger of joy is preferable to the joy which is followed by sorrow.
-Saadi, poet (c.1213-1291) [Gulistan]
One's first step in wisdom is to question everything - and one's last is to come to terms with everything.
-Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well.
-Rene Descartes, "Le Discours de la Methode," 1637
******
" A problem cannot be solved at the level of awareness that created it"
- Alfred Einstein.
At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely.
-W. Somerset Maugham, novelist, dramatist, and short-story writer (1874-1965)
If pleasures are greatest in anticipation, just remember that this is also true of trouble.
-Elbert Hubbard, author, editor, printer (1856-1915)
Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.
-John Nichols, novelist (1940- )
Courage is the price that life extracts for granting peace. The soul that knows it not, knows no release from little things.
-Amelia Earhart, aviator (1897-1937)
A ship ought not to be held by one anchor, nor life by a single hope.
-Epictetus, philosopher (c. 60-120)
Courage is the price that life extracts for granting peace. The soul that knows it not, knows no release from little things.
-Amelia Earhart, aviator (1897-1937)
It is criminal to steal a purse, daring to steal a fortune, a mark of greatness to steal a crown. The blame diminishes as the guilt increases.
-Johan Christoph Friedrich von Schiller, poet and dramatist (1759-1805)
What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
To live for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain that sustain life, not the top.
-Robert M. Pirsig, author [Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance]
It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.
-Edmund Hillary, mountaineer and explorer (1919- )
The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.
-Aristotle, philosopher (384-322 B.C.)
.............................................................
The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization.
-Sigmund Freud, neurologist, founder of psychoanalysis (1856-1939)
Appreciation is a wonderful thing; it makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.
-Voltaire, philosopher, historian, satirist, dramatist, and essayist (1694-1778)
.............................................................
Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength, mastering yourself is true power.
-Lao-Tzu, philosopher (6th century B.C.)
There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.
-Elie Wiesel, writer, Nobel laureate (1928- )
A man there was, tho' some did count him mad /
The more he cast away, the more he had.
-John Bunyan, preacher (1628-1688) [Pilgrim's Progress]
The palest ink is better than the best memory.
-Chinese proverb
It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.
-Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)
*****
In the midst of great joy, do not promise anyone anything. In the midst of great anger, do not answer anyone's letter.
-Chinese proverb
Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.
-Henry David Thoreau,naturalist and author (1817-1862)
The value of marriage is not that adults produce children, but that children produce adults.
-Peter De Vries, editor, novelist (1910-1993) [TheTunnel of Love, 1954]
Errors, like straws, upon the surface flow; He who would search for pearls must dive below.
-John Dryden
Truth comes out of error more readily than out of confusion.
- Francis Bacon
It is one Thing, to show a Man that he is in an Error, and another, to put him in possession of Truth.
- John Locke
Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age 18.
- Albert Einstein
*****
The ill and unfit choice of words wonderfully obstructs the understanding.
- Francis Bacon
You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.
- Albert Einstein
Education is what you have left when you have forgotten everything you learned in school.
- Albert Einstein, 1936
It is as fatal as it is cowardly to blink facts because they are not to our taste.
- Tyndall
Many errors, of a truth, consist merely in the application of the wrong names of things.
- Spinoza
When even the brightest mind in our world has been trained up from childhood in a superstition of any kind, it will never be possible for that mind, in its maturity, to examine sincerely, dispassionately, and conscientiously any evidence or any circumstance which shall seem to cast a doubt upon the validity of that superstition. I doubt if I could do it myself.
- Mark Twain
I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it is much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong.
- Richard Feynman
Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler.
- Albert Einstein
The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best--and therefore never scrutinize or question.
-Stephen Jay Gould
There are many hypotheses in science which are wrong. That's perfectly all right; they're the aperture to finding out what's right.
- Carl Sagan
An easily understood, workable falsehood is more useful than a complex incomprehensible truth.
- Thumb's Postulates
"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."
-Einstein
Many errors, of a truth, consist merely in the application of the wrong names of things.
- Spinoza
_________________
Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832)
*****
It is not what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable.
-Moliere, actor and playwright (1622-1673)
Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors, and the most patient of teachers.
-Charles W. Eliot, educator (1834-1926)
A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it.
-Rabindranath Tagore, poet, philosopher, author, songwriter,
painter,educator, composer, Nobel laureate (1861-1941)
“Moral indignation is a technique used to endow the idiot with dignity.”
-Marshal McLuhan
A penny will hide the biggest star in the universe if you hold it close enough to your eye. -Samuel Grafton
All sunshine makes a desert.
-Arabic proverb
We are not retreating - we are advancing in another direction.
-General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964)
A youth is to be regarded with respect. How do you know that his future will not be equal to our present?
-Confucius, philosopher and teacher (551-497 BC)
D'you call life a bad job? Never! We've had our ups and downs, we've had our struggles, we've always been poor, but it's been worth it, ay, worth it a hundred times I say when I look round at my children.
-W. Somerset Maugham, novelist, dramatist, short-story writer (1874-1965) [Of Human Bondage]
Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs, and they will then be powerless to vex your mind.
-Leonardo da Vinci, painter, engineer, musician, and scientist (1452-1519)
*****
What is to give light must endure burning.
-Viktor Frankl, author,neurologist and psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor (1905-1997)
Observe your enemies, for they first find out your faults.
-Antisthenes
*****
"We don't see things as they are - we see things as we are."
- Anias Nin
I wish I were either rich enough or poor enough to do a lot of things that are impossible in my present comfortable circumstances.
-Don Herold
If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.
-Anne Bradstreet
If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.
-Rene Descartes
"He who asks is a fool for 5 minutes, but he who does not ask is a fool forever..."
- Old Chinese saying
No horse gets anywhere until he is harnessed. No stream or gas drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined.
-Harry Emerson Fosdick
"Innocence and Beauty have but one enemy - Time"
- W.B. Yeats
Men seek out retreats for themselves in the country, by the seaside, on the moutains... But all this is unphilosophical to the last degree... when thou canst at a moment's notice retire into thyself.
-Marcus Aelius Aurelius
Never look down on anybody unless you're helping him up.
-Jesse Louis Jackson
*****
In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep.
-Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relative to other matter; second, telling other people to do so. The first is unpleasant and ill-paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid.
-Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, and author (1872-1970)
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice; In practice, there is.
-Chuck Reid
By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher. -Socrates
Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.
-Cicero
We are usually convinced more easily by reasons we have found ourselves than by those which have occurred to others.
-Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) [Pensees]
Well-timed silence is the most commanding expression.
-Mark Helprin
An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don't.
-Anatole France
Be very circumspect in the choice of thy company. In the society of thine equals thou shalt enjoy more pleasure; in the society of thine superiors thou shalt find more profit. To be the best in the company is the way to grow worse; the best means to grow better is to be the worst there. -Francis Quarles (1592-1644)
Children aren't happy without something to ignore,
And that's what parents were created for.
-Ogden Nash (1902-1971)
Be aware that a halo has to fall only a few inches to be a noose. -Dan McKinnon
As a well spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.
-Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
A torn jacket is soon mended; but hard words bruise the heart of a child.
-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
*****
The mind is its own place, and in itself / Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
-John Milton (1608-1674) [Paradise Lost]
Just as a cautious businessman avoids tying up all his capital in one concern, so, perhaps, worldly wisdom will advise us not to look for the whole of our satisfaction from a single aspiration.
-Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
No man is clever enough to know all the evil he does.
-La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
Contentment is a pearl of great price, and whoever procures it at the expense of ten thousand desires makes a wise and a happy purchase.
-John Balguy
If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be contented to take their own and depart.
-Socrates (469?-399 B.C.)
Kindness is loving people more than they deserve.
-Joseph Joubert, French moralist and essayist (1754-1824)
Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed be doing at that moment.
-Robert Benchley
A woman's head is always influenced by heart; but a man's heart by his head.
-Lady Marguerite Blessington (1789-1849)
Those who are incapable of committing great crimes do not readily suspect them in others.
-Francois De La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)
If I can stop one Heart from breaking / I shall not live in vain / If I can ease one Life the Aching / Or cool one Pain / Or help one fainting Robin /Unto his Nest again / I shall not live in Vain.
-Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)
Man is harder than iron, stronger than stone and more fragile than a rose.
-Turkish proverb
Memory moderates prosperity, decreases adversity, controls youth and delights old age.
-Lactantius Firmianus
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
-T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)
If you want something really important to be done you must not merely satisfy the reason, you must move the heart also.
-Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)
*****
Strange that creatures without backbones have the hardest shells.
-Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) [Sand and Foam]
It is difficult to begin without borrowing, but perhaps it is the most generous course thus to permit your fellow-men to have an interest in your enterprise.
-Henry David Thoreau [Walden]
*****
Nothing produces such odd results as trying to get even.
-Franklin P. Jones
The greatest sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say, "The children are now working as if I did not exist."
-Maria Montessori, Italian educator (1870-1952)
Pessimist: One who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both.
-Oscar Wilde
If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.
-Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young,compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these.
-George Washington Carver (1864?-1943)
He who does not attempt to make peace / When small discords arise, / Is like the bee's hive which leaks drops of honey / Soon, the whole hive collapses.
-Nagarjuna (c. 100-200 A.D.)
He who asks of life nothing but the improvement of his own nature...is less liable than anyone else to miss and waste life.
-Henri Frederic Amiel (1821-1881)
Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.
-Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
Was there ever any domination that did not appear natural to those who possessed it?
-John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)
Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true.
-Honore de Balzac (1799-1850)
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
To teach is to learn twice.
-Joseph Joubert (1754-1824)
In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question
mark on the things you have long taken for granted.
-Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
I shut my eyes in order to see.
-Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
A book must be an axe for the frozen sea inside of us.
-Franz Kafka, Austrian Writer (1883-1924)
When you want to test the depths of a stream, don't use both feet.
-Chinese Proverb
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
-Calvin Coolidge
Flatter me, and I may not believe you. Criticize me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I will not forget you.
-William Arthur Ward, American newspaper editor, writer
A man is truly ethical only when he obeys the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist, and shrinks from injuring anything that lives.
-Albert Schweitzer [The Philosophy of Civilization]
*****
Contentment consisteth not in adding more fuel, but in taking away some fire.
-Thomas Fuller (1608-1661)
All humanity is divided into three classes: those who are immovable, those who are movable, and those who move!
-Benjamin Franklin
The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one.
-J. Russell Lynes (1910-1991)
I have only made this letter longer because I have not had the time to make it shorter.
-Blaise Pascal (1623-1962)
One's reach must exceed their grasp, or what's a heaven for?
-Robert
Browning
Most people are mirrors, reflecting the moods and emotions of the times; few are windows, bringing light to bear on the dark corners where troubles fester. The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.
-Sydney J. Harris
The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives.
-Robert Maynard Hutchins
Seven blunders of the world that lead to violence: wealth without work,pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics without principle.
-Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)
Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, American writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
It ill becomes us to invoke in our daily prayers the blessings of God, the Compassionate, if we in turn will not practice elementary compassion towards our fellow creatures.
-Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)
Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself to it.
-Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
I will love the light for it shows me the way, Yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars.
-Og Mandino
Success is not measured by the position one has reached in life, rather by the obstacles overcome while trying to succeed.
-Booker T. Washington
Old books that have ceased to be of service should no more be abandoned than should old friends who have ceased to give pleasure.
-Peregrine Worsthorne
Fanaticism consists of redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim.
-George Santayana
Whenever people say 'We mustn't be sentimental,' you can take it they are about to do something cruel. And if they add 'We must be realistic,’they mean they are going to make money out of it.
-Brigid Brophy
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
-Aristotle
If you would lift me up you must be on higher ground.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
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