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.