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)