3000 Quotes for Life

Transcription

3000
Quotes
Quotes for life
Quotes for everyday life
Copyright 1997-2004 @ Lessonplans.com.au
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Table of Contents
Quotes for every day life....................................................................................4
A Short Letter from the Authors...........................................................................4
Ability ...........................................................................................................5
Acceptance .....................................................................................................9
Accomplish ................................................................................................... 13
Achievement ................................................................................................. 17
Adversity...................................................................................................... 21
Age ............................................................................................................. 25
Ambition ...................................................................................................... 29
Anarchy ....................................................................................................... 33
Anger .......................................................................................................... 35
Argument ..................................................................................................... 41
Art.............................................................................................................. 45
Assumption ................................................................................................... 49
Baseball ....................................................................................................... 53
Beauty ......................................................................................................... 54
Beginnings .................................................................................................... 58
Birth ........................................................................................................... 62
Birthdays...................................................................................................... 63
Books .......................................................................................................... 68
Character ..................................................................................................... 72
Choice ......................................................................................................... 76
Confidence ................................................................................................... 80
Courage ....................................................................................................... 84
Creativity ..................................................................................................... 87
Destiny ........................................................................................................ 91
Determination ............................................................................................... 95
Dreams ........................................................................................................ 99
Education ................................................................................................... 103
Effort ........................................................................................................ 106
Equality ..................................................................................................... 110
Excellence .................................................................................................. 114
Experience ................................................................................................. 118
Faith ......................................................................................................... 122
Fate .......................................................................................................... 126
Football ..................................................................................................... 130
Forgiveness................................................................................................. 132
Freedom .................................................................................................... 136
Friends ...................................................................................................... 140
Generosity .................................................................................................. 143
Genius ....................................................................................................... 147
Glory ......................................................................................................... 151
Goals ......................................................................................................... 155
Good ......................................................................................................... 159
Graduation ................................................................................................. 163
Greatness ................................................................................................... 165
Happiness................................................................................................... 169
Help .......................................................................................................... 172
History....................................................................................................... 176
Honesty ..................................................................................................... 180
Honor ........................................................................................................ 184
Hope ......................................................................................................... 188
Humor ....................................................................................................... 192
Imagination................................................................................................. 195
Copyright 1997-2004 www.awardcertificateworld
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Intelligence.................................................................................................
Intentions...................................................................................................
Joy ...........................................................................................................
Justice.......................................................................................................
Knowledge..................................................................................................
Laughter ....................................................................................................
Law...........................................................................................................
Leadership..................................................................................................
Learning.....................................................................................................
Liberty ......................................................................................................
Life...........................................................................................................
Light .........................................................................................................
Love..........................................................................................................
Loyalty ......................................................................................................
Memory......................................................................................................
Men ..........................................................................................................
Military ......................................................................................................
Mistakes .....................................................................................................
Monarchy ...................................................................................................
Money .......................................................................................................
Music.........................................................................................................
Nature .......................................................................................................
Opportunity ................................................................................................
Patience.....................................................................................................
Patriotism...................................................................................................
Peace ........................................................................................................
Persistence .................................................................................................
Poetry .......................................................................................................
Power........................................................................................................
Pride .........................................................................................................
Reading......................................................................................................
Religion .....................................................................................................
Responsibility ..............................................................................................
Retirement .................................................................................................
Sanity ........................................................................................................
School .......................................................................................................
Socialism ....................................................................................................
Sorrow.......................................................................................................
Strength.....................................................................................................
Success ......................................................................................................
Talent .......................................................................................................
Teaching ....................................................................................................
Technology .................................................................................................
Time .........................................................................................................
Truth ........................................................................................................
Variety ......................................................................................................
Virtue........................................................................................................
Wants ........................................................................................................
War...........................................................................................................
Wisdom......................................................................................................
Wishing ......................................................................................................
Women ......................................................................................................
Worrying ....................................................................................................
Writing ......................................................................................................
Quote Links ................................................................................................
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Quotes for every day life
Easy to read quotes …
A Short Letter from the Authors
Hi there,
Good Luck.... we know that you'll have fun with all of these quotes!
The Team at Awardcertificateworld.com
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4
Ability
"I've had enough success for two lifetimes, my success is talent put together with hard
work and luck.”
Kareem Abdul-Jabar (b. 1947), American collegiate and NBA basketball player
“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 Noel Adams (b. 1952), British author, "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
“Not houses finely roofed or the stones of walls well builded, nay nor canals and
dockyards make the city, but men able to use their opportunity.”
Alcaeus (fl. 611-580 BC), Greek poet, satirist
“People of mediocre ability sometimes achieve outstanding success because they don't
know when to quit. Most men succeed because they are determined to.”
George Herbert Allen (1922-90), American football coach, executive
“The truly skillful politician is one who, when he comes to a fork in the road, goes both
ways.”
Henri-Frédéric Amiel (1821-81), Swiss philosopher, poet
“Doing easily what others find difficult is talent; doing what is impossible for talent is
genius.”
“Children's talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives.”
Maya Angelou (b. 1928), African-American author, poet laureate, performer, composer
“What really distinguishes this generation in all countries from earlier generations … is
its determination to act, its joy in action, the assurance of being able to change things by
one's own efforts.”
Hannah Arendt (1906-75), German-born American political philosopher, writer, educator
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting
it.”
Aristotle (384-322 BC), Greek philosopher
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“The humorous man recognizes that absolute purity, absolute justice, absolute logic and
perfection are beyond human achievement and that men have been able to live happily
for thousands of years in a state of genial frailty.”
(Justin) Brooks Atkinson (1894-1984), American theater critic for "New York Tmes"
“It takes little talent to see what lies under one's nose, a good deal to know in what
direction to point that organ.”
Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-73), British-born American writer, critic
“Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically
and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.”
Marcus Aelius Aurelius (121-180 AD), Roman emperor, philosopher
“Pray that success will not come any faster than you are able to endure it.”
Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe (b. 1904), President of Nigeria
“Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy,
deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.”
Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English philosopher, essayist, statesman
“Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the
thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not.”
Walter Bagehot (1826-77), British economist, journalist
“There are two kinds of talents, man-made talent and God-given talent. With man-made
talent you have to work very hard. With God-given talent, you just touch it up once in a
while.”
Pearl Bailey (1918-90), American singer, actress
“There must be such a thing as a child with average ability, but you can't find a parent
who will admit that it is his child.”
Thomas Andrew Bailey (1902-1983), Florida State Superintendent of Schools
“Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck *but, most of all,
endurance.”
James Arthur Baldwin (1924-87), American writer, critic
“During my eighty-seven years I have witnessed a whole succession of technological
revolutions. But none of them has done away with the need for character in the
individual or the ability to think.”
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Bernard Mannes Baruch (1870-1965), American stock broker, public official, political
advisor
“In producers, loafing is productive; and no creator, of whatever magnitude, has ever
been able to skip that stage, any more than a mother can skip gestation.”
Jacques Martin Barzun (b. 1907), American educator, historian, Dean of Graduate School,
Columbia University
“To become an able and successful man in any profession, three things are necessary,
nature, study and practice.”
Henry Ward Beecher (1813-87), American clergyman
“The most successful men in the end are those whose success is the result of steady
accretion... It is the man who carefully advances step by step, with his mind becoming
wider and wider - and progressively better able to grasp any theme or situation persevering in what he knows to be practical, and concentrating his thought upon it,
who is bound to succeed in the greatest degree.”
Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922), Scottish-born American inventor
“Great things are accomplished by talented people who believe they will accomplish
them.”
Warren G. Bennis (b. 1925), American writer, educator, University of Southern California
sociologist
“The toughest thing about success is that you've got to keep on being a success. Talent is
only a starting point in this business. You've got to keep on working that talent. Someday
I'll reach for it and it won't be there.”
Irving (Israel Baline) Berlin (1888-1989), Russian-born American songwriter
“My friend, if I could give you one thing, I would wish for you the ability to see yourself
as others see you. Then you would realize what a truly special person you are.”
B. A. Billingsly
“Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think.”
Niels Henrik David Bohr (1885-1962), Danish physicist, chemist
“When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a
single bit of talent left, and could say, I used everything you gave me."“
Erma Louise Bombeck (b. 1927), American author, humorist
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“Many highly intelligent people are poor thinkers. Many people of average intelligence
are skilled thinkers. The power of a car is separate from the way the car is driven.”
Edward de Bono
“The next best thing to being witty one's self, is to be able to quote another's wit.”
Christian Nestell Bovee
“'Tis said of love that it sometimes goes, sometimes flies; runs with one, walks gravely
with another; turns a third into ice, and sets a fourth in a flame: it wounds one, another
it kills: like lightning it begins and ends in the same moment: it makes that fort yield at
night which it besieged but in the morning; for there is no force able to resist it.”
Elizabeth Bowen (1899-1973), Anglo-Irish novelist
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Acceptance
"When I give a lecture, I accept that people look at their watches, but what I do not
tolerate is when they look at it and raise it to their ear to find out if it stopped.”
Marcel Achard (1900-74), French dramatist, director
“The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never
decides. Accept life, and you must accept regret.”
“We can all be angels to one another. We can choose to obey the still small stirring
within, the little whisper that says, 'Go. Ask. Reach out. Be an answer to someone's plea.
You have a part to play. Have faith.' We can decide to risk that He is indeed there,
watching, caring, cherishing us as we love and accept love. The world will be a better
place for it. And wherever they are, the angels will dance.”
Joan Wester Anderson (b. 1938), [Jeanne Anders] American writer, author
it.”
“Self-pity gets you nowhere. One must have the adventurous daring to accept oneself as
a bundle of possibilities and undertake the most interesting game in the world making
the most of one's best.”
Richard Willard Armour (1906-89), American poet, known for poking fun at everything
“Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change
the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."
Saint Francis of Assisi (1182-1226), Recognized as having lived an exceptionally holy life
“Generally speaking, men are influenced by books which clarify their own thought,
which express their own notions well, or which suggest to them ideas which their minds
are already predisposed to accept.”
Carl Lotus Becker (1873-1945), American historian
“Tolerance is the eager and glad acceptance of the way along which others seek the
truth.”
Sir Walter Besant (1836-1901), English novelist
“It is long accepted by the missionaries that morality is inversely proportional to the
amount of clothing people wore.”
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Alex Carey
“You must accept that you might fail; then, if you do your best and still don't win, at
least you can be satisfied that you've tried. If you don't accept failure as a possibility,
you don't set high goals, and you don't branch out, you don't try-you don't take the risk.”
Rosalynn Smith Carter (b. 1928), US First Lady, wife of Jimmy Carter
“Truly loving another means letting go of all expectations. It means full acceptance,
even celebration of another's personhood.”
Karen Casey
“As long as people will accept crap, it will be financially profitable to dispense it.”
Dick Cavett, American commentator, entertainer
“There is no reason to accept the doctrines crafted to sustain power and privilege, or to
believe that we are constrained by mysterious and unknown social laws. These are
simply decisions made within institutions that are subject to human will and that must
face the test of legitimacy. And if they do not meet the test, they can be replaced by other
institutions that are more free and more just, as has happened often in the past.”
Noam Chomsky (b. 1928), American linguist, writer, author
“Character--the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life--is the source
from which self-respect springs.”
Joan Didion
“The willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life Is the source from which
self-respect springs.”
Joan Didion
“It just ain't possible to explain some things. It's interesting to wonder on them and do
some speculation, but the main thing is you have to accept it-take it for what it is, and
get on with your growing.”
Jim Dodge (b. 1945), American writer, actor
“Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels
- men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we
never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.”
Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969), 34th US President, Republican
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“The silence that accepts merit as the most natural thing in the world is the highest
applause.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82), American writer, philosopher, poet, essayist
“Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them.”
“If you can not find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?
Dogen Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, denying them.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82), American writer, philosopher, poet, essayist.
"Failing doesn't make you a failure. Giving up, accepting your failure, refusing to try
again does!"
Richard Exely
“There comes a time in each life like a point of fulcrum. At that time you must accept
yourself. It is not any more what you will become. It is what you are and always will
be.”
John (The Magus) Fowles (b. 1926), English novelist, "The Collector," A Maggot"
“Conditions for creativity are to be puzzled; to concentrate; to accept conflict and
tension; to be born everyday; to feel a sense of self.”
Erich Fromm (1900-80), German-born American psychoanalyst, emphasized role of social
conditioning
“Ah, when to the heart of man Was it ever less than a treason To go with the drift of
things To yield with a grace to reason And bow and accept at the end Of a love or a
season.”
Robert Lee Frost (1874-1963), American poet, "A Boy's Will," "In the Clearing"
“Always fall in with what you're asked to accept. Take what is given, and make it over
your way. My aim in life has always been to hold my own with whatever's going. Not
against: with.”
“The creative individual has the capacity to free himself from the web of social
pressures in which the rest of us are caught. He is capable of questioning the
assumptions that the rest of us accept.”
John W(illiam) Gardner (b. 1912), President, Carnegie Foundation
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“Because systems of mass communication can communicate only officially acceptable
levels of reality, no one can know the extent of the secret unconscious life. No one in
America can know what will happen. No one is in real control.”
Allen Ginsberg
“Life goes through changes so fast, you think your life is great, than one of your best
friends dies. Then you think you found someone you truly love, only to figure out, she
doesn't love you back. You cry and cry and cry, but nothing changes. You realize, that
you must accept things for what they are, and what they have made you become.
Unknown Author
“Everything in life changes you in some way. Even the smallest things. If you do not
accept these changes, you do not accept yourself. For through these changes brings new
and greater things to you, making you wiser, as time progresses. To avoid these changes
is a loss. You only live your life once. Do not waste a minute of it avoiding things. Let
them come to you, and learn from them. There's always tomorrow.”
Adam R. Gwizdala
“Everything in life changes you in some way. Even the smallest things. If you do not
accept these changes you do not accept yourself. For through these changes brings new
and greater things to you, making you wiser, as time progresses. To avoid these changes
is a loss. You only live your life once. Do not waste a minute of it avoiding things. Let
them come to you, and learn from them. There is always tomorrow.”
Adam R. Gwizdala
“I guess the hard thing for a lot of people to accept is why God would allow me to go
running through their yards, yelling and spinning around.”
Jack Handey [Deep Thoughts], Recurring Saturday Night Live comedy bit
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Accomplish
"Man [has] always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had
achieved so much-the wheel, New York, wars and so on-while all the dolphins had ever
done was muck about in the water having a good time.But conversely, the dolphins had
always believed that they were far more intelligent than man-for precisely the same
reason.”
“You can have anything you want--if you want it badly enough. You can be anything you
want to be, do anything you set out to accomplish if you hold to that desire with
singleness of purpose.”
William Adams
“Good writers define reality; bad ones merely restate it. A good writer turns fact into
truth; a bad writer will, more often than not, accomplish the opposite.”
Edward Albee
“Optimism is essential to achievement and it is also the foundation of courage and true
progress.”
Lloyd Alexander
“I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not
dying.”
Woody Allen (b. 1935), American commedian, stage and movie actor, radio broadcaster
“There is no such thing as can't, only won't. If you're qualified, all it takes is a burning
desire to accomplish, to make a change. Go forward, go backward. Whatever it takes!
But you can't blame other people or society in general. It all comes from your mind.
When we do the impossible we realize we are special people.”
Jan Ashford
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“Nothing whatever pertaining to godliness and real holiness can be accomplished
without grace.”
Saint Augustine (354-430), Christian church father, philosopher, bishop
“When you're young, the silliest notions seem the greatest achievements.”
“Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that
something inside of them was superior to circumstance.”
Bruce Barton (1886-1967), American writer, congressman
“Age is only a number, a cipher for the records. A man can't retire his experience. He
must use it. Experience achieves more with less energy and time.”
advisor
“Having once decided to achieve a certain task, achieve it at all costs of tedium and
distaste. The gain in self-confidence of having accomplished a tiresome labor is
immense.”
Thomas Arnold Bennett, [Dr.]
“The elementary school must assume as its sublime and most solemn responsibility the
task of teaching every child in it to read. Any school that does not accomplish this has
failed.”
William John Bennett (b. 1943), American Gov't Official, US Secretary of Education
them.”
sociologist
“You cannot believe in honor until you have achieved it. Better keep yourself clean and
bright: you are the window through which you must see the world.”
“If we fight a war and win it with H-bombs, what history will remember is not the ideals
we were fighting for but the methods we used to accomplish them. These methods will be
compared to the warfare of Genghis Khan who ruthlessly killed every last inhabitant of
Persia.”
Hans Albrecht Bethe (b. 1906), German-born American physicist
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“About the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with
good judgment.”
Josh Billings (1818-85), [Henry Wheeler Shaw] American humorist, essayist
“What looks like a loss may be the very event which is subsequently responsible for
helping to produce the major achievement of your life.”
Srully D. Blotnick (b. 1941), Writer, author
“Studies indicate that the one quality all successful people have is persistence. They're
willing to spend more time accomplishing a task and to perservere in the face of many
difficult odds. There's a very positive relationship between people's ability to accomplish
any task and the time they're willing to spend on it.”
Dr. Joyce (Diane Bauer) Brothers (b. 1929), American psychologist, author
“The way to develop self-confidence is to do the thing you fear and get a record of
successful experiences behind you. Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of
choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.”
William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925), American lawyer, speaker, polititian
“I don't wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it
has got to get down to work.”
Pearl Sydenstricker Buck (1892-1973), American writer, missionary in China
“The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the
impossible, and achieve it, generation after generation.”
“Nothing stops the man who desires to achieve. Every obstacle is simply a course to
develop his achievement muscle. It's a strengthening of his powers of accomplishment.”
Eric Butterworth
“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have
kept on trying when there seemed to be no help at all.”
Dale Carnegie (1888-1955), Scottish-born American industrialist, philanthropist, educator
“If you make a habit of sincere prayer, your life will be very noticeably and profoundly
altered. Prayer stamps with its indelible mark our actions and demeanor. A tranquility
of bearing, a facial and bodily repose, are observed in those whose inner lives are thus
enriched. . . . Properly understood, prayer is a mature activity indispensable to the
fullest development of personality . . . . Only in prayer do we achieve that complete and
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harmonious assembly of body, mind and spirit which gives the frail human reed its
unshakable strengths.”
Alexis Carrel (1873-1944), French surgeon, biologist, "Prayer is Power"
“If you fear making anyone mad, then you ultimately probe for the lowest common
denominator of human achievement.”
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. (b. 1924), 39th US President, Democrat
“If you wait for the perfect moment when all is safe and assured, it may never arrive.
Mountains will not be climbed, races won, or lasting happiness achieved.”
Maurice Chevalier (1888-1972), French actor, singer
“Of all the inventions that have helped to unify China perhaps the airplane is the most
outstanding. Its ability to annihilate distance has been in direct proportion to its
achievements in assisting to annihilate suspicion and misunderstanding among
provincial officials far removed from one another or from the officials at the seat of
government.”
Madame Chiang (b. 1898), Chinese educator, reformer
“Instead of solid accomplishments, the man pursues pleasures and self-gratification. He
will never achieve anything so long as he is surrounded by dissipating temptations.”
I Ching (BC 1150)
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Achievement
"Man [has] always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had
done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had
reason.”
William Adams
Edward Albee
progress.”
Lloyd Alexander
dying.”
Woody Allen (b. 1935), American comedian, stage and movie actor, radio broadcaster
Jan Ashford
(Justin) Brooks Atkinson (1894-1984), American theater critic for "New York Times"
17
“Nothing whatever pertaining to godliness and real holiness can be accomplished
without grace.”
"Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that
something inside of them was superior to circumstance.”
advisor
“Having once decided to achieve a certain task, achieve it at all costs of tedium and
distaste. The gain in self-confidence of having accomplished a tiresome labor is
immense.”
Thomas Arnold Bennett, [Dr.]
failed.”
them.”
sociologist
Persia.”
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good judgment.”
"The way to develop self-confidence is to do the thing you fear and get a record of
William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925), American lawyer, speaker, politician
“I don't wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it
has got to get down to work.”
“The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the
impossible, and achieve it, generation after generation.”
Eric Butterworth
“If you make a habit of sincere prayer, your life will be very noticeably and profoundly
altered. Prayer stamps with its indelible mark our actions and demeanor. A tranquility
of bearing, a facial and bodily repose, are observed in those whose inner lives are thus
enriched. . . . Properly understood, prayer is a mature activity indispensable to the
fullest development of personality . . . . Only in prayer do we achieve that complete and
19
harmonious assembly of body, mind and spirit which gives the frail human reed its
unshakable strengths.”
“If you wait for the perfect moment when all is safe and assured, it may never arrive.
Mountains will not be climbed, races won, or lasting happiness achieved.”
Maurice Chevalier (1888-1972), French actor, singer
government.”
I Ching (BC 1150)
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Adversity
"Patience and perserverence have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear
and obstacles vanish.”
John Quincy Adams (1767-1848), 6th US President, Democratic
“Never trust the advice of a man in difficulties.”
Aesop (620-560 BC), Greek fabulist
genius.”
“Our lives improve only when we take chances and the first and most difficult risk we
can take is to be honest with ourselves.”
Walter Anderson (b. 1944), American writer
“So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to
work.”
Louis (Satchmo) Armstrong (1900-71), American jazz trumpeter
“It is not always by plugging away at a difficulty and sticking at it that one overcomes
it; but, rather, often by working on the one next to it. Certain people and certain things
require to be approached on an angle.”
Matthew Arnold (1822-88), British poet, critic
“May it not be that, just as we have faith in Him, God has to have faith in us and,
considering the history of the human race so far, may it not be that faith is even more
difficult for Him than it is for us?”
“It is easier to be a lover than a husband for the simple reason that it is more difficult to
be wiity every day than to say pretty things from time to time.”
Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850), French writer
“Count not thyself to have found true peace, if thou hast felt no grief; nor that then all is
well if thou hast no adversary; nor that this is perfect, if all things fall out according to
thy desire.”
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“Every political system is an accumulation of habits, customs, prejudices, and principles
that have survived a long process of trial and error and of ceaseless response to
changing circumstances. If the system works well on the whole, it is a lucky accident the
luckiest, indeed, that can befall a society.”
Edward C. Banfield
"What do we live for if not to make life less difficult for each other?”
Roger Bannister
“To find a fault is easy; to do better may be difficult.”
(Arthur) Clive (Howard) Bell (1881-1964), British critic
“The leaders I met, whatever walk of life they were from, whatever institutions they were
presiding over, always referred back to the same failure something that happened to
them that was personally difficult, even traumatic, something that made them feel that
desperate sense of hitting bottom--as something they thought was almost a necessity. It's
as if at that moment the iron entered their soul; that moment created the resilience that
leaders need.”
sociologist
“A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.”
Proverbs 17:17 Bible (15th-16th century), (First known English translation from the Latin)
“It's not only the most difficult thing to know one's self, but the most inconvenient.”
“It is difficult to live in the present, ridiculous to live in the future, and impossible to live
in the past. Nothing is as far away as one minute ago.”
Jim (James Alonzo) Bishop (1907-87), American author, journalist, writer, "The Day
Lincoln Was Shot"
“Death is as casual-and often as unexpected-as birth. It is as difficult to define grief as
joy. Each is finite. Each will fade.”
Lincoln Was Shot"
“Nurture an appetite for being puzzled, for being confused, indeed for being openly
stupid, and that - despite what you may think - is very difficult...We all know the cliche'
that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. It is also true that a lot of knowledge
22
can be a dangerous thing as well...use your ignorance as well as your knowledge for
creative means.”
Lee C. Bollinger, President of the University of Michigan Commencement address
“There are two ways of meeting difficulties: You alter the difficulties or you alter
yourself to meet them.”
Phyllis Bottome
“Loving a child doesn't mean giving in to all his whims; to love him is to bring out the
best in him, to teach him to love what is difficult.”
Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979), French music teacher
"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 Dudley Bradstreet (1612-72), English-born Colonial poet
“Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil
has never been loosened or fertilized by education; they grow there, firm as weeds
among rocks.”
Charlotte Bronte (1816-55), English novelist, poet, "Jane Eyre"
“Education makes people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but
impossible to enslave.”
Henry Peter Brougham (1778-1868), [First Baron] Scottish-born jurist
“Endurance is one of the most difficult disciplines, but it is to the one who endures that
the final victory comes.”
Buddha (563?-483? BC), [Siddhartha Gautama] Indian mystic, founder of Buddhism
“It is difficult to say who do you the most mischief: enemies with the worst intentions or
friends with the best.”
E. R. Bulwer-Lytton
“An event has happened, upon which it is difficult to speak, and impossible to be silent.”
23
Edmund Burke (1729-97), Irish-born British politician, writer
“Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man; but for one man who can stand prosperity,
there are a hundred that will stand adversity.”
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), British historian, essayist
“The experience of democracy is like the experience of life itself-always changing,
infinite in its variety, sometimes turbulent and all the more valuable for having been
tested by adversity.”
“It is very difficult to be wholly joyous or wholly sad on this earth. The comic, when it is
human, soon takes upon itself a face of pain; and some of our griefs . . . have their
source in weaknesses which must be recognized with smiling compassion as the common
inheritance of us all.”
Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616), Spanish writer
24
Age
"It's hard for young players to see the big picture. They just see three or four years down
the road.”
“A computer terminal is not some clunky old television with a typewriter in front of it. It
is an interface where the mind and body can connect with the universe and move bits of
it about. (from Mostly Harmless)”
“What one knows is, in youth, of little moment; they know enough who know how to
learn.”
Henry Brooks Adams (1838-1918), American historian, writer
“Our minds thus grow in spots; and like grease spots, the spots spread. But we let them
spread as little as possible: we keep unaltered as much of our old knowledge, as many of
our old prejudices and beliefs, as we can.”
James Truslow Adams (1878-1949), American historian, writer
“He who would pass his declining years with honor and comfort, should, when young,
consider that he may one day become old, and remember when he is old, that he has
once been young.”
Joseph Addison (1672-1719), English essayist, poet, statesman
once been young.”
“Learning is ever in the freshness of its youth, even for the old.”
Æschylus (525-456 BC), Greek tragic dramatist
“Time as he grows old teaches many lessons.”
“Destroy the seed of evil, or it will grow up to your ruin.”
“You can only perceive real beauty in a person as they get older.”
25
Anouk Aimée (b. 1932), French actor
"When I was a young man I vowed never to marry until I found the ideal woman. Well, I
found her but, alas, she was waiting for the ideal man.”
Alain (1818-1951), French essayist, philosopher
“To me, old age is always fifteen years older than I am.”
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
“It is only by introducing the young to great literature, drama and music, and to the
excitement of great science that we open to them the possibilities that lie within the
human spirit
enable them to see visions and dream dreams.”
“Acting childish seems to come naturally, but acting like an adult, no matter how old we
are, just doesn't come easy to us.”
Edith Ann, [Lily Tomlin] American actress/comedian
“People who lose their parents when young are permanently in love with them.”
Aharon Appelfeld
“I have heard it said that the first ingredient of success - the earliest spark in the
dreaming youth - is this; dream a great dream.”
John A. Appleman
“It is one of the maladies of our age to profess a frenzied allegiance to truth in
unimportant matters, to refuse consistently to face her where graver issues are at stake.”
Janos Arany (1817-82), Hungarian poet
“Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 2 or 8. Anyone who keeps learning stays
young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.”
Moshe Arens (b. 1925), Israeli defense minister
“Education is the best provision for old age.”
“It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims.”
26
"In poverty and other misfortunes of life, true friends are a sure refuge. The young they
keep out of mischief; to the old they are a comfort and aid in their weakness, and those
in the prime of life they incite to noble deeds.”
“Middle age is the time of life that a man first notices in his wife.”
Richard Willard Armour (1906-89), American poet, known for poking fun at everything
“It was from an old friend who . thought he was dying. Anyway, he said, 'Life and death
issues don't come along that often, thank God, so don't treat everything like it's life or
death. Go easier.'“
Thomas Arnold (1795-1842), British educator, historian
“Only little boys and old men sneer at love.”
Louis Auchincloss
“The class distinctions proper to a democratic society are not those of rank or money,
still less, as is apt to happen when these are abandoned, of race, but of age.”
“Evelyn slapped Raymond on the back with a laugh. "You must be starved old friend.
Come into my apartments, and we'll suffer through a deep breakfast of pure sunlight.”
Sri da Avabhas (Adi Da Samraj)
“The secret of my success is that at an early age I discovered I was not God.”
“The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each
other's life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.”
Richard David Bach (b. 1936), American author, "Jonathan Livingston Seagull"
“If any human being earnestly desire to push on to new discoveries instead of just
retaining and using the old; to win victories over Nature as a worker rather than over
hostile critics as a disputant; to attain , in fact, clear and demonstrative knowlegde
instead of attractive and probable theory; we invite him as a true son of Science to join
our ranks.”
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28
Ambition
"I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end, when I come to
lay down the reins of power, I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have
one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside me.”
William Adams
William Adams
“In order to be profoundly dishonest, a person must have one of two qualities: either he
is unscrupulously ambitious, or he is unswervingly egocentric.”
“All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature,
compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire.”
“Whatsoever that be within us that feels, thinks, desires, and animates, is something
celestial, divine, and, consequently, imperishable.”
“I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies, for
the hardest victory is over self.”
“All men by nature desire to know.”
“I count him braver who conquers his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for
the hardest victort is the victory over self.”
Jan Ashford
29
“God does not give heed to the ambitiousness of our prayers, because he is always
ready to give to us his light, not a visible light but an intellectual and spiritual one: but
we are not always ready to receive it when we turn aside and down to other things out of
a desire for temporal things.”
"Man's many desires are like the small metal coins he carries about in his pocket. The
more he has the more they weigh him down.”
Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba
“Men in Great Place are thrice Servants: Servants of the Sovereign or State; Servants of
Fame; and Servants of Business … It is strange desire to seek Power and to lose
Liberty.”
our ranks.”
“A man without ambition is dead. A man with ambition but no love is dead. A man with
ambition and love for his blessings here on earth is ever so alive.”
thy desire.”
“The most successful men in the end are those whose success is the result of steady
accretion... It is the man who carefully advances step by step, with his mind becoming
wider and wider - and progressively better able to grasp any theme or situation persevering in what he knows to be practical, and concentrating his thought upon it,
who is bound to succeed in the greatest degree.”
Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922), Scottish-born American inventor
“A desire to be in charge of our own lives, a need for control, is born in each of us. It is
essential to our mental health, and our success, that we take control.”
Robert F. Bennett (b. 1933), American politician, Republican
30
“He who desires, but acts not, breeds pestilence.”
William Blake (1757-1827), British poet, artist, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
“The desire for success lubricates secret prostitutions in the soul.”
Smiley Blanton
“Victory belongs to the most persevering.”
Napolean Bonaparte (1769-1821), French general, Napoleon I of France
"I used to envy kids who had an old-fashioned Grandpa. Not any more. I've got a new
ambition. Now I just want to become a modern-type Grandpa myself-and really start
living.”
Hal (Harold Vincent) Boyle (1911-74), American journalist, Pulitzer for correspondence
“The ideal life is in our blood and never will be still. Sad will be the day for any man
when he becomes contented with the thoughts he is thinking and the deeds he is doing -where there is not forever beating at the doors of his soul some great desire to do
something larger, which he knows that he was meant and made to do.”
Phillips Brooks (1835-93), American Episcopal bishop, wrote "O Little Town of Bethlehem"
“In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins--not
through strength but by perseverance.”
H. Jackson Brown
“Like dogs in a wheel, birds in a cage, or squirrels in a chain, ambitious men still climb
and climb, with great labor, and incessant anxiety, but never reach the top.”
Robert Burton (1577-1640), English cleric, writer
Eric Butterworth
“Yes, Love indeed is light from heaven; A spark of that immortal fire With angels
shared, by Allah given To lift from earth our low desire.”
George Gordon Byron (1788-1824), [Lord Byron] English romantic poet
“He who desires nothing, hopes for nothing, and is afraid of nothing, cannot be an
artist.”
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860-1904), Russian author, playwright
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“Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the
form of a readiness to die.”
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936), British writer, critic
“No plain not followed by a slope. No going not followed by a return. He who remains
persevering in danger is without blame. Do not complain about this truth; Enjoy the
good fortune you still possess.”
I Ching (BC 1150)
“Wealth and rank are what people desire, but unless they be obtained in the right way
they may not be possessed.”
Confucius (c. 551-479? BC), Chinese sage
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Anarchy
"It is important to do what you don't know how to do. It is important to see your skills as
keeping you from learning what is deepest and most mysterious. If you know how to
focus, unfocus. If your tendency is to make sense out of chaos, start chaos.”
Carlos Castaneda (b. 1931), American writer, author, "Journey to Ixtlan," "Politics of
Experience"
“We adore chaos because we love to produce order.”
M(auritis) C(ornelius) Escher (1898-1972), Dutch artist, mathematician
“But one of the attributes of love, like art, is to bring harmony and order out of chaos, to
introduce meaning and affect where before there was none, to give rhythmic variations,
highs and lows to a landscape that was previously flat.”
Molly Haskell
“Many businessmen fail to understand Python principles--the ultimate absurdity was an
offer from America to buy the 'format' of the Python shows, that is, Monty Python
without the Pythons--corporate methods do not have the conceptual framework to deal
with an anarchist collective, run by intelligent and arrogant comedians who have proved
that their method works.”
Robert Hewison
“The thin and precarious crust of decency is all that separates any civilization, however
impressive, from the hell of anarchy or systematic tyranny which lie in wait beneath the
surface.”
Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894-1963), British writer, "Brave New World"
“Anarchy is not chaos, but order with out control.”
David Layson
“You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.”
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher
“[The antiwar movement is] a wild orgasm of anarchists sweeping across the country
like a prairie fire.”
Richard Milhouse Nixon (1913-94), 37th US President, Republican
“A society like ours, which professes no one religion and has allowed all religions to
decay, which indulges freedom to the point of license and individualism to the point of
33
anarchy, needs all the support that responsible, cultivated homes can furnish. I hope
your generation will provide a firmer shelter for civilized standards.”
Alan Simpson, President, Vassar College
“What we imagine is order is merely the prevailing form of chaos.”
Kerry Thornley
"Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world …
The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.”
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), Irish writer, considered of the greatest poets of 20th
century
34
Anger
"In the beginning, the universe was created. This made a lot of people very angry, and
has been widely regarded as a bad idea.”
“It is easy to fly into a passion--anybody can do that--but to be angry with the right
person and at the right time and with the right object and in the right way--that is not
easy, and it is not everyone who can do it.”
“Anyone can become angry. That is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the
right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose and in the right way - that is not
easy.”
“He that is soon angry dealeth foolishly...”
Proverbs 14:17a Bible (15th-16th century), (First known English translation from the
Latin)
“For his anger lasts only a brief moment, and his good favor restores one's life. One
may experience sorrow during the night, but joy arrives in the morning.”
Psalms 30:5 Bible (15th-16th century), (First known English translation from the Latin)
“Be not hasty in thy spirit to be angry: for anger resteth in the bosom of fools.”
Ecclesiastes 7:9 Bible: Hebrew (15th-16th century), (First known English translation from
the Latin)
“I was angry with my friend I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.”
“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at
someone else; you are the one who gets burned.”
“The pictures of airplanes flying into buildings, fires burning, huge structures
collapsing, have filled us with disbelief, terrible sadness and a quiet, unyielding anger."
[referring to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and
the Pentagon]
George Walker Bush (b. 1946), 43rd US President
35
“When we are angry or depressed in our creativity, we have misplaced our power. We
have allowed someone else to determine our worth, and then we are angry at being
undervalued.”
Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-79), English pioneer photographer
"Vicious minds abound with anger and revenge are incapable of feeling the pleasure of
forgiving their enemies.”
Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield (1694-1773), [4th Earl of Chesterfield] English
politician, writer
“I know of no more disagreeable situation than to be left feeling generally angry without
anybody in particular to be angry at.”
Frank Moore Colby (1865-1925), American editor, essayist
“Speak the truth, do not yield to anger; give, if thou art asked for little; by these three
steps thou wilt go near the gods.”
The Dhammapada (c. BC 300)
“Character isn't inherited. One builds it daily by the way one thinks and acts, thought by
thought, action by action. If one lets fear or hate or anger take possession of the mind,
they become self-forged chains.”
Helen Gahagan Douglas
“In America you can go on the air and kid the politicians, and the politicians can go on
the air and kid the people. Personal relations are the important thing for ever and ever
and not this outer life of telegrams and anger.”
Edward Morgan Forster (1879-1970), British writer, "A Room with a View"
“Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.”
Benjamin Franklin (1706-90), American public official, writer, scientist, helped draft
Constitution
“Two things a man should never be angry at: what he can help, and what he cannot
help.”
Dr. Thomas Fuller (1608-61), English clergyman, writer, "The Church History of Britain"
“The common dogma [of fundamentalists] is fear of modern knowledge, inability to
cope with the fast change in a scientific-technological society, and the real breakdown
in apparent moral order in recent years.... That is why hate is the major fuel, fear is the
cement of the movement, and superstitious ignorance is the best defence against the
dangerous new knowledge. ... When you bring up arguments that cast serious doubts on
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their cherished beliefs you are not simply making a rhetorical point, you are threatening
their whole Universe and their immortality. That provokes anger and quite frequently
violence. ... Unfortunately you cannot reason with them and you even risk violence in
confronting them. Their numbers will decline only when society stabilizes, and adapts to
modernity.”
G Gaia
“When a man dwells on the objects of sense, he creates an attraction for them;
attraction develops into desire, and desire breeds anger.”
Bhagavad Gita (c. BC 400), Sanskrit poem incorporated into "Mahabharata," classic of
Hinduism
“Governing sense, mind and intellect, intent on liberation, free from desire, fear and
anger, the sage is forever free.”
Hinduism
More about the author
"A man is measured by the size of things that anger him.”
Geof Greenleaf
“It makes me mad when people say I turned and ran like a scared rabbit. Maybe it was
like an angry rabbit, who was going to fight in another fight, away from the first fight.”
“Envy, among other ingredients, has a mixture of love of justice in it. We are more
angry at undeserved than at deserved good fortune.”
William Hazlitt (1778-1830), British essayist noted for literary criticism
“Look not back in anger, nor forward in fear But around you in awareness.”
Ross Hersey
“Do not do to others what angers you if done to you by others.”
Isocrates
“Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in his shoes. That way, if he gets angry, he'll
be a mile away--and barefoot.”
Sarah Jackson
37
“When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, an hundred.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), 3rd US President, Democrat
“Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot
make yourself as you wish to be.”
Thomas à Kempis (1380-1471), German monk, ecclesiastic writer of devotional literature
“He who angers you conquers you.”
Sister Elizabeth Kenny (1880?-1952), Australian nurse, developed simple treatment for
paralysis by poliomyelitis
“Today's family is built like a pyramid; with all the intrafamilial rivalries, tensions,
jealousies, angers, hatreds, loves and needs focused on the untrained, vulnerable,
insecure, young, inexperienced and incompetent parental apex ... about whose
incompetence our vaunted educational system does nothing.”
Lawrence Kubie
"Sticks and stones are hard on bones, aimed with angry art, words can sting like
anything but silence breaks the heart.”
Phyllis McGinley (1905-78)
“It's practically impossible to look at a penguin and feel angry.”
Joe Moore
“What starts the process, really, are laughs and slights and snubs when you are a kid. ...
If your anger is deep enough and strong enough, you learn that you can change those
attitudes by excellence, personal gut performance.”
“Five enemies of peace inhabit with us--avarice, ambition, envy, anger, and pride; if
these were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace.”
Francesco Petrarch (1304-74), Italian poet, scholar, humanist, "Canzoniere"
“If you are patient in a moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow.”
Chinese Proverb
“Never write a letter while you are angry.”
Chinese Proverb
38
“Don't be sad, don't be angry, if life deceives you! Submit to your grief -- your time for
joy will come, believe me.”
Alekandr Sergeyevick Pushkin (1799-1837), Russian writer, "Eugene Onegin," "Boris
Godunov"
“When you are feeling depreciated, angry and drained, it is a sign that other people are
not open to your energy.”
Sanaya Roman
“The great lawyer who employs his talent and his learning in the highly emunerative
task of enabling a very wealthy client to override or circumvent the law is doing all that
in him lies to encourage the growth in the country of a spirit of dumb anger against all
laws and of disbelief in their efficacy.”
Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), 26th US President, Republican
“It may seem to your conceited to suppose that you can do anything important toward
improving the lot of mankind. But this is a fallacy. You must believe that you can help
bring about a better world. A good society is produced only by good individuals, just as
truly as a majority in a presidential election is produced by the votes of single electors.
Everybody can do something toward creating in his own environment kindly feelings
rather than anger, reasonableness rather than hysteria, happiness rather than misery.”
Bertrand Russel (1872-1970), British philosopher, mathematician, social critic, writer
"There was never an angry man that thought his anger unjust.”
Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622), French Roman Catholic preacher, Doctor of the Church
“Try as much as possible to be wholly alive, with all your might, And when you laugh,
laugh like hell, And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be
dead soon enough.”
William Saroyan
“The greatest remedy for anger is delay.”
Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4BC?-AD 65), [The Younger] Roman Stoic philosopher, writer,
tutor
“Let us not look back in anger, nor forward in fear, but around in awareness.”
James Grover Thurber (1894-1961), American writer, cartoonist, illustrator, "The Secret
Life of Walter Mitty"
“Above all, we must abolish hope in the heart of man. A calm despair, without angry
convulsions, without reproaches to Heaven, is the essence of wisdom.”
39
Alfred Victor Vigny (1797-1863), French author, translator
“It is wise to direct your anger towards problems -- not people; to focus your energies
on answers -- not excuses.”
William Arthur Ward
“There is no one quite as angry as someone who has just lost a lot of money.”
David Williamson
“The best remedy for anger is delay.”
Brigham Young (1801-77), American religious leader, directed Mormon Church after
Joseph Smith
40
Argument
"Note how good you feel after you have encouraged someone else. No other argument is
necessary to suggest that never miss the opportunity to give encouragement.”
George Burton Adams (1851-1925), American educator, historian
“It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.”
Alfred Adler (1870-1937), Austrian psychiatrist
“After a heated argument on some trivial matter Nancy [Astor] . shouted, If I were your
wife I would put poison in your coffee! Whereupon Winston [Churchill] answered, And
if I were your husband I would drink it.”
John Fellows Akers (b. 1934), American bisiness executive, Chairman of IBM
“When there is no peril in the fight, there is no glory in the triumph.”
A. Alvarez (b. 1929), British critic, poet, novelist, "The Savage God"
“Jokes of the proper kind, properly told, can do more to enlighten questions of politics,
philosophy, and literature than any number of dull arguments.”
Isaac Asimov (1920-92), Russian-born American scientist, writer
“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.”
“Israel has created a new image of the Jew in the world-the image of a working and an
intellectual people, of a people that can fight with heroism.”
“Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation,
all which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, though religion were not; but
superstition dismounts all these, and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of
men...the master of superstition is the people; and arguments are fitted to practice, in a
reverse order.”
“So long as we have enough people in this country willing to fight for their rights, we'll
be called a democracy.”
Roger Nash Baldwin (1884-1981), American civil rights activist
41
“I argue very well. Ask any of my remaining friends. I can win an argument on any
topic, against any opponent. People know this, and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as
a sign of their great respect, they don't even invite me.”
Dave Barry (b. 1947), American humorist, author, journalist
"If we fight a war and win it with H-bombs, what history will remember is not the ideals
Persia.”
“The child gets two confusing messages when a parent tells him which is the right fork
to use, and then proceeds to use the wrong one. So does the child who listens to parents
bicker and fuss, yet is told to be nice to his brothers and sisters.”
Rachel Blanchard
“There are questions of real power and then there are questions of phony authority. You
have to break through the phony authority to begin to fight the real questions of power.”
Angel Blessing
“We've got a generation now who were born with semiequality. They don't know how it
was before, so they think, this isn't too bad. We're working. We have our attache' cases
and our three piece suits. I get very disgusted with the younger generation of women. We
had a torch to pass, and they are just sitting there. They don't realize it can be taken
away. Things are going to have to get worse before they join in fighting the battle.”
“... it's simply wrong to always order [kids] to stop that fighting. There are times when
one child is simply defending his rights and damned well should be fighting.”
“A man will fight harder for his interests than for his rights.”
“A life of reaction is a life of slavery, intellectually and spiritually. One must fight for a
life of action, not reaction.”
Rita Mae Brown (b. 1944), American writer, author, "Bingo," High Hearts," "I am a Woman"
“We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall
fight on the seas and the oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing
strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight
42
on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in
the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”
Sir Winston Leonard Spenser Churchill (1874-1965), British statesman, prime minister,
author
“The fights I fought... cost a lot --the fight for the assault-weapons ban cost 20 members
their seats in Congress. The NRA is the reason the Republicans control the House.”
William Jefferson Clinton, [BILL] US President
“I know of no more disagreeable situation than to be left feeling generally angry without
anybody in particular to be angry at.”
Frank Moore Colby (1865-1925), American editor, essayist
"Men will wrangle for religion; write for it; fight for it; die for it; anything but--live for
it.”
Charles Caleb Colton (1780-1832), Writer, author
“You become a champion by fighting one more round. When things are tough, you fight
one more round.”
James Corbett
“A great many college graduates come here thinking of lawyers as social engineers
arguing the great Constitutional issues.”
Archibald Cox (b. 1912), American educator, writer, Professor of Law, Harvard
“To be nobody-but-yourself--in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make
you everybody else--means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight;
and never stop fighting.”
E(dward) E(stlin) Cummings (1894-1962), American writer
“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make
you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight;
and never stop fighting.”
E(dward) E(stlin) Cummings (1894-1962), American writer
“Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his
intelligence; he is just using his memory.”
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), Italian painter, sculptor, architect, musician, engineer,
scientist
43
“The man who fights for his fellow-man is a better man than the one who fights for
himself.”
Clarence Seward Darrow (1857-1938), American criminal lawyer
“The assumed instinctive belief in God has been used by many persons as an argument
for His existence. But this is a rash argument, as we should thus be compelled to believe
in the existence of cruel and malignant spirits, only a little more powerful than man; for
the belief in them is far more general than in a beneficent Diety.”
Charles Robert Darwin (1809-82), British naturalist, theory of evolution based on natural
selecti
“I have no country to fight for; my country is the earth, and I am a citizen of the world.”
Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926), American socialist, activist, unionist
“In communities where men build ships for their own sons to fish or fight from, quality
is never a problem.”
J. Deville
44
Art
"There is nobody as enslaved as the fanatic, the person in whom one impulse, one value,
has assumed ascendancy over all others.”
Milton R. Sapirstein
"Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally
alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, 'This is the real me,' and when
you have found that attitude, follow it.”
“The greatest discovery of my generation is that man can alter his life simply by altering
his attitude of mind.”
“A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to
make it worth the effort.”
Herm Albright
“Adventure isn't hanging on a rope off the side of a mountain. Adventure is an attitude
that we must apply To the day to day obstacles of life - Facing new challenges, seizing
new opportunities, Testing our resources against the unknown and in the process,
Discovering our own unique potentional.”
John Amatt, Organizer participant Canada's first successful expedition to summit Mt.
Everest
“If you don't like something change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't
complain.”
“The knowledge of Christ's love for us should cause us to love Him in such a way that it
is demonstrated in our attitude, conduct, and commitment to serve God. Spiritual
maturity is marked by spiritual knowledge being put into action.”
Edward Bedore
“There are no menial jobs, only menial attitudes.”
“I won't say there aren't any Harvard graduates who have never asserted a superior
attitude. But they have done so to our great embarrassment and in no way represent the
Harvard I know.”
45
Derek Bethune, President, Harvard
“Those who have easy, cheerful attitudes tend to be happier than those with less
pleasant temperaments, regardless of money, making it, or success.”
“Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade just as painting does, or music. If
you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit
yourself.”
Truman Capote (1924-84), American novelist, short-story writer, "Breakfast at Tiffany's"
"As in political so in literary action a man wins friends for himself mostly by the passion
of his prejudices and the consistent narrowness of his outlook.”
Joseph Conrad (1857-1924), Polish-born British novelist, master of narrative technique
“There is more than a verbal tie between the words common, community, and
communication.... Try the experiment of communicating, with fullness and accuracy,
some experience to another, especially if it be somewhat complicated, and you will find
your own attitude toward your experience changing.”
John Dewey (1859-1952), American philosopher, educator
“A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person
with a certain set of attitudes.”
Hugh Downs
“Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.”
Albert Einstein (1875-1955), German-born American theoretical physicist, theories of
relativity, philosopher
“My pacifism is an instinctive feeling, a feeling that possesses me because the murder of
men is disgusting. My attitude is not derived from any intellectual theory but is based on
my deepest antipathy to every kind of cruelty and hatred.”
“The crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole
educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is
inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a
perparation for his future career.”
46
“A painter told me that nobody could draw a tree without in some sort becoming a tree;
or draw a child by studying the outlines of its form merely . . . but by watching for a time
his motions and plays, the painter enters into his nature and can then draw him at every
attitude . . .”
“Life becomes religious whenever we make it so: when some new light is seen, when
some deeper appreciation is felt, when some larger outlook is gained, when some nobler
purpose is formed, when some task is well done.”
Sophia Blanche Lyon Fahs (1876-1978), Writer, author
“Meditation is the soul's perspective glass.”
Owen Felltham (1602?-68), English writer, noted for moral essays
“The last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of
circumstances, to choose one's own way.”
Dr. Viktor E(mil) Frankl (1905-97), Austrian-born Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry,
Univ. Vienna
"Everything can be taken from a man but the last of human freedoms, the right to choose
one's attitude in any given set of circumstances--the right to choose one's own way.”
Univ. Vienna
“When we create something, we always create it first in a thought form. If we are
basically positive in attitude, expecting and envisioning pleasure, satisfaction and
happiness, we will attract and create people, situations, and events which conform to
our positive expectations.”
Shakti Gawain (b. 1948), American writer, author
“Leadership is practiced not so much in words as in attitude and in actions.”
Harold S. Geneen, Former Chairman, IT&T
“The best way to inspire people to superior performance is to convince them by
everything you do and by your everyday attitude that you are wholeheartedly supporting
them.”
Harold S. Geneen, Former Chairman, IT&T
“To persevere is always a reflection of the state of one's inner life, one's philosophy and
one's perspective.”
David Guterson
47
“Life can be wildly tragic at times, and I've had my share. But whatever happens to you,
you have to keep a slightly comic attitude. In the final analysis, you have got not to
forget to laugh.”
Katharine Houghton Hepburn (b. 1909), American actress "Adam's Rib," "The African
Queen"
“Your mental attitude is someting you can control outright and you must use selfdiscipline until you create a Positive Mental Attitude -- your mental attitude attracts to
you everything that makes you what you are.”
Napolean Hill
“Never hire or promote in your own image. It is foolish to replicate your strength and
idiotic to replicate your weakness. It is essential to employ, trust, and reward those
whose perspective, ability, and judgment are radically different from yours. It is also
rare, for it requires uncommon humility, tolerance, and wisdom.”
Dee W. Hock, Founder & CEO Emeritus, VISA
“Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when; whatever be the attitude of the
body, the soul is on its knees.”
Victor Hugo (1802-85), French poet, dramatist, writer, "The Hunchback of Notre Dame"
“[Today's students] can put dope in their veins or hope in their brains. ... If they can
conceive it and believe it, they can achieve it. They must know it is not their aptitude but
their attitude that will determine their altitude.”
Jesse Louis Jackson (b. 1941), African-American civil rights leader, politician, Baptist
minister
48
Assumption
"We cheerfully assume that in some mystic way love conquers all, that good outweighs
evil in the just balances of the universe and at the 11th hour something gloriously
triumphant will prevent the worst before it happens.”
“In the past decade or so, the women's magazines have taken to running homehandyperson articles suggesting that women can learn to fix things just as well as men.
These articles are apparently based on the ludicrous assumption that _men_ know how
to fix things, when in fact all they know how to do is _look_ at things in a certain
squinty-eyed manner, which they learned in Wood Shop; eventually, when enough things
in the home are broken, they take a job requiring them to transfer to another home.”
failed.”
“There is no vice so simple but assumes some mark of virtue on his outward parts.”
Mary Bertone
“Telling the future by looking at the past assumes that conditions remain constant. This
is like driving a car by looking in the rearview mirror.”
Herb Brody
“All technology should be assumed guilty until proven innocent.”
David Ross Brower (b. 1912), American writer, author
“The assumed instinctive belief in God has been used by many persons as an argument
for His existence. But this is a rash argument, as we should thus be compelled to believe
in the existence of cruel and malignant spirits, only a little more powerful than man; for
the belief in them is far more general than in a beneficent Diety.”
selection
“I don't know what kind of weapons will be used in the third world war, assuming there
will be a third world war. But I can tell you what the fourth world war will be fought
with -- stone clubs.”
49
“By and large, I seem to have made more mistakes than any others of whom I know, but
have learned thereby to make ever swifter acknowledgment of the errors and thereafter
immediately set about to deal more effectively with the truths disclosed by the
acknowledgment of erroneous assumptions.”
Richard Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983), American architect, inventor
"The creative individual has the capacity to free himself from the web of social pressures
in which the rest of us are caught. He is capable of questioning the assumptions that the
rest of us accept.”
“When you go to a party at somebody's house, don't automatically assume that the
drinks are free. Ask, and ask often.”
“People just naturally assume that dogs would be incapable of working together on
some sort of construction project. But what about just a big field full of holes?”
“Education is a kind of continuing dialogue, and a dialogue assumes ... different points
of view.”
Robert Maynard Hutchins (1899-1977), Chancellor, University of Chicago
“The pure impulse of dynamic creation is formless; and being formless, the creation it
gives rise to can assume any and every form.”
Kabbalah (BC 1200?-700? AD), Mystical Jewish system of interpretation of the Scriptures
“The superpowers often behave like two heavily armed blind men feeling their way
around a room, each believing himself in mortal peril from the other, whom he assumes
to have perfect vision.”
Henry Alfred Kissinger (b. 1923), German-born American Republican diplomat, Secretary
of State, Nobel winner
“Well, youth is the period of assumed personalities and disguises. It is the time of the
sincerely insincere.”
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Spanish artist, one of most influential of the 20th century
“We have no right to assume that any physical laws exist, or if they have existed up until
now, that they will continue to exist in a similar manner in the future.”
Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck (1858-1947), German physicist, Nobel: discoveries in
quantum theory
50
“Do not assume that she who seeks to comfort you now, lives untroubled among the
simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. Her life may also have much
sadness and difficulty, that remains far beyond yours. Were it otherwise, she would
never have been able to find these words.
Rainer Maria Rilke
"There is nobody as enslaved as the fanatic, the person in whom one impulse, one value,
has assumed ascendancy over all others.”
Milton R. Sapirstein
“I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and
pursuits of false assumptions, not my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge.”
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (1882-1971), Russian-born composer of ballets, "The Rite of
Spring"
“[Assault weapons'] menacing looks, coupled with the public's confusion over fullyautomatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons --anything that looks
like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun-- can only increase the chance of
public support for restrictions on these weapons.”
Josh Sugarmann
“Join the company of lions rather than assume the lead among foxes.”
The Talmud (BC 500-400 AD)
“As the same fire assumes different shapes When it consumes objects differing in shape,
So does the one Self take the shape Of every creature in whom he is present.”
Maitri Upanishads (c. BC 800-)
“Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly
too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers
of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to
govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.”
Daniel Webster (1782-1852), American politician, US representative, senator
“I celebrate myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to
me as good belongs to you.”
Walt Whitman (1819-92), American poet, "Leaves of Grass"
“No man has a right in America to treat any other man tolerantly, for tolerance is the
assumption of superiority.”
Wendell Willkie
51
“If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true is really true, there
would be little hope of advance.”
Orville Wright
52
Baseball
The winner of the hoop race will be the first to realize her dream, not society's dream,
her own personal dream.
Barbara Bush (b. 1925), First Lady of the US, wife of George Bush
George Shinn. He's the owner of the Charlotte Harlots basketball team.
Ralph Kiner, Baseball announcer
53
Beauty
"There is nothing that makes its way more directly to the soul than beauty.”
“You can only perceive real beauty in a person as they get older.”
“I had always loved beautiful and artistic things, though before leaving America I had
had a very little chance of seeing any.”
Emma Albani (1852-1930), Canadian soprano, stage name for Marie Louise Emma
Lajeunesse
“Love is a great beautifier.”
Louisa May Alcott (1832-88), American writer, reformer
“Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them but I
can look up and see their beauty, believe in them and try to follow them.”
“Whatever is in any way beautiful hath its source of beauty in itself, and is complete in
itself; praise forms no part of it. So it is none the worse nor the better for being
praised.”
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121-180), Roman Emperor
“This--this was what made life: a moment of quiet, the water falling in the fountain, the
girl's voice...a moment of captured beauty. He who is truly wise will never permit such
moments to escape.”
Roger Bannister
“Art strives for form, and hopes for beauty.”
Rose Elizabeth Bird
“When the Japanese mend broken objects they aggrandize the damage by filling the
cracks with gold, because they believe that when something's suffered damage and has a
history it becomes more beautiful.”
Barbara Bloom, American artist
“Pick a man for his human qualities, his values, his compatibility with you, rather than
what he represents in status, power or good looks.”
54
Carol Botwin
"I love all beauteous things, I seek and adore them; God hath no better praise, And man
in his hasty days Is honored for them.”
Robert Bridges
“As against having beautiful workshops, studios, etc., one writes best in a cellar on a
rainy day.”
Van Wyck Brooks (1886-1963), American critic, historian
“To serve is beautiful, but only if it is done with joy and a whole heart and a free mind.”
“Friendship without self-interest is one of the rare and beautiful things of life.”
James Francis Byrnes (1879-1972), American politician, associate justice US Supreme
Court
“The love of beauty in its multiple forms is the noblest gift of the human cerebrum.”
“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will
endure as long as life lasts.”
Rachel Louise Carson (1907-64), American environmentalist, biologist, writer, "Silent
Spring"
“It is good to realize that if love and peace can prevail on earth, and if we can teach our
children to honor nature's gifts, the joys and beauties of the outdoors will be here
forever.”
“There's no joy even in beautiful Wisdom, unless one have holy Health.”
Simondes of Ceos
“Everything beautiful has its moment and then passes away.”
Cernuda y Bidon "Luis" Cernuda (1902-63), Spanish writer, author, "La adoracion de los
magos," "El aguila"
“Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame.”
55
"Of all that is good, sublimity is supreme. Succeeding is the coming together of all that
is beautiful. Furtherance is the agreement of all that is just. Perseverance is the
foundation of all actions.”
I Ching (BC 1150)
“The beauty of empowering others is that your own power is not diminished in the
process.”
Barbara Colorose
“Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.”
“Heat cannot be separated from fire, or beauty from The Eternal.”
Alighieri Dante (1265-1321), Italian poet, "The Divine Comedy"
“Cheerfulness and contentment are great beautifiers and are famous preservers of
youthful looks.”
Charles Dickens (1812-70), English novelist, fiction writer
“[The lover says:] How beautiful you are, now that you love me.”
Marlene Dietrich (1901-92), German-born American actress, singer
“I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully
expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself.”
“Whatever you may look like, marry a man your own age -- as your beauty fades, so will
his eyesight.”
Phyllis (Ada) Diller (b. 1917), American entertainer, writer, author
“I think these difficult times have helped me to understand better than before how
infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way and that so many things that one goes
around worrying about are of no importance whatsoever.”
Isak Dinesen (1885-1962), [Baroness Karen Blixen] Danish writer
“The greatest wealth consisteth in being charitable, And the greatest happiness in
having tranquility of mind. Experience is the most beautiful adornment; And the best
comrade is one that hath no desire.”
Tibetan Doctrine
56
57
Beginnings
“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”
“The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be only the
beginning.”
George Baker (1877-1965), [Father Divine] American religious leader
“From quiet homes and first beginning, Out to the undiscovered ends, There's nothing
worth the wear of winning, But laughter and the love of friends.”
Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953), French-born British writer
“The study of history is the beginning of political wisdom.”
Jean Bodin
“The ultimate wisdom which deals with beginnings, remains locked in a seed. There it
lies, the simplest fact of the universe and at the same time the one which calls faith
rather than reason.”
Hal Borland
“All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. Great works are
often born on a street corner or in a restaurant's revolving door.”
Albert Camus (1913-60), French novelist, essayist, playwright, philosopher
“You have to walk carefully in the beginning of love; the running across fields into your
lover's arms can only come later when you're sure they won't laugh if you trip.”
Jonathan Carroll (b. 1949), American writer, author
“'Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?' he asked. 'Begin at the beginning,' the King
said, gravely, 'and go on till you come to the end: then stop.'“
-- Lewis Carroll (1832-98), [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] British mathematician, writer
“Beginnings are apt to be shadowy and so it is the beginnings of the great mother life,
the sea.”
58
Rachel Louise Carson (1907-64), American environmentalist, biologist, writer, "Silent
Spring"
"The Creative knows the great beginnings. The Receptive completes the finished things.”
I Ching (BC 1150)
“Great indeed is the sublimity of the Creative, to which all beings owe their beginning
and which permeates all heaven.”
I Ching (BC 1150)
“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the
end of the beginning.”
author
“This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of
the beginning.”
author
“Every morning is a fresh beginning. Every day is the world made new. Today is a new
day. Today is my world made new. I have lived all my life up to this moment, to come to
this day. This moment--this day--is as good as any moment in all eternity. I shall make of
this day--each moment of this day--a heaven on earth. This is my day of opportunity.”
Dan Custer
“When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; I'm beginning to
believe it.”
“Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.”
Demosthenes
“Play is the beginning of knowledge.”
George Dorsey
“Solitude is the beginning of all freedom.”
William Orville Douglas (1898-1980), American jurist, associate justice US Supreme Court
“The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom.”
59
"Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we
have no control. It is determined for insects as well as for the stars. Human beings,
vegetables or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by
an invisible piper.”
“The beginning of an acquaintance whether with persons or things is to get a definite
outline of our ignorance.”
George Eliot (1819-80), [Mary Ann Evans] British writer
“Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world,
that such who are in the institution wish to get out; and such as are out wish to get in.”
“What we call results are beginnings.”
“In our own beginnings, we are formed out of the body's interior landscape. For a short
while, our mothers' bodies are the boundaries and personal geography which are all
that we know of the world. ... Once we no longer live beneath our mother's heart, it is
the earth with which we form the same dependent relationship, relying ... on its cycles
and elements, helpless without its protective embrace.”
Louise Erdrich (b. 1954), American writer, author, "The Beet Queen," "The Bingo Palace"
“A bad beginning makes a bad ending.”
Euripides (480?-406 BC), Greek dramatist, "Media," "Hippolytus"
“Coming together is the beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is
success.”
Henry Ford (1863-1947), American automobile manufacturer, developed gas-powered
automobile
“He who chooses the beginning of a road chooses the place it leads to. It is the means
that determine the end.”
Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969), American religious leader
“He who chooses the beginning of the road chooses the place it leads to. It is the means
that determines the end.”
60
Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969), American religious leader
“You're searching, Joe, for things that don't exist; I mean beginnings. Ends and
beginnings-there are no such things.”
61
Birth
“You're searching, Joe, for things that don't exist; I mean beginnings. Ends and
beginnings-there are no such things.”
"My mother had to send me to the movies with my birth certificate, so that I wouldn't
have to pay the extra fifty cents that the adults had to pay.”
62
Birthdays
“Even at our birth, death does but stand aside a little. And every day he looks towards
us and muses somewhat to himself whether that day or the next he will draw nigh.”
“We can become anything. That is why injustice is impossible here. There may be the
accident of birth, there is no accident of death. Nothing forces us to remain what we
were.”
John Berger (b. 1926), English author, "The Foot of Clive”
“Death is as casual-and often as unexpected-as birth. It is as difficult to define grief as
joy. Each is finite. Each will fade.”
Lincoln Was Shot”
“Even at our birth, death does but stand aside a little. And every day he looks towards
us and muses somewhat to himself whether that day or the next he will draw nigh.”
Robert Oxton Bolt (b. 1924), English author, "Man for All Seasons”
“The most powerful ties are the ones to the people who gave us birth ... it hardly seems
to matter how many years have passed, how many betrayals there may have been, how
much misery in the family: We remain connected, even against our wills.”
Anthony Brandt (b. 1936), Amerian writer, author
“Neither fire nor wind, birth nor death can erase our good deeds.”
“A library, to modify the famous metaphor of Socrates, should be the delivery room for
the birth of ideas-a place where history comes to life.”
Norman Cousins (1915-90), American editor, writer, author, "Anatomy of an Illness”
“It is hard to have patience with people who say 'There is no death' or 'Death doesn't
matter.' There is death. And whatever is matters. And whatever happens has
consequences, and it and they are irrevocable and irreversible. You might as well say
that birth doesn't matter.”
scientist
“To hope means to be ready at every moment for that which is not yet born, and yet not
become desperate if there is no birth in our lifetime.”
63
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (1830-86), American poet
"A theory can be proved by experiment; but no path leads from experiment to the birth
of a theory.”
“Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.”
“How many observe Christ's birthday! How few, his precepts! O! 'tis easier to keep
holidays than commandments.”
Constitution
When I stopped seeing my mother with the eyes of a child, I saw the woman who helped
me give birth to myself.”
Nancy Friday
“Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is. The
most important product of his effort is his own personality.”
conditioning
“To hope means to be ready at every moment for that which is not yet born, and yet not
become desperate if there is no birth in our lifetime.”
conditioning
“A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never remembers
her age.”
Robert Lee Frost (1874-1963), American poet, "A Boy's Will," "In the Clearing”
“Death is as sure for that which is born, as birth is for that which is dead. Therefore
grieve not for what is inevitable.”
Hinduism
“For all the advances in medicine, there is still no cure for the common birthday.”
64
John Herschel Glenn, Jr. (b. 1921), [Senator] American astronaut, politician, oldest man
to fly in space
“Isn't it the moment of most profound doubt that gives birth to new certainties? Perhaps
hopelessness is the very soil that nourishes human hope; perhaps one could never find
sense in life without first experiencing its absurdity...”
Václav Havel (b. 1936), Czechoslovakian writer, politician, widely known playwright
"Men and women are limited not by the place of their birth, not by the color of their
skin, but by the size of their hope.”
John Johnson
“On Fathers Day, we again wish you all happy birthday.”
“Like all of us in this storm between birth and death, I can wreak no great changes on
the world, only small changes for the better, I hope, in the lives of those I love.”
Dean Koontz, American horror author
“There are only three events in a man's life; birth, life, and death: he is not conscious of
being born, he dies in pain, and he forgets to live.”
Jean de LaBruyere (1645-96)
“When we cannot bear to be alone, it means we do not properly value the only
companion we will have from birth to death -- ourselves.”
Eda LeShan
Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963), British writer, critic, "Allegory of Love," "The Chronicles
of Narnia”
“Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new
nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created
equal...We here highly resolve that the dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation,
under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the
people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Abraham Lincoln (1809-65), 16th US President, Republican
65
“They talk about their Pilgrim blood, Their birthright high and holy! A mountain-stream
that ends in mud Methinks is melancholy.”
James Russel Lowell (1819-91), American editor, poet, diplomat, US minister to Spain
“Somehow liberals have been unable to acquire from birth what conservatives seem to
be endowed with at birth: namely, a healthy skepticism of the powers of government to
do good.”
Daniel Patrick Moynihan (b. 1927), US Senator
“You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.”
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher
How many observe Christ's birthday! How few, his precepts! O! 'tis easier to keep
holidays than commandments.”
Constitution
“A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never remembers
her age.”
“For all the advances in medicine, there is still no cure for the common birthday.”
John Herschel Glenn, Jr. (b. 1921), [Senator] American astronaut, politician, oldest man
to fly in space
“On Fathers Day, we again wish you all happy birthday.”
“I've never looked forward to a birthday like I'm looking forward to my new daughter's
birthday, because two days after that is when I can apply for reinstatement.”
Pete Rose, US baseball player, prison inmate
“In conclusion, there is a marvelous anecdote from the occasion of Russell's ninetieth
birthday that best serves to summarize his attitude toward God and religion. A London
lady sat next to him at this party, and over the soup she suggested to him that he was not
only the world's most famous atheist but, by this time, very probably the world's oldest
atheist. 'What will you do, Bertie, if it turns out you're wrong?' she asked. 'I mean, what
if--uh--when the time comes, you should meet Him? What will you say?' Russell was
delighted with the question. His bright, birdlike eyes grew even brighter as he
contemplated this possible future dialogue, and then he pointed a finger upward and
cried, 'Why, I should say, 'God, you gave us insufficient evidence.' '“
66
Al Seckel
67
Books
"There are times when I think that the ideal library is composed solely of reference
books. They are like understanding friends-always ready to meet your mood, always
ready to change the subject when you have had enough of this or that.”
Donald J. Adams (b. 1924), [Maxwell Smart] American actor
“In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get
through, but how many can get through to you.”
Mortimer Adler (b. 1902), American philosopher, educator, "How to Read a Book"
“For me it is sufficient to have a corner by my hearth, a book and a friend, and a nap
undisturbed by creditors or grief.”
Fernandez de Andrada
“Life is a wonderful thing to talk about, or to read about in history books - but it is
terrible when one has to live it.”
Jean Anouilh (1910-87), French playwright
“Beware of the man of one book.”
Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-74), Italian Dominican monk, theologian, philosopher
“Nothing, it appears to me is of greater value in a man than the power of judgement;
and the man who has it may be compared to a chest fulled with books, for he is the son
of nature and the father of art.”
Pietro Aretino (1492-1556), Italian poet, writer, dramatist
“In politics I am growing indifferent -- I would like it, if I could now return to my
planting and books at home.”
Francois Arouet
“Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered.”
“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.”
“Some books are to be tasted, others swallowed, and some few to be chewed and
digested.”
68
"Books must follow sciences, and not sciences books.”
“Every artist wants his work to be permanent. But what is? The Aswan Dam covered
some of the greatest art in the world. Venice is sinking. Great books and pictures were
lost in the Florence floods. In the meantime we still enjoy butterflies.”
Romare Beardon
“Generally speaking, men are influenced by books which clarify their own thought,
which express their own notions well, or which suggest to them ideas which their minds
are already predisposed to accept.”
“A book is a friend; a good book is a good friend. It will talk to you when you want it to
talk, and it will keep still when you want it to keep still; and there are not many friends
who know enough to do that.”
B. A. Billingsly
“A best seller was a book which somehow sold well simply because it was selling well.”
Daniel J(oseph) Boorstin (b. 1914), American Gov't Official, Librarian of Congress
“You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading
them.”
Ray Douglas Bradbury (b. 1920), American writer of science fiction
“The lessons taught in great books are misleading. The commerce in life is rarely so
simple and never so just.”
Anita Brookner
“The American mind, unlike the English, is not formed by books, but, as Carl Sandburg
once said to me, by newspapers and the Bible.”
“No man can be called friendless when he has God and the companionship of good
books.”
Elizabeth Barret Browning (1806-61), British poet
“The worth of a book is to be measured by what you can carry away from it.”
James Bryce (1838-1922), British diplomat, historian, known as First Viscount Bryce of
Dechmont
69
"I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to
take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see.”
John Burroughs (1837-1921), American naturalist, writer
“What we become depends on what we read after all the professors have finished with
us. The greatest university of all is the collection of books.”
“Happy the people whose annals are blank in the history books!”
“The ideas I stand for are not mine. I borrowed them from Socrates. I swiped them from
Chesterfield. I stole them from Jesus. And I put them in a book. If you don't like their
rules whose would you use?”
“'What is the use of a book,' thought Alice, 'without pictures or conversations?'“
Lewis Carroll (1832-98), [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] British mathematician, writer
“There are men that will make you books, and turn them loose into the world, with as
much dispatch as they would do a dish of fritters.”
“Most of today's books have an air of having been written in one day from books read
the night before.”
Sébastien-Roch Nicolas de Chamfort (1741-94), French author, humorist
“Learning is acquired by reading books; but the much more necessary learning, the
knowledge of the world, is only to be acquired by reading man, and studying all the
various editions of them.”
politician, writer
“The only words that ever satisfied me as describing Nature are the terms used in fairy
books, charm, spell, enchantment. They express the arbitrariness of the fact and its
mystery.”
“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC), Roman statesman, orator, philosopher
70
71
Character
"The last time anybody made a list of the top hundred character attributes of New
Yorkers, common sense snuck in at number 79.....”
“There is no such thing as a 'self-made' man. We are made up of thousands of others.
Everyone who has ever done a kind deed for us, or spoken one word of encouragement
to us, has entered into the make-up of our character and of our thoughts, as well as our
success.”
“It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has
prospered.”
“Don't let your special character and values, the secret that you know and no one else
does, the truth -- don't let that get swallowed up by the great chewing complacency.”
“When written in Chinese, the word 'crisis' is composed of two characters - one
represents danger, and the other represents opportunity.”
Saul David Alinsky
“Certainly it is a world of scarcity. But the scarcity is not confined to iron ore and
available land. The most constricting scarcities are those of character and personality.”
William R(ichard) Allen (b. 1924), American-born writer, author
“Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for
the soul is dyed by the thoughts.”
“Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for
the soul is dyed by the thoughts.”
advisor
72
“What makes a good follower? The single most important characteristic may well be a
willingness to tell the truth. In a world of growing complexity leaders are increasingly
dependent on their subordinates for good information, whether the leaders want to hear
it or not. Followers who tell the truth and leaders who listen to it are an unbeatable
combination.”
sociologist
"Sow an act...reap a habit; Sow a habit...reap a character; Sow a character...reap a
destiny.”
George Dana Boardman
“It is the characteristic excellence of the strong man that he can bring momentous issues
to the fore and make a decision about them. The weak are always forced to decide
between alternatives they have not chosen themselves.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-45), German Protestant theologian
“Good government generally begins in the family, and if the moral character of a people
once degenerate, their political character must soon follow.”
Elias Boudinot (1740-1821), American statesman
“Sports do not build character. They reveal it.”
(Matthew) Heywood (Campbell) Broun (1888-1939), American journalist
“Sports do not build character. They reveal it.”
Haywood Hale Broun
“The superior man acquaints himself with many sayings of antiquity and many deeds of
the past, in order to strengthen his character thereby.”
I Ching (BC 1150)
“Courtesies of a small and trivial character are the ones which strike deepest in the
gratefully and appreciating heart.”
Henry Clay (1777-1852), [the Great Compromise] American politician
“Of all the properties which belong to honorable men, not one is so highly prized as that
of character.”
“History is the record of an encounter between character and circumstances.”
73
Donald Creighton
“The degradation which characterizes the state into which you plunge him by punishing
him pleases, amuses, and delights him. Deep down he enjoys having gone so far as to
deserve being treated in such a way.”
Marquis de Sade (1740-1814), French nobleman, namesake of sadism
"If I had to select one quality, one personal characteristic that I regard as being most
highly correlated with success, whatever the field, I would pick the trait of persistence.
Determination. The will to endure to the end, to get knocked down seventy times and get
up off the floor saying, "Here comes number seventy-one!”
Richard M. Devos
“It is characteristic of all deep human problems that they are not to be approached
without some humor and some bewilderment.”
Freeman John Dyson (b. 1923), English writer, author
“There is no leveler like Christianity, but it levels by lifting all who receive it to the lofty
table-land of a true character and of undying hope both for this world and the next.”
Johathan Edwards (1703-58), American theologian, philosopher
“Thoughts lead on to purposes; purposes go forth in action; actions form habits; habits
decide character; and character fixes our destiny.”
Tryon Edwards (1809-94), Writer, author
“Innumerable voices have been asserting for some time now that human society is
passing through a crisis, that its stability has been gravely shattered. It is characteristic
of such a situation that individuals feel indifferent or even hostile toward the group,
small or large, to which they belong. In order to illustrate my meaning, let me record
here a personal experience. I recently discussed with an intelligent and well-disposed
man the threat of another war, which in my opinion would seriously endanger the
existence of mankind, and I remarked that only a supranational organization would offer
protection from that danger. Thereupon my visitor, very calmly and coolly, said to me:
"Why are you so deeply opposed to the disappearance of the human race?”
“True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist.”
74
“Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.”
“It seems to me that perfection of means and confusion of goals seems to characterize
our age.”
“People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of
character.”
“A signature always reveals a man's character - and sometimes even his name.”
Evan Esar
75
Choice
"If I had to choose between putting a saloon or a liberal church on a corner, I'd choose
the saloon every time. People who drink up the pay check in the saloon are less likely to
become Pharisees, thinking that they don't need the Great Physician, than those who
weekly swill the soporific doctrine of man's goodness.”
Jay Edward Adams (b. 1929), American-born author, writer
“More than any time in history mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair
and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom
to choose correctly.”
“Love is a choice you make from moment to moment.”
Barbara De Angelis
“All good men are happy when they choose to be their own authors. Those who choose
to have others edit their pathways, must live on the edge of another man's sword.”
Julie Arabi
“Choose your friends carefully. Your enemies will choose you.”
Yassir Arafat
“Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.”
“You don't get to choose how you're going to die, or when. You can decide how you're
going to live now.”
Joan Baez (b. 1941), American folk singer, political activist
“You don't get to choose how you're going to die or when. You only get to chose how
you're going to live.”
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“If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she
will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there are men on base.”
"Love thy neighbor as yourself, but choose your neighborhood.”
Louise Beal
“Your life is the sum result of all the choices you make, both consciously and
unconsciously. If you can control the process of choosing, you can take control of all
aspects of your life. You can find the freedom that comes from being in charge of
yourself.”
“A mirror reflects a man's face, but what he is really like is shown by the kind of friends
he chooses.”
“Sometimes in politics one must duel with skunks, but no one should be fool enough to
allow the skunks to choose the weapons.”
Lester R(obert) Bittel (b. 1918), American writer
“Whenever it is in any way possible, every boy and girl should choose as his life work
some occupation which he should like to do anyhow, even if he did not need the money.”
Irish Blessing
“You have to choose where you look, and in making that choice you eliminate entire
worlds.”
“For aesthetics is the mother of ethics…. Were we to choose our leaders on the basis of
their reading experience and not their political programs, there would be much less
grief on earth. I believe-not empirically, alas, but only theoretically-that for someone
who has read a lot of Dickens to shoot his like in the name of an idea is harder than for
someone who has read no Dickens.”
Joseph Brodsky (b. 1940), Russian-born American poet, critic, essayist, Nobel Prize
77
“Destiny is not a matter of chance; but a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited
for, It is a thing to be achieved.”
“Without Christ, sciences in every department are vain....The man who knows not God
is vain, though he should be conversant with every branch of learning. Nay more, we
may affirm this too with truth, that these choice gifts of God -- expertness of mind,
acuteness of judgment, liberal sciences, and acquaintance with languages, are in a
manner profaned in every instance in which they fall to the lot of wicked men.”
John Calvin (1509-64), French-born Swiss Protestant theologian
"[Jesus'] ministry was clearly defined, and the alternatives to the illusion and
temptations of the desert were spelled out. A choice was made--life abundant, full, and
free for all. Make no mistake about it, the day that choice was made, Jesus became
suspect. That day in the temple he sealed the fate already prepared for him. How was
the world to understand one who rejected an offer of power and control?”
Joan B. Campbell
“Truth or tact? You have to choose. Most times they are not compatible.”
Eddie Cantor (1892-1964), American entertainer
“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”
M. Kathleen Casey
“Most of those who make collections of verse or epigram are like men eating cherries or
oysters: they choose out the best at first, and end by eating all.”
“There are no optimistic or pessimistic personalities. There are only single, individual
choices for optimistic or pessimistic thoughts.”
Steve Chandler
“Hell is God's great compliment to the reality of human freedom and the dignity of
human choice.”
“Indecision regarding the choice among pleasures temporarily robs a man of inner
peace. After due reflection, he attains joy by turning away from the lower pleasures and
seeking the higher ones.”
I Ching (BC 1150)
78
“As soon as questions of will or decision or reason or choice of action arise, human
science is at a loss.”
“To make the right choices in life, you have to get in touch with your soul. To do this,
you need to experience solitude, which most people are afraid of, because in the silence
you hear the truth and know the solutions.”
Deepak K. Chopra (b. 1946), Writer, author
“Life is change. Growth is optional. Choose wisely.”
Karen Kaiser Clark
79
Confidence
"The first time I shot the hook, I was in fourth grade, and I was about five feet eight
inches tall. I put the ball up and felt totally at ease with the shot. I was completely
confident it would go in and I've been shooting it ever since.”
“You have to have confidence in your ability, and then be tough enough to follow
through.”
“We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall
fight on the seas and the oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing
strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight
on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in
the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.”
author
“How blessed and amazing are God's gifts, dear friends! Life with immortality, splendor
with righteousness, truth with confidence, faith with assurance, self-control with
holiness! And all these things are within our comprehension.”
Clement of Rome
“No matter how brilliant a man may be, he will never engender confidence in his
subordinates and associates if he lacks simple honesty and moral courage.”
J. Lawton Collins
“Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above
all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that
this thing must be attained.”
Marie Curie (1867-1934), [Manja Sklodowska] Polish-born French chemist, Nobel
“In light of knowledge attained, the happy achievement seems almost a matter of course,
and any intelligent student can grasp it without too much trouble. But the years of
anxious searching in the dark, with their intense longing, their alterations of confidence
and exhaustion and the final emergence into the light -- only those who have
experienced it can understand it.”
80
“It is not so much our friends' help that helps us as the confident knowledge that they
will help us.”
Epicurus (341?-270 BC), Greek philosopher, playwrite
“We do not so much need the help of our friends as the confidence of their help when in
need.”
Epicurus (341?-270 BC), Greek philosopher, playwrite
“You've got to take the initiative and play your game. In a decisive set, confidence is the
difference.”
Chris(tine) Marie Evert (b. 1954), American tennis player, won women's singles at US Open
"Should we feel at times disheartened and discouraged, a confiding thought, a simple
movement of heart towards God will renew our powers. Whatever He may demand of us,
He will give us at the moment the strength and the courage that we need.”
François de Salignac de la Mothe Fenelon (1651-1715), French prelate, writer, tutored
grandson Louis XIV
“You are perhaps the most accomplished confidence man since Charles Ponzi. I'd say
you were a carnival barker, but that wouldn't be fair to carnival barkers." [to former
Enron CEO Keny Lay]
Peter Fitzgerald, U.S. Senator
“If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life. With
confidence, you have won even before you have started.”
Marcus (Moziah) Aurelius Garvey (1887-1940), Jamaican Black nationalist active in US
1920's
“Your confidence in the people, and your doubt about them, are closely related to your
self-confidence and your self-doubt.”
Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931), Lebanese-born American mystic poet, painter, "The Prophet"
“Man talking confidently about God is like a toy talking confidently about man.”
B. J. Gupta
“I don't possess a lot of self-confidence. I'm an actor so I simply act confident every time
I hit the stage. I am consumed with the fear of failing. Reaching deep down and finding
confidence has made all my dreams come true.”
Arsenio Hall
81
“A friend should be one in whose understanding and virtue we can equally confide, and
whose opinion we can value at once for its justness and its sincerity.”
Robert Hall
“Skill and confidence are an unconquered army.”
George Herbert (1593-1633), English metaphysical poet, "The Collar"
“The ultimate ground of faith and knowledge is confidence in God.”
Charles Hodge
“Scientists are the easiest to fool. They think in straight, predictable, directable, and
therefore misdirectable, lines. The only world they know is the one where everything has
a logical explanation and things are what they appear to be. Children and conjurors they terrify me. Scientists are no problem; against them I feel quite confident.”
James P. Hogan
"When salvation is viewed as man's program, it is left up to man as to whether he will let
God do this or that, but when it is viewed as God's program, there is a confidence and a
certainty that no one whom God regenerates will be a carnal Christian.”
Michael Horton
“There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.”
Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709-84), British writer, lexicographer, wrote "Dictionary of the
English Language"
“When I was as you are now, towering in the confidence of twenty-one, little did I
suspect that I should be at forty-nine, what I now am.”
English Language"
“If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their
respect and esteem. You may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool
some of the people all the time; but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.”
“It's not a field, I think, for people who need to have success every day: if you can't live
with a nightly sort of disaster, you should get out. I wouldn't describe myself as lacking
in confidence, but I would just say that … the ghosts you chase you never catch.”
John Malkovich (b. 1953), U.S. stage and screen actor
82
“I have nothing but confidence in you, and very little of that.”
Julius Henry Marx (1890-1977), [Groucho] American comedian, actor, "Horse Feathers,"
"Duck Soup"
“Only the flexibly creative person can really manage the future, Only the one who can
face novelty with confidence and without fear.”
Abraham Maslow (1908-70), American psychologist, founder humanistic psychology
“When you have confidence, you can have a lot of fun. And when you have fun, you can
do amazing things.”
Joe Namath
“If this world affords true happiness, it is to be found in a home where love and
confidence increase with the years, where the necessities of life come without severe
strain, where luxuries enter only after their cost has been carefully considered.”
A. Edward Newton
“If I were to make public these tapes, containing blunt and candid remarks on many
different subjects, the confidentiality of the office of the president would always be
suspect.”
83
Courage
"It often takes more courage to change one's opinion than to stick to it.”
Geoffrey F. Abert
“When a man you like switches from what he said a year ago, or 4 years ago, he is a
broad-minded person who has courage enough to change his mind with changing
conditions. When a man you don't like does it, he is a liar who has broken his
promises.”
Franklin P. Adams (1881-1960), American journalist, humorist, "Nods and Becks"
“Courage is the thing. All goes if courage goes. “
“There is a courage of happiness as well as a courage of sorrow.”
“It is easy to be brave from a safe distance.”
“I sit beside my lonely fire and pray for wisdom yet: for calmness to remember or
courage to forget.”
Charles Hamilton Aide
“An intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a
touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction”
Hoshang N. Akhtar
progress.”
Lloyd Alexander
“Only a brave person is willing to honestly admit, and fearlessly to face, what a sincere
and logical mind discovers.”
Rodan of Alexandria
“Often the test of courage is not to die but to live.”
Conte Vittorio Alfieri (1749-1803), Italian playwright
"To see what is right, and not to do it, is want of courage or of principle.”
84
Lisa Alther
“Without courage you cannot practice any of the other virtues.”
“Until the day of his death, no man can be sure of his courage.”
“I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies, for
the hardest victory is over self.”
“I count him braver who conquers his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for
the hardest victort is the victory over self.”
“The echo began in some indescribable way to undermine her hold on life. Coming at a
moment when she chanced to be fatigued, it had managed to murmur, 'Pathos, piety,
courage -- they exist, but are identical, and so is filth. Everything exists, nothing has
value.'“
Richard (Dick) Armey, US Congressman
“Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,the courage to change
the things I can, andthe wisdom to know the difference.”
Saint Francis of Assisi (1182-1226), Reconized as having lived an exceptionally holy life
“No one has yet computed how many imaginary triumphs are silently celebrated by
people each year to keep up their courage.”
Athenæus (Circa 200 A.D.), Greek grammarian, rhetorician
“The scars you acquire by exercising courage, Will never make you feel inferior.”
D. A. Battista
“But screw up your courage to the sticking place, And we'll not fail.”
Mary Bertone
"Never forget that life can only be nobly inspired and rightly lived if you take it bravely
and gallantly, as a splendid adventure in which you are setting out into an unknown
country, to meet many a joy, to find many a comrade, to win and lose many a battle.”
85
Annie Besant
“A man of great common sense and good taste, meaning thereby a man without
originality or moral courage.”
“Be strong and of good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord
thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.”
Joshua 1:9 Bible (15th-16th century), (First known English translation from the Latin)
“I believe that I shall see the bounty of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the
Lord with courage; be stouthearted, and wait for the Lord.”
Psalm 27: 13-14 Bible (15th-16th century), (First known English translation from the
Latin)
“The weak in courage is strong in cunning.”
“There are people who put their dreams in a little box and say, 'Yes, I've got dreams, of
course I've got dreams.' Then they put the box away and bring it out once in awhile to
look in it, and yep, they're still there. These are great dreams, but they never even get
out of the box. It takes an uncommon amount of guts to put your dreams on the line, to
hold them up and say, 'How good or how bad am I?' That's where courage comes in.”
“It requires more courage to suffer than to die.”
“The courage to imagine the otherwise is our greatest resource, adding color and
suspense to all our life.”
“What makes the difference between a Nation that is truly great and one that is merely
rich and powerful? It is the simple things that make the difference. Honesty, knowing
right from wrong, openness, self-respect, and the courage of conviction.”
David L(yle) Boren (b. 1941), American politician, Governor of OK
“'Tisn't life that matters! 'Tis the courage you bring to it.”
Joan Borysenko
86
Creativity
"Just because the solutions of problems are not visible at any particular time does not
mean that those problems will never be alleviated -- or confined to tolerable dimensions.
History has a way of changing the very terms in which problems operate and of leaving
them, in the end, unsolved, to be sure, yet strangely deflated of their original meaning
and importance.”
M. I. Abramowitz (1836-1917), Russian-born Yiddish novelist
“Man's mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions.”
“To love is not a passive thing. To love is active voice. When I love I do something, I
function, I give. I do not love in order that I may be loved back again, but for the
creative joy of loving. And every time I do so love I am freed, at least a little, by the
outgoing of love, from enslavement to that most intolerable of master, myself.
Bernard Iddings Bell
“There are two ways of being creative. One can sing and dance. Or one can create an
environment in which singers and dancers flourish.”
sociologist
“Excellence is a better teacher than mediocrity. The lessons of the ordinary are
everywhere. Truly profound and original insights are to be found only in studying the
exemplary.”
sociologist
“A man of great common sense and good taste, meaning thereby a man without
originality or moral courage.”
good judgment.”
“A sense of curiosity is nature's original school of education.”
Smiley Blanton
87
“Nurture an appetite for being puzzled, for being confused, indeed for being openly
stupid, and that - despite what you may think - is very difficult...We all know the cliche'
that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. It is also true that a lot of knowledge
can be a dangerous thing as well...use your ignorance as well as your knowledge for
creative means.”
Lee C. Bollinger, President of the University of Michigan Commencement address
“Time lost is time when we have not lived a full human life, time unenriched by
experience, creative endeavor, enjoyment, and suffering.”
"Our American past always speaks to us with two voices: the voice of the past, and the
voice of the present. We are always asking two quite different questions. Historians
reading the words of John Winthrop usually ask, What did they mean to him? Citizens
ask, What do they mean to us? Historians are trained to seek the original meaning; all
of us want to know the present meaning.”
“Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious, and anything selfconscious is lousy. You can't try to do things. You simply must do things.”
“The writer who possesses the creative gift owns something of which he is not always
master- something that at time strangely wills and works for itself.”
“The creative impulses of man are always at war with the possessive impulses.”
“The only truly happy people are children and the creative minority.”
Jean Caldwell
“When we are angry or depressed in our creativity, we have misplaced our power. We
have allowed someone else to determine our worth, and then we are angry at being
undervalued.”
Julia Margaret Cameron (1815-79), English pioneer photographer
“It's as if we think liberation a fixed quantity, that there is only so much to go around.
That an individual or community is liberated at the expense of another: When we view
liberation as a scarce resource, something only a precious few of us can have, we stifle
our potential, our creativity, our genius for living, learning and growing.”
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Andrea Canaan
“A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something.”
Frank Capra (1897-1991), American film director
“In the end the aggressors always destroy themselves, making way for others who know
how to cooperate and get along. Life is much less a competitive struggle for survival
than a triumph of cooperation and creativity.”
Fritjof Capra
“A person in danger should not try to escape at one stroke. He should first calmly hold
his own, then be satisfied with small gains, which will come by creative adaptations.”
I Ching (BC 1150)
"I'm always thinking about creating. My future starts when I wake up every morning.
Every day I find something creative to do with my life.”
Miles Dewey Davis (1926-91), American jazz musician, composer
“Intellectually, religious emotions are not creative but conservative. They attach
themselves to the current view of the world and consecrate it.
“Our observation of nature must be diligent, our reflection profound, and our
experiments exact. We rarely see these three means combined; and for this reason,
creative geniuses are not common.”
Denis Diderot (1713-84), French philosopher, writer
“True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist.”
“The mere formulation of a problem is far more essential than its solution, which may
be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skills. To raise new questions, new
possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle requires creative imagination and
marks real advances in science.”
“The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.”
89
“It is not the fruits of scientific research that elevate man and enrich his nature. but the
urge to understand, the intellectual work, creative or receptive.”
“It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and
knowledge.”
“Uncertainty and mystery are energies of life. Don't let them scare you unduly, for they
keep boredom at bay and spark creativity.”
R. I. Fitzhenry
“Conditions for creativity are to be puzzled; to concentrate; to accept conflict and
tension; to be born everyday; to feel a sense of self.”
conditioning
90
Destiny
"Success is a journey not a destination. The doing is usually more important than the
outcome. Not everyone can be Number 1.”
Arthur Robert Ashe, Jr. (b. 1943), American tennis champion, AIDS activist
"Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings
you together, but do so with all your heart.”
"On the edge of destiny, you must test your strength.”
"Billy" (William Avery) Bishop (1894-1956), Canadian military leader, known as "Hell's
Handmaiden"
"Desire nothing, Chafe not at fate, nor at Nature's changeless laws. But struggle only
with the personal, the transitory, the evanescent and the perishable.”
H(elena) P(etrovna) Hahn Blavatsky (1831-91), Russian-born theosophist
"Sow an act...reap a habit; Sow a habit...reap a character; Sow a character...reap a
destiny.”
"We must look for ways to be an active force in our own lives. We must take charge of
our own destinies, design a life of substance and truly begin to live our dreams.”
Les(ter Louis) Brown (b. 1928), Indian writer, author
"'It is destiny' - phrase of the weak human heart! 'It is destiny' - dark apology for every
error! The strong and virtuous admit no destiny.”
E. R. Bulwer-Lytton
"Destiny is but a phrase of the weak human heart - the dark apology for every error. The
strong and virtuous admit no destiny. On earth conscience guides; in heaven God
watches. And destiny is but the phantom we invoke to silence the one and dethrone the
other.”
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton (1803-73), British writer, known as First Baron
Lytton
"The strong and virtuous admit no destiny.”
Lytton
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"[Jesus'] ministry was clearly defined, and the alternatives to the illusion and
Joan B. Campbell
"Take control of your destiny. Believe in yourself. Ignore those who try to discourage
you. Avoid negative sources, people, places, things and habits. Don't give up and don't
give in.”
Wanda Carter
"I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate
that falls on them unless they act.”
"Love is the extra effort we make in our dealings with those whom we do not like and
once you understand that, you understand all. This idea that love overtakes you is
nonsense. This is but a polite manifestation of sex. To love another you have to
undertake some fragment of their destiny.”
Pierre Corneille (1606-84), French playwright
"The capacity for hope is the most significant fact of life. It provides human beings with
a sense of destination and the energy to get started.”
Norman Cousins (1915-90), American editor, writer, author, "Anatomy of an Illness"
"The main failure of education is that it has not prepared people to comprehend matters
concerning human destiny.”
"Love is the extra effort we make in our dealings with those whom we do not like and
Quentin Crisp (b. 1908), British author
"The best of men cannot suspend their fate: The good die early, and the bad die late.”
Daniel Defoe (1660-1731), English journalist, novelist
"Through perseverance many people win success out of what seemed destined to be
certain failure.”
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Benjamin "Dizzy" Disraeli (1804-81), [First Earl of Beaconsfield] British politician
"Thoughts lead on to purposes; purposes go forth in action; actions form habits; habits
"To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself.”
"We scientists, whose tragic destiny it has been to make the methods of annihilation ever
more gruesome and more effective, must consider it our solemn and transcendent duty to
do all in our power in preventing these weapons from being used for the brutal purpose
for which they were invented.”
"The individual must not merely wait and criticize, he must defend the cause the best he
can. The fate of the world will be such as the world deserves.”
"Human beings are not condemned, because of their biological constitution, to
annihilate each other or to be at the mercy of a cruel, self-inflicted fate.”
"Concern for man himself and his fate must always form the chief interest of all
technical endeavors, concern for the great unsolved problems of the organization of
labor and the distribution of goods--in order that the creations of our mind shall be a
blessing and not a curse to mankind. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and
equations.”
"The highest destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule.”
"Intellect annuls fate. So far as a man thinks, he is free.”
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"No amount of travel on the wrong road will bring you to the right destination.”
Ben Gaye, III
"Man supposes that he directs his life and governs his actions, when his existence is
irretrievably under the control of destiny.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), German writer, scientist, master of poetry,
drama and novel
"Remember that happiness is a way of travel, not a destination.”
Roy Goodman
"Happiness is not a destination. It is a method of life.”
Burton Hills
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Determination
"A failure establishes only this, that our determination to succeed was not strong
enough.”
Hoshang N. Akhtar
“A lively, disinterested, persistent looking for truth is extraordinarily rare. Action and
faith enslave thought, both of them in order not to be troubled or inconvenienced by
reflection, criticism or doubt.”
“All historians, even the most scientific, have bias, if in no other sense than the
determination not to have any.”
“Habits...the only reason they persist is that they are offering some satisfaction...You
allow them to persist by not seeking any other, better form of satisfying the same needs.
Every habit, good or bad, is acquired and learned in the same way - by finding that it is
a means of satisfaction.”
Juliene Berk
“A failure establishes only this, that our determination to succeed was not strong
enough.”
John Christian Bovee (1820-1904), Writer, author
“The longer I live, the more I am certain that the great difference between the great and
the insignificant, is energy - invincible determination--a purpose once fixed, and then
death or victory.”
Sir Thomas Bowell Buxton
95
“Where the determination is, the way can be found.”
George S. Clason
“Perhaps the only misplaced curiosity is that which persists in trying to find out here, on
this side of death, what lies beyond the grave.”
Sidonie Gabrielle Colette (1873-1954), French author, novelist, "Earthly Paradise"
"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 are omnipotent. The slogan press on has solved and always will solve
the problems of the human race. No person was ever honored for what he received.
Honor has been the reward for what he gave.”
(John) Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933), 30th US President, Republican
“I am personally convinced that one person can be a change catalyst, a 'transformer' in
any situation, any organization. Such an individual is yeast that can leaven an entire
loaf. It requires vision, initiative, patience, respect, persistence, courage, and faith to be
a transforming leader.”
Stephen R. Covey (b. 1932), American writer, author
“Never let your persistence and passion turn into stubbornness and ignorance.”
Anthony J. D'Angelo
“If I had to select one quality, one personal characteristic that I regard as being most
Richard M. Devos
“I never could have done what I have done without the habits of punctuality, order, and
diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one subject at a time...”
“The strength of the Constitution lies entirely in the determination of each citizen to
defend it. Only if every single citizen feels duty bound to do his share in this defense are
the constitutional rights secure.”
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“Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing.
People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present,
and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
“It seems to me we can never give up longing And wishing while we are thoroughly
alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, And we must hunger
after them.”
“Our determination to imitiate Christ should be such that we have no time for other
matters.”
Deciderius Erasmus (1466?-1536), Dutch Renaissance scholar, theologian
"I'm hard-nosed about luck. I think it sucks. Yeah, if you spend seven years looking for a
job as a copywriter, and then one day somebody gives you a job, you can say, Gee, I was
lucky I happened to go up there today. But, dammit, I was going to go up there sooner or
later in the next seventy years. If you're persistent in trying and doing and working, you
almost make your own fortune.”
Jerry Della Femina (b. 1936), Writer, author
“Vitality shows not only in the ability to persist, but in the ability to start over.”
F(rancis) Scott (Key) Fitzgerald (1896-1940), American writer, "The Great Gatsby,"
"Tender Is the Night"
“Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist but the ability to start over.”
“Energy and persistence conquer all thing.”
Constitution
“To err is human, to repent divine, to persist devilish.”
Constitution
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“An invincible determination can accomplish almost anything and in this lies the great
distinction between great men and little men.”
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in
trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable
man.”
Robert Anson Heinlein (1907-88), American writer, "Stranger in a Strange Land"
“Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success.”
Napolean Hill
“If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are
impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but
perseverance.”
English Language"
“Although rumors persist to the contrary, there were no deaths while making the movie
Ben Hur.”
Deane Jordan
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Dreams
“Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so you shall become. Your vision is the
promise of what you shall one day be; your ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at
last unveil.”
James Lane Allen (1849-1923), American novelist
human spirit -- enable them to see visions and dream dreams.”
Eric Anderson
John A. Appleman
“In dreams and in love there are no impossibilities.”
“In dreams and in love there are no impossibilities”
Janos Arnay
“We must stop talking about the American dream and start listening to the dreams of
Americans.”
Reubin Askew
“No vision and you perish; No Ideal, and you're lost; Your heart must ever cherish
Some faith at any cost. Some hope, some dream to cling to, Some rainbow in the sky,
Some melody to sing to, Some service that is high.”
Harriet Du Autermont
“The trebling of the population in this small and impoverished country, flowing with
milk and honey but not with sufficient water, rich in rocks and sand dunes but poor in
natural resources and vital raw materials, has been no easy task: Indeed, practical men,
with their eyes fixed upon things as they are, regarded it as an empty and insubstantial
utopian dream.”
“It takes a person who is wide awake to make his dream come true.”
Roger Ward Babson (1875-1967), American financial statistician
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“The dream is real, my friends. The failure to realize it is the only unreality.”
Toni Cade Bambera
“Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time.
Vision with action can change the world.”
Joel Barker
“Imagination has brought mankind through the dark ages to its present state of
civilization. Imagination led Columbus to discover America. Imagination led Franklin to
discover electricity. Imagination has given us the steam engine, the telephone, the
talking-machine, and the automobile, for these things had to be dreamed of before they
became realities. So I believe that dreams--daydreams, you know, with your eyes wide
open and your brain machinery whizzing--are likely to lead to the betterment of the
world. The imaginative child will become the imaginative man or woman most apt to
invent, and therefore to foster, civilization.”
L. Frank Baum
“A boy is a magical creature you can lock him out of your workshop, but you can't lock
him out of your heart. You can get him out of your study, but you can't get him out of
your mind. Might as well give up he is your captor, your jailer, your boss and your
master a freckled-faced, pint-sized, cat-chasing bundle of noise. But when you come
home at night with only the shattered pieces of your hopes and dreams, he can mend
them like new with two magic words Hi, Dad!”
Alan Marshall Beck (b, 1942), American writer, author
“People who insist on telling their dreams are among the terrors of the breakfast table.”
Max Beerbohm
“Good plans shape good decisions. That's why good planning helps to make elusive
dreams come true.”
“There are people who put their dreams in a little box and say, 'Yes, I've got dreams, of
course I've got dreams.' Then they put the box away and bring it out once in awhile to
look in it, and yep, they're still there. These are great dreams, but they never even get
out of the box. It takes an uncommon amount of guts to put your dreams on the line, to
hold them up and say, 'How good or how bad am I?' That's where courage comes in.”
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“A dream can be nurtured over years and years and then flourish rapidly. . . . Be
patient. It will happen for you. Sooner or later, life will get weary of beating on you and
holding the door shut on you, and then it will let you in and throw you a real party!”
“We must look for ways to be an active force in our own lives. We must take charge of
“The Human Spirit can never be paralyzed. If you are breathing, you can dream.”
Michael Brown
“There are many ways of breaking a heart. Stories were full of hearts being broken by
love, but what really broke a heart was taking away its dream-whatever that dream
might be.”
“Dream manfully and nobly, and thy dreams shall be prophets.”
Lytton
“When you have a dream you've got to grab it and never let go.”
Carol Burnett (b. 1933), American actress, singer, commedian
“The winner of the hoop race will be the first to realize her dream, not society's dream,
her own personal dream.”
“Some people see things that are and ask, Why? Some people dream of things that never
were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don't have time for all that
“
George (Denis) Carlin (b. 1937), American commedian, entertainer
“One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off
living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon-instead of
enjoying the roses blooming outside our windows today.”
“We live in the present, we dream of the future, but we learn eternal truths from the
past.”
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“We live in the present, we dream of the future, but we learn eternal truths from the
past.”
May-lin Soong Chiang, [Madame Chaing Kai-Shek]
“I dream of wayward gulls and all landless lovers, rare moments of winter sun, peace,
privacy, for everyone.”
William F(rancis) Claire (b. 1935), American writer, author
“Humanity needs practical men, who get the most out of their work, and, without
forgetting the general good, safeguard their own interests. But humanity also needs
dreamers, for whom the disinterested development of an enterprise is so captivating that
it becomes impossible for them to devote their care to their own material profit. A wellorganized society should assure to such workers the efficient means of accomplishing
their task, in a life freed from material care and freely consecrated to research.”
Marie Curie (1867-1934), [Manja Sklodowska] Polish-born French chemist, Nobel
“I walked beside the evening sea And dreamed a dream that could not be; The waves
that plunged along the shore Said only: “Dreamer, dream no more!”
George William Curtis (1824-92), American journalist, reformer
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Education
"Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the
form of facts.”
“A teacher affects eternity he can never tell, where his influence stops.”
“There are obviously two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the
other how to live.”
“My father taught me to work; he did not teach me to love it.”
William Adams
“What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the soul.”
“I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world
would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning,
understanding, patience, love, openness and the willingness to remain vulnerable.”
“The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence. He inspires
self-distrust. He guides their eyes from himself to the spirit that quickens him. He will
have no disciple.”
Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888), American educator, social reformer,” Table Talk"
“Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other.”
Kurt Herbert Alder (1902-58), German chemist
“Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It's not something you learn in
school. But if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven't learned
anything.”
Muhammad Ali (b. 1942), [Cassius Clay] American prizefighter
103
"I had a terrible education. I attended a school for emotionally disturbed teachers.”
“When I was in school, I cheated on my metaphysics exam: I looked into the soul of the
boy sitting next to me.”
“To know how to suggest is the art of teaching.”
“Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt.”
Paul Anderson
“The quality of strength lined with tenderness is an unbeatable combination, as are
intelligence and necessity when unblunted by formal education.”
“I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides
homework.”
“We are like children, who stand in need of masters to enlighten us and direct us; and
God has provided for this, by appointing his angels to be our teachers and guides.”
“You cannot teach a crab to walk straight.”
Aristophenes (448?-388? BC), Athenian playwright
“Wit is educated insolence.”
it.”
"The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.”
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“The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.”
“...what thwarts us and demands of us the greatest effort is also what can teach us
most.”
“Real education should educate us out of self into something far finer; into a
selflessness which links us with all humanity.”
Lady Nancy Astor (1879-1964), English politician, first female member of the British
Parliament
“For that's what a woman, a mother wants -- to teach her children to take an interest in
life. She knows it's safer for them to be interested in other people's happiness than to
believe in their own.”
“Learning is finding out what you already know, Doing is demonstrating that you know
it, Teaching is reminding others that they know it as well as you do. We are all learners,
doers, and teachers.”
“You teach best what you most need to learn.”
“If you cannot teach me to fly, teach me to sing.”
Sir James Matthew Barrie (1860-1937), British writer
“The test and the use of man's education is that he finds pleasure in the exercise of his
mind.”
Columbia University
105
Effort
"Ethical religion can be real only to those who are engaged in ceaseless efforts at moral
improvement.By moving upward we acquire faith in an upward movement, without
limit.”
Felix Adler (1851-1933), American educator
“A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to
make it worth the effort.”
Herm Albright
“Work joyfully and peacefully, knowing that right thoughts and right efforts will
inevitably bring about right results.”
most.”
“Our lives don't really belong to us, you see -- they belong to the world, and in spite of
our efforts to make sense of it, the world is a place beyond our understanding.”
Paul Auster
“The mode by which the inevitable comes to pass is effort.”
“The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will
win.”
Roger Bannister
“Happiness includes chiefly the idea of satisfaction after full honest effort. No one can
possibly be satisfied and no one can be happy who feels that in some paramount affairs
he failed to take up the challenge of life.”
(Enoch) Arnold Bennett (1867-1931), British writer, novelist
106
“Continuous effort--not strength or intelligence--is the key to unlocking our potential.”
Black Elk (1863-1950), Native American
"It's the constant and determined effort that breaks down all resistance, sweeps away all
obstacles.”
Claude M. Bristol
“Men judge us by the success of our efforts. God looks at the efforts themselves.”
“The last dejected effort often becomes the winning stroke.”
W. J. Cameron
“Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out...”
Robert J. Collier (1876-1918), Writer, author
“Love is the extra effort we make in our dealings with those whom we do not like and
“Of what significance is one's one existence, one is basically unaware. What does a fish
know about the water in which he swims all his life? The bitter and the sweet come from
outside. The hard from within, from one's own efforts. For the most part I do what my
own nature drives me to do. It is embarrassing to earn such respect and love for it.”
“As long as Nazi violence was unleashed only, or mainly, against the Jews, the rest of
the world looked on passively and even treaties and agreements were made with the
patently criminal government of the Third Reich.... The doors of Palestine were closed to
Jewish immigrants, and no country could be found that would admit those forsaken
people. They were left to perish like their brothers and sisters in the occupied countries.
We shall never forget the heroic efforts of the small countries, of the Scandinavian, the
107
Dutch, the Swiss nations, and of individuals in the occupied part of Europe who did all
in their power to protect Jewish lives.”
“For with slight efforts how should we obtain great results? It is foolish even to desire
it.”
Euripides (480?-406 BC), Greek dramatist, "Media," "Hippolytus"
“The essence of our effort to see that every child has a chance must be to assure each an
equal opportunity, not to become equal, but to become different-to realize whatever
unique potential of body, mind and spirit he or she possesses.”
John Martin Fischer (b. 1952), Dean, Teachers College, Columbia University
"Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is. The
most important product of his effort is his own personality.”
conditioning
“Who will tell whether one happy moment of love, or the joy of breathing or walking on
a bright morning and smelling the fresh air, is not worth all the suffering and effort
which life implies?”
conditioning
“Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment, full effort is full victory.”
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948), [Mahatma] India nationalist, spiritual leader
“Satisfaction lies in the effort not the attainment. Full effort is full victory.”
“Men give me credit for some genius. All the genius I have lies in this; when I have a
subject in hand, I study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me. My mind becomes
pervaded with it. Then the effort that I have made is what people are pleased to call the
fruit of genius. It is the fruit of labor and thought.”
Alexander Hamilton (1755?-1804), American politician, first US Secretary of the Treasury
“Some men give up their designs when they have almost reached the goal; While others,
on the contrary, obtain a victory by exerting, at the last moment, more vigorous efforts
than ever before.”
Heroditus (5th century BC), Greek historian, earliest known examples of narrative history
108
“The mode by which the inevitable comes to pass is effort.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809-94), American writer, physician
“You must not for one instant give up the effort to build new lives for yourselves.
Creativity means to push open the heavy, groaning doorway to life. This is not an easy
struggle. Indeed, it may be the most difficult task in the world, for opening the door to
your own life is, in the end, more difficult than opening the doors to the mysteries of the
universe.”
Daisaku Ikeda
“[Book dedication:] To myself, without whose inspired and tireless efforts this book
would not have been possible.”
Al Jaffee
“The fountain of content must spring up in the mind, and he who hath so little
knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own
disposition, will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief he proposes to
remove.”
English Language"
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Equality
"Marriage is that relation between man and woman in which the independence is equal,
the dependence mutual, and the obligation reciprocal.”
Louis K. Anspacher
“If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy,
they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost.”
“There is little friendship in the world, and least of all between equals.”
“True love is eternal, infinite, and always like itself. It is equal and pure, without violent
demonstrations: it is seen with white hairs and is always young in the heart.”
“Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men! Do not pray for tasks equal to
your powers. Pray for power equal to your tasks.”
“Men feel that cruelty to the poor is a kind of cruelty to animals. They never feel that it
is an injustice to equals; nay it is treachery to comrades.”
“The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue
of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.”
author
“A cat will look down to a man. A dog will look up to a man. But a pig will look you
straight in the eye and see his equal.”
author
“There is no calamity which a great nation can invite which equals that which follows a
supine submission to wrong and injustice and the consequent loss of national selfrespect and honor, beneath which are shielded and defended a people's safety and
greatness.”
Grover Cleveland (1837-1908), 22nd US President, Democrat, politician
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“If the objects who serve us feel ecstacy, they are much more often concerned with
themselves than with us, and our own enjoyment is consequently impaired. The idea of
seeing another person experience the same pleasure reduces one to a kind of equality
which spoils the unutterable charms that come from despotism.”
"Good sense is of all things in the world the most equally distributed, for everybody
thinks he is so well supplied with it, that even those most difficult to please in all other
matters never desire more of it than they already possess.”
René Descartes (1596-1650), French mathematician, philosopher, father of analytic
geometry
“Death comes equally to us all, and makes us all equal when it comes.”
John Donne (1572-1631), English metaphysical poet
“A good deal happens in a man's life that he isn't responsible for. Fortunate openings
occur; but it is safe to remember that such 'breaks' are occurring all the time, and other
things being equal, the advantage goes to the man who is ready.”
Lawrence Downs
“All this talk about equality. The only thing people really have in common is that they
are all going to die.”
Bob Dylan (b. 1941), American musician, "Blowin' in the Wind"
“E=mc² (Energy equals mass times the square of the speed of light.) Original statement:
If a body gives off the energy L in the form of radiation, its mass diminshes by L/c².”
“Before God we are equally wise--and equally foolish.”
“If A equals success, then the formula is A equals X plus Y plus Z. X is work. Y is play. Z
is keep your mouth shut.”
“Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish.”
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“What I must do is all that concerns me. This rule, equally arduous in actual and
intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It
is harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty
better than you know it.”
“America is so vast that almost everything said about it is likely to be true, and the
opposite is probably equally true.”
James T. Farell
"America is so vast that almost everything said about it is likely to be true, and the
opposite is probably equally true.”
James T. Farrell (1904-79), American novelist
“The essence of our effort to see that every child has a chance must be to assure each an
equal opportunity, not to become equal, but to become different-to realize whatever
unique potential of body, mind and spirit he or she possesses.”
John Martin Fischer (b. 1952), Dean, Teachers College, Columbia University
“The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as the poor, to sleep under
the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.”
Anatole France (1844-1924), French critic, writer, "Penguin Island"
“To be humble to superiors is duty, to equals courtesy, to inferiors nobleness.”
Constitution
“The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all
considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by
the magistrate, as equally useful.”
Edward Gibbon (1737-94), British historian, writer, "The ... Decline and Fall Roman …
Empire"
“I am indeed rich, since my income is superior to my expense, and my expense is equal
to my wishes.”
“For every romantic possiblity, no matter how robust, there exists at least one equal and
opposite sentence, phrase, or word capable of extinguishing it.”
Malcom Gladwell
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“All fingers are not alike, If you cut bigger ones to make all equal it is communism, If
you stretch smaller ones to make all equal it is socialism, If you do nothing to make all
equal it is capitalism.”
B. J. Gupta
“A friend should be one in whose understanding and virtue we can equally confide, and
whose opinion we can value at once for its justness and its sincerity.”
Robert Hall
“Old age equalizes- we are aware that what is happening to us has happened to untold
numbers from the beginning of time. When we are young we act as if we were the first
young people in the world.”
Jane Harrison
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Excellence
"I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something
and finding something else on the way.”
“The best date movies give you something to talk about. A movie that's a downer is a
great way to find out about someone.”
“The great use of life is to spend it on something that will outlast it.”
“Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of
the weak; and that it is doing God's service when it is violating all his laws.”
“If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the
animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel nor
your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you and may posterity forget that
ye were once our countrymen.”
Samuel Adams (1722-1893), American revolutionary
“Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered
down from generation to generation as presents to the posterity of those who are yet
unborn.”
“The greatest sweetener of human life is Friendship. To raise this to the highest pitch of
enjoyment, is a secret which but few discover.”
“There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief.”
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"Little friends may prove great friends.”
“You may share the labours of the great, but you may not share the spoil.”
“Love is a great beautifier.”
“A plane is a bad place for an all-out sleep, but a good place to begin rest and recovery
from the trip to the faraway places you've been, a decompression chamber between Here
and There. Though a plane is not the ideal place really to think, to reassess or
reevaluate things, it is a great place to have the illusion of doing so, and often the
illusion will suffice.”
Shana Alexander (b. 1925), American writer, editor
“The great roe is a mythological beast with the head of a lion and the body of a lion,
though not the same lion.”
“Distinction is the consequence, never the object of a great mind.”
George Washington Allston (1779-1843), American painter, writer
“Trying to be normal is the greatest abnormality in the world.”
Becky Alunan
Eric Anderson
“Let us be very careful not to fall into the trap of the world. The world views things only
relative to man and to self. The Word of God views things relative to the Father, Son,
and Spirit. Mankind is not the center of all things. No matter how great anyone's name
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might become, it is still far behind His. Our name comes from His life; the name of our
Lord comes from the resurrection--the event unique to Him. The world has a problem; it
seeks to honor, uphold, exonerate and generally praise itself. Our place and the place of
the entire world system is to praise and exalt God. When people of the Bible caught a
glimpse of Him, their lives were changed. Perhaps our lives remain stagnate because we
do not spend enough time looking at Him.”
Roger Anderson
"My life has been one great big joke A dance that's walked A song that's spoke, I laugh
so hard I almost choke When I think about myself.”
John A. Appleman
“All the world wondered as they witnessed ... a people lift themselves from humiliation
to the greatest pride.”
Corazón Cojuangco Aquino (b. 1933), President of the Philippines
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and
philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.”
Julie Arabi
“Nothing, it appears to me is of greater value in a man than the power of judgement;
and the man who has it may be compared to a chest fulled with books, for he is the son
of nature and the father of art.”
“A great city is not to be confounded with a populous one.”
most.”
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“A mediocre idea that generates enthusiasm will go further than a great idea that
inspires no one.”
Mary Kay Ash (b. 1915), American cosmetics executive, founded "Mary Kay Cosmetics,
Inc."
“In a great romance, each person plays a part the other really likes.”
Elizabeth Ashley (b. 1939), American actress, won Tony
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Experience
"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the
“The trouble with this country is that there are too many politicians who believe, with a
conviction based on experience, that you can fool all of the people all of the time.”
“It is impossible to experience one's death objectively and still carry a tune.”
“The fact that people have religious experiences is interesting from the psychological
point of view, but it does not in any way imply that there is such a thing as religious
knowledge...Unless he can formulate this 'knowledge' in propositions that are
empirically verifiable, we may be sure that he is deceiving himself.”
Alfred Jules Ayer (b. 1910), British philosopher
“Sometimes when learning comes before experience It doesn't make sense right away.”
“The questions which one asks oneself begin, at least, to illuminate the world, and
become one's key to the experience of others.”
advisor
“Our sweetest experiences of affection are meant to point us to that realm which is the
real and endless home of the heart.”
“Recommend virtue to your children; it alone, not money, can make them happy. I speak
from experience.”
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), German composer
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“Happy the man who, like Ulysses, has made a fine voyage, or has won the Golden
Fleece, and then returns, experienced and knowledgeable, to spend the rest of his life
among his family!”
Joachim du Bellay (1522-60), French poet
"Bill Dickey is learning me his experience.”
Lawrence Peter Berra (b. 1925), [Yogi] American baseball player, manager
“It's a wise man who profits by his own experience, but it's a good deal wiser one who
lets the rattlesnake bite the other fellow.”
“Time lost is time when we have not lived a full human life, time unenriched by
experience, creative endeavor, enjoyment, and suffering.”
“The American experience stirred mankind from discovery to exploration, from the
cautious quest for what they knew (or what they thought they knew) was out there, to an
enthusiastic reaching to the unknown.”
“The possibilities for mobilizing the experience, imaginations, and intelligence of
workers, both employed and unemployed, are limitless.”
Dominique Bouhours
“Writing, I think, is not apart from living. Writing is a kind of double living. The writer
experiences everything twice. Once in reality and once in the mirror which waits always
before or behind.”
Catherine Drinker Bowen
“Our live experiences, fixed in aphorisms, stiffen into cold epigrams. Our heart's blood,
as we write it, turns to mere dull ink.”
F. H. Bradley (1846-1924), English philosopher
“There's no fool like an old fool --- you can't beat experience.”
Jacob M(orton) Braude (1896-1970), Amerian writer, author
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"Good judgement is the result of experience ... Experience is the result of bad
judgement.”
Fred Brooks
“One good thing about being young is that you are not experienced enough to know you
cannot possibly do the things you are doing.”
Gene Brown
“Good judgment comes from experience, and often experience comes from bad
judgment.”
William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925), American lawyer, speaker, polititian
“Religion points to that area of human experience where in one way or another man
comes upon mystery as a summons to pilgrimage.”
(Carl) Frederick Buechner (b. 1926), American writer, author, "The Alphabet of Grace,"
"The Entrance to Porlock"
“What each must seek in his own life never was on land or sea. It is something that
never has been and never could have been experienced by anyone else.”
Joseph Campbell (1904-87), American mythologist
“Eternity has nothing to do with the hereafter... This is it... If you don't get it here, you
won't get it anywhere. The experience of eternity right here and now is the function of
life. Heaven is not the place to have the experience; here's the place to have the
experience.”
“I don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking
for the experience of being alive.”
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“A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience.”
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Faith
"If you don't change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news?”
“Be not afraid of life. Believe that life IS worth living and your belief will help create the
fact.”
“The radical novelty of modern science lies precisely in the rejection of the belief, which
is at the heart of all popular religion, that the forces which move the stars and atoms are
contingent upon the preferences of the human heart.”
Richard Adams (b. 1920), English author, "Watership Down"
“Ethical religion can be real only to those who are engaged in ceaseless efforts at moral
improvement.By moving upward we acquire faith in an upward movement, without
limit.”
“The outer conditions of a person's life will always be found to reflect their inner
beliefs.”
“I call that mind free which jealously guards its intellectual rights and powers, which
calls no man master, which does not content itself with a passive or hereditary faith,
[and] receives new truth as an angel from Heaven.”
“A belief is not true because it is useful.”
“Love is faith, and one faith leads to another.”
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"We can all be angels to one another. We can choose to obey the still small stirring
“Treat the other man's faith gently; it is all he has to believe with.”
“Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you
believe.”
“Ours is a country built more on people than on territory. The Jews will come from
everywhere: from France, from Russia, from America, from Yemen. ... Their faith is
their passport.”
“The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What
the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.”
“The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The
moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the
sea engulfs us and the light goes out.”
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“One of the things I learned the hard way was that it doesn't pay to get discouraged.
Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself.”
Lucille Ball (1911-89), US actress, producer
“Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or
the handle of faith.”
"Strike from mankind the principle of faith and men would have no more history than a
flock of sheep.”
Mark Beltaire
“Strike from mankind the principle of faith and men would have no more history than a
flock of sheep.”
Mark Beltaire
“I had an immense advantage over many others dealing with the problem inasmuch as I
had no fixed ideas derived from long-established practice to control and bias my mind,
and did not suffer from the general belief that whatever is, is right.”
Henry Bessemer
Henry Bessemer
“But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness,
faith, love, patience, meekness.”
1 Timothy 6:11 Bible (15th-16th century), (First known English translation from the Latin)
“A faithful friend is a strong defense: and he that hath found such an one hath found a
treasure.”
Ecclesiasticus 6:14 Bible (15th-16th century), (First known English translation from the
Latin)
“To have faith is to be sure of the things we hope for, to be certain of the things we
cannot see. It was by their faith that people of ancient times won God's approval.”
Hebrews 11:1-2 Bible (15th-16th century), (First known English translation from the Latin)
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“Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before
Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the
throne of God.”
Hebrews 12:2 Bible (15th-16th century), (First known English translation from the Latin)
“Absurdity. A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.”
Ambrose Gwinett Bierce (1842-1914), American writer
“A belief is not merely an idea the mind possesses; it is an idea that possesses the
mind.”
Robert Oxton Bolt (b. 1924), English author, "Man for All Seasons"
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Fate
"Success is a journey not a destination. The doing is usually more important than the
outcome. Not everyone can be Number 1.”
Arthur Robert Ashe, Jr. (b. 1943), American tennis champion, AIDS activist
“Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings
you together, but do so with all your heart.”
“On the edge of destiny, you must test your strength.”
Handmaiden"
“Desire nothing, Chafe not at fate, nor at Nature's changeless laws. But struggle only
“Sow an act...reap a habit; Sow a habit...reap a character; Sow a character...reap a
destiny.”
“We must look for ways to be an active force in our own lives. We must take charge of
“'It is destiny' - phrase of the weak human heart! 'It is destiny' - dark apology for every
E. R. Bulwer-Lytton
“Destiny is but a phrase of the weak human heart - the dark apology for every error.
The strong and virtuous admit no destiny. On earth conscience guides; in heaven God
other.”
Lytton
“The strong and virtuous admit no destiny.”
Lytton
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“[Jesus'] ministry was clearly defined, and the alternatives to the illusion and
Joan B. Campbell
"Take control of your destiny. Believe in yourself. Ignore those who try to discourage
you. Avoid negative sources, people, places, things and habits. Don't give up and don't
give in.”
Wanda Carter
“I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate
that falls on them unless they act.”
“The capacity for hope is the most significant fact of life. It provides human beings with
a sense of destination and the energy to get started.”
“The main failure of education is that it has not prepared people to comprehend matters
concerning human destiny.”
“The best of men cannot suspend their fate: The good die early, and the bad die late.”
Daniel Defoe (1660-1731), English journalist, novelist
“Through perseverance many people win success out of what seemed destined to be
certain failure.”
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“Thoughts lead on to purposes; purposes go forth in action; actions form habits; habits
“To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself.”
"We scientists, whose tragic destiny it has been to make the methods of annihilation ever
more gruesome and more effective, must consider it our solemn and transcendent duty to
do all in our power in preventing these weapons from being used for the brutal purpose
for which they were invented.”
“The individual must not merely wait and criticize, he must defend the cause the best he
can. The fate of the world will be such as the world deserves.”
“Human beings are not condemned, because of their biological constitution, to
annihilate each other or to be at the mercy of a cruel, self-inflicted fate.”
“Concern for man himself and his fate must always form the chief interest of all
equations.”
“The highest destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule.”
“Intellect annuls fate. So far as a man thinks, he is free.”
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“No amount of travel on the wrong road will bring you to the right destination.”
Ben Gaye, III
“Man supposes that he directs his life and governs his actions, when his existence is
irretrievably under the control of destiny.”
drama and novel
“Remember that happiness is a way of travel, not a destination.”
Roy Goodman
“Happiness is not a destination. It is a method of life.”
Burton Hills
129
Football
"If a man watches three football games in a row he should be declared legally dead.”
“If anything goes bad, I did it. If anything goes semi-good, we did it. If anything goes
really good, then you did it. That's all it takes to get people to win football games for
you.”
Paul William "Bear" Bryant (1913-83), American football coach
“In Louisiana we don't bet on football games ... We bet on whether a politician is going
to be indicted or not.”
Mark Duffy
“The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real
success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an
army, or in an office.”
“The game of life is a lot like football. You have to tackle your problems, block your
fears, and score your points when you get the opportunity.”
Lewis Grizzard
“Men kick friendship around like a football, but it doesn't seem to crack. Women treat it
like glass and it goes to pieces.”
Anne Spencer Morrow Lindbergh (b. 1906), American aviator, writer, "North to the Orient"
“The Green Bay Packers never lost a football game. They just ran out of time.”
Vincent Thomas "Vince" Lombardi (1913-70), American football coach, led Green Bay
Packers to 6 conference titles
“People who work together will win, whether it be against complex football defenses, or
the problems of modern society.”
“Sure, luck means a lot in football. Not having a good quarterback is bad luck.”
Don Schula, Miami Dolphins football coach
“Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I don't like that attitude. I can
assure them it is much more serious than that.”
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Bill Shankly
"The word 'genius' isn't applicable in football. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein.”
Joe Theisman, [Broadway] NFL football quarterback and sports analyst
“Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein.”
Joe Theisman, [Broadway] NFL football quarterback and sports analyst
“The rest of the world is sweeping past us. The oil and gas of the Texas future is the
well-educated mind. But we are still worried about whether Midland can beat Odessa at
football.”
Mark White, Governor of Texas
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Forgiveness
"Christmas gift suggestions: To your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To
a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good
example. To yourself, respect.”
Oren Arnold
“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 may not forget you.”
Sir William Arthur (1890-1967), British air marshal
“Let those who think I have said too little and those who think I have said too much,
forgive me; and let those who think I have said just enough thank God with me.”
“We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to
forgive our friends.”
“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.”
“It is always the case that when the Christian looks back, he is looking at the
forgiveness of sins.”
Karl Barth (1886-1968), Swiss Protestant theologian
“There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness.”
“Mutual forgiveness of each vice. Such are the Gates of Paradise.”
“The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness.”
“You are forgiven for your happiness and your successes only if you generously consent
to share them.”
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"It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.”
“People are always asking couples whose marriage has endured at least a quarter of a
century for their secret for success. Actually, it is no secret at all. I am a forgiving
woman. Long ago, I forgave my husband for not being Paul Newman.”
“Some tension is necessary for the soul to grow, and we can put that tension to good
use. We can look for every opportunity to give and receive love, to appreciate nature, to
heal our wounds and the wounds of others, to forgive, and to serve.”
Joan Borysenko
to share them.”
“Never does the human soul appear so strong and noble as when it forgoes revenge and
dares to forgive injury.”
Edwin Hubbel Chapin
“To understand is to forgive, even oneself.”
Alexander Chase
“Vicious minds abound with anger and revenge are incapable of feeling the pleasure of
forgiving their enemies.”
politician, writer
“Life is an adventure in forgiveness.”
“To know all is not to forgive all. It is to despise everybody.”
“The idea of God is the sole wrong for which I cannot forgive mankind.”
133
"But I am sure that I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come
round...as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know
of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open
their shut-up hearts freely.”
“We do not quite forgive a giver. The hand that feeds us is in some danger of being
bitten.”
“As I rejected amnesty, so I reject revenge. I ask all Americans who ever asked for
goodness and mercy in their lives, who ever sought forgiveness for their trespasses, to
join in rehabilitating all the casualties of the tragic conflict of the past." (On Americans
who avoided conscription during the Vietnam War, to Veterans of Foreign Wars)
Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913), 38th US President, Republican
“The age of Grace began in mid-Acts, after the conversion of the Apostle Paul. It is
through his letters alone that we learn about the dispensation of Grace, about Israel
being set aside, with Jew and Gentile being saved into the Body of Christ. It was Paul
who taught 'all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to forsake Moses' (Acts 21:21). It
was also Paul who proclaimed the forgiveness of sins 'to all who would believe' in
Christ, adding that 'ye could not be justified by the law of Moses' (Acts 13:38-39). The
measuring rod of grace tells us that the age of Grace began with Paul, then continued
through those who were saved and subsequently carried on His God-given doctrines of
grace.”
John Fredericksen
“Forgive me my nonsense as I also forgive the nonsense of those who think they talk
sense.”
“Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee and I'll forgive Thy great big one on me.”
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
“To forgive is human, to forget divine. . ..”
James Grand
134
“Forgiveness breaks the chain of causality because he who forgives you -- out of love-takes upon himself the consequences of what you have done. Forgiveness, therefore,
always entails a sacrifice.”
Dag Hjalmar Agné Carl Hammarskjold (1905-61), Swedish political leader, secretarygeneral of the UN
“The first thing was, I learned to forgive myself. Then, I told myself, 'Go ahead and do
whatever you want, it's okay by me.'“
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Freedom
"The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount
of security enjoyed by minorities.”
Lord John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton (1834-1902), British historian
“Our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be
left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty.”
“That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe
the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the
United states who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms...”
“If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of
free men we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”
William Adams
“If we value the pursuit of knowledge, we must be free to follow wherever that search
may lead us. The free mind is no barking dog to be tethered on a 1-foot chain.”
Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno (1903-69), German philosopher and sociologist
“For what is liberty but the unhampered translation of will into act?”
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Italian poet
“You have spent many lives and much treasure to bring freedom to many lands that
were reluctant to receive it. And here you have a people who won it by themselves and
need only the help to preserve it.”
136
“Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom.”
"If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they
will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost.”
“Let thy chief fort and place of defense be a mind free from passions. A stronger place
and better fortified than this, hath no man.”
“Men are never so likely to settle a question rightly as when they discuss it freely.”
Thomas Babington, [Lord Macauley]
“Freedom is not something that anybody can be given; Freedom is something that
people take and people are as free as they want to be.”
“Politics should be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights
and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our
national heritage.”
“What a curious phenomenon it is that you can get men to die for the liberty of the
world who will not make the little sacrifice that is needed to free themselves from their
own individual bondage.”
“When humans participate in ceremony, they enter a sacred space. Everything outside
of that space shrivels in importance. Time takes on a different dimension. Emotions flow
more freely. The bodies of participants become filled with the energy of life, and this
energy reaches out and blesses the creation around them. All is made new; everything
becomes sacred.”
Sun Bear
“Only reason can convince us of those three fundamental truths without a recognition of
which there can be no effective liberty: that what we believe is not necessarily true; that
what we like is not necessarily good; and that all questions are open.”
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outgoing of love, from enslavement to that most intolerable of master, myself.”
yourself.”
"The truth which makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to
hear.”
Lincoln Was Shot"
“If being wealthy is taken to mean having the means to satisfy one's every want, all but
the very poor can become rich as thou at a single stroke of a magician's wand, simply by
ceasing to want more than is really necessary for sustaining life. By being content with
little and not giving a rap for what the neighbours think, one can attain a very large
measure of freedom, shedding care and worry in a trice.”
John Blofeld
“The free man is he who does not fear to go to the end of his thought.”
Leon Blum
“An adventure differs from a mere feat in that it is tied to the externally unattainable.
Only one end of the rope is in the hand, the other is not visible, and neither prayers, nor
daring, nor reason can shake it free.”
William Bolitho (1890-1930), British author
“Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the
subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is a
history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it.”
“It is not a loss of freedom. It's a measure to protect it. [on gun control]”
James Brady
138
“Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the
Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel
invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in
insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”
Louis Dembitz Brandeis (1856-1941), Justice US Supreme Court
“Praise out of season, or tactlessly bestowed, can freeze the heart as much as blame.”
“The whole secret of existence is to have no fear. Never fear what will become of you,
depend on no one. Only the moment you reject all help are you freed.”
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Friends
"There are times when I think that the ideal library is composed solely of reference
“A friend in power is a friend lost.”
“One friend in a lifetime is much; two are many; three are hardly possible.”
“My heart has joined the Thousand, for my friend stopped running today.”
Richard Adams (b. 1920), English author, "Watership Down"
“I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end, when I come
to lay down the reins of power, I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least
have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside me.”
William Adams
“Few men have the natural strength to honour a friend's success without envy.”
“For not many men, the proverb saith, can love a friend whom fortune prospereth
unenvying.”
prospered.”
“Little friends may prove great friends.”
“Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.”
"A doubtful friend is worse than a certain enemy. Let a man be one thing or the other,
and we then know how to meet him.”
140
“One who's our friend is fond of us; one who's fond of us isn't necessarily our friend.”
Geoffrey F. Albert
“STAY is a charming word in a friend's vocabulary.”
Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888), American educator, social reformer,"Table Talk"
anything.”
“Real art is without irony. Irony distances the author from his material. Irony is a
product of something. It's not the reason for doing something. Irony is a cheap shot.”
Robert B. Altman (b. 1925), American director, producer, "M*A*S*H"
“For me it is sufficient to have a corner by my hearth, a book and a friend, and a nap
undisturbed by creditors or grief.”
Fernandez de Andrada
“Choose your friends carefully. Your enemies will choose you.”
Yassir Arafat
“Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.”
“This communicating of a man's self to his friend works two contrary effects; for it
redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in half.”
“What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.”
"Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is slow-ripening fruit.”
“The best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.”
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“In poverty and other misfortunes of life, true friends are a sure refuge. The young they
“Christmas gift suggestions: To your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To
a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good
example. To yourself, respect.”
Oren Arnold
“It was from an old friend who . thought he was dying. Anyway, he said, 'Life and death
issues don't come along that often, thank God, so don't treat everything like it's life or
death. Go easier.'“
“A friend is someone who sees through you and still enjoys the view.”
Wilma Askinas
“I love America because America trusts me. When I go into a shop to buy a pair of shoes
I am not asked to produce my Identity Card. I love it because my mail is not censored.
My phone is not tapped. My conversation with friends is not reported to the secret
police.”
Janina Atkins, Polish-born student
“Even in the common affairs of life, in love, friendship, and marriage, how little security
have we when we trust our happiness in the hands of others!”
Paul Aubuchon
“To be capable of steady friendship or lasting love, are the two greatest proofs, not only
of goodness of heart, but of strength of mind.”
Paul Aubuchon
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Generosity
"O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be
understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it
is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”
“For it is in giving that we receive.”
“O, Divine Master, Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console; To
be understood as to understand; To be loved as to love; For it is in giving that we
receive; It is in pardoning that we are pardoned; And it is in dying to ourselves that we
are born to eternal life. Amen.”
“It is not in giving life but in risking life that man is raised above the animal; that is why
superiority has been accorded in humanity not to the sex that brings forth but to that
which kills.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908-86), French writer, feminist
“If my own son, who is now 10 months, came to me and said, 'You promised to pay for
my tuition at Harvard; how about giving me $50,000 instead to start a little business?' I
might think that was a good idea.”
to share them.”
John Blofeld
“You need more fact in the dangerous art of giving presents than in any other social
action.”
143
“Celebrate the happiness that friends are always giving, make every day a holiday and
celebrate just living!”
Amanda Bradley
"O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be
understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it
is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”
“For it is in giving that we receive.”
“O, Divine Master, Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console; To
be understood as to understand; To be loved as to love; For it is in giving that we
receive; It is in pardoning that we are pardoned; And it is in dying to ourselves that we
are born to eternal life. Amen.”
“It is not in giving life but in risking life that man is raised above the animal; that is why
superiority has been accorded in humanity not to the sex that brings forth but to that
which kills.”
Simone de Beauvoir (1908-86), French writer, feminist
“If my own son, who is now 10 months, came to me and said, 'You promised to pay for
my tuition at Harvard; how about giving me $50,000 instead to start a little business?' I
might think that was a good idea.”
to share them.”
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John Blofeld
“You need more fact in the dangerous art of giving presents than in any other social
action.”
“Celebrate the happiness that friends are always giving, make every day a holiday and
celebrate just living!”
Amanda Bradley
"You start out giving your hat, then you give your coat, then your shirt, then your skin
and finally your soul.”
General Charles De Gaulle (1890-1970), French general, statesman, President
“Blessed is the man who, having nothing to stay, abstains from giving us worthy
evidence of the fact.”
“Blessed is the person who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence
of the fact.”
“Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence
of the fact.”
“Only to the extent that someone is living out this self transcendence of human
existence, is he truly human or does he become his true self. He becomes so, not by
concerning himself with his self's actualization, but by forgetting himself and giving
himself, overlooking himself and focusing outward.”
Univ. Vienna
“Teachers believe they have a gift for giving; it drives them with the same irrepressible
drive that drives others to create a work of art or a market or a building.”
A(ngelo) Bartlett Giamatti (1938-89), American educator, President, Yale
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“The giving and receiving of pleasure is a need and an ecstasy.”
“Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.”
“Complete possession is proved only by giving. All you are unable to give possesses
you.”
André Gide (1869-1951), French writer, "The Immoralist"
“God is like the sun at high noon, always giving all he has.”
Arthur John Gossip
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Genius
"Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down
from generation to generation as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn.”
Hoshang N. Akhtar
genius.”
“There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.”
“Never think that God's delays are God's denials. Hold on; hold fast; hold out. Patience
is genius.”
George-Louis Leclerc de Buffon (1707-88), [Comte] French naturalist
“Every man who observes vigilantly and resolves steadfastly grows unconsciously into
genius.”
Lytton
“It's as if we think liberation a fixed quantity, that there is only so much to go around.
That an individual or community is liberated at the expense of another: When we view
liberation as a scarce resource, something only a precious few of us can have, we stifle
our potential, our creativity, our genius for living, learning and growing.”
Andrea Canaan
“Man as an individual is a genius. But men in the mass form the Headless Monster, a
great, brutish idiot that goes where prodded.”
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin (1889-1977), British-born actor, director, producer
“Talent, lying in the understanding, is often inherited; genius, being the action of reason
or imagination, rarely or never.”
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), English poet, critic
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“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more
"What makes men of genius, or rather, what they make, is not new ideas, it is that idea possessing them - that what has been said has still not been said enough.”
Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863), French romantic painter
“Our observation of nature must be diligent, our reflection profound, and our
experiments exact. We rarely see these three means combined; and for this reason,
creative geniuses are not common.”
Denis Diderot (1713-84), French philosopher, writer
“Mediocrity can talk; but it is for genius to observe.”
“Desperation is sometimes as powerful an inspirer as genius.”
“Mediocrity does not see higher than itself. But talent instantly recognizes the genius.”
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), British writer, physician, created Sherlock Holmes
“Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.”
“Intellectuals solve problems; geniuses prevent them.”
“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a
touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction.”
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“Every man of genius sees the world at a different angle from his fellows, and there is
his tragedy.”
Henry Havelock Ellis (1859-1939), British psychologist, writer, pioneer work on sexuality
"A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam that flashes across his mind from
within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses
without notice his own thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize
our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a sort of alienated majesty.”
“Universities are of course hostile to geniuses, which, seeing and using ways of their
own, discredit the routine: as churches and monasteries persecute youthful saints.”
“So much of our time is preparation, so much is routine, and so much retrospect, that
the path of each man's genius contracts itself to a very few hours.”
“To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart
is true for all men-that is genius.”
“It is not because the touch of genius has roused genius to production, but because the
admiration of genius has made talent ambitious, that the harvest is still so abundant.”
(Sarah) Margaret Fuller (1810-50), American writer, critic, "Woman in the Nineteenth
Century"
“The especial genius of women I believe to be electrical in movement, intuitive in
function, spiritual in tendency.”
Century"
“Brain researchers estimate that your unconscious database outweighs the conscious on
an order exceeding ten million to one. This database is the source of your hidden,
natural genius. In other words, a part of you is much smarter than you are. The wise
people regularly consult that smarter part.”
Michael J. Gelb (b. 1952), Writer, author
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“Crazy people who are productive are geniuses. Crazy people who are rich are
eccentric. Crazy people who are neither productive nor rich are just plain crazy.
Geniuses and crazy people are both out in the middle of a deep ocean; geniuses swim,
crazy people drown. Most of us are sitting safely on the shore. Take a chance and get
your feet wet.”
Michael J. Gelb (b. 1952), Writer, author
“A science is any discipline in which the fool of this generation can go beyond the point
reached by the genius of the last generation.”
Max Gluckman (1911-75), South African writer, author
“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and
magic in it.”
drama and novel
150
Glory
once been young.”
once been young.”
prospered.”
A. Alvarez (b. 1929), British critic, poet, novelist, “The Savage God”
Roger Anderson
“To them that ask, where have you seen the gods, or how do you know for certain there
are gods, that you are so devout in their worship? I answer: Neither have I ever seen my
own soul, and yet I respect and honor it.”
“I was eleven, then I was sixteen. Though no honors came my way, those were the lovely
years.”
advisor
“We find greatest joy, not in getting, but in expressing what we are...Men do not really
live for honors or for pay; their gladness is not the taking and holding, but in doing, the
151
striving, the building, the living. It is a higher joy to teach than to be taught. It is good to
get justice, but better to do it; fun to have things but more to make them. The happy man
is he who lives the life of love, not for the honors it may bring, but for the life itself.”
R. J. Baughan
“Comfort ye, my people; speak ye peace, thus saith our God. Comfort those who sit in
darkness, mourning 'neath their sorrow's load. For the glory of the Lord now o'er earth
is shed abroad; and all flesh shall see the token that His word is never broken.”
Isaiah 40:1-8 Bible (15th-16th century), (First known English translation from the Latin)
“The glory of Christianity is to conquer by forgiveness.”
“I love all beauteous things, I seek and adore them; God hath no better praise, And man
Robert Bridges
“There is no road too long to the man who advances deliberately and without undue
haste; there are no honors too distant to the man who prepares himself for them with
patience.”
Jean de La Bruyère (1645-96), French writer, moralist
“All honor's wounds are self-inflicted.”
Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919), Scottish-born American industrialist, philanthropist
forever.”
James Earl “Jimmy” Carter, Jr. (b. 1924), 39th US President, Democrat
152
“Never give in! Never give in! Never, never, never. Never -- in anything great or small,
large or petty -- never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.”
author
“Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never -- in nothing, great or small,
author
“Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than
education without natural ability.”
of character.”
greatness.”
“The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is truly free. First, society
begins by trying to beat you up. If this fails, they try to poison you. If this fails too, they
finish by loading honors on your head.”
Jean Cocteau (1889-1963), French author, filmmaker
“Our own heart, and not other men's opinion, form our true honor.”
“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
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“To win without risk is to triumph without glory.”
“I have lived, tomorrow, I shall sleep in glory.”
Georges Jacques Danton (1759-94), French revolutionary leader
“For glory gives herself only to those who have always dreamed of her.”
“A woman of honor should not expect of others things she would not do herself.”
Marguerite de Valois
“What we need to do is learn to work in the system, by which I mean that everybody,
every team, every platform, every division, every component is there not for individual
competitive profit or recognition, but for contribution to the system as a whole on a winwin basis.”
W(illiam) Edwards Deming (1900-93), American statistician, quality-control expert
154
Goals
"The most important thing about having goals is having one.”
Geoffrey F. Abert
“Most success springs from an obstacle or failure. I became a cartoonist largely
because I failed in my goal of becoming a successful executive.”
Scott Adams, American cartoonist
“The most important thing about having goals is having one.”
Geoffrey F. Albert
progress.”
Lloyd Alexander
“Love is the immortal flow of energy that nourishes, extends and preserves. It's eternal
goal is life.”
Smiley Blanton
“A new vision of development is emerging. Development is becoming a people-centered
process, whose ultimate goal must be the improvement of the human condition.”
Boutros Boutros-Ghali (b. 1922), Egyptian government official, diplomat
“Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently
believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.”
Stephen A. Brennan
155
"There is a serious defect in the thinking of someone who wants--more than anything
else--to become rich. As long as they don't have the money, it'll seem like a worthwhile
goal. Once they do, they'll understand how important other things are--and have always
been.”
Joseph Brooks
Eric Butterworth
“You must accept that you might fail; then, if you do your best and still don't win, at
least you can be satisfied that you've tried. If you don't accept failure as a possibility,
you don't set high goals, and you don't branch out, you don't try-you don't take the risk.”
government.”
I Ching (BC 1150)
“The main goal of the future is to stop violence. The world is addicted to it.”
Bill Cosby (b. 1937), African-American comedian, actor, author, commedian
“Obstacles are things a person sees when he takes his eyes off his goal.”
E(li) Joseph Cossman (b. 1918), American writer, author
“Royalty has always been an unconscious but all-consuming goal of the European
immigrant.”
Vine Deloria, Jr.
156
“If I've got correct goals, and if I keep pursuing them the best way I know how,
everything else falls into line. If I do the right thing right, I'm going to succeed.”
Dan Dierdorf
"The achievement of your goal is assured the moment you commit yourself to it.”
Mack R. Douglas
“Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or
accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning,
intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.”
Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931), American inventor, patented more than 1,000
inventions
“In light of knowledge attained, the happy achievement seems almost a matter of course,
and any intelligent student can grasp it without too much trouble. But the years of
anxious searching in the dark, with their intense longing, their alterations of confidence
and exhaustion and the final emergence into the light -- only those who have
experienced it can understand it.”
“The American lives even more for his goals, for the future, than the European. Life for
him is always becoming, never being.”
“If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal. Not to people or things.”
“Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can complel the proper meshing of the huge
industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so
that security and liberty may prosper together.”
“It seems to me that perfection of means and confusion of goals seems to characterize
our age.”
“The ultimate goal should be doing your best and enjoying it.”
Peggy Fleming (b. 1948), American figure skater, won women's title at US champ
157
“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.”
automobile
“It is very important to make sure the person you're marrying is like minded. It's crucial
for a couple to have shared goals and values. The more you have in common the less
you have to argue about.”
Barbara Friedman
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Good
“If I had to choose between putting a saloon or a liberal church on a corner, I'd choose
William Adams
“Those who corrupt the public mind are just as evil as those who steal from the public.”
“I would far rather be ignorant than wise in the foreboding of evil.”
“Destroy the seed of evil, or it will grow up to your ruin.”
“In every child who is born, no matter what circumstances, and of no matter what
parents, the potentiality of the human race is born again: and in him, too, once more,
and of each of us, our terrific responsibility toward human life; toward the utmost idea
of goodness, of the horror of terror, and of God.”
James Agee (1909-55), American writer, critic
Edward Albee
“Money is the root of all evil, and yet it is such a useful root that we cannot get on
without it any more than we can without potatoes.”
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“It's too bad I'm not as wonderful a person as people say I am, because the world could
use a few people like that.”
Alan Alda
"No man or woman of the humblest sort can really be strong, gentle and good, without
the world being better for it, without somebody being helped and comforted by the very
existence of that goodness.”
Alan Alda
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
“A plane is a bad place for an all-out sleep, but a good place to begin rest and recovery
from the trip to the faraway places you've been, a decompression chamber between Here
and There. Though a plane is not the ideal place really to think, to reassess or
reevaluate things, it is a great place to have the illusion of doing so, and often the
illusion will suffice.”
Shana Alexander (b. 1925), American writer, editor
“Good thoughts bear good fruit, bad thoughts bear bad fruit.”
“The good people sleep much better at night than the bad people. Of course, the bad
people enjoy the waking hours much more.”
“Be not as one that hath ten thousand years to live; death is nigh at hand: while thou
livest, while thou hast time, be good.”
“As long as we think we can save ourselves by our own will power, we will only make
the evil in us stronger than ever.”
Heini Arnold (1913-82), [Johann Heinrich Arnold] Austrian writer
“From my close observation of writers...they fall into two groups:1) those who bleed
copiously and visibly at any bad review, and 2) those who bleed copiously and secretly
at any bad review.”
“Goodness does not consist in greatness, but greatness in goodness.”
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“We cheerfully assume that in some mystic way love conquers all, that good outweighs
evil in the just balances of the universe and at the 11th hour something gloriously
triumphant will prevent the worst before it happens.”
"To be capable of steady friendship or lasting love, are the two greatest proofs, not only
Paul Aubuchon
“We are here on earth to do good for others. What the others are here for, I don't
know.”
“A thing is not necessarily true because badly uttered, nor false because spoken
magnificently.”
“We ought to do good to others as simply as a horse runs, or a bee makes honey, or a
vine bears grapes season after season without thinking of the grapes it has borne.”
“Death hangs over thee, While thou still live, while thou may, do good.”
“Life itself is neither good nor evil, but only a place for good and evil.”
“He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils for time is the greatest
innovator.”
“Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.”
“A group of politicians deciding to dump a President because his morals are bad is like
the Mafia getting together to bump off the Godfather for not going to church on
Sunday.”
161
Russell Wayne Baker (b. 1925), American author, writer
“It's the good girls who keep diaries; the bad girls never have the time.”
Tallulah Brockman Bankhead (1903-68), American actress
162
Graduation
"Me, we." (Supposedly the shortest quote in the English language delivered at a
Harvard graduation.)
“I won't say there aren't any Harvard graduates who have never asserted a superior
attitude. But they have done so to our great embarrassment and in no way represent the
Harvard I know.”
Derek Bethune, President, Harvard
“People will frighten you about a graduation....They use words you don't hear often...
'And we wish you Godspeed.' It is a warning, Godpeed. It means you are no longer
welcome here at these prices.”
“The wit of a graduate student is like champagne. Canadian champagne.”
Robertson Davies (b. 1913), Canadian novelist
“The elective system ... offered a bewildering freedom of choice, leaving some graduates
with the impression that they had nibbled at dozens of canapés of knowledge and never
had their fill.”
Ted Morgan
“Love is the vital essence that pervades and permeates, from the center to the
circumference, the graduating circles of all thought and action. Love is the talisman of
human weal and woe--the open sesame to every soul.”
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
“At my graduation, I thought we had to marry what we wished to become. Now you are
becoming the men you once would have wished to marry.”
Gloria Steinem (b. 1934), American feminist, writer, founding editor "Ms." magazine
“'These are days you'll remember.' If you recall nothing else from your graduation
ceremony, remember you heard the New Jersey Governor quote from 10,000 Maniacs.”
Christine Todd, NJ govenor
163
“It is indeed ironic that we spend our school days yearning to graduate and our
remaining days waxing nostalgic about our school days.”
Isabel Waxman
164
Greatness
"Goodness does not consist in greatness, but greatness in goodness.”
“Most certification today is pure 'credentialism.' [It] must begin to reflect our demand
for excellence, not our appreciation of parchment.”
“The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power.”
Mary Bertone
“The difference between greatness and mediocrity is often how an individual views a
mistake...”
Nelson Boswell
“Difficulty, my brethren, is the nurse of greatness-a harsh nurse, who roughly rocks her
foster-children into strength and athletic proportion.”
William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878), American poet, editor
“The secret of joy in work is contained in one word - excellence. To know how to do
something well is to enjoy it.”
“Greatness consists in trying to be great. There is no other way.”
“The price of greatness is responsibility.”
author
greatness.”
165
Let's drink to the spirit of gallantry and courage that made a strange Heaven out of
unbelievable Hell, and let's drink to the hope that one day this country of ours, which we
love so much, will find dignity and greatness and peace again.”
Noel Coward
“It used to take courage--indeed, it was the act of courage par excellence--to leave the
comforts of home and family and go out into the world seeking adventure. Today there
are fewer places to discover, and the real adventure is to stay at home.”
Alvaro de Solva
“What I must do is all that concerns me. This rule, equally arduous in actual and
intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It
is harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty
better than you know it.”
“To be great is to be misunderstood.”
“The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble
activity, and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because philosophy is an exalted
activity, will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its
theories will hold water.”
“Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not
laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.”
“Keep me away from the wisdom that does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh
and the greatness which does not bow before children.”
“I think one of the great problems we have in the Republican Party is that we don't
encourage you to be nasty. We encourage you to be neat, obedient, loyal and faithful
and all those Boy Scout words, which would be great around a campfire but are lousy in
politics.”
Newt Gingrich, US Congressman, Speaker of the House
166
“No one ever achieved greatness by playing it safe.”
Harry Gray
“Cultivate your curiosity. Keep it sharp and always working. Consider curiosity your
life preserver, your willingness to try something new. Second, enlarge your enthusiasm
to include the pursuit to excellence, following every task through to completion. Third,
make the law of averages work for you. By budgeting your time more carefully than
most people you can make more time available. Does the combination of curiosity,
enthusiasm, and the law of averages guarantee success? Indeed it does not! ... Success
in the final analysis always involves luck or the element of chance. Louis Pasteur
grasped this well when he said that chance favors the prepared mind.”
John W. Hanley
"A human action becomes genuinely important when it springs from the soil of a clearsighted awareness of the temporality and the ephemerality of everything human. It is
only this awareness that can breathe any greatness into an action.”
Václav Havel (b. 1936), Czechoslovakian writer, politician, widely known playwright
“We often choose a friend as we do a mistress -- for no particular excellence in
themselves, but merely from some circumstance that flatters our self-love.”
“If we were to be asked suddenly to give a definition of humility we would doubtless be
greatly embarrassed.”
Edwin Holt Hughes
“There is no such thing as a little country. The greatness of a people is no more
determined by their numbers than the greatness of a man is by his height.”
“We must not measure greatness from the mansion down, but from the manger up.”
minister
“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence
is expected.”
Stephen Jobs
“I believe the destiny of your generation-and your nation-is a rendezvous with
excellence.”
Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908-73), 36th US President, Democrat
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“The noblest search is the search for excellence.”
“There is no real excellence in all this world Which can be separated from right living.”
David Star Jordan (1851-1931), American biologist, 1st President Stanford Univ.
“The full use of your powers along lines of excellence. - definition of happiness by John
F. Kennedy.”
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917-63), 35th US President, Democrat, politician
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Happiness
"I'm so happy to be rich, I'm willing to take all the consequences.”
Howard Abrahamson
“Most of us are just about as happy as we make up our minds to be.”
William Adams
“Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love,
and something to hope for.”
“Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joys, and dividing
our grief.”
“Those who gave thee a body, furnished it with weakness; but He who gave thee Soul,
armed thee with resolution. Employ it, and thou art wise; be wise and thou art happy.”
Akhenaton (d. c.1354 BC), Egyptian king
“It isn't necessary to be rich and famous to be happy. It's only necessary to be rich.”
Alan Alda
“Never continue in a job you don't enjoy. If you're happy in what you're doing, you'll
like yourself, you'll have inner peace. And if you have that, along with physical health,
you will have had more success than you could possibly have imagined.”
Rodan of Alexandria
“Have a variety of interests ... These interests relax the mind and lessen tension on the
nervous system. People with many interests live, not only longest, but happiest.”
George Mathew Allen
"Work joyfully and peacefully, knowing that right thoughts and right efforts will
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“We learn the inner secret of happiness when we learn to direct our inner drives, our
interest and our attention to something outside ourselves.”
Ethel Perry Andrus (1884-1967), American educator
“Frankly, I think the chances of having a happy childhood while you're still a kid going
through it are pretty slim.”
“Most people would rather be certain they're miserable, than risk being happy.”
Robert Newton Anthony (b. 1916), American writer, author
“Remember this,--that very little is needed to make a happy life.”
“The happiness and unhappiness of the rational, social animal depends not on what he
feels but on what he does; just as his virtue and vice consist not in feeling but in doing.”
Julie Arabi
“Different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so
make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government.”
"For that's what a woman, a mother wants -- to teach her children to take an interest in
170
Paul Aubuchon
“Indeed, man wishes to be happy even when he so lives as to make happiness
impossible.”
“Where your pleasure is, there is your treasure: where your treasure, there your heart;
where your heart, there your happiness.”
“Remember this[,] very little is needed to make a happy life.”
“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard
accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and
reasonable nature.”
“Life is too long not to be happy.”
Thom Barber
“No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that
there is a really nice man who wishes she were not.”
Mary Catherine Bateson
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Help
"If it helps to make people think a little bit more what those ideals are, then I'll keep
wearing this uniform.”
Barbara Adams, Alternate Whitewhater juror
fact.”
“The gods help them that help themselves.”
“I like to help women help themselves, as that is, in my opinion, the best way to settle the
woman question. Whatever we can do and do well we have a right to, and I don't think
any one will deny us.”
“No man or woman of the humblest sort can really be strong, gentle and good, without
Alan Alda
“Stubborness does have its helpful features. You always know what you are going to be
thinking tomorrow.”
Glen Beaman
“Ours is the century of enforced travel … of disappearances. The century of people
helplessly seeing others, who were close to them, disappear over the horizon.”
John Berger (b. 1926), English author, "The Foot of Clive"
“Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they
fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he has
no one to help lift him up.”
Ecclesiastes 4:910 Bible (15th-16th century), (First known English translation from the
Latin)
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“Marrying for love may be a bit risky, but it is so honest that God can't help but smile
on it.”
"Good plans shape good decisions. That's why good planning helps to make elusive
dreams come true.”
“The essence of a general's job is to assist in developing a clear sense of purpose . to
keep the junk from getting in the way of important things.”
Victor Borge (b. 1909), Danish-born American pianist, comedian, known for "musical
satire"
“Christianity helps us face the music even when we don't like the tune.”
“The whole secret of existence is to have no fear. Never fear what will become of you,
depend on no one. Only the moment you reject all help are you freed.”
“He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist
in our helper.”
“Use power to help people. For we are given power not to advance our own purposes
nor to make a great show in the world, nor a name. There is but one just use of power
and it is to serve people.”
George Herbert Walker Bush (b. 1924), 41st US President, Ambassador to China
“Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you
make a life.”
Sandra Carey
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“Little deeds of kindness, little words of love, help to make earth happy like the heaven
above.”
Julia A. Fletcher Carney
"To the wrongs that need resistance, To the right that needs assistance, To the future in
the distance, Give yourselves.”
Carrie Chapman Catt
government.”
“I am often troubled as I try hard here to create a new sense of common purpose ... that
sometimes we forget that we are all in this because we are seeking a good that helps all
Americans.”
William Jefferson Clinton, [BILL] US President
“Our job is not to straighten each other out, But to help each other up.”
Neva Cole
“In America every woman has her set of girl-friends; some are cousins, the rest are
gained at school. These form a permanent committee who sit on each other's affairs,
who 'come out' together, marry and divorce together, and who end as those groups of
bustling, heartless well-informed club-women who govern society. Against them the
Couple of Ehepaar is helpless and Man in their eyes but a biological interlude.”
“Courageous risks are life-giving, they help you grow, make you brave, and better than
you think you are.”
Joan L. Curcio
“Build your reputation by helping other people build theirs.”
Anthony J. D'Angelo
“The best helping hand that you will ever receive is the one at the end of your own
arm.”
Fred Dehner
174
“Self-help must precede help from others. Even for making certain of help from heaven,
one has to help oneself.”
Morarji Ranchhodji Desai (b. 1896), Prime Minister of India
175
History
"More than any time in history mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair
“Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the
present inaccessible.”
“For Africa to me … is more than a glamorous fact. It is a historical truth. No man can
know where he is going unless he knows exactly where he has been and exactly how he
arrived at his present place.”
“Deem not life a thing of consequence. For look at the yawning void of the future, and at
that other limitless space, the past.”
“It is not I who have been consigned to the bedroom of history.”
“Don't expect too much of Christmas Day. You can't crowd into it any arrears of
unselfishness and kindliness that may have accrued during the past twelve months.”
Oren Arnold
“Every man's life lies within the present; for the past is spent and done with, and the
future is uncertain.”
176
“The whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and institutions which were
invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards.”
"The instinct to command others, in its primitive essence, is a carnivorous, altogether
bestial and savage instinct. Under the influence of the mental development of man, it
takes on a somewhat more ideal form and becomes somewhat ennobled, presenting itself
as the instrument of reason and the devoted servant of that abstraction, or political
fiction, which is called the public good. But in its essence it remains just as baneful, and
it becomes even more so when, with the application of science, it extends its scope and
intensifies the power of its action. If there is a devil in history, it is this power
principle.”
Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin (1814-76), Russian anarchist, political theorist
“Karate is a form of martial arts in which people who have had years and years of
training can, using only their hands and feet, make some of the worst movies in the
history of the world.”
“As we face a new era of world history, there is an urgent need for the true Church of
Jesus Christ, the Body of Christ, to be about the business God has called us to, the work
of ministry. And this is a work that every believer is called to be actively involved in.”
Edward Bedore
flock of sheep.”
Mark Beltaire
177
flock of sheep.”
Mark Beltaire
Persia.”
“This ONLY is denied God: The power to undo the past.”
“It is difficult to live in the present, ridiculous to live in the future, and impossible to live
in the past. Nothing is as far away as one minute ago.”
Lincoln Was Shot"
"When the Japanese mend broken objects they aggrandize the damage by filling the
“The study of history is the beginning of political wisdom.”
Jean Bodin
“Forget the past and live the present hour.”
Sarah Knowles Bolton
“What is history but a fable agreed upon.”
“Our American past always speaks to us with two voices: the voice of the past, and the
178
“The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens
unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.”
William Edgar Borah (1865-1940), American statesman
“When you make a mistake, don't look back at it long. Take the reason of the thing into
your mind, and then look forward. Mistakes are lessons of wisdom. The past cannot be
changed. The future is yet in your power.”
Phyllis Bottome
“Telling the future by looking at the past assumes that conditions remain constant. This
is like driving a car by looking in the rearview mirror.”
Herb Brody
“I don't fly any awards at the house. Any award you get is usually for something you've
done in the past. And I like to keep looking forward.”
Garth Brooks, American Country Western singer/song writer
179
Honesty
"The true republic: men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing
less.”
“Whatever happens at all happens as it should; thou wilt find this true, if thou shouldst
watch closely.”
“The truth is often a terrible weapon of aggression. It is possible to lie, and even murder
with the truth.”
“Let us talk sense to the American people. Let us tell them the truth, that there are not
gains without pains.”
“A liar will not be believed, even when he speaks the truth.”
“Set your expectations high; find men and women whose integrity and values you
respect; get their agreement on a course of action; and give them your ultimate trust.”
Edward Albee
Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888), American educator, social reformer, "Table Talk"
180
More about the author
"Optimism is essential to achievement and it is also the foundation of courage and true
progress.”
Lloyd Alexander
“The true recipe for a miserable existence is to quarrel with Providence.”
James Waddell Alexander, II (1888-1971), American mathematician, founded branch of
math called topology
Rodan of Alexandria
“An error is the more dangerous the more truth it contains.”
“Our lives improve only when we take chances -- and the first and most difficult risk we
181
“If it is not seemly, do it not; if it is not true, speak it not.”
"Whatever happens it all happens as it should; thou wilt find this true, if thou shouldst
watch closely.”
“I love you, and because I love you, I would sooner have you hate me for telling you the
truth than adore me for telling you lies.”
“The high minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think.”
“Liars when they speak the truth are not believed.”
“Philosophy is the science which considers truth.”
“The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.”
“Trust each other again and again. When the trust level gets high enough, people
transcend apparent limits, discovering new and awesome abilities for which they were
previously unaware.”
David Armistead
“It [a letter] contains a misleading impression, not a lie. It was being economical with
the truth.”
182
Robert Armstrong, [Sir]
183
Honor
"He who would pass his declining years with honor and comfort, should, when young,
once been young.”
once been young.”
prospered.”
Roger Anderson
“To them that ask, where have you seen the gods, or how do you know for certain there
are gods, that you are so devout in their worship? I answer: Neither have I ever seen my
own soul, and yet I respect and honor it.”
“I was eleven, then I was sixteen. Though no honors came my way, those were the lovely
years.”
advisor
184
R. J. Baughan
“I love all beauteous things, I seek and adore them; God hath no better praise, And man
Robert Bridges
patience.”
"All honor's wounds are self-inflicted.”
forever.”
“Never give in! Never give in! Never, never, never. Never -- in anything great or small,
author
“Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never -- in nothing, great or small,
author
of character.”
greatness.”
185
“The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is truly free. First, society
begins by trying to beat you up. If this fails, they try to poison you. If this fails too, they
finish by loading honors on your head.”
Jean Cocteau (1889-1963), French author, filmmaker
“Our own heart, and not other men's opinion, form our true honor.”
“A woman of honor should not expect of others things she would not do herself.”
Marguerite de Valois
"I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all year.”
“The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.”
“The reason why all men honor love is because it looks up, and not down; aspires and
not despairs.”
“I have now reigned about 50 years in victory or peace, beloved by my subjects,
dreaded by my enemies, and respected by my allies. Riches and honors, power and
pleasure, have waited on my call, nor does any earthly blessing appear to have been
wanting to my felicity. In this situation, I have diligently numbered the days of pure and
genuine happiness which have fallen to my lot. They amount to fourteen.”
Abd Er-Rahman III (960 CE)
186
“The bird has an honor that man does not have. Man lives in the traps of his abdicated
laws and traditions; but the birds live according to the natural law of God who causes
the earth to turn around the sun.”
“Dignity is not negotiable. Dignity is the honor of the family.”
Vartan Gregorian, President, NY Public Library
“Any necessary work that pays an honest wage carries its own honor and dignity.”
W. Kelly Griffith
“It is one thing to decry the rat race...that is the good and honorable work of moralists.
It is quite another thing to quit the rat race, to drop out, to refuse to run any further-that is the work of the individualist. It is offensive because it is impolite; it makes the
rebuke personal; the individualist calls not his or her behavior into question, but mine.”
Paul Gruchow
“There are men whom a happy disposition, a strong desire of glory and esteem, inspire
with the same love for justice and virtue which men in general have for riches and
honors....But the number of these men is so small that I only mention them in honor of
humanity.”
Claude Adrien Helvetius (1715-71), French philosopher, encyclopedias
“It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognize each other, to learn to see
the other and honor him for what he is.”
Herman Hesse (1877-1962), German-born Swiss writer, "Siddhartha," "Steppenwolf"
187
Hope
"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the
dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
“Exiles feed on hope.”
“We would often be sorry if our wishes were gratified.”
“The leadership instinct you are born with is the backbone. You develop the funny bone
and the wishbone that go with it.”
Elaine Agather
“So many tangles in life are ultimately hopeless that we have no appropriate sword
other than laughter.”
Gordon William Allport (1897-1967), American psychologist, known for "theory of
personality"
“Reconciliation should be accompanied by justice, otherwise it will not last. While we
all hope for peace it shouldn't be peace at any cost but peace based on principle, on
justice.”
“My object will be, if possible, to form Christian men, for Christian boys I can scarcely
hope to make.”
188
"The trouble with most people is that they think with their hopes or fears or wishes
rather than with their minds.”
Parliament
“Weep for the lives your wishes never led.”
impossible.”
“You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it come true.
You may have to work for it, however.”
“But groundless hope, like unconditional love, is the only kind worth having.”
John Perry Barlow
“Dreams do come true, if we only wish hard enough, You can have anything in life if
you will sacrifice everything else for it.”
“What is a husband? He is the one who, with a touch, can bring back the starlight and
glow of years long ago. At least he hopes he can-don't disappoint him.”
189
them like new with two magic words Hi, Dad!
"A great many people have come up to me and asked me how I manage to get so much
work done and still keep looking so dissipated. My answer is 'Don't you wish you
knew?'“
Robert Charles Benchley (1889-1945), American humorist, critic, actor
“The only way of knowing a person is to love them without hope.”
Walter Benjamin (1892-1940), German essayist, philosopher, critic
“Only barbarians are not curious about where they come from, how they came to be
where they are, where they appear to be going, whether they wish to go there, and if so,
why, and if not, why not.”
Sir Isaiah Berlin (b. 1909), English political scientist
“To cherish what remains of the Earth and to foster its renewal is our only legitimate
hope of survival.”
Wendell Berry (b. 1934), American poet, "Gift of Good Land"
“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
Bible (15th-16th century), (First known English translation from the Latin)
“To have faith is to be sure of the things we hope for, to be certain of the things we
cannot see. It was by their faith that people of ancient times won God's approval.”
Hebrews 11:1-2 Bible (15th-16th century), (First known English translation from the Latin)
good judgment.”
“My friend, if I could give you one thing, I would wish for you the ability to see yourself
as others see you. Then you would realize what a truly special person you are.”
B. A. Billingsly
“Art strives for form, and hopes for beauty.”
Rose Elizabeth Bird
190
“They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to
love, something to do, and something to hope for.”
Thomas Edward Bodett (b. 1955), American writer, announcer, known as "Tom Bodett"
191
Humor
"Ridicule is generally made use of to laugh men out of virtue and good sense, by
attacking everything praiseworthy in human life.”
“If we may believe our logicians, man is distinguished from all other creatures by the
faculty of laughter.”
“I have a fine sense of the ridiculous, but no sense of humor.”
Edward Albee
“Housekeeping ain't no joke.”
personality"
“It's hard to create humor because of the unfair competition from the real world.”
Peter's Almanac
“Life is a joke. The only way to survive it is to find the right punchline.”
Becky Alunan
“My life has been one great big joke A dance that's walked A song that's spoke, I laugh
“The gods too are fond of a joke.”
192
"In those whom I like, I can find no common denominator; in those whom I love I can:
they all make me laugh.”
“Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among
those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.”
“Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he is not; a sense of humor
to console him for what he is.”
“You grow up the day you have your first real laugh at yourself.”
Ethel Barrymore (1879-1959), American actress
“A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs -- jolted by every
pebble in the road.”
“Some people are so dry that you might soak them in a joke for a month and it would not
get through their skins.”
“Nobody ever died of laughter.”
Max Beerbohm
“My way of joking is to tell the truth. It's the funniest joke in the world.”
"There are some things so serious you have to laugh at them.”
193
“If you can't make it better, you can laugh at it.”
“When humor goes, there goes civilization.”
“We must laugh at man, to avoid crying for him.”
“Humor [is] something that thrives between man's aspirations and his limitations. There
is more logic in humor than in anything else. Because, you see, humor is truth.”
Victor Borge (b. 1909), Danish-born American pianist, comedian, known for "musical
satire"
Righteous people have no sense of humor.”
Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956), German playwright
“Righteous people have no sense of humor.”
Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956), German playwright
“A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death
by a joke or worried to death by a frown on the right person's brow.”
Charles Hendrickson Brower (1901-84), President, Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn
“He had the sort of face that makes you realize God does have a sense of humor.”
Bill Bryson
“He had the sort of face that makes you realize God does have a sense of humor.”
Bill Bryson
194
Imagination
"Never continue in a job you don't enjoy. If you're happy in what you're doing, you'll like
yourself, you'll have inner peace. And if you have that, along with physical health, you
will have had more success than you could possibly have imagined.”
Rodan of Alexandria
“The man who has no imagination has no wings.”
“No one has yet computed how many imaginary triumphs are silently celebrated by
people each year to keep up their courage.”
“Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart; for his purity,
by definition, is unassailable.”
“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they
sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.”
L. Frank Baum
“People who've had happy childhoods are wonderful, but they're bland... An unhappy
childhood compels you to use your imagination to create a world in which you can be
happy. Use your old grief. That's the gift you're given.”
Baron Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett (1897-1974), British physicist
“What is now proved was once only imagined.”
“What is now proved was once imagined.”
195
“Happiness is an imaginary condition, formerly often attributed by the living to the
dead, now usually attributed by adults to children, and by children to adults.”
"The courage to imagine the otherwise is our greatest resource, adding color and
suspense to all our life.”
“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), Argentinean writer
“The possibilities for mobilizing the experience, imaginations, and intelligence of
workers, both employed and unemployed, are limitless.”
Dominique Bouhours
“There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feelings; but none when they
are under the influence of imagination.”
“Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the
imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever.”
“The surest road to health, say what they will, Is never to suppose we shall be ill; - Most
of those evils we poor mortals know, From doctors and imagination flow.”
Charles Churchill (1731-64), English writer, author, "The Apology," "The Candidate"
“Talent, lying in the understanding, is often inherited; genius, being the action of reason
or imagination, rarely or never.”
“The great successful men of the world have used their imagination...they think ahead
and create their mental picture in all it details, filling in here, adding a little there,
altering this a bit and that a bit, but steadily building--steadily building.”
Robert J. Collier (1876-1918), Writer, author
“When the imagination and will power are in conflict, are antagonistic, it is always the
imagination which wins, without any exception.”
196
Emile Coue (1857-1926), French doctor, popularized psychotherapy based on
autosuggestion
“Live out of your imagination, not your history.”
"We are what and where we are because we have first imagined it.”
Donald Curtis
“You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of,
plus some that are beyond imagination.”
“Imperious, choleric, irascible, extreme in everything, with a dissolute imagination the
like of which has never been seen, atheistic to the point of fanaticism, there you have me
in a nutshell, and kill me again or take me as I am, for I shall not change.”
“The pleasure of the senses is always regulated in accordance with the imagination.
Man can aspire to felicity only by serving all the whims of his imagination.”
“It has, moreover, been proven that horror, nastiness, and the frightful are what give
pleasure when one fornicates. Beauty is a simple thing; ugliness is the exceptional thing.
And fiery imaginations, no doubt, always prefer the extraordinary thing to the simple
thing.”
“Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of the imagination.”
“I imagine, therefore I belong and am free.”
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (1830-86), American poet
“It could be that our faithlessness is a cowering cowardice born of our very smallness, a
massive failure of imagination... If we were to judge nature by common sense or
likelihood, we wouldn't believe the world existed.”
Annie Dillard (b. 1945), [Annie Doak] American writer, "An American Childhood"
197
“Man is a being born to believe. And if no church comes forward with its title-deeds of
truth to guide him, he will find altars and idols in his own heart and his own
imagination.”
“There are no days in life so memorable as those which vibrated to some stroke of the
imagination.”
Lawrence George Durrell (1912-90), British writer of Irish decent, "The Alexandria
Quartet"
198
Intelligence
"To me, being an intellectual doesn't mean knowing about intellectual issues; it means
taking pleasure in them.”
Chinua Achebe (b. 1930), Nigerian writer
“Man [has] always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had
reason.”
“Practical politics consists in ignoring facts.”
“It is impossible to underrate human intelligence--beginning with one's own.”
“Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in
the form of facts.”
fact.”
“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the
“There are many methods for predicting the future. For example, you can read
horoscopes, tea leaves, tarot cards, or crystal balls. Collectively, these methods are
known as 'nutty methods.’ Or you can put well-researched facts into sophisticated
computer models, more commonly referred to as "a complete waste of time.”
Hoshang N. Akhtar
199
Edward Albee
"I call that mind free which jealously guards its intellectual rights and powers, which
“Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.”
“What passes for optimism is most often the effect of an intellectual error.”
Raymond Claud Ferdinan Aron (1905-83), French author, scholar, commentator
“Reason means truth and those who are not governed by it take the chance that someday
the sunken fact will rip the bottom out of their boat.”
200
“Man, being the servant and interpreter of nature, can do and understand so much and
so much only as he has observed in fact or in thought of the course of nature: beyond
this he neither knows anything nor can do anything.”
"If any human being earnestly desire to push on to new discoveries instead of just
our ranks.”
“I have always felt that the moment when first you wake up in the morning is the most
wonderful of the 24 hours. No matter how weary or dreary you may feel, you possess the
certainty that ... absolutely anything may happen. And the fact that it practically always
doesn't , matters not one jot. The possibility is always there.”
Monica Baldwin (1896-1975), Writer, author
“Knowing what you can not do is more important than knowing what you can do. In
fact, that's good taste.”
“The best audience is intelligent, well-educated, and a little drunk.”
Alben William Barkley (1877-1956), American statesman, US Vice President
“The best audience is intelligent, well-educated, and a little drunk.”
Alvin Barkley
201
“Since it is seldom clear whether intellectual activity denotes a superior mode of being
or a vital deficiency, opinion swings between considering intellect a privilege and seeing
it as a handicap.”
Columbia University
“Half of the world's misery comes from ignorance. The other half comes from
intelligence.”
Baslo
“A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is
deep.”
Saul Bellow (b. 1915), Canadian-born American writer
“The factory of the future will have two employees: a man and a dog. The man's job will
be to feed the dog. The dog's job will be to prevent the man from touching any of the
automated equipment.”
sociologist
202
Intentions
"If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns. Only the police, the secret
police, the military, the hired servants of our rulers. Only the government --and a few
outlaws. I intend to be among the outlaws.”
Edward Abbey (1927-1989)
“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I
intended to be.”
“The barb in the arrow of childhood suffering is this: its intense loneliness, its intense
ignorance.”
“Before speaking, consider the interpretation of your words as well as their intent.”
Andrew Alden
“Think on this doctrine,--that reasoning beings were created for one another's sake; that
to be patient is a branch of justice, and that men sin without intending it.”
“All doubt, despair, and fear become insignificant once the intention of life becomes
love, rather than dependence on love.”
“For those who intend to discover and to understand, not to indulge in conjectures and
soothsaying, and rather than contrive imitation and fabulous worlds plan to look deep
into the nature of the real world and to dissect it -- for them everything must be sought
in things themselves.”
“The instinct to command others, in its primitive essence, is a carnivorous, altogether
bestial and savage instinct. Under the influence of the mental development of man, it
takes on a somewhat more ideal form and becomes somewhat ennobled, presenting itself
as the instrument of reason and the devoted servant of that abstraction, or political
fiction, which is called the public good. But in its essence it remains just as baneful, and
it becomes even more so when, with the application of science, it extends its scope and
intensifies the power of its action. If there is a devil in history, it is this power
principle.”
Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin (1814-76), Russian anarchist, political theorist
203
“The smallest deed is better than the grandest intention.”
“Our sweetest experiences of affection are meant to point us to that realm which is the
real and endless home of the heart.”
"We are meant to be addicted to God, but we develop secondary addictions that
temporarily appear to fix our problem.”
Edward M. Berckman, Episcopal priest
“When a man says he approves of something in principle, it means he hasn't the
slightest intention of carrying it out in practice.”
Prince Otto (Eduard Leopold) von Bismarck (1815-98), Creator and first chancellor of the
German Empire
“Truth that's told with bad intent Beats all the Lies you can invent.”
“It seems very unfortunate that in order to secure political preference, people are made
Vice President who are never intended, neither by party nor by the Lord, to be
Presidents.”
General Omar Nelson Bradley (1893-1981), American general, played major part in Allied
victory in WW II
“Accept good advice gracefully--as long as it doesn't interfere with what you intended to
do in the first place.”
Gene Brown
“[A fanatic is] one compelled to action by the need to find a strong meaning in life. The
fanatic determines for himself what role he is to play in life, and his intense devotion to
a cause is the means.”
Eugene E. Brussell
204
“I mean to live my life an obedient man, but obedient to God, subservient to the wisdom
of my ancestors; never to the authority of political truths arrived at yesterday at the
voting booth.”
William Frank Buckley, Jr. (b. 1925), American writer, editor
“Of all the worldly passions, lust is the most intense. All other worldly passions seem to
follow in its train.”
“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at
someone else; you are the one who gets burned.”
"It is difficult to say who do you the most mischief: enemies with the worst intentions or
friends with the best.”
E. R. Bulwer-Lytton
“Man is the only animal that can remain on friendly terms with the victims he intends to
eat until he eats them.”
Samuel Butler (1612-80), English poet, author
“Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage.”
William Ellery Channing (1780-1842), American religious leader
“The spiritual meaning of love is measured by what it can do. Love is meant to heal.
Love is meant to renew. Love is meant to bring us closer to God.”
Deepak K. Chopra (b. 1946), Writer, author
“History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.”
author
“The countenance is the portrait of the soul, and the eyes mark its intentions.”
“Change is inevitable, growth is intentional.”
Glenda Cloud
205
“[Congress is] functioning the way the Founding Fathers intended-not very well. They
understood that if you move too quickly, our democracy will be less responsible to the
majority.”
Barber B. Conable, Jr, US Congressman
“Maybe intentions are the lies in the dark we tell ourselves when who we are falls short
of the mark and when we destroy our neighbor we can say 'I never meant any harm.'“
Danielle Donoho
“We can be honest without saying what we mean to say, we can talk about the weather
while ignoring the rain.”
Danielle Donoho
206
Joy
"I'm so happy to be rich, I'm willing to take all the consequences.”
Howard Abrahamson
“Most of us are just about as happy as we make up our minds to be.”
William Adams
“Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joys, and dividing
our grief.”
“It isn't necessary to be rich and famous to be happy. It's only necessary to be rich.”
Alan Alda
Rodan of Alexandria
“Have a variety of interests ... These interests relax the mind and lessen tension on the
George Mathew Allen
"Work joyfully and peacefully, knowing that right thoughts and right efforts will
207
“Frankly, I think the chances of having a happy childhood while you're still a kid going
through it are pretty slim.”
“Most people would rather be certain they're miserable, than risk being happy.”
“Remember this,--that very little is needed to make a happy life.”
Julie Arabi
“Different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so
make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government.”
"For that's what a woman, a mother wants -- to teach her children to take an interest in
208
Paul Aubuchon
impossible.”
“Where your pleasure is, there is your treasure: where your treasure, there your heart;
where your heart, there your happiness.”
“Remember this[,] very little is needed to make a happy life.”
“Life is too long not to be happy.”
Thom Barber
209
Justice
“To see what is right, and not to do it, is want of courage or of principle.”
Lisa Alther
justice.”
“Comedy is allied to justice.”
(Justin) Brooks Atkinson (1894-1984), American theater critic for “New York Times”
“Oh, how I love the Earth and everything in it, life and death. And men. One can think
of nothing finer, or nicer, than men … their wars, their concentration camps, their
justice.”
Marcel Ayme
R. J. Baughan
“The key to the mystery of a great artist is that for reasons unknown, he will give away
his energies and his life just to make sure that one note follows another . . . and leaves
us with the feeling that something is right in the world.”
Leonard Bernstein (1918-90), American conductor, composer
210
Henry Bessemer
Henry Bessemer
“That you may retain your self-respect, it is better to displease the people by doing what
you know is right, than to temporarily please them by doing what you know is wrong.”
William J. H. Boetcker
“Easy is right. Begin right and you are easy. Continue easy and you are right. The right
way to go easy Is to forget the right way And forget that the going is easy.”
Chuang-Tzu (4th century BC), Chinese philosopher, teacher
“Tolerance implies a respect for another person, not because he is wrong or even
because he is right, but because he is human.”
John Cogley Commonweal
“To see what is right and not to do it is want of courage.”
“You have to lead people gently toward what they already know is right.”
Philip (Bayard) Crosby (b. 1926), American writer, author
“There is no such thing as justice--in or out of court.”
“What we have in us of the image of God is the love of truth and justice.”
Demosthenes
“Sir, I say that justice is truth in action.”
Benjamin “Dizzy” Disraeli (1804-81), [First Earl of Beaconsfield] British politician
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“All of us who are concerned for peace and triumph of reason and justice must be
keenly aware how small an influence reason and honest good will exert upon events in
the political field.”
“Every kind of peaceful cooperation among men is primarily based on mutual trust and
only secondarily on institutions such as courts of justice and police.”
“I cannot lead you into battle. I do not give you laws or administer justice but I can do
something else-I can give my heart and my devotion to these old islands and to all the
peoples of our brotherhood of nations.”
Elizabeth II (b. 1926), Queen of England
“One man's justice is another's injustice; one man's beauty another's ugliness; one
man's wisdom another's folly.”
“Truth is the summit of being; justice is the application of it to affairs.”
“Without justice courage is weak.”
Constitution
“Rigid justice is the greatest injustice.”
Dr. Thomas Fuller (1608-61), English clergyman, writer, “The Church History of Britain”
“Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. ... Moderation in the pursuit of justice is
no virtue.”
Barry Morris Goldwater (b. 1909), US Senator
“Whenever you read a good book, it's like the author is right there, in the room, talking
to you, which is why I don't like to read good books.”
“If I lived back in the Wild West days, instead of carrying a six-gun in my holster, I'd
carry a soldering iron. That way, if some smart-aleck cowboy said something like, 'Hey
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look. He's carrying a soldering iron!' and started laughing, and everybody else started
laughing, I could just say, 'That's right, it's a soldering iron. The soldering iron of
justice.' Then everybody would get real quiet and ashamed, because they made fun of the
soldering iron of justice, and I could probably hit them up for a free drink.”
“We must face the fact that the preservation of individual freedom is incompatible with
a full satisfaction of our views of distributive justice.”
Friedrich August von Hayek (b. 1899), Austrian-born British economist, Nobel: theory of
allocation of resources
“Envy, among other ingredients, has a mixture of love of justice in it. We are more
angry at undeserved than at deserved good fortune.”
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Knowledge
“To me, being an intellectual doesn't mean knowing about intellectual issues; it means
“It's no coincidence that in no known language does the phrase 'As pretty as an airport'
appear.”
Douglas Noel Adams (b. 1952), British author, “Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy”
learn.”
“Many a crown of wisdom is but the golden chamberpot of success, worn with pompous
dignity.”
Joey Adams (b. 1911), American comedian, author
“Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people.”
John Adams (1735-1826), 2nd US President, Federalist
known as 'nutty methods.'Or you can put well-researched facts into sophisticated
computer models, more commonly referred to as “a complete waste of time.”
“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.”
“I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had
nowhere else to go. My own wisdom, and that of all about me seemed insufficient for the
day.”
William Adams
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“Animals, in their generation, are wiser than the sons of men; but their wisdom is
confined to a few particulars, and lies in a very narrow compass.”
“If you don't know where you're going, you'll end up somewhere else.”
“There are times when fear is good. It must keep its watchful place at the heart's
controls. There is advantage in the wisdom won from pain.”
“The wisest of the wise may err.”
“The future you shall know when it has come; before then forget it.”
“A doubtful friend is worse than a certain enemy. Let a man be one thing or the other,
“You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.”
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“True wisdom is less presuming than folly. The wise man doubteth often, and changeth
his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubteth not; he knoweth all things but his own
ignorance.”
“Unless you know what you want, you can't ask for it.”
Lajeunesse
“The only infallible criterion of wisdom to vulgar minds -- success.”
“I need to know the price of a gallon of milk and a dozen eggs. I need to know right
now.”
Lamar Alexander, Former governor and presidential candidate
“Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of
his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is
even.”
“A celebrity is a person who works hard all his life to become well known, then wears
dark glasses to avoid being recognized.”
Fred Allen (1894-1956), American comedian, stage and movie actor, radio broadcaster
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217
Laughter
“Ridicule is generally made use of to laugh men out of virtue and good sense, by
Gordon William Allport (1897-1967), American psychologist, known for “theory of
personality”
“My life has been one great big joke A dance that's walked A song that's spoke, I laugh
“In those whom I like, I can find no common denominator; in those whom I love I can:
they all make me laugh.”
“Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among
those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.”
“Evelyn slapped Raymond on the back with a laugh. “You must be starved old friend.
“You grow up the day you have your first real laugh at yourself.”
“Nobody ever died of laughter.”
Max Beerbohm
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“There are some things so serious you have to laugh at them.”
“If you can't make it better, you can laugh at it.”
“We must laugh at man, to avoid crying for him.”
“Laugh and the world laughs with you. Snore and you sleep alone.”
Anthony Burgess (b. 1917), British writer, critic
“Cervantes smiled Spain's chivalry away; A single laugh demolished the right arm Of
his country.”
“You have to walk carefully in the beginning of love; the running across fields into your
lover's arms can only come later when you're sure they won't laugh if you trip.”
Jonathan Carroll (b. 1949), American writer, author
“Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said. 'One can't believe impossible things.' 'I
daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always
did it half an hour a day. Why, sometimes, I've believed as many as six impossible things
before breakfast.'“
Lewis Carroll (1832-98), [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] British mathematician, writer
“The person who can bring the spirit of laughter into a room is indeed blessed.”
Bennett Alfred Cerf (1898-1971), American editor, publisher
“Building castles in the air, and making yourself a laughing-stock.”
“The most wasted day of all is that on which we have not laughed.”
Nicolas Chamfort
“The most wasted day of all is that on which we have not laughed.”
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“It is not funny that anything else should fall down; only that a man should fall down….
Why do we laugh? Because it is a gravely religious matter: it is the Fall of Man. Only
man can be absurd: for only man can be dignified.”
“He who laughs last is generally the last to get the joke.”
Terry Cohen
“You can turn painful situations around through laughter. If you can find humor in
anything --even poverty--you can survive it.”
“What was significant about the laughter . . . was not just the fact that it provides
internal exercise for a person . . .a form of jogging for the innards, but that it creates a
mood in which the other positive emotions can be put to work, too.”
Norman Cousins (1915-90), American editor, writer, author, “Anatomy of an Illness”
“God laughs, it seems, because God knows how it all turns out in the end.”
(William) Harvey Cox (b. 1939), Northern Irish writer, author
“The first half of our lives is ruined by our parents, and the second half by our children.
If you lose the power to laugh, you lose the power to think.”
“The kind of humor I like is the thing that makes me laugh for 5 seconds and think for 10
minutes.”
William Davis
“Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the self-same well from which your laughter
rises was often-times filled with your tears.”
geometry
“If you wish to glimpse inside a human soul and get to know a man, don't bother
analyzing his ways of being silent, of talking, of weeping, of seeing how much he is
moved by noble ideas; you will get better results if you just watch him laugh. If he
laughs well, he's a good man.”
Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky (1821-81), Russian novelist, engineer, novelist
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Law
"Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of
the weak; and that it is doing God's service when it is violating all his laws.”
“'Honour thy father and thy mother' stands written among the three laws of most
revered righteousness.”
“For the skeptic there remains only one consolation: if there should be such a thing as
superhuman law it is administered with subhuman inefficiency.”
Eric Ambler (b. 1909), British writer, novelist
“Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.”
reverse order.”
“For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.”
James 2:10 Bible (15th-16th century), (First known English translation from the Latin)
“Pray: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner
confessed unworthy.”
“Desire nothing, Chafe not at fate, nor at Nature's changeless laws. But struggle only
“If you think that you can think about a thing, inextricably attached to something else,
without thinking of the thing it is attached to, then you have a legal mind.”
Henry C. Blinn
“If a man watches three football games in a row he should be declared legally dead.”
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"The Constitution of the United States is not a mere lawyers' document; it is a vehicle of
life, and its spirit is always the spirit of the age.”
“We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature.”
“Look abroad through Nature's range, Nature's mighty law is change.”
Robert Burns (1759-1796), Scottish poet
“The sum is, that the worship of God must be spiritual, in order that it may correspond
with His nature. For although Moses only speaks of idolatry, yet there is no doubt but
that by synecdoche, as in all the rest of the law, he condemns all fictitious services which
men in their ingenuity have invented.”
yourself.”
“An act of terrorism totally outside the bounds of international law and diplomatic
tradition. ... a crisis [that] calls for firmness and restraint.”
“I personally think that he did violate the law, that he committed impeachable offenses.
But I don't think that he thinks he did.”
“Water, everywhere over the earth, flows to join together. A single natural law controls
it. Each human is a member of a community and should work within it.”
I Ching (BC 1150)
“There is no reason to accept the doctrines crafted to sustain power and privilege, or to
believe that we are constrained by mysterious and unknown social laws. These are
simply decisions made within institutions that are subject to human will and that must
face the test of legitimacy. And if they do not meet the test, they can be replaced by other
institutions that are more free and more just, as has happened often in the past.”
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“Who will protect the public when the police violate the law?”
(William) Ramsey Clark (b. 1927), American statesman, former US Attorney General
"Knowledge is the only instrument of production That is not subject to the law of
diminishing returns.”
John Maurice Clark
“He saw a lawyer killing a viper On a dunghill hard, by his own stable And the devil
smiled, for it put him in mind Of Cain and his brother, Abel.”
“I am a trial lawyer. ... Matilda says that at dinner on a good day I sound like an
affidavit.”
Mario M(atthew) Cuomo (b. 1932), Governor of NY
“In any country there must be people who have to die. They are the sacrifices any nation
has to make to achieve law and order.”
Idi Amin Dada
“The law is a horrible business.”
“If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions,
great is our sin.”
selection
“Solon used to say that speech was the image of actions;... that laws were like cobwebs,
--for that if any trifling or powerless thing fell into them, they held it fast; while if it were
something weightier, it broke through them and was off.”
Laertius Diogenes (-c. 320 BC), Greek philosopher
“Common sense often makes good law.”
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“Gun control has not worked in D.C. The only people who have guns are criminals. We
have the strictest gun laws in the nation and one of the highest murder rates. It's quicker
to pull your Smith & Wesson than to dial 911 if you're being robbed.”
Lowell Duckett
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Leadership
Elaine Agather
“We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an
anomaly.”
Margaret Atwood
“It distresses me, this failure to keep pace with the leaders of thought, as they pass into
oblivion.”
Max Beerbohm
yourself.”
“A desire to be in charge of our own lives, a need for control, is born in each of us. It is
essential to our mental health, and our success, that we take control.”
“The leaders I met, whatever walk of life they were from, whatever institutions they were
presiding over, always referred back to the same failure something that happened to
them that was personally difficult, even traumatic, something that made them feel that
desperate sense of hitting bottom--as something they thought was almost a necessity. It's
as if at that moment the iron entered their soul; that moment created the resilience that
leaders need.”
sociologist
“Good leaders make people feel that they're at the very heart of things, not at the
periphery. Everyone feels that he or she makes a difference to the success of the
organization. When that happens people feel centered and that gives their work
meaning.”
sociologist
“What makes a good follower? The single most important characteristic may well be a
willingness to tell the truth. In a world of growing complexity leaders are increasingly
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dependent on their subordinates for good information, whether the leaders want to hear
it or not. Followers who tell the truth and leaders who listen to it are an unbeatable
combination.”
sociologist
“The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born-that there is a genetic
factor to leadership. This myth asserts that people simply either have certain
charismatic qualities or not. That's nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are
made rather than born. Failing organizations are usually over-managed and underled.”
sociologist
“The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.”
Kenneth Hartley Blanchard (b. 1939), American writer
“Just as every conviction begins as a whim so does every emancipator serve his
apprenticeship as a crank. A fanatic is a great leader who is just entering the room.”
(Matthew) Heywood (Campbell) Broun (1888-1939), American journalist
“No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit
for doing it.”
“A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they
don't necessarily want to go but ought to be.”
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“You don't have to hold a position in order to be a leader.”
Anthony J. D'Angelo
“To decide to be at the level of choice, is to take responsibility for your life and to be in
control of your life.”
Arbie M. Dale
“The great leaders have always stage-managed their effects.”
“I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?”
Benjamin “Dizzy” Disraeli (1804-81), [First Earl of Beaconsfield] British politician
“Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined
by results not attributes.”
Peter F(erdinand) Drucker (b. 1909), Austrian writer, author, educator
“The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real
success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an
army, or in an office.”
“A nation which has forgotten the quality of courage which in the past has been brought
to public life is not as likely to insist upon or regard that quality in its chosen leaders
today--and in fact we have forgotten.”
Euripides (480?-406 BC), Greek dramatist, “Media,” “Hippolytus”
“The question is not whether you're frightened or not, but whether you or the fear is in
control. If you say, 'I won't be frightened,' and then you experience fear, most likely
you'll succumb to it, because you're paying attention to it. The correct thing to tell
yourself is, 'If I do get frightened, I will stay in command.'“
Herbert Fenstermeim, [Doctor]
“I believe God is managing affairs and that He doesn't need any advice from me. With
God in charge, I believe everything will work out for the best in the end. So what is there
to worry about.”
automobile
“Today a reader--tomorrow a leader.”
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W. Fusselman
“Polling is merely an instrument for gauging public opinion. When a president or any
other leader pays attention to poll results, he is, in effect, paying attention to the views of
the people. Any other interpretation is nonsense.”
George Horace Gallup (1901-84), American public-opinion analyst
“Leaders come in many forms, with many styles and diverse qualities. There are quiet
leaders and leaders one can hear in the next county. Some find strength in eloquence,
some in judgment, some in courage.”
“I'm not a natural leader. I'm too intellectual; I'm too abstract; I think too much.”
“One of the true tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it
becomes an emergency.”
Arnold H. Glasgow
“Good leaders must first become good servants.”
Robert Greenleaf, Director of Management Research, AT&T
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Learning
“Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the
“You live and learn. At any rate, you live.”
“You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance.”
Franklin P. Adams (1881-1960), American journalist, humorist, “Nods and Becks”
learn.”
“The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue
growing as we continue to live.”
Morris Adler (1870-1937), Austrian psychiatrist
“I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning how to sail my ship.”
“We learn more by looking for the answer to a question and not finding it than we do
from learning the answer itself.”
Lloyd Alexander
“More important than learning how to recall things is finding ways to forget things that
are cluttering the mind.”
anything.”
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“Life is a corrupting process from the time a child learns to play his mother off against
his father in the politics of when to go to bed; he who fears corruption fears life.”
Saul David Alinsky
“Love the little trade which thou hast learned, and be content therewith.”
“I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and
a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing
confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization.”
Detronius Arbiter (BC 210-)
“A man may learn wisdom even from a foe.”
“The wise learn many things from their enemies.”
“What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing.”
Richard David Bach (b. 1936), American author, “Jonathan Livingston Seagull”
“Sometimes when learning comes before experience It doesn't make sense right away.”
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“One of the things I learned the hard way was that it doesn't pay to get discouraged.
Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself.”
“It does not require great learning to be a Christian and be convinced of the truth of the
Bible. It requires only an honest heart and a willingness to obey God.”
Albert Coombs Barnes (1873-1951), American physician, art collector
“Advertising is like learning -- a little is a dangerous thing.”
P(hineas) T(aylor) Barnum (1810-91), American showman
“You must learn day by day, year by year to broaden your horizon. The more things you
love, the more you are interested in, the more you enjoy, the more you are indignant
about, the more you have left when anything happens.”
“Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball.”
Columbia University
“You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by
creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.”
Clay P. Bedford
“You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by
creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.”
Clay P. Bedford
“A boy can learn a lot from a dog: obedience, loyalty, and the importance of turning
around three times before lying down.”
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Liberty
“The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount
of security enjoyed by minorities.”
“That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe
William Adams
“For what is liberty but the unhampered translation of will into act?”
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Italian poet
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“Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom.”
“If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy,
they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost.”
“Men are never so likely to settle a question rightly as when they discuss it freely.”
Thomas Babington, [Lord Macauley]
“Freedom is not something that anybody can be given; Freedom is something that
people take and people are as free as they want to be.”
“Politics should be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights
and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our
national heritage.”
“What a curious phenomenon it is that you can get men to die for the liberty of the
world who will not make the little sacrifice that is needed to free themselves from their
own individual bondage.”
“When humans participate in ceremony, they enter a sacred space. Everything outside
of that space shrivels in importance. Time takes on a different dimension. Emotions flow
more freely. The bodies of participants become filled with the energy of life, and this
energy reaches out and blesses the creation around them. All is made new; everything
becomes sacred.”
Sun Bear
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outgoing of love, from enslavement to that most intolerable of master, myself.
yourself.”
“The truth which makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to
hear.”
Jim (James Alonzo) Bishop (1907-87), American author, journalist, writer, “The Day
Lincoln Was Shot”
John Blofeld
“The free man is he who does not fear to go to the end of his thought.”
Leon Blum
“An adventure differs from a mere feat in that it is tied to the externally unattainable.
Only one end of the rope is in the hand, the other is not visible, and neither prayers, nor
daring, nor reason can shake it free.”
“No one's death comes to pass without making some impression, and those close to the
deceased inherit part of the liberated soul and become richer in their humaneness.”
Robert Oxton Bolt (b. 1924), English author, “Man for All Seasons”
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“It is not a loss of freedom. It's a measure to protect it. [on gun control]
James Brady
“Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the
Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel
invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in
insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”
“Praise out of season, or tactlessly bestowed, can freeze the heart as much as blame.”
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Life
“I've had enough success for two lifetimes, my success is talent put together with hard
work and luck.”
“When you take charge of your life, there is no longer need to ask permission of other
people or society at large. When you ask permission, you give someone veto power over
your life.”
Geoffrey F. Abert
“I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I have just lived the length of it. I
want to have lived the width of it as well.”
Diane Ackerman (b. 1948), American-born author, writer
“If you don't change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news?”
“You live and learn. At any rate, you live.”
“Funny how just when you think life can't possibly get any worse it suddenly does.”
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fact.”
“Had I been chosen President again, I am certain I could not have lived another year.”
“We're a planet of nearly six billion ninnies living in a civilization that was designed by
a few thousand amazingly smart deviants.”
William Adams
“In this country … men seem to live for action as long as they can and sink into apathy
when they retire.”
Charles Francis Adams, Sr. (1807-86), American statesman, diplomat
“The greatest sweetener of human life is Friendship.To raise this to the highest pitch of
enjoyment, is a secret which but few discover.”
“What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure;
but scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable.”
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“The feeling of inferiority rules the mental life and can be clearly recognized as the
sense of incompleteness and unfulfillment ... both of individuals and of humanity.”
“The unique personality which is the real life in me, I can not gain unless I search for
the real life, the spiritual quality, in others. I am myself spiritually dead unless I reach
out to the fine quality dormant in others. For it is only with the god enthroned in the
innermost shrine of the other, that the god hidden in me, will consent to appear.”
“The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue
growing as we continue to live.”
Morris Adler (1870-1937), Austrian psychiatrist
“The meaning I picked, the one that changed my life: Overcome fear, behold wonder.”
“When I look back now over my life and call to mind what I might have had simply for
taking and did not take, my heart is like to break.”
“Contemplate thy powers, contemplate thy wants and thy connections; so shalt thou
discover the duties of life, and be directed in all thy ways.”
“When I investigate and when I discover that the forces of the heavens and the planets
are within ourselves, then truly I seem to be living among the gods.”
Leon Battista Alberti (1404-72), Italian architect, humanist
“One that hath wine as a chain about his wits, such a one lives no life at all.”
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Light
"As the moon retaineth her nature, though darkness spread itself before her face as a
curtain, so the Soul remaineth perfect even in the bosom of the fool.”
“Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who
are traveling the dark journey with us. Oh be swift to love, make haste to be kind.”
“Men fear death, as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children
is increased with tales, so is the other.”
“The good Christian should beware the mathematician and all those who make empty
prophecies. The danger already exists that the mathematicians have made a covenant
with the devil to darken the spirit and to confine man in the bonds of hell.”
“The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The
moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the
sea engulfs us and the light goes out.”
“The essence of morality is a questioning about morality; and the decisive move of
human life is to use ceaselessly all light to look for the origin of the opposition between
good and evil.”
Georges Bataille
“The skylines lit up at dead of night, the air-conditioning systems cooling empty hotels
in the desert, and artificial light in the middle of the day all have something both
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demented and admirable about them: the mindless luxury of a rich civilization, and yet
of a civilization perhaps as scared to see the lights go out as was the hunter in his
primitive night.”
Jean Baudrillard
L. Frank Baum
"When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.”
Charles Austin Beard (1874-1948), American historian, educator
“It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.”
Taylor Benson
“Begin today! No matter how feeble the light, let it shine as best it may. The world may
need just that quality of light which you have.”
Henry C. Blinn
“It is in this unearthly first hour of spring twilight that earth's almost agonized
livingness is most felt. This hour is so dreadful to some people that they hurry indoors
and turn on the lights.”
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“On life's journey faith is nourishment, virtuous deeds are a shelter, wisdom is the light
by day and right mindfulness is the protection by night. If a man lives a pure life,
nothing can destroy him.”
“Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle
will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”
E. R. Bulwer-Lytton
other.”
Lytton
"Never do today what you can put off till tomorrow. Delay may give clearer light as to
what is best to be done.”
Aaron Burr
“Would you, my dear young friends, like to be inside with the five wise virgins, or
outside, alone and in the dark with the five foolish ones?.”
Montagu Butler
“Yes, Love indeed is light from heaven; A spark of that immortal fire With angels
shared, by Allah given To lift from earth our low desire.”
“The truth, as the light, makes blind.”
yourself.”
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“The true beloveds of this world are in their lover's eyes lilacs opening, ship lights,
school bells, a landscape, remembered conversations, friends, a child's Sunday, lost
voices, one's favorite suit, autumn and all seasons, memory, yes, it being the earth and
water of existence, memory.”
“Dear brightest star o'er Bethlehem, O let your precious light shine in with hope and
peace toward men in every home tonight.”
Swedish Carol
“Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.”
“Treat your friends as you do your pictures, and place them in their best light.”
Jennie Jerome Churchill
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Love
"Everyone admits that love is wonderful and necessary, yet no one agrees on just what it
is.”
“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.”
“You say that love is nonsense....I tell you it is no such thing. For weeks and months it is
a steady physical pain, an ache about the heart, never leaving one, by night or by day; a
long strain on one's nerves like toothache or rheumatism, not intolerable at any one
instant, but exhausting by its steady drain on the strength.”
William Adams
“For not many men, the proverb saith, can love a friend whom fortune prospereth
unenvying.”
“Some pray to marry the man they love, my prayer will somewhat vary: I humbly pray to
heaven above that I love the man I marry.”
243
“I love the United States, but I see here everything is measured by success, by how much
money it makes, not the satisfaction to the individual.”
"I had always loved beautiful and artistic things, though before leaving America I had
had a very little chance of seeing any.”
Lajeunesse
“When childhood dies, its corpses are called adults and they enter society, one of the
politer names of hell. That is why we dread children, even if we love them, they show us
the state of our decay.”
Brian Aldiss (b. 1925), British science fiction writer
“As you think, you travel, and as you love, you attract. You are today where your
thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you.”
“Love recieved and love given comprise the best form of therapy.”
personality"
“Gratitude, like love, is never a dependable international emotion.”
Joseph Alsop
“Doubt of the reality of love ends by making us doubt everything.”
“Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who
are traveling the dark journey with us. Oh be swift to love, make haste to be kind.”
“I both love and do not love; and am mad and not mad.”
Anacreon (BC 572?-488?), Greek lyric poet
244
“In real love you want the other person's good. In romantic love you want the other
person.”
Margaret Anderson
"The highest love of all finds its fulfillment not in what it keeps, but in what it gives.”
Father Andrew SDC
“Life loves to be taken by the lapel and told, "I am with you kid. Let's go.”
“If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. Don't be surly at home,
then go out in the street and start grinning 'Good morning' at total strangers.”
“If love is the answer, could you please rephrase the question?”
“The one who loves the least, controls the relationship.”
“People who lose their parents when young are permanently in love with them.”
Aharon Appelfeld
Janos Arnay
“In a great romance, each person plays a part the other really likes.”
Elizabeth Ashley (b. 1939), American actress, won Tony
245
Loyalty
"A boy can learn a lot from a dog: obedience, loyalty, and the importance of turning
around three times before lying down.”
treasure.”
Latin)
“Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best
relationship.”
“I'll tell you why I like the cigarette business. It cost a penny to make. Sell it for a dollar.
It's addictive. And there's a fantastic brand loyalty.”
Warren Buffett
“To be prosperous is not to be superior, and should form no barrier between men.
Wealth out not to secure the prosperous the slightest consideration. The only distinctions
which should be recognized are those of the soul, of strong principle, of incorruptible
integrity, of usefulness, of cultivated intellect, of fidelity in seeking the truth.”
“When you wish to instruct, be brief; that men's minds take in quickly what you say,
learn its lesson, and retain it faithfully. Every word that is unnecessary only pours over
the side of a brimming mind.”
“At different stages in our lives, the signs of love may vary: dependence, attraction,
contentment, worry, loyalty, grief, but at heart the source is always the same. Human
beings have the rare capacity to connect with each other, against all odds.”
Michael Dorris
“By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work
twelve hours a day.”
“I think one of the great problems we have in the Republican Party is that we don't
encourage you to be nasty. We encourage you to be neat, obedient, loyal and faithful
246
and all those Boy Scout words, which would be great around a campfire but are lousy in
politics.”
“He [Harris] felt the loyalty we all feel to unhappiness -- the sense that that is where we
really belong.”
Henry Graham Greene (1904-91), British writer known for novels, "The Power and the
Glory"
"An ideal wife is one who remains faithful to you but tries to be just as charming as if
she weren't.”
Sacha Guitry (1885-1957)
“The best things in life are never rationed. Friendship, loyalty, love do not require
coupons.”
George T. Hewitt
“To state the facts frankly is not to despair the future nor indict the past. The prudent
heir takes careful inventory of his legacies and gives a faithful accounting to those
whom he owes an obligation of trust.”
“Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this
means we must develop a world perspective.”
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-68), African-American reverend, civil rights leader
“I do not want to die. . . until I have faithfully made the most of my talent and cultivated
the seed that was placed in me until the last small twig has grown.”
Kathe Kolliqitz
“The greater the loyalty of a group toward the group, the greater is the motivation
among the members to achieve the goals of the group, and the greater the probability
that the group will achieve its goals.”
Rensis Likert
“A sound American is simply one who has put out of his mind all doubts and
questionings, and who accepts instantly, and as incontrovertible gospel, the whole body
of official doctrine of his day, whatever it may be and no matter how often it may
change. The instant he challenges it, no matter how timorously and academically, he
ceases by that much to be a loyal and creditable citizen of the republic.”
Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956), American editor, critic, founder "American Mercury"
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“Animals are reliable, many full of love, true in their affections, predictable in their
actions, grateful and loyal. Difficult standards for people to live up to.”
Alfred A. Montapert
“Time keeps no measure when true friends are parted, No record day by day; the sands
move not for those who, loyal-hearted, friendship's firm laws obey.”
Nicholson
“Histories are more full of examples of the fidelity of dogs than of friends.”
Alexander Pope (1688-1744), English writer known for mock-epic poems
"He fell in love with himself at first sight, and it is a passion to which he has always
remained faithful. Self-love seems so often unrequited.”
Anthony Powell
“The fidelity of the United States to security treaties is not just an empty matter. It is a
pillar of peace in the world.”
David Dean Rusk (b. 1909), American public official, secretary of state
“Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or
to the first comer: there is nobility in preserving it coolly and proudly through long
youth, until at last, in the ripeness of instinct and discretion, it can be safely exchanged
for fidelity and happiness.”
George Santayana (1863-1952), Spanish-born American philosopher, writer, "Realms of
Being"
“We are living in a day of self-seeking and irresponsibility, even in Christian circles.
Few indeed are the Christian believers who have truly laid their all on the altar for
Christ. Few are the spiritual leaders who truly put God FIRST . Rather they think first,
albeit subconsciously, of their positions, popularity, salaries and the success of the
organizations over which they preside. While professing strong allegiance to God and
His Word, they are nevertheless careful not to emphasize those passages from the Word
which might ruffle feathers or rock the boat, as we say. In spite of their professed fidelity
to God's Word and will, their first objective is actually to keep their organizations
running smoothly and pleasantly so that they may continue to grow in numbers. This has
become a way of life in Christendom, but in this matter too we should 'search the
Scriptures daily,' to determine whether these things have God's approval, for however
good and right a thing may seem, if it is at variance with the Word, rightly divided, it is
contrary to the will of God and therefore wrong.”
Cornelius Stam
248
“Marriage teaches you loyalty, forbearance, self-restraint, meekness, and a great many
other things you wouldn't need if you had stayed single.”
Jimmy Townsend
“The holy passion of friendship is so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring in nature
that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.”
Mark Twain (1835-1910), [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] American author, humorist
“For thousands of years, father and son have stretched wistful hands across the canyon
of time, each eager to help the other to his side, but neither quite able to desert the
loyalties of his contemporaries. The relationship is always changing and hence always
fragile; nothing endures except the sense of difference.”
Alan Valentine
249
Memory
once been young.”
once been young.”
“Interestingly, according to modern astronomers, space is finite. This is a very
comforting thought - particularly for people who can never remember where they have
left things.”
“As surgeons keep their instruments and knives always at hand for cases requiring
immediate treatment, so shouldst thou have thy thoughts ready to understand things
divine and human, remembering in thy every act, even the smallest, how close is the
bond that unites the two.”
“Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered.”
“The general root of superstition is that men observe when things hit, and not when they
miss and commit to memory the one, and pass over the other.”
“Always remember that striving and struggle precede success, even in the dictionary.”
Sarah Ban Breathnach
250
“The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to think, than what to think-rather to improve our minds, so as to enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the
memory with thoughts of other men.”
Bill Beattie
"Every young man would do well to remember that all successful business stands on the
foundation of morality.”
“It is well, when judging a friend, to remember that he is judging you with the same
godlike and superior impartiality.”
(Enoch) Arnold Bennett (1867-1931), British writer, novelist
“Happiness is good health and a bad memory.”
Ingrid Bergman (1915-82), Swedish actress
Persia.”
“Blessed are those who can give without remembering, and take without forgetting.”
Elizabeth Asquith Bibesco, The Fir and the Palm
“I thank my God every time I remember you.”
Philippians 1:3 NIV Bible (15th-16th century), (First known English translation from the
Latin)
“I will remember the works of the Lord: surely I will remember thy wonders of old. I
will mediate also of all thy work, and talk of thy doings.”
Psalm 77:11, 12 Bible (15th-16th century), (First known English translation from the
Latin)
“May every young scientist remember... and not fail to keep his eyes open for the
possibility that an irritating failure of his apparatus to give consistent results may once
or twice in a lifetime conceal an important discovery.”
Baron Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett (1897-1974), British physicist
251
“For memory has painted this perfect day With colors that never fade, And we find at
the end of a perfect day The soul of a friend we've made.”
Carrie Jacobs Bond
“As with most fine things, chocolate has its season. There is a simple memory aid that
you can use to determine whether it is the correct time to order chocolate dishes: any
month whose name contains the letter A, E, or U is the proper time for chocolate.”
Sandra (Keith) Boynton (b. 1953), Writer, author
"If, in instructing a child, you are vexed with it for want of adroitness, try, if you have
never tried before, to write with your left hand, and then remember that a child is all left
hand.”
J. F. Boyse
“He who dies a thousand deaths meets the final hour with the calmness of one who
approaches a well remembered door.”
Heywood Brown
“One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.”
“There is not any memory with less satisfaction than the memory of some temptation we
resisted.”
James Branch Cabell (1879-1958), American writer
“The true beloveds of this world are in their lover's eyes lilacs opening, ship lights,
school bells, a landscape, remembered conversations, friends, a child's Sunday, lost
voices, one's favorite suit, autumn and all seasons, memory, yes, it being the earth and
water of existence, memory.”
“If you want to win friends, make it a point to remember them. If you remember my
name, you pay me a subtle compliment; you indicate that I have made an impression on
you. Remember my name and you add to my feeling of importance.”
“When I look back on all the worries I remember the story of the old man who said on
his deathbed that he had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which never happened.”
author
252
“To be ignorant of what happened before you were born is to be ever a child. For what
is man's lifetime unless the memory of past events is woven with those of earlier times?”
“A good storyteller is a person who has a good memory and hopes other people
haven't.”
Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb (1876-1944), American humorist
“I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and
poetry; that is prose; words in their best order;-poetry; the best words in the best
order.”
253
Men
"A man who makes trouble for others is also making trouble for himself.”
“To manage a system effectively, you might focus on the interactions of the parts rather
than their behavior taken separately.”
Russell L(incoln) Ackoff (b. 1919), American-born author, writer
“We have too many high-sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with
them.”
Abigail Adams (1744-1818), American first lady, author
reason.”
“The true republic: men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing
less.”
“You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance.”
“When a man you like switches from what he said a year ago, or 4 years ago, he is a
promises.”
success.”
254
“The effect of power and publicity on all men is the aggravation of self, a sort of tumor
that ends by killing the victim's sympathies.”
"No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery
and thought is viscous.”
“Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally
alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, 'This is the real me,' and when
you have found that attitude, follow it.”
255
“I'm slowly becoming a convert to the principle that you can't motivate people to do
things, you can only demotivate them.The primary job of the manager is not to empower
but to remove obstacles.”
William Adams
"I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had
day.”
William Adams
“In this country … men seem to live for action as long as they can and sink into apathy
“When men are easy in their circumstances, they are naturally enemies to innovations.”
“Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered
down from generation to generation as presents to the posterity of those who are yet
unborn.”
“Animals, in their generation, are wiser than the sons of men; but their wisdom is
256
“The feeling of inferiority rules the mental life and can be clearly recognized as the
sense of incompleteness and unfulfillment ... both of individuals and of humanity.”
“Freedom is the emancipation from the arbitrary rule of other men.”
“In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get
through, but how many can get through to you.”
257
Military
"If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns. Only the police, the secret
police, the military, the hired servants of our rulers. Only the government --and a few
outlaws. I intend to be among the outlaws.”
Edward Abbey (1927-1989)
“But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American War?
The revolution was effected before the war commenced. The revolution was in the minds
and hearts of the people.”
Geoffrey F. Abert
Geoffrey F. Abert
reason.”
“Those who have the command of the arms in a country are masters of the state, and
have it in their power to make what revolutions they please. [Thus,] there is no end to
observations on the difference between the measures likely to be pursued by a minister
backed by a standing army, and those of a court awed by the fear of an armed people.”
“We make war that we may live in peace.”
“Dalton's records, carefully preserved for a century, were destroyed during the World
War II bombing of Manchester. It is not only the living who are killed in war.”
justice.”
Marcel Ayme
258
“You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by. Yes, but some of
them are golden only because we let them slip by.”
Persia.”
"People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election.”
German Empire
“An army marches on its stomach.”
“Christmas! The very word brings joy to our hearts. No matter how we may dread the
rush, the long Christmas lists for gifts and cards to be bought and given--when
Christmas Day comes there is still the same warm feeling we had as children, the same
warmth that enfolds our hearts and our homes.”
Joan Winmill Brown
“What then is capital punishment but the most premeditated of murders, to which no
criminal's deed, however calculated it may be, can be compared? For there to be an
equivalence, the death penalty would have to punish a criminal, who had warned his
victim of the date at which he would inflict a horrible death on him, and who from that
moment onward had confined him at his mercy for months. Such a monster is not
encountered in private life.”
“Wouldn't it be weird if the only way people could die was that their heads suddenly
exploded without warning? If there was simply no other cause of death? One day you'd
be sitting there having a hot chocolate, and suddenly your head would explode. “
George (Denis) Carlin (b. 1937), American commedian, entertainer
259
“One of the most basic principles for making and keeping peace within and between
nations. . . is that in political, military, moral, and spiritual confrontations, there should
be an honest attempt at the reconciliation of differences before resorting to combat.”
“The basic difference between an ordinary person and a warrior is that a warrior takes
everything as a challenge while an ordinary person takes everything as a blessing or a
curse.”
Carlos Castaneda (b. 1931), American writer, author, "Journey to Ixtlan," "Politics of
Experience"
“Love and war are the same thing, and stratagems and policy are as allowable in the
one as in the others”
Miguel Cerbantes
“Let me leap out of the frying-pan into the fire; or, out of God's blessing into the warm
sun.”
"We should seek by all means in our power to avoid war, by analysing possible causes,
by trying to remove them, by discussion in a spirit of collaboration and good will. I
cannot believe that such a programme would be rejected by the people of this country,
even if it does mean the establishment of personal contact with the dictators.”
Neville Chamberlain (1869-1940), British Conservative politician, prime minister
“Marriage is an adventure, like going to war.”
“I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm, your hair upon the pillow like a
sleepy, golden storm, yes many loved before us, I know we are not new, in city and in
forest they smiled like me and you, but now it's come to distances and both of us must
try, your eyes are soft with sorrow, Hey, that's no way to say goodbye.”
Leonard (Norman) Cohen (b. 1934), Canadian writer, author, "Absurd Prayer," "As the Mist
Leaves No Scar"
“Grubb goes back, back... He's under the warning track and makes the play.”
Jerry Coleman, San Diego Padres announcer
“There is someone warming up in the Giants' bullpen, but he's obscured by his
number.”
260
“People will frighten you about a graduation....They use words you don't hear often...
'And we wish you Godspeed.' It is a warning, Godpeed. It means you are no longer
welcome here at these prices.”
Bill Cosby (b. 1937), African-American comedian, actor, author, comedian
“History is a vast early warning system.”
“As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to
tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our
country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow-citizens, the people are
confirmed by the next article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.”
Tench Coxe (1755-1824)
“Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your hearth or burn down your house,
you can never tell.”
Joan Crawford (1908-77), American actress
“To keep the fire burning brightly, there's one easy rule: keep the two logs together,
near enough to keep each other warm and far enough apart -- about a finger's breadth - for breathing room. Good fire, good marriage, same rule.”
Marnie Reed Crowell
261
Mistakes
"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely
foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.”
“At the opera in Milan with my daughter and me, Needleman leaned out of his box and
fell into the orchestra pit. Too proud to admit it was a mistake, he attended the opera
every night for a month and repeated it each time.”
“The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing, in so far as it stands ready
against the accidental and the unforeseen, and is not apt to fall.”
“Every political system is an accumulation of habits, customs, prejudices, and principles
that have survived a long process of trial and error and of ceaseless response to
changing circumstances. If the system works well on the whole, it is a lucky accident -the luckiest, indeed, that can befall a society.”
Edward C. Banfield
“If you have made a mistake, cut your losses as quickly as possible.”
advisor
“If you have made a mistake, cut your losses as quickly as possible.”
advisor
“No one is exempt from talking nonsense; the mistake is to do it solemnly.”
D. A. Battista
“An error doesn't become a mistake until you refuse to correct it.”
Orlando A. Battista
“We can become anything. That is why injustice is impossible here. There may be the
accident of birth, there is no accident of death. Nothing forces us to remain what we
were.”
262
John Berger (b. 1926), English author, "The Foot of Clive"
"We made too many wrong mistakes.”
Lawrence Peter Berra (b. 1925), [Yogi] American baseball player, manager
“Reason often makes mistakes, but conscience never does.”
“The fact remains that the overwhelming majority of people who have become wealthy
have become so thanks to work they found profoundly absorbing. The long term study of
people who eventually became wealthy clearly reveals that their 'luck' arose from
accidental dedication they had to an arena they enjoyed.”
“An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow
field.”
“The difference between greatness and mediocrity is often how an individual views a
mistake...”
Nelson Boswell
“When you make a mistake, don't look back at it long. Take the reason of the thing into
your mind, and then look forward. Mistakes are lessons of wisdom. The past cannot be
changed. The future is yet in your power.”
Phyllis Bottome
“Whatever happened to that old-fashioned Grandpa? If he still survives, he must be
hiding in the small towns. You sure don't see him very often in the big city. The big-city
Grandpa has gone big time. ... He is the life of every party, and out to prove he is just as
young as he ever was. A grandchild who makes the mistake of calling him 'Gramps' is
lucky if he isn't rewarded by a quick kick in the stomach.”
Hal (Harold Vincent) Boyle (1911-74), American journalist, Pulitzer for correspondence
“God don't make no mistakes. That's how He got to be God.”
Archie Bunker, [Carrol O'Conner]
“In the U.S. you have to be a deviant or exist in extreme boredom...Make no mistake; all
intellectuals are deviants in the U.S.”
William Seward Burroughs (b. 1914), American writer, naturalist
263
“[Jesus'] ministry was clearly defined, and the alternatives to the illusion and
Joan B. Campbell
"I made some mistakes in drama. I thought the drama was when the actors cried. But
drama is when the audience cries.”
Frank Capra (1897-1991), American film director
“Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you
make a life.”
Sandra Carey
“I think it a very happy accident.”
“Cruel persecution and intolerance are not accidents, but grow out of the very essense
of religion, namely, its absolute claims.”
Morris Raphael Cohen (1880-1947), Russian-born American educator, philosopher
“I've made a couple of mistakes I'd like to do over.”
“The probability of life originating from accident is comparable to the probability of the
unabridged dictionary resulting from an explosion in a printing shop.”
Edwin Conklin
“Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making
mistakes, and having fun.”
Mary Lou Cook
“The American male at the peak of his physical powers and appetites, driving 160 big
white horses across the scenes of an increasingly open society, with weekend money in
his pocket and with little prior exposure to trouble and tragedy, personifies "an accident
going to happen.”
John Sloan Dickey, President, Dartmouth
“Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle; Old Age a regret.”
264
“It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the
judgment.”
265
Monarchy
"Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation,
reverse order.”
“Philanthrophy is for beggars who want to feel like kings.”
Suvarshi Bhadra
“And Jesus said unto him, 'No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking
back, is fit for the kingdom of God.'“
Luke 9:62 Bible (15th-16th century), (First known English translation from the Latin)
“Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for
someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
Matthew 19:24 Bible (15th-16th century), (First known English translation from the Latin)
“For life is the mirror of king and slave, 'Tis just what we are and do; Then give to the
world the best you have, And the best will come back to you.”
Madeline Bridges (1844-1920), Writer, author
“No kingdom can be secured otherwise than by arming the people. The possession of
arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave. He, who has nothing, and who
himself belongs to another, must be defended by him, whose property he is, and needs no
arms. But he, who thinks he is his own master, and has what he can call his own, ought
to have arms to defend himself and what he possesses; else he lives precariously, and at
discretion.”
James Burgh (1714-1775)
“You are a king by your own fireside, as much as any monarch in his throne.”
“As every divided kingdom falls, so every mind divided between many studies confounds
and saps itself.”
scientist
266
“A king, realizing his incompetence, can either delegate or abdicate his duties. A father
can do neither. If only sons could see the paradox, they would understand the dilemma.”
“It is as queen of Canada that I am here. Queen of Canada and all Canadians, not just
one or two ancestral strains.”
Elizabeth II (b. 1926), Queen of England
"In the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king.”
“He is happiest, be he king or peasant who finds peace in his home.”
drama and novel
“Like jewels in a crown, the precious stones glittered in the queen's round metal hat.”
“I think in one of my previous lives I was a mighty king, because I like people to do what
I say.”
“I hope if dogs ever take over the world, and they choose a king, they don't just go by
size, because I bet there are some Chihuahuas with some good ideas.”
“Pale death knocks with impartial foot at poor men's hovels and king's palaces.”
Horace (65-8 BC), Roman lyric poet, exerted major influence on English poetry
“I would rather live and love where death is king than have eternal life where love is
not.”
Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-99), American politician, lecturer
“Not the senses I have but what I do with them is my kingdom.”
Helen Adams Keller (1880-1968), American memoirist, lecturer
“There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has
not had a king among his.”
Helen Adams Keller (1880-1968), American memoirist, lecturer
267
“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.”
"Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; and true
progress is to know more, and be more, and to do more.”
Sir John Lubbock (1834-1913), British banker, politician, naturalist. "British Wild Flowers"
“Christ will remain a priest and king; though He was never consecrated by any papist
bishop or greased by any of those shavelings; but he was ordained and consecrated by
God Himself, and by Him anointed.”
Martin Luther (1483-1546), German theologian, reformation leader
“Let me tell you quite bluntly that this king business has given me personally nothing but
headaches.”
Mohammed Reza Pahlavi (1919-80), Shah of Iran
“After the game, the king and the pawn go into the same box.”
Italian Proverb
“I've been 40 years discovering that the queen of all colors was black.”
Auguste Renoir (1841-1919), French impressionist painter
“I see Christ's love is so kingly, that it will not abide a marrow: it must have a throne all
alone in the soul.”
Samual Rutherford
“As we study the Word of God rightly divided we are to understand that God has
arranged His dealings with mankind into two programs. We have His prophesied
purpose and His secret purpose. Prophecy has to do with the earth and Christ's reign
upon it during the millennial kingdom, while the Mystery concerns our exaltation with
Christ in the heavenlies.”
Paul Sadler
“Why Paul? God already had called twelve apostles of the kingdom? Although Judas
had fallen in transgression, the seat of his apostolic office was filled by Matthias
preceding the day of Pentecost. Insofar as Paul was unconverted at the time, he could
not have possibly fulfilled the qualifications set down by the Holy Spirit to be numbered
with the twelve (Acts 1:21-26). Of course, there are many dispensationalists who would
agree with this interpretation, but teach that God ordained Paul to be the thirteenth
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apostle of the kingdom. Perhaps you have heard the saying, 'They jumped out of the
frying pan into the fire.' In other words, we have gone from bad to worse, which is
certainly the case with this view. the number twelve is stamped throughout the pages of
prophecy, thus eliminating the possibility of a thirteenth apostolic office (Matt. 19:28 cf.
Rev. 12-21). What logical explanation then can we give for Paul's apostleship? Before
the foundation of the world, God foreordained that He would raise up a new apostle to
reveal His eternal purpose for the parenthetical age of Grace in which we now live.
Hence, Paul says: 'But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb,
and called me by His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the
heathen [Gentiles]...' (Gal. 1:15.16). When God temporarily rolled up the building plans
of prophecy and placed them aside, He made known a secret set of plans. With this
program came a completely new set of blueprints. According to the counsel of His will,
He had predetermined to call Paul as the master builder of the project. So then, the
instructions for our building program are found in Paul's epistles. Little wonder the
apostles says: 'I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every
man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.' (1 Cor. 3:10). It is essential to use Pauline
construction materials (grace doctrines), simply because someday soon the Building
Inspector will examine our workmanship to determine if we followed His codes.”
Paul Sadler
“A resurrection waits in the future of all people, whether saved or lost, kingdom saints
or the Body of Christ. 'Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in which all that are in
the graves shall hear His voice, and come forth; they that have done good, unto the
resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation'
(Jn. 5:28, 29).”
Vernon Schutz
“It is well to be born either a king or a fool.”
Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4BC?-AD 65), [The Younger] Roman Stoic philosopher, writer,
tutor
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Money
"Success produces success, just as money produces money.”
“Many a crown of wisdom is but the golden chamberpot of success, worn with pompous
dignity.”
“Tradition is what you resort to when you don't have the time or the money to do it
right.”
Kirt Herbert Adler
“I cannot afford to waste my time making money.”
Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz (1807-73), Swiss-American zoologist, geologist
John Fellows Akers (b. 1934), American business executive, Chairman of IBM
right.”
“Early to bed and early to rise -- till you get enough money to do otherwise.”
Peter's Almanac
“On packing: Lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then, take half the clothes
and twice the money.”
Susan Butler Anderson
“God is on everyone's side … and in the last analysis, he is on the side with plenty of
money and large armies.”
“University President: "Why is it that you physicists always require so much expensive
equipment? Now the Department of Mathematics requires nothing but money for paper,
pencils, and erasers...and the Department of Philosophy is better still. It doesn't even
ask for erasers.”
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"The only thing I like about rich people is their money.”
Parliament
“The class distinctions proper to a democratic society are not those of rank or money,
still less, as is apt to happen when these are abandoned, of race, but of age.”
“If money be not thy servant, it will be thy master. The covetous man cannot so properly
be said to possess wealth, as that may be said to possess him.”
from experience.”
“Knowledge is like money: the more he gets, the more he craves.”
“The man whose only pleasure in life is making money, weighs less on the moral scale
than an angleworm.”
“Whether he admits it or not, a man has been brought up to look at money as a sign of
his virility, a symbol of his power, a bigger phallic symbol than a Porsche.”
Victoria Billings
“It is easier to talk about money -- and much easier to talk about sex -- than it is to talk
about power. People who have it deny it; people who want it do not want to appear to
hunger for it; and people who engage in its machinations do so secretly.”
Smiley Blanton
“Whenever it is in any way possible, every boy and girl should choose as his life work
some occupation which he should like to do anyhow, even if he did not need the money.”
Irish Blessing
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"When the Japanese mend broken objects they aggrandize the damage by filling the
“The only reason to have money is to tell any SOB in the world to go to hell.”
Humphrey Bogart, American actor
“Being rich is having money; being wealthy is having time.”
Margaret Bonnano
“Don't cling to fame. You're just borrowing it. It's like money. You're going to die, and
somebody else is going to get it.”
Sonny Bono, American singer/performer, Mayor, "Sonny and Cher"
“If thee marries for money, thee surely will earn it.”
Ezra Bowen (b. 1927), Writer, author
“Adults are just children who earn money.”
Kenneth Branaugh, British playwright/performer/actor/director
“Acting is the expression of a neurotic impulse. It's a bum's life…. The principal benefit
acting has afforded me is the money to pay for my psychoanalysis.”
Marlon Brando (b. 1924), U.S. screen actor
“We all live in a televised goldfish bowl.”
Kingman Brewster, Jr. (1919-88), American diplomat, US Ambassador to Great Britain,
President: Yale
“There is a serious defect in the thinking of someone who wants--more than anything
else--to become rich. As long as they don't have the money, it'll seem like a worthwhile
goal. Once they do, they'll understand how important other things are--and have always
been.”
Joseph Brooks
“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 Antonia Brophy (1929-95), English writer, "The Adventures of God in His Search for
the Black Girl"
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Music
"Nothing is capable of being well set to music that is not nonsense.”
Eric Anderson
“Love is like a violin. The music may stop now and then, but the strings remain
forever.”
June Masters Bacher
“Of all the music that reached farthest into heaven, it is the beating of a loving heart.”
“Of all the earthly music, that which reaches farthest into heaven is the beating of a
truly loving heart.”
“Leaders must encourage their organizations to dance to forms of music yet to be
heard.”
sociologist
“The earth has grown old with its burden of care But at Christmas it always is young,
The heart of the jewel burns lustrous and fair And its soul full of music breaks the air,
When the song of angels is sung.”
“Christianity helps us face the music even when we don't like the tune.”
“Every man's work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or
anything else, is always a portrait of himself.”
“Life is like music, it must be composed by ear, feeling and instinct, not by rule.
Nevertheless one had better know the rules, for they sometimes guide in doubtful cases,
though not often.”
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"There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in the lonely shore, there is
society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not Man the
less, but Nature more.”
“To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the music the words
make.”
yourself.”
“There are so many opportunities in life, that the loss of two or three capabilities is not
necessarily debilitating. A handicap can give you the opportunity to focus more on art,
writing, or music.”
Jim Davis (b. 1945), cartoonist
“The truest expression of a people is in its dance and music.”
Agnes de Mile (1905-93)
“Number is the Word but is not utterance; it is wave and light, though no one sees it; it
is rhythm and music, though no one hears it. Its variations are limitless and yet it is
immutable. Each form of life is a particular reverberation of Number.”
Maurice Druon, From the Memoirs of Zeus
“I think there are only three things America will be known for 2,000 years from now
when they study this civilization: the Constitution, jazz music, and baseball.”
Gerald Early, writer, baseball documentary
“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He
has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully
suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at
command, senseless brutality, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of
patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would
rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing
under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.”
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“There is no feeling, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in
music.”
“I always felt rock and roll was very, very wholesome music.”
Aretha Franklin, [Queen of Soul] MOWTOWN singer, performer
"My life is music. And in some vague, mysterious, and subconscious way, I have always
been driven by a taut inner spring which has propelled me to almost compulsively reach
for perfection in music, often--in fact, mostly--at the expense of everything else in my
life.”
Stan Getz
“I call architecture frozen music.”
drama and novel
“To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there's no music, no choreography, and the
dancers hit each other.”
“Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons, and you will find that it is to
the soul what the water bath is to the body.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (1841-1935), American associate justice, US Supreme Court
“When people hear good music, it makes them homesick for something they never had
and never will have.”
Edgar Watson Howe
“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”
“I learned that the only way you are going to get anywhere in life is to work hard at it.
Whether you're a musician, a writer, an athlete or a businessman, there is no getting
around it. If you do, you'll win -- if you don't you won't.”
Bruce Jenner
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“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo
painted, or Beethoven played music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep
streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great
street sweeper who did his job well.”
“It requires wisdom to understand wisdom; the music is nothing if the audience is deaf.”
Walter J. Lippmann (1889-1974), American journalist, Pulitzer winner
“Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.”
Julius Henry Marx (1890-1977), [Groucho] American comedian, actor, "Horse Feathers,"
"Duck Soup"
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Nature
"As the moon retaineth her nature, though darkness spread itself before her face as a
curtain, so the Soul remaineth perfect even in the bosom of the fool.”
“I am at two with nature.”
“Nothing happens to anybody which he is not fitted by nature to bear.”
“Nothing, it appears to me is of greater value in a man than the power of judgment; and
the man who has it may be compared to a chest filled with books, for he is the son of
nature and the father of art.”
“Man is by nature a political animal.”
“All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature,
compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire.”
“All men by nature desire to know.”
“Science is a mechanism, a way of trying to improve your knowledge of nature. It's a
system for testing your thoughts against the universe, and seeing whether they match.”
“I believe it is the nature of people to be heroes, given the chance.”
James A. Autry
"Many secrets of art and nature are thought by the unlearned to be magical.”
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“The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and
understanding.”
“We cannot command nature except by obeying her.”
“It is a secret both in nature and state, that it is safer to change many things than one.”
“Man, being the servant and interpreter of nature, can do and understand so much and
so much only as he has observed in fact or in thought of the course of nature: beyond
this he neither knows anything nor can do anything.”
“For those who intend to discover and to understand, not to indulge in conjectures and
soothsaying, and rather than contrive imitation and fabulous worlds plan to look deep
into the nature of the real world and to dissect it -- for them everything must be sought
in things themselves.”
“One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.”
“Art is a man's nature; nature is God's art.”
Philip James Bailey (1816-1902), Writer, author
“The old Lakota was wise. He knew that man's heart away from nature becomes hard;
he knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon led to lack of respect for
humans, too.”
Luther Bear, [Standing Bear]
"A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become
superfluous.”
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Ingrid Bergman (1915-82), Swedish actress
“A sense of curiosity is nature's original school of education.”
Smiley Blanton
“It is the nature, and the advantage, of strong people that they can bring out the crucial
questions and form a clear opinion about them. The weak always have to decide between
alternatives that are not their own.”
Joan Borysenko
“Man masters nature not by force, but by understanding.”
Jacob Brownowski
“We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature.”
“The sum is, that the worship of God must be spiritual, in order that it may correspond
with His nature. For although Moses only speaks of idolatry, yet there is no doubt but
that by synecdoche, as in all the rest of the law, he condemns all fictitious services which
men in their ingenuity have invented.”
“I enjoyed my own nature to the fullest, and we all know that there lies happiness,
although, to soothe one another mutually, we occasionally pretend to condemn such joys
as selfishness.”
“It is terrifying to see how easily, in certain people, all dignity collapses. Yet when you
think about it, this is quite normal since they only maintain this dignity by constantly
striving against their own nature.”
“One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off
living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon-instead of
enjoying the roses blooming outside our windows today.”
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Opportunity
"Note how good you feel after you have encouraged someone else. No other argument is
necessary to suggest that never miss the opportunity to give encouragement.”
“Not houses finely roofed or the stones of walls well built, nay nor canals and dockyards
make the city, but men able to use their opportunity.”
Saul David Alinsky
“Adventure isn't hanging on a rope off the side of a mountain. Adventure is an attitude
that we must apply To the day to day obstacles of life - Facing new challenges, seizing
new opportunities, Testing our resources against the unknown and in the process,
Discovering our own unique potential.”
John Amatt, Organizer participant Canada's first successful expedition to summit Mt.
Everest
“Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.”
“A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.”
“I don't know anything about luck. I've never banked on it, and I'm afraid of people who
do. Luck to me is something else; hard work and realizing what is opportunity and what
isn't.”
“The drums of Africa still beat in my heart. They will not let me rest while there is a
single Negro boy or girl without a chance to prove his worth.”
Mary McLeod Bethune (1875-1955), President Emeritus, Bethune-Cookman College
“Go around asking a lot of damn fool questions and taking chances. Only through
curiosity can we discover opportunities, and only by gambling can we take advantage of
them.”
Clarence Birdseye
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“Freedom means the opportunity to be what we never thought we would be.”
"Freedom means the opportunity to be what we never thought we would be.”
Joan Borysenko
“Whatever we possess becomes of double value When we have the opportunity of
sharing it with others.”
Bouilly
“You just don't luck into things as much as you'd like to think you do. You build step by
step, whether it's friendships or opportunities.”
“Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem more
afraid of life than death.”
James Francis Byrnes (1879-1972), American politician, associate justice US Supreme
Court
“Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better.”
“This American system of ours . . . call it Americanism, call it capitalism, call it what
you like, gives to each and every one of us a great opportunity if we only seize it with
both hands and make the most of it.”
Al Capone (1899-1947), U.S. Gangster
“Take a chance! All life is a chance. The man who goes the furthest is generally the one
who is willing to do and dare.”
“The office of government is not to confer happiness, but to give men the opportunity to
work out happiness for themselves.”
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“Be ready when opportunity comes...Luck is the time when preparation and opportunity
meet.”
Roy D. Chapin, Jr.
"Education must provide the opportunities for self-fulfillment; it can at best provide a
rich and challenging environment for the individual to explore, in his own way.”
“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”
author
“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in
every difficulty.”
author
“An empowered organization is one in which individuals have the knowledge, skill,
desire, and opportunity to personally succeed in a way that leads to collective
organizational success.”
M. Shawn Covey
“Every morning is a fresh beginning. Every day is the world made new. Today is a new
day. Today is my world made new. I have lived all my life up to this moment, to come to
this day. This moment--this day--is as good as any moment in all eternity. I shall make of
this day--each moment of this day--a heaven on earth. This is my day of opportunity.”
Dan Custer
“There are so many opportunities in life, that the loss of two or three capabilities is not
necessarily debilitating. A handicap can give you the opportunity to focus more on art,
writing, or music.”
Jim Davis (b. 1945), cartoonist
“Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.”
Demosthenes
“The secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it
comes.”
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“Within our dreams and aspirations we find our opportunities.”
Sue Atchley Ebaugh
“Never regard study as a duty but as an enviable opportunity to learn to know the
liberating influence of beauty in the realm of the spirit for your own personal joy and to
the profit of the community to which your later works belong.”
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Patience
"You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance.”
“When I was a young man I vowed never to marry until I found the ideal woman. Well, I
“Love is the answer, but while you are waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty
good questions.”
“If we begin with certainties, we shall end in doubts; but if we begin with doubts, and we
are patient in them, we shall end in certainties.”
“The patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.”
Bible (15th-16th century), (First known English translation from the Latin)
“But thou, O man of God, flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness,
faith, love, patience, meekness.”
1 Timothy 6:11 Bible (15th-16th century), (First known English translation from the Latin)
“Through patience a ruler can be persuaded, and a gentle tongue can break a bone.”
“When you read about a car crash in which two or three youngsters are killed, do you
pause to dwell on the amount of love and treasure and patience parents poured into
bodies no longer suitable for open caskets?”
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Lincoln Was Shot"
"The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens
“If you would know strength and patience, welcome the company of trees.”
Hal Borland
“The gun lobby finds waiting periods inconvenient. You have only to ask my husband
how inconvenient he finds his wheelchair from time to time.”
Sarah Brady
“She who loves roses must be patient and not cry out when she is pierced by thorns.”
Olga Brouman
“A dream can be nurtured over years and years and then flourish rapidly. . . . Be
patient. It will happen for you. Sooner or later, life will get weary of beating on you and
holding the door shut on you, and then it will let you in and throw you a real party!”
patience.”
“Genius is nothing but a great aptitude for patience.”
George-Louis Leclerc de Buffon (1707-88), [Comte] French naturalist
“On the Plains of Hesitation bleach the bones of countless millions, who, at the Dawn of
Victory, sat down to wait, and waiting--died!”
George W. Cecil
“Tony Gwynn, the fat batter behind Finley, is waiting.”
“The greatest power is often simple patience.”
E(li) Joseph Cossman (b. 1918), American writer, author
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"I am personally convinced that one person can be a change catalyst, a 'transformer' in
scientist
“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 be
powerless to vex your mind.”
scientist
“Beware the fury of a patient man!”
John Dryden (1631-1700), English writer, poet laureate
“Infinite patience brings immediate results.”
Wayne W(alter) Dyer (b. 1940), American writer, author
“Adopt the pace of nature, her secret is patience.”
“[On being an actor] .nothing more than a worker in a service occupation . It's like
being a waiter or a gas station attendant, but I'm waiting on 6 million people in a week
if I'm lucky.”
Harrison Ford, American actor, "Star Wars," "Indianna Jones"
“We have scarcely gotten home ... when our children's sneezes greet us, skinned knees
bleed after waiting all day to do so. There is the bellyache and the burned-out basement
bulb, the stalled car and the incontinent cat. The windows frost, the toilets sweat, the
body of our spouse is one cold shoulder and the darkness of our bedroom is soon full of
the fallen shadows of our failures.”
William H(oward) Gass (b. 1924), American writer, author, "Afterwords," "The Anatomy of
Mind," "Icicles"
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“It is easier to lead men to combat, stirring up their passion, than to restrain them and
direct them toward the patient labors of peace.”
André Gide (1869-1951), French writer, "The Immoralist"
“The key to everything is patience. You get the chicken by hatching the egg, not by
smashing it.”
Arnold H. Glasgow
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Patriotism
"For what were all these country patriots born? To hunt, and vote, and raise the price of
corn?”
“True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else.”
“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He
has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully
suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at
command, senseless brutality, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of
patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would
rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing
under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.”
“How I wish that somewhere there existed an island for those who are wise and of
goodwill! In such a place even I would be an ardent patriot.”
“Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by
the name of patriotism -how passionately I hate them!”
“Sometimes I wonder if I'm patriotic enough. Yes, I want to kill people, but on both
sides.”
“One of the great attractions of patriotism -- it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of
our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what's more,
with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous.”
“Some of your countrymen were unable to distinguish between their native dislike for
war and the stainless patriotism of those who suffered its scars. But there has been a
rethinking [and] now we can say to you, and say as a nation, thank you for your
courage.”
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Ronald Wilson Reagan (b. 1911), 40th US President, Republican
“Our institutions and values are in jeopardy as the mores of the market pervade all
social life in this country. Loyalty, honesty, courage, discipline, patriotism, and
commitment to family are being crowded out by the goals and rules of economic
rationality -- do whatever makes the most money.”
Barry Schwartz
“Men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They
will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive.”
Henry Steele
"Those who misrepresent the normal experiences of life, who decry being controversial,
who shun risk, are the enemies of the American way of life, whatever the piety of their
vocal professions and the patriotic flavor of their platitudes.”
Henry M. Wriston, President Emeritus, Brown University
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Peace
"That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe
“Better beans and bacon in peace than cakes and ale in fear.”
“A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety.”
Rodan of Alexandria
justice.”
“It is better we disintegrate in peace and not in pieces.”
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thy desire.”
"Comfort ye, my people; speak ye peace, thus saith our God. Comfort those who sit in
“Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is
esteemed a man of understanding.”
“But all who humble themselves before the Lord shall be given every blessing and shall
have wonderful peace.”
Psalm 37:11 TLB Bible (15th-16th century), (First known English translation from the
Latin)
“Everything is changeable, everything appears and disappears; there is no blissful
peace until one passes beyond the agony of life and death.”
“Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is
peace and joy and freedom for you, there can be no real peace or joy or freedom for me.
To see reality--not as we expect it to be but as it is--is to see that unless we live for each
other and in and through each other, we do not really live very satisfactorily; that there
can really be life only where there really is, in just this sense, love.”
(Carl) Frederick Buechner (b. 1926), American writer, author, "The Alphabet of Grace,"
"The Entrance to Porlock"
“Dear brightest star o'er Bethlehem, O let your precious light shine in with hope and
peace toward men in every home tonight.”
Swedish Carol
“One of the most basic principles for making and keeping peace within and between
nations. . . is that in political, military, moral, and spiritual confrontations, there should
be an honest attempt at the reconciliation of differences before resorting to combat.”
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forever.”
“We shall find peace. We shall hear angels, we shall see the sky sparkling with
diamonds.”
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860-1904), Russian author, playwright
“Indecision regarding the choice among pleasures temporarily robs a man of inner
peace. After due reflection, he attains joy by turning away from the lower pleasures and
seeking the higher ones.”
I Ching (BC 1150)
"I dream of wayward gulls and all landless lovers, rare moments of winter sun, peace,
privacy, for everyone.”
William F(rancis) Claire (b. 1935), American writer, author
“Christmas is not a time nor a season, but a state of mind. To cherish peace and
goodwill, to be plenteous in mercy, is to have the real spirit of Christmas.”
“Let's drink to the spirit of gallantry and courage that made a strange Heaven out of
unbelievable Hell, and let's drink to the hope that one day this country of ours, which we
love so much, will find dignity and greatness and peace again.”
Noel Coward
“We discovered that peace at any price is no peace at all.”
Eve Denise Curie (b. 1904), French pianist, writer, editor
“The world will never have lasting peace so long as men reserve for war the finest
human qualities. Peace, no less than war, requires idealism and self-sacrifice and a
righteous and dynamic faith.”
John Foster Dulles (1888-1959), American Republican diplomat, politician, US Secretary of
State
“Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace. The soul that knows it not,
knows no release from little things; Knows not the livid loneliness of fear.”
Amelia Earhart (1897-1937), American aviator, first women to fly solo across the Atlantic
Ocean
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“You have a wonderful child. Then, when he's 13, gremlins carry him away and leave in
his place a stranger who gives you not a moment's peace.”
Jill Eikenberry
“All of us who are concerned for peace and triumph of reason and justice must be
keenly aware how small an influence reason and honest good will exert upon events in
the political field.”
“Every kind of peaceful cooperation among men is primarily based on mutual trust and
only secondarily on institutions such as courts of justice and police.”
“If I were to start taking care of my grooming, I would no longer be my own self ... so
the hell with it ... I will continue to be unconcerned about it, which surely has the
advantage that I'm left in peace by many a fop who would otherwise come to see me.”
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Persistence
"A failure establishes only this, that our determination to succeed was not strong
enough.”
Hoshang N. Akhtar
“Habits...the only reason they persist is that they are offering some satisfaction...You
allow them to persist by not seeking any other, better form of satisfying the same needs.
Every habit, good or bad, is acquired and learned in the same way - by finding that it is
a means of satisfaction.”
Juliene Berk
enough.”
John Christian Bovee (1820-1904), Writer, author
willing to spend more time accomplishing a task and to persevere in the face of many
“The longer I live, the more I am certain that the great difference between the great and
the insignificant, is energy - invincible determination--a purpose once fixed, and then
death or victory.”
Sir Thomas Bowell Buxton
296
“Where the determination is, the way can be found.”
George S. Clason
“Perhaps the only misplaced curiosity is that which persists in trying to find out here, on
this side of death, what lies beyond the grave.”
Sidonie Gabrielle Colette (1873-1954), French author, novelist, "Earthly Paradise"
"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more
“Never let your persistence and passion turn into stubbornness and ignorance.”
Anthony J. D'Angelo
“If I had to select one quality, one personal characteristic that I regard as being most
Richard M. Devos
“I never could have done what I have done without the habits of punctuality, order, and
diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one subject at a time...”
“The strength of the Constitution lies entirely in the determination of each citizen to
defend it. Only if every single citizen feels duty bound to do his share in this defense are
the constitutional rights secure.”
297
“Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing.
People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present,
and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.”
“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”
“It seems to me we can never give up longing And wishing while we are thoroughly
alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, And we must hunger
after them.”
“Our determination to imitate Christ should be such that we have no time for other
matters.”
"I'm hard-nosed about luck. I think it sucks. Yeah, if you spend seven years looking for a
job as a copywriter, and then one day somebody gives you a job, you can say, Gee, I was
lucky I happened to go up there today. But, damnit, I was going to go up there sooner or
later in the next seventy years. If you're persistent in trying and doing and working, you
almost make your own fortune.”
Jerry Della Femina (b. 1936), Writer, author
“Vitality shows not only in the ability to persist, but in the ability to start over.”
“Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist but the ability to start over.”
“Energy and persistence conquer all thing.”
Constitution
“To err is human, to repent divine, to persist devilish.”
Constitution
298
“An invincible determination can accomplish almost anything and in this lies the great
distinction between great men and little men.”
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in
trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable
man.”
Robert Anson Heinlein (1907-88), American writer, "Stranger in a Strange Land"
“Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success.”
Napolean Hill
“If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are
impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but
perseverance.”
English Language"
“Although rumors persist to the contrary, there were no deaths while making the movie
Ben Hur.”
Deane Jordan
299
Poetry
"Talent is like a faucet; while it is open, you have to write. Inspiration? - a hoax
fabricated by poets for their self-importance.”
“Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy,
deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.”
“Any healthy man can go without food for two days - but now without poetry.”
Charles Baudelaire
“What is important-what lasts-in another language is not what is said but what is
written. For the essence of an age, we look to its poetry and its prose, not its talk
shows.”
Peter Brodie, Classics teacher, Foxcroft School, Middleburg, VA
“One attraction of Latin is that you can immerse yourself in the poems of Horace and
Catullus without fretting over how to say, "Have a nice day.”
“A vein of poetry exists in the hearts of all men.”
“Democritus maintains that there can be no great poet without a spite of madness.”
“I wish our clever young poets would remember my homely definitions of prose and
poetry; that is prose; words in their best order;-poetry; the best words in the best
order.”
“You campaign in poetry. You govern in prose.”
Mario M(atthew) Cuomo (b. 1932), Governor of NY
“In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone,
something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite.”
Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac (1902-84), British mathematician, physicist
300
"Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal.”
T. S. Eliot (1885-1968), American-born British poet, Nobel for Literature
“To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all
events profitable, all days holy, all men divine.”
“Nobody has ever measured, even poets, how much a heart can hold.”
Zelda (Sayre) Fitzgerald (1900-48), American writer, author, "The Continental Angle," "A
Couple of Nuts"
“Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the human heart can hold.”
Couple of Nuts"
“Nobody has ever measured even poets, how much a heart can hold.”
Couple of Nuts"
“Poets generally love cats -- because poets have no delusions about their own
superiority.”
Marion Garretty
“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.”
drama and novel
“Anthropologists are a connecting link between poets and scientists; though their fieldwork among primitive peoples has often made them forget the language of science.”
Robert Graves (1895-1985), British poet, novelist
“Dream is not a revelation. If a dream affords the dreamer some light on himself, it is
not the person with closed eyes who makes the discovery but the person with open eyes
lucid enough to fit thoughts together. Dream- a scintillating mirage surrounded by
shadows- is essentially poetry.”
minister
301
“When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When
power narrows the area of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and
diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.”
"If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo
painted, or Beethoven played music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep
streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great
street sweeper who did his job well.”
“Sad is his lot, who, once at least in his life, has not been a poet.”
Alphonse Marie Louis de Lamartine (1790-1869), French romantic poet, novelist,
statesman
“Dream is not a revelation. If a dream affords the dreamer some light on himself, it is
not the person with closed eyes who makes the discovery but the person with open eyes
lucid enough to fit thoughts together. Dream- a scintillating mirage surrounded by
shadows- is essentially poetry.”
Michel Leiris
“He was then in his fifty-fourth year, when even in the case of poets reason and passion
begin to discuss a peace treaty and usually conclude it not very long afterwards.”
Georg Christopher Lichtenberg (1742-99), German physicist, philosopher
“The one man who should never attempt an explanation of a poem is its author. If the
poem can be improved by it's author's explanations it never should have been published,
and if the poem cannot be improved by its author's explanations the explanations are
scarcely worth reading.”
Archibald MacLeish (1892-1982), American poet, Librarian of Congress, assistant secretary
of state
“A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write if he is to be
ultimately at peace with himself. What one can be, one must be.”
Abraham Maslow (1908-70), American psychologist, founder humanistic psychology
“It is no longer possible for lyric poetry to express the immensity of our experience. Life
has grown too cumbersome, too complicated. We have acquired values which are best
expressed in prose.”
Boris Pasternak
302
“I am a poet. I lock myself in my room with a type writer so I can talk in terms of the
world that has put me here.”
Eric Pio, American poet
“At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet.”
Plato (427?-347? BC), Greek philosopher, follower of Socrates, "The Republic"
“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't
rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not
knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without
knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.”
Gilda Radner
303
Power
“Arbitrary power is like most other things which are very hard, very liable to be
broken.”
“When you take charge of your life, there is no longer need to ask permission of other
people or society at large. When you ask permission, you give someone veto power over
your life.”
Geoffrey F. Abert
“Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
“When you blame others, you give up your power to change.”
“The effect of power and publicity on all men is the aggravation of self, a sort of tumor
that ends by killing the victim's sympathies.”
“A friend in power is a friend lost.”
“Men moving only in an official circle are apt to become merely official -- not to say
arbitrary -- in their ideas, and are apter and apter with each passing day to forget that
they only hold power in a representative capacity.”
William Adams
William Adams
William Adams
304
“Language exerts hidden power, like a moon on the tides.”
even.”
“If you don't control your mind, someone else will.”
John Allston
“The worst thing that can be said of the most powerful is that they can take your life; but
the same thing can be said of the most weak.”
Eric Ambler (b. 1909), British writer, novelist
“If everything's under control, you're going too slow.”
Mario Andretti (b. 1940), American NASCAR driver
“Watch out for the fellow who talks about putting things in order! Putting things in
order always means getting other people under your control.”
Barbara De Angelis
“The one who loves the least, controls the relationship.”
305
“Remember that what pulls the strings is the force hidden within; there lies the power to
persuade, there the life,--there, if one must speak out, the real man.”
“Courage consists of the power of self-recovery.”
Julie Arabi
“Revolutionaries do not make revolutions. The revolutionaries are those who know
when power is lying in the street and then they can pick it up.”
“Nothing, it appears to me is of greater value in a man than the power of judgment; and
the man who has it may be compared to a chest filled with books, for he is the son of
nature and the father of art.”
“Those who have the command of the arms in a country are masters of the state, and
have it in their power to make what revolutions they please. [Thus,] there is no end to
observations on the difference between the measures likely to be pursued by a minister
backed by a standing army, and those of a court awed by the fear of an armed people.”
“What lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do.”
“Rank does not confer privilege or give power. It imposes responsibility.”
anomaly.”
Margaret Atwood
“Every one in a crowd has the power to throw dirt; nine out of ten have the inclination.”
Paul Aubuchon
306
“Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically
and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.”
307
Pride
"All the world wondered as they witnessed ... a people lift themselves from humiliation
to the greatest pride.”
“It is not for him to pride himself who loveth his own country, but rather for him who
loveth the whole world. The earth is but one country and mankind its citizens.”
Baha'u'llah (1817-92), Persian religious leader, writer, founded "Bah'I" faith
“To know a man, observe how he wins his object, rather than how he loses it; for when
we fail, our pride supports; when we succeed; it betrays us.”
“The political lesson of Watergate is this: Never again must America allow an arrogant,
elite guard of political adolescents to by-pass the regular party organization and dictate
the terms of a national election.”
Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913), 38th US President, Republican
“Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.”
“Nobody can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old
idea and thinks it is his own.”
Sydney J. Harris (b. 1917), American journalist
“Many businessmen fail to understand Python principles--the ultimate absurdity was an
offer from America to buy the 'format' of the Python shows, that is, Monty Python
without the Pythons--corporate methods do not have the conceptual framework to deal
with an anarchist collective, run by intelligent and arrogant comedians who have proved
that their method works.”
Robert Hewison
“Wounded vanity knows when it is mortally hurt; and limps off the field, piteous, all
disguises thrown away. But pride carries its banner to the last; and fast as it is driven
from one field unfurls it in another, never admitting that there is a shade less honor in
the second field than in the first, or in the third than in the second.”
Helen Hunt Jackson, Ramona
308
“When once a man has made celebrity necessary to his happiness, he has put it in the
power of the weakest and most timorous malignity, if not to take away his satisfaction, at
least to withhold it. His enemies may indulge their pride by airy negligence a
English Language"
“Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the
average conscience a still, small voice says to us, 'Something is out of tune.'“
Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), Swiss psychiatrist, founded psychology
"The new frontier of which I speak is not a set of promises-it is a set of challenges. It
sums up not what I intend to offer the American people, but what I intend to ask of them.
It appeals to their pride, not their pocketbook-it holds out the promise of more sacrifice
instead of more security.”
“All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin. And therefore, as a free
man, I take pride in the words "Ich bin ein Berliner!”
“When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When
power narrows the area of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and
diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.”
“What's really important in life? Sitting on a beach? Looking a television eight hours a
day? I think we have to appreciate that we're alive for only a limited period of time, and
we'll spend most of our lives working. That being the case, I believe one of the most
important priorities is to do whatever we do as well as we can. We should take pride in
that.”
Victor Kiam
“We are an arrogant species, full of terrible potential, but we also have a great capacity
for love, friendship, generosity, kindness, faith, hope, and joy.”
Dean Koontz, American horror author
“Take all your dukes and marquises and earls and viscounts, pack them into one
chamber, call it the House of Lords to satisfy their pride and then strip it of all political
power. It's a solution so perfectly elegant and preposterous that only the British could
have managed it.”
Charles Krauthammer
309
“A man who is eating or lying with his wife or preparing to go to sleep in humility,
thankfulness and temperance, is, by Christian standards, in an infinitely higher state
than one who is listening to Bach or reading Plato in a state of pride.”
Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963), British writer, critic, "Allegory of Love," "The Chronicles
of Narnia"
“The pride of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and determination
that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.”
“The typical American of today has lost all the love of liberty, that his forefathers had,
and all their disgust of emotion, and pride in self- reliance. He is led no longer by Davy
Crocketts; he is led by cheer leaders, press agents, word mongers, uplifters.”
“Five enemies of peace inhabit with us--avarice, ambition, envy, anger, and pride; if
these were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace.”
Francesco Petrarch (1304-74), Italian poet, scholar, humanist, "Canzoniere"
"Be modest! It is the kind of pride least likely to offend.”
Jules Renard (1864-1910)
“To knock a thing down, especially if it is cocked at an arrogant angle, is a deep delight
to the blood.”
George Santayana (1863-1952), Spanish-born American philosopher, writer, "Realms of
Being"
“I love cats. I love their grace and their elegance. I love their independence and their
arrogance, and the way they lie and look at you, summing you up, surely to your
detriment, with that unnerving, unwinking, appraising stare.”
Joyce Stranger
“The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the
world and dances in rhythmic measures. It is the same life that shoots in joy through the
dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of
leaves and flowers. It is the same life that is rocked in the ocean-cradle of birth and of
death, in ebb and in flow. I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of this world of
life. And my pride is from the life-throb of ages dancing in my blood this moment.”
Sir Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), Bengali writer known for collection of poetry
"Gitanjali"
310
“I'm in trouble because I'm normal and slightly arrogant. A lot of people don't like
themselves and I happen to be totally in love with myself.”
Mike Tyson, African-American prize fighter
“I like to think of my best moment on the job as quiet victories. Victories over what?
Over the "system," over the various bureaucracies not watching me, over my colleagues'
indifference, over my patron's ignorance, over the very concept of horn-blowing pride.”
Paul Wiener
311
Reading
"A memorandum is written not to inform the reader but to protect the writer.”
Dean Gooderham Acheson (1893-1971), US Secretary of State
“There are times when I think that the ideal library is composed solely of reference
“I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves
Russia.”
“As surgeons keep their instruments and knives always at hand for cases requiring
immediate treatment, so shouldst thou have thy thoughts ready to understand things
divine and human, remembering in thy every act, even the smallest, how close is the
bond that unites the two.”
“The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing, in so far as it stands ready
against the accidental and the unforeseen, and is not apt to fall.”
“I'm not a speed reader. I'm a speed understander.”
“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.”
312
"The art of living is more like that of wrestling than of dancing; the main thing is to
stand firm and be ready for an unseen attack.”
“Reading makes a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.”
“We read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to
forgive our friends.”
failed.”
“Any great work of art revives and readapts time and space, and the measure of its
success is the extent to which it makes you an inhabitant of that world -- the extent to
which it invites you in and lets you breathe its strange, special air.”
“When you read about a car crash in which two or three youngsters are killed, do you
pause to dwell on the amount of love and treasure and patience parents poured into
bodies no longer suitable for open caskets?”
Lincoln Was Shot"
“I recently read that love is entirely a matter of chemistry. That must be why my wife
treats me like toxic waste.”
David Bissonette
“Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.”
313
“You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading
them.”
"It's an insane tragedy that 700,000 people get a diploma each year and can't read the
damned diploma.”
William E. Brock, US Secretary of Labor
“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it,
unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.”
“I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to
take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see.”
John Burroughs (1837-1921), American naturalist, writer
“The Congress will push me to raise taxes, and I'll say no, and they'll push and I'll say
no, and they'll push again. And all I can say to them is read my lips: No New Taxes.”
“I sometimes think of what future historians will say of us. A single sentence will suffice
for modern man: he fornicated and read the papers.”
“People love to admit they have bad handwriting or that they can't do math. And they
will readily admit to being awkward: 'I'm such a klutz!' But they will never admit to
having a poor sense of humor or being a bad driver.”
314
George (Denis) Carlin (b. 1937), American comedian, entertainer
“People love to admit they have bad handwriting or that they can't do math. And they
will readily admit to being awkward: I'm such a klutz! But they will never admit to
having a poor sense of humor or being a bad driver.”
George (Denis) Carlin (b. 1937), American comedian, entertainer
“What we become depends on what we read after all the professors have finished with
us. The greatest university of all is the collection of books.”
“Most of today's books have an air of having been written in one day from books read
the night before.”
315
Religion
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly
inadequate to the government of any other.”
“The radical novelty of modern science lies precisely in the rejection of the belief, which
is at the heart of all popular religion, that the forces which move the stars and atoms are
contingent upon the preferences of the human heart.”
Richard Adams (b. 1920), English author, “Watership Down”
“One's religion is whatever he is most interested in, and yours is Success.”
“Ethical religion can be real only to those who are engaged in ceaseless efforts at moral
improvement. By moving upward we acquire faith in an upward movement, without
limit.”
“The true meaning of religion is thus not simply morality, but morality touched by
emotion.”
“A little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism, but depth in philosophy bringeth
man's minds about to religion.”
316
reverse order.”
“One's religion is whatever one is most interested in.”
“Doubt is part of all religion. All the religious thinkers were doubters.”
Isaac Bashevis (1904-91), Polish-American writer, “The Admirer,” “Alone in the Wild
Forest”
“There is no religion higher than the truth.”
“To die for a religion is easier than to live it absolutely.”
“To die for a religion is easier than to live it absolutely.”
“To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god.”
“The heart that is to be filled to the brim with holy joy must be held still.”
George Seaton Bowes
“The earth has grown old with its burden of care But at Christmas it always is young,
The heart of the jewel burns lustrous and fair And its soul full of music breaks the air,
When the song of angels is sung.”
Phillips Brooks (1835-93), American Episcopal bishop, wrote “O Little Town of Bethlehem”
“An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support.”
Sir John Buchan (1875-1940), Scottish writer, government official, known as First Baron
Tweedsmuir
“If you can impress any man with an absorbing conviction of the supreme importance of
some moral or religious doctrine; if you can make him believe that those who reject that
doctrine are doomed to eternal perdition; if you then give that man power, and by means
of his ignorance blind him to the ulterior consequences of his own act,-he will infallibly
persecute those who deny his doctrine.”
317
Henry Thomas Buckle (1821-1932), English historian
“In his holy flirtation with the world, God occasionally drops a handkerchief. These
handkerchiefs are called saints.”
(Carl) Frederick Buechner (b. 1926), American writer, author, “The Alphabet of Grace,”
“The Entrance to Porlock”
“The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped
anything but himself.”
Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821-90), British explorer, tranlator, author
“Morality, taken as apart from religion, is but another name for decency in sin. It is just
that negative species of virtue which consists in not doing what is scandalously depraved
and wicked. But there is no heart of holy principle in it, any more than there is in the
grosser sin.
Horace Bushnell (1802-76), American theologian
“Indeed, the Founders mentioned the pagan authors in so many heartfelt speeches,
pamphlets and letters that today's sweeping references to America's 'Christian' roots
and 'Judeo-Christian heritage' ought to be amended. Maybe these terms should be
reserved to explain the traditional religions and morality of individuals, families,
congregations, small communities. Politically, our notions of virtue and vice have had
another genesis.”
Colin Campbell
“You can't divorce religious belief and public service ... I've never detected any conflict
between God's will and my political duty. If you violate one, you violate the other.”
James Earl “Jimmy” Carter, Jr. (b. 1924), 39th US President, Democrat
“There's no joy even in beautiful Wisdom, unless one have holy Health.”
Simondes of Ceos
“In matters of religion and matrimony I never give any advice; because I will not have
anybody's torments in this world or the next laid to my charge.”
politician, writer
“It is not funny that anything else should fall down; only that a man should fall down….
Why do we laugh? Because it is a gravely religious matter: it is the Fall of Man. Only
man can be absurd: for only man can be dignified.”
318
“It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.”
“Cruel persecution and intolerance are not accidents, but grow out of the very essence
of religion, namely, its absolute claims.”
Morris Raphael Cohen (1880-1947), Russian-born American educator, philosopher
“The three great apostles of practical atheism, that make converts without persecuting,
and retain them without preaching, are wealth, health, and power.”
319
Responsibility
"You can't dodge your responsibilities by saying they don't exist!”
“Marriage is that relation between man and woman in which the independence is equal,
Louis K. Anspacher
“Rank does not confer privilege or give power. It imposes responsibility.”
“Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself.”
“Our neighbors in Virginia are just as responsible for these killings as the criminals are
because they won't pass strong gun [control] legislation.”
Marion Shepilov Barry, Jr. (b. 1936), mayor of Washington, DC
failed.”
“There has been in recent years excessive emphasis on a citizen's rights and inadequate
stress put upon his duties and responsibilities.”
Paxton Blair (1892-1974), Writer, author, essayist
“Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.”
320
"The great thought, the great concern, the great anxiety of men is to restrict, as much as
possible, the limits of their own responsibility.”
Giosue Borsi
“No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.”
George Burns (1896-1996), American actor, author, comedian, vaudevillian
“My time has been passed viciously and agreeably; at thirty-one so few years months
days hours or minutes remain that 'Carpe Diem' is not enough. I have been obliged to
crop even the seconds-for who can trust to tomorrow?”
“A person I knew use to divide human beings into three categories: Those who prefer
have nothing to hide rather than being obliged to lie, those who prefer lying to having
nothing to hide, and finally those who like both lying and the hidden.”
“You have given me a great responsibility: to stay close to you, to be worthy of you and
to exemplify what you are.”
“One of the self-authenticating truths which we come at last to acknowledge is this
strange fact: that we know that for the evil in our lives we ourselves are responsible, but
for the good God alone deserves the praise.”
John L. Casteel
“The price of greatness is responsibility.”
author
“The challenges of change are always hard. It is important that we begin to unpack
those challenges that confront this nation and realize that we each have a role that
requires us to change and become more responsible for shaping our own future.”
Hillary Rodham Clinton
“[Congress is] functioning the way the Founding Fathers intended-not very well. They
understood that if you move too quickly, our democracy will be less responsible to the
majority.”
Barber B. Conable, Jr, US Congressman
321
“A man said to the universe: 'Sir, I exist!' 'However,' replied the universe. 'The fact has
not created in me A sense of obligation.'“
Stephen Crane
"To decide to be at the level of choice, is to take responsibility for your life and to be in
control of your life.”
Arbie M. Dale
“Character--the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life--is the source
from which self-respect springs.”
Joan Didion
“The willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life Is the source from which
self-respect springs.”
Joan Didion
“A good deal happens in a man's life that he isn't responsible for. Fortunate openings
occur; but it is safe to remember that such 'breaks' are occurring all the time, and other
things being equal, the advantage goes to the man who is ready.”
Lawrence Downs
“Management means, in the last analysis, the substitution of thought for brawn and
muscle, of knowledge for folkways and superstition, and of cooperation for force. It
means the substitution of responsibility for obedience to rank, and of authority of
performance for the authority of rank. Whenever you see a successful business, someone
once made a courageous decision.”
Peter F(erdinand) Drucker (b. 1909), Austrian writer, author, educator
“I have too much respect for the idea of God to make it responsible for such an absurd
world.”
Georges Duhamel
“If you don't like the way the world is, you change it. You have an obligation to change
it. You just do it one step at a time.”
Marian Wright Edelman (b. 1939), American writer, author
“Gravitation can not be held responsible for people falling in love.”
322
“[On love:] I have no respect for anyone who says they've given up, or that they're not
looking or that they're tired. That is to abrogate one's responsibility as a human being.”
Harlan Ellison, sci-fi author
“There are always those who think they know what is your responsibility better than you
do.”
323
Retirement
"In this country … men seem to live for action as long as they can and sink into apathy
“Men seek out retreats for themselves in the country, by the seaside, on the mountains. .
.But all this is unphilosophical to the last degree. . .when thou canst at a moment's
notice retire into thyself.”
advisor
“Let him that hath no power of patience retire within himself, though even there he will
have to put up with himself.”
Baltasar Gracian (1601-56), Spanish Jesuit writer of the Golden Age
“Have you ever been out for a late autumn walk in the closing part of the afternoon, and
suddenly looked up to realize that the leaves have practically all gone? And the sun has
set and the day gone before you knew it - and with that a cold wind blows across the
landscape? That's retirement.”
Stephen Butler Leacock (1869-1944), Canadian economist, humorous writer, "Literary
Lapses"
“I now know how Abbot felt when Costello left, how Brinkley felt when Huntley left, how
Sears felt when Roebuck left, and, of course, how Dan Rather felt when Connie left." (at
Robert MacNeil's retirement dinner)
Jim Lehrer, US news analyst
“When I retire I'm going to spend my evenings by the fireplace going through those
boxes. There are things in there that ought to be burned.”
324
Sanity
"What a terrible time this is to be a Christian. The churches have failed and betrayed us,
and the ministry preaches hate and murder. If there is a sane and reasoning voice in the
Christian church today it is sadly silent.”
Francois Arouet
“All I want to be is normally insane.”
Marlon Brando (b. 1924), U.S. screen actor
“It's an insane tragedy that 700,000 people get a diploma each year and can't read the
damned diploma.”
William E. Brock, US Secretary of Labor
“The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some
form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you.”
“I suppose it is much more comfortable to be mad and not know it than to be sane and
have one's doubts.”
G. B. Burgin
“Too much sanity may be madness. And maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it
should be!”
“Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night
of our lives.”
Charles William Dement
“Perhaps the mission of those who love mankind is to make people laugh at the truth, to
make truth laugh, because the only truth lies in learning to free ourselves from insane
passion for the truth.”
Umberto Eco
“If its sanity you are after there is no recipe like laughter.”
Henry Elliot
“That is the truest sign of insanity--insane people are always sure they are fine. It is
only the sane people that are willing to admit that they are crazy.”
325
Nora Ephron
"If you ever go temporarily insane, don't shoot somebody, like a lot of people do.
Instead, try to get some weeding done, because you'd really be surprised.”
“I think a good scene in a movie would be where one scientist tells another scientist,
'You know what will save the world? You're holding it in your hand.' And the other
scientist looks, and in his hand are peanuts. Then when he looks up, the first scientist is
being taken away to the insane asylum.”
“Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you.”
“What used to be called liberal is now called radical, what used to be called radical is
now called insane, what used to be called reactionary is now called moderate, and what
used to be called insane is now called solid conservative thinking.”
Tony Kushner
“What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy?”
Ursula K. LeGuin (b. 1929), US author, "The Princess"
“There is a thin line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line.”
Oscar Levant (1906-72), concert pianist
“Genius is one of the many forms of insanity.”
Cesare Lombroso (1836-1909), criminologist, educator, physician
“The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who Is able to think things out
for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost invariably
he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and
intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And if he is not romantic
personally, he is apt to spread discontent among those who are.”
“Those who danced where thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the
music.”
Angela Monèt
326
“Man is quite insane. He wouldn't know how to create a maggot, and he creates Gods
by the dozen.”
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533-92), French essayist, considered highest expression of
16th century prose
"...Two and two are four. Sometimes, Winston. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they
are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to
become sane.”
George Orwell (1903-50), British writer, "Animal Farm," "1984"
“I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity!”
Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49), American writer known for macabre poems, "The Raven"
“Friends will keep you sane, Love could fill your heart, A lover can warm your bed, But
lonely is the soul without a mate.”
David Pratt
“The man who carried out the attack is still in power and still insane, so we shall expect
another attack any minute." (On President Ronald Reagan)
Muammar Qaddafi (b. 1942), Libyan head of state
“Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think
sanely under the influence of a great fear.”
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945), 32nd US President, Democrat
“When the world goes mad, one must accept madness as sanity; since sanity is, in the
last analysis, nothing but the madness on which the whole world happens to agree.”
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Irish-born British playwright, founder "Fabian Society,"
Nobel
“Popular Christianity has for its emblem a gibbet, for its chief sensation a sanginary
execution after torture, for its central mystery is an insane vengeance bought off by a
trumpery expiation. But there is a nobler and profounder Christianity which affirms the
sacred mystery of equality and forbids the glaring futility and folly of vengeance.”
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Irish-born British playwright, founder "Fabian Society,"
Nobel
“The family seems to have two predominant functions: to provide warmth and love in
time of need and to drive each other insane.”
Donald G. Smith
327
“The rule is perfect: In all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.”
Mark Twain (1835-1910), [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] American author, humorist
328
School
“Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in
the form of facts.”
William Adams
Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888), American educator, social reformer, ”Table Talk”
anything.”
329
“I had a terrible education. I attended a school for emotionally disturbed teachers.”
Paul Anderson
homework.”
it.”
“The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.”
330
most.”
Parliament
mind.”
Columbia University
331
Socialism
"Why grab possessions like thieves, or divide them like socialists, when you can ignore
them like wise men?”
Natalie Clifford Barney (1876-1972), American author, known for "Risque Memoirs"
“The man who is not a socialist at twenty has no heart, but if he is still a socialist at
forty he has no head.”
Aristide Briand (1862-1932), French statesman, Nobel winner
“It is a socialist idea that making profits is a vice. I consider the real vice is making
losses.”
author
author
“All fingers are not alike, If you cut bigger ones to make all equal it is communism, If
you stretch smaller ones to make all equal it is socialism, If you do nothing to make all
equal it is capitalism.”
B. J. Gupta
“Under capitalism man exploits man; under socialism the reverse is true.”
Polish Proverb
“Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice
the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in
restraint and servitude.”
Alexis Charles Henri Clérel de Tocqueville (1805-59), French politician, traveler,
historian, "Democracy in America"
332
Sorrow
"There is a courage of happiness as well as a courage of sorrow.”
“It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he
giveth his beloved sleep.”
Psalm 127:2 Bible (15th-16th century), (First known English translation from the Latin)
“Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy.”
Dr. (Felice) Leo(nardo) Buscaglia (b. 1924), American Professor of Education at USC
“The pictures of airplanes flying into buildings, fires burning, huge structures
collapsing, have filled us with disbelief, terrible sadness and a quiet, unyielding anger."
[referring to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and
the Pentagon]
George Walker Bush (b. 1946), 43rd US President
“Sing away sorrow, cast away care.”
“I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm, your hair upon the pillow like a
sleepy, golden storm, yes many loved before us, I know we are not new, in city and in
forest they smiled like me and you, but now it's come to distances and both of us must
try, your eyes are soft with sorrow, Hey, that's no way to say goodbye.”
Leonard (Norman) Cohen (b. 1934), Canadian writer, author, "Absurd Prayer," "As the Mist
Leaves No Scar"
“Illusory joy is often worth more than genuine sorrow.”
333
Joseph Conrad (1857-1924), Polish-born British novelist, master of narrative technique
"Existence, as we know it, is full of sorrow. To mention only one minor point: every man
is a condemned criminal, only he does not know the date of his execution. This is
unpleasant for every man. Consequently every man does everything possible to postpone
the date, and would sacrifice anything that he has if he could reverse the sentence.
Practically all religions and all philosophies have started thus crudely, by promising
their adherents some such reward as immortality. No religion has failed hitherto by not
promising enough; the present breaking up of all religions is due to the fact that people
have asked to see the securities. Men have even renounced the important material
advantages which a well-organized religion may confer upon a State, rather than
acquiesce in fraud or falsehood, or even in any system which, if not proved guilty, is at
least unable to demonstrate its innocence. Being more or less bankrupt, the best thing
that we can do is to attack the problem afresh without preconceived ideas. Let us begin
by doubting every statement. Let us find a way of subjecting every statement to the test of
experiment. Is there any truth at all in the claims of various religions? Let us examine
the question.”
Aleister Crowley
“Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the self-same well from which your laughter
rises was often-times filled with your tears.”
geometry
“Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The
really great men must, I think, have great sadness on Earth.”
Feodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky (1821-81), Russian novelist, engineer, novelist
“If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we
are a sorry lot indeed.”
“I could have spoken from Rhode Island where I have been staying ... But I felt that, in
speaking from the house of Lincoln, of Jackson, and of Wilson, my words would better
convey both the sadness I feel in the action I was compelled today to make and the
firmness with which I intend to pursue this course until the orders of the federal court at
Little Rock can be executed without unlawful interference." (On sending troops to
enforce integration in Little Rock AR High School)
334
“The sacrifice which causes sorrow to the doer of the sacrifice is no sacrifice. Real
sacrifice lightens the mind of the doer and gives him a sense of peace and joy. The
Buddha gave up the pleasures of life because they had become painful to him.”
“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.”
“When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you
are weeping for that which has been your delight.”
“We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.”
“Who never ate his bread in sorrow, Who never spent the darksome hours Weeping, and
watching for the morrow,-- He knows ye not, ye gloomy Powers.”
drama and novel
"If you lived in the Dark Ages, and you were a catapult operator, I bet the most common
question people would ask is, 'Can't you make it shoot farther?' No. I'm sorry. That's as
far as it shoots.”
“A gentle word is never lost...It cheers the heart when sorrow-tossed, And lulls the cares
that bruise it.”
Hastings
“You always smile but in your eyes your sorrow shows.”
William Peter Horn
“Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when
you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.”
“When a man or woman loves to brood over a sorrow and takes care to keep it green in
their memory, you may be sure it is no longer a pain to them.”
Jerome Klapka Jerome (1859-1927), English writer, author, "Three Men in a Boat"
335
“I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of
nations.”
English Language"
“There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year's
course. Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word
'happy' would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.”
“I believe a man is born first unto himself-for the happy developing of himself, while the
world is a nursery, and the pretty things are to be snatched for, and pleasant things
tasted; some people seem to exist thus right to the end. But most are born again on
entering manhood; then they are born to humanity, to a consciousness of all the
laughing, and the never-ceasing murmur of pain and sorrow that comes from the
terrible multitudes of brothers.”
D(avid) H(erbert) Lawrence (1885-1930), British writer, "Sons and Lovers," "Lady
Chatterley's Lover"
“The real sadness of fifty is not that you change so much but that you change so little.”
Max Lerner (b. 1902), American author, columnist
“You are in the process of being indoctrinated. We have not yet evolved a system of
education that is not a system of indoctrination. We are sorry, but it is the best we can
do. What you are being taught here is an amalgam of current prejudice and the choices
of this particular culture. The slightest look at history will show how impermanent these
must be. You are being taught by people who have been able to accommodate
themselves to a regime of thought laid down by their predecessors. It is a selfperpetuating system. Those of you who are more robust and individual than others, will
be encouraged to leave and find ways of educating yourself-educating your own
judgment. Those that stay must remember, always and all the time, that they are being
moulded and patterned to fit into the narrow and particular needs of this society.”
Doris Lessing
336
Strength
"You say that love is nonsense....I tell you it is no such thing. For weeks and months it is
enough.”
Hoshang N. Akhtar
“Strengthen me by sympathizing with my strength, not my weakness.”
Alan Alda
“To begin to think with purpose, is to enter the ranks of those strong ones who only
recognize failure as one of the pathways to attainment.”
“No matter how big a nation is, it is no stronger that its weakest people, and as long as
you keep a person down, some part of you has to be down there to hold him down, so it
means you cannot soar as you might otherwise.”
Marian Anderson (1902-93), American contralto
“Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing
brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept
away.”
337
"To be capable of steady friendship or lasting love, are the two greatest proofs, not only
Paul Aubuchon
“Our neighbors in Virginia are just as responsible for these killings as the criminals are
because they won't pass strong gun [control] legislation.”
Marion Shepilov Barry, Jr. (b. 1936), mayor of Washington, DC
“Noble souls, through dust and heat, rise from disaster and defeat the stronger.”
John Bay
“Greatness lies not in being strong, but in the right use of strength.”
“The man who listens to Reason is lost; reason enslaves all whose minds are not strong
enough to master her.”
“The race is not [always] to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.”
Latin)
treasure.”
Latin)
“They that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with
wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”
Isaiah 40:31 Bible (15th-16th century), (First known English translation from the Latin)
“A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation.”
338
Isaiah IX.22 Bible (15th-16th century), (First known English translation from the Latin)
"Be strong and of good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord
thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.”
Joshua 1:9 Bible (15th-16th century), (First known English translation from the Latin)
“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
Philippians 4:13 Bible (15th-16th century), (First known English translation from the Latin)
“He shall separate himself from wine and strong drink, and shall drink no vinegar of
wine, or vinegar of strong drink, neither shall he drink any liquor of grapes, nor eat
moist grapes, or dried.”
Numbers 6:3 Bible: Hebrew (15th-16th century), (First known English translation from the
Latin)
“On the edge of destiny, you must test your strength.”
Handmaiden"
“Hear me, four quarters of the world - a relative I am! Give me the strength to walk the
soft earth, a relative to all that is! Give me the eyes to see and the strength to
understand, that I may be like you. With your power only can I face the winds.”
“Continuous effort--not strength or intelligence--is the key to unlocking our potential.”
“The weak in courage is strong in cunning.”
“It is the nature, and the advantage, of strong people that they can bring out the crucial
questions and form a clear opinion about them. The weak always have to decide between
alternatives that are not their own.”
339
“If you would know strength and patience, welcome the company of trees.”
Hal Borland
340
Success
work and luck.”
“Success produces success, just as money produces money.”
success.”
“Many a crown of wisdom is but the golden chamber pot of success, worn with pompous
dignity.”
“Most success springs from an obstacle or failure. I became a cartoonist largely
because I failed in my goal of becoming a successful executive.”
“In all thy undertakings, let a reasonable assurance animate thy endeavors; if thou
despairest of success, thou shalt not succeed.”
enough.”
Hoshang N. Akhtar
341
"If at first you don't succeed, you're running about average.”
M. H. Alderson
Rodan of Alexandria
“Eighty percent of success is showing up.”
“If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.”
“Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world.”
“Forward, as occasion offers. Never look round to see whether any shall note it.... Be
satisfied with success in even the smallest matter, and think that even such a result is no
trifle.”
John A. Appleman
“She knows there's no success like failure And that failure's no success at all.”
Paul Aubuchon
“The secret of my success is that at an early age I discovered I was not God.”
"Pray that success will not come any faster than you are able to endure it.”
342
“Many a man owes his success to his first wife and his second wife to his success.”
James Gilmore Backus (1913-89), [Jim] American writer, author, actor
“The attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been successful and then
only for a short while.”
George Baker (1877-1965), [Father Divine] American religious leader
“Always remember that striving and struggle precede success, even in the dictionary.”
Sarah Ban Breathnach
“If it was an overnight success, it was one long, hard, sleepless night.”
Dicky Barrett
advisor
“Making a success of the job at hand is the best step toward the kind you want.”
advisor
“The saddest life is that of a political aspirant under democracy. His failure is
ignominious and his success is disgraceful.”
“It is not the going out of the port, but the coming in, that determines the success of a
voyage.”
343
Talent
work and luck.”
genius.”
“Children's talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives.”
“It takes little talent to see what lies under one's nose, a good deal to know in what
direction to point that organ.”
“There are two kinds of talents, man-made talent and God-given talent. With man-made
talent you have to work very hard. With God-given talent, you just touch it up once in a
while.”
“Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck -- but, most of all,
endurance.”
them.”
sociologist
“The toughest thing about success is that you've got to keep on being a success. Talent is
only a starting point in this business. You've got to keep on working that talent. Someday
I'll reach for it and it won't be there.”
Irving (Israel Baline) Berlin (1888-1989), Russian-born American songwriter
“When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a
single bit of talent left, and could say, "I used everything you gave me.”
344
“When her last child is off to school, we don't want the talented woman wasting her time
in work far below her capacity. We want her to come out running.”
Mary Ingraham Bunting, President, Radcliffe College
"We're all generous, but with different things, like time, money, talent -- criticism.”
Frank A. Clark
“Mediocrity does not see higher than itself. But talent instantly recognizes the genius.”
“Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.”
“When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the
gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.”
“Each man has his own vocation; his talent is his call. There is one direction in which
all space is open to him.”
“Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the
cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you
have only an extemporaneous half possession... Do that which is assigned to you, and
you cannot hope too much or dare too much.”
“Hide not your talents, they for use were made. What's a sundial in the shade?”
Constitution
345
“It is not because the touch of genius has roused genius to production, but because the
admiration of genius has made talent ambitious, that the harvest is still so abundant.”
Century"
“True happiness involves the full use of one's power and talents.”
"Storybook happiness involves every form of pleasant thumb-twiddling; true happiness
involves the full use of one's powers and talents.”
“More important than talent, strength, or knowledge is the ability to laugh at yourself
and enjoy the pursuit of your dreams.”
Amy Grant
“The first glance at History convinces us that the actions of men proceed from their
needs, their passions, their characters and talents; and impresses us with the belief that
such needs, passions and interests are the sole spring of actions.”
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), German philosopher
“Real seriousness in regard to writing is one of two absolute necessities. The other,
unfortunately, is talent.”
Ernest Miller Hemingway (1899-1961), American writer, journalist, adventurer, expatriate
“We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that
intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.”
Eric Hoffer (1902-83), American philosopher
“Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which in prosperous circumstances would
have lain dormant.”
Horace (65-8 BC), Roman lyric poet, exerted major influence on English poetry
“The only success worth one's powder was success in the line of one's idiosyncrasy .
what was talent but the art of being completely whatever one happened to be?”
Henry James (1843-1916), American writer, critic, "The Bostonians," "The Golden Bowl"
“There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.”
346
“The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.”
“No one ever promised that the fastest horse in the race was the easiest one to ride." [on
managing talented people]”
Eric J. Joiner, Jr.
347
Teaching
"Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the
form of facts.”
William Adams
anything.”
348
"I had a terrible education. I attended a school for emotionally disturbed teachers.”
Paul Anderson
homework.”
it.”
"The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.”
349
most.”
Parliament
mind.”
Columbia University
350
Technology
"A computer terminal is not some clunky old television with a typewriter in front of it. It
is an interface where the mind and body can connect with the universe and move bits of
it about. (from Mostly Harmless)”
“While the rest of the world has been improving technology, Ghana has been improving
the quality of man's humanity to man.”
“I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.”
advisor
“In science as in love, too much concentration on technique can often lead to
impotence.”
P.L. Berger
“Like other occult techniques of divination, the statistical method has a private jargon
deliberately contrived to obscure its methods from non-practitioners.”
“Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. If we continue to develop our
technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner.”
General Omar Nelson Bradley (1893-1981), American general, played major part in Allied
victory in WW II
“Once a new technology rolls over you, if you’re not part of the steamroller, you're part
of the road.”
351
Stewart Brand
“The best computer is a man, and it's the only one that can be mass-produced by
unskilled labor.”
Wernher Magnus Maximilian von Braun (1912-77), German-born American rocket engineer
"All technology should be assumed guilty until proven innocent.”
David Ross Brower (b. 1912), American writer, author
“Artificial Intelligence: the art of making computers that behave like the ones in
movies.”
Bill Bulko
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Arthur C(harles) Clarke (b. 1917), British science fiction writer
“The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question
of whether a submarine can swim.”
E. W. Dijkstra
“More and more I come to value charity and love of one's fellow being above everything
else... All our lauded technological progress--our very civilization--is like the axe in the
hand of the pathological criminal.”
“Concern for man himself and his fate must always form the chief interest of all
equations.”
“It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.”
“It has become appallingly clear that our technology has surpassed our humanity.”
352
“The book is here to stay. What we're doing is symbolic of the peaceful coexistence of
the book and the computer.”
Vartan Gregorian, President, NY Public Library
“One thing a computer can do that most humans can't is be sealed up in a cardboard
box and sit in a warehouse.”
"If you want to be the popular one at a party, here's a good thing to do: Go up to some
people who are talking and laughing and say, 'Well, technically that's illegal.' It might
fit in with what somebody just said. And even if it doesn't, so what, I hate this stupid
party.”
“If you want a quality, act as if you already had it. Try the 'as if' technique.”
William James (1842-1910), American psychologist, philosopher, "The Will to Believe"
“For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please
press three.”
Alice Kahn
“New capabilities emerge just by virtue of having smart people with access to state-ofthe-art technology.”
Robert E. Kahn
“Because I'm technologically able to find a like-minded person on the other side of the
globe, I'm also more interested in making friends with my next-door neighbor.”
Jeffrey Klein
“Technology made large populations possible; large populations now make technology
indispensable.”
Joseph Wood Krutch (1893-1970), American critic, natrualist, writer, "The Modern
Temper"
“The mayor gave no other answer than that deep guttural grunt which is technically
known in municipal interviews as refusing to commit oneself.”
Stephen Butler Leacock (1869-1944), Canadian economist, humorous writer, "Literary
Lapses"
353
“Through his mastery of storytelling techniques, he has managed to separate his
character, in the public mind, from his actions as president. ... He has, in short,
mesmerized us with that steady gaze.”
Jean Nathan Miller
“The bigger the real-life problems, the greater the tendency for the discipline to retreat
into a reassuring fantasy-land of abstract theory and technical manipulation.”
Tom Naylor
“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.”
Ken Olson
354
Time
"It's hard for young players to see the big picture. They just see three or four years down
the road.”
“The first time I shot the hook, I was in fourth grade, and I was about five feet eight
inches tall. I put the ball up and felt totally at ease with the shot. I was completely
confident it would go in and I've been shooting it ever since.I try to do the right thing at
the right time."
They may just be little things, but usually they make the difference between winning and
losing.”
“Just because the solutions of problems are not visible at any particular time does not
mean that those problems will never be alleviated -- or confined to tolerable dimensions.
History has a way of changing the very terms in which problems operate and of leaving
them, in the end, unsolved, to be sure, yet strangely deflated of their original meaning
and importance.”
M. I. Abramowitz (1836-1917), Russian-born Yiddish novelist
“Women have been trained to speak softly and carry a lipstick. Those days are over.”
Bella Abzug (b. 1920), First person elected to U.S. Congress on platforms of peace and
women's rights
“The future comes one day at a time.”
“There are times when I think that the ideal library is composed solely of reference
“The last time anybody made a list of the top hundred character attributes of New
Yorkers, common sense snuck in at number 79.....”
355
reason.”
"When a man you like switches from what he said a year ago, or 4 years ago, he is a
promises.”
“You say that love is nonsense....I tell you it is no such thing. For weeks and months it is
“Had I been chosen President again, I am certain I could not have lived another year.”
“No matter how smart you are, you spend much of your day being an idiot.”
356
William Adams
William Adams
day.”
William Adams
William Adams
once been young.”
“Cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills it with a steady and
perpetual serenity.”
“Sunday clears away the rust of the whole week.”
once been young.”
right.”
Kirt Herbert Adler
“You have to allow a certain amount of time in which you are doing nothing in order to
have things occur to you, to let your mind think.”
357
“Ask others about themselves, at the same time, be on guard not to talk too much about
yourself.”
“I cannot afford to waste my time making money.”
Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz (1807-73), Swiss-American zoologist, geologist
“What is a thousand years? Time is short for one who thinks, endless for one who
yearns.”
358
Truth
less.”
“Whatever happens at all happens as it should; thou wilt find this true, if thou shouldst
watch closely.”
“The truth is often a terrible weapon of aggression. It is possible to lie, and even murder
with the truth.”
“Let us talk sense to the American people. Let us tell them the truth, that there are not
gains without pains.”
“A liar will not be believed, even when he speaks the truth.”
Edward Albee
359
"Optimism is essential to achievement and it is also the foundation of courage and true
progress.”
Lloyd Alexander
“The true recipe for a miserable existence is to quarrel with Providence.”
Rodan of Alexandria
“An error is the more dangerous the more truth it contains.”
“Our lives improve only when we take chances -- and the first and most difficult risk we
“If it is not seemly, do it not; if it is not true, speak it not.”
360
"Whatever happens it all happens as it should; thou wilt find this true, if thou shouldst
watch closely.”
“The high minded man must care more for the truth than for what people think.”
“Liars when they speak the truth are not believed.”
“Philosophy is the science which considers truth.”
“The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousand fold.”
“Trust each other again and again. When the trust level gets high enough, people
transcend apparent limits, discovering new and awesome abilities for which they were
previously unaware.”
David Armistead
“It [a letter] contains a misleading impression, not a lie. It was being economical with
the truth.”
Robert Armstrong, [Sir]
361
Variety
"Have a variety of interests ... These interests relax the mind and lessen tension on the
George Mathew Allen
“Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved.”
“How can one conceive of a one-party system in a country that has over 200 varieties of
cheeses?”
“Josh Billings said, "It is not only the most difficult thing to know oneself, but the most
inconvenient one, too. Human beings have always employed an enormous variety of
clever devices for running away from themselves, and the modern world is particularly
rich in such stratagems.”
“The tendency of an event to occur varies inversely with one's preparation for it.”
David Searles
“A wedding anniversary is the celebration of love, trust, partnership, tolerance, and
tenacity. The order varies for any given year.”
Paul Sweeney
“Fact of the matter is, there is no hip world, there is no straight world. There's a world,
you see, which has people in it who believe in a variety of different things. Everybody
believes in something and everybody, by virtue of the fact that they believe in something,
use that something to support their own existence.”
Frank Zappa
362
Virtue
"Ridicule is generally made use of to laugh men out of virtue and good sense, by
“Without courage you cannot practice any of the other virtues.”
“All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.”
“Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved.”
“Truthfulness with me is hardly a virtue. I cannot discriminate between truths that and
those that don't need to be told.”
Margot Asquith
“Silence is the virtue of fools.”
reverse order.”
“Nothing is more unpleasant that a virtuous person with a mean mind.”
363
"When women love us, they forgive us everything, even our crimes; when they do not
from experience.”
“Courage is the ladder on which all the other virtues mount.”
Brendan Francis Behan (1923-64), Irish writer, playwright
“[Faith] is the virtue of the storm, just as happiness is the virtue of sunshine.”
Ruth Fulton Benedict (1887-1948), American anthropologist
“There is no vice so simple but assumes some mark of virtue on his outward parts.”
Mary Bertone
“It is true that wealth won't make a man virtuous, but I notice there ain't anybody who
wants to be poor just for the purpose of being good.”
“That man is good who does good to others; if he suffers on account of the good he
does, he is very good; if he suffers at the hands of those to whom he has done good, then
his goodness is so great that it could be enhanced only by greater sufferings; and if he
should die at their hands, his virtue can go no further: it is heroic, it is perfect.”
“On life's journey faith is nourishment, virtuous deeds are a shelter, wisdom is the light
by day and right mindfulness is the protection by night. If a man lives a pure life,
nothing can destroy him.”
E. R. Bulwer-Lytton
other.”
364
Lytton
"The strong and virtuous admit no destiny.”
Lytton
“All government -- indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every
prudent act -- is founded on compromise and barter.”
“Morality, taken as apart from religion, is but another name for decency in sin. It is just
that negative species of virtue which consists in not doing what is scandalously depraved
and wicked. But there is no heart of holy principle in it, any more than there is in the
grosser sin.
Horace Bushnell (1802-76), American theologian
another genesis.”
Colin Campbell
“He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.”
author
author
“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.”
“Natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than
education without natural ability.”
365
“A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all other virtues.”
“To practice five things under all circumstances constitutes perfect virtue; these five are
gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness.”
366
Wants
"Prosperity depends more on wanting what you have than having what you want.”
Geoffrey F. Abert
William Adams
William Adams
Lajeunesse
“If a cow can't eat it, I don't want to play on it.”
Dick Allen, Baseball player
“We do not attract what we want, But what we are.”
dying.”
“I will not eat oysters. I want my food dead. Not sick -- not wounded -- dead.”
367
"Prosperity depends more on wanting what you have than having what you want.”
Geoffrey F. Abert
William Adams
William Adams
Lajeunesse
“If a cow can't eat it, I don't want to play on it.”
Dick Allen, Baseball player
“We do not attract what we want, But what we are.”
dying.”
“I will not eat oysters. I want my food dead. Not sick -- not wounded -- dead.”
368
"The main dangers in this life are the people who want to change everything -- or
nothing.”
Parliament
“Geniuses are the luckiest of mortals because what they must do is the same as what
they most want to do.”
“I don't believe in pessimism. If something doesn't come up the way you want, forge
ahead. If you think it's going to rain, it will.”
“I do not want people to be agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them.”
Jane Austen (1775-1817), British writer
“Man's many desires are like the small metal coins he carries about in his pocket. The
more he has the more they weigh him down.”
Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba
“Men in Great Place are thrice Servants: Servants of the Sovereign or State; Servants of
Fame; and Servants of Business … It is strange desire to seek Power and to lose
Liberty.”
hostile critics as a disputant; to attain , in fact, clear and demonstrative knowledge
our ranks.”
369
“I want to find a voracious, small-minded predator and name it after the IRS.”
Robert Baker, Paleontologist
370
War
"But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American War?
Geoffrey F. Abert
Geoffrey F. Abert
reason.”
A. Alvarez (b. 1929), British critic, poet, novelist, "The Savage God"
“As for life, it is a battle and a sojourning in a strange land; but the fame that comes
after is oblivion.”
“Dalton's records, carefully preserved for a century, were destroyed during the World
War II bombing of Manchester. It is not only the living who are killed in war.”
justice.”
Marcel Ayme
371
"You don't always win your battles, but it's good to know you fought.”
Lauren Bacall
“So long as we have enough people in this country willing to fight for their rights, we'll
be called a democracy.”
“Never forget that life can only be nobly inspired and rightly lived if you take it bravely
and gallantly, as a splendid adventure in which you are setting out into an unknown
country, to meet many a joy, to find many a comrade, to win and lose many a battle.”
Annie Besant
Persia.”
“The race is not [always] to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.”
Latin)
“People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election.”
German Empire
“Marriage means expectations and expectations mean conflict.”
Paxton Blair (1892-1974), Writer, author, essayist
“There are questions of real power and then there are questions of phony authority. You
have to break through the phony authority to begin to fight the real questions of power.”
Angel Blessing
372
“We've got a generation now who were born with semi equality. They don't know how it
was before, so they think, this isn't too bad. We're working. We have our attaché' cases
"... it's simply wrong to always order [kids] to stop that fighting. There are times when
one child is simply defending his rights and damned well should be fighting.”
“A man will fight harder for his interests than for his rights.”
“In the frank expression of conflicting opinions lies the greatest promise of wisdom in
governmental action.”
“Life-the way it really is-is a battle not between Bad and Good but between Bad and
Worse.”
“Christmas! The very word brings joy to our hearts. No matter how we may dread the
rush, the long Christmas lists for gifts and cards to be bought and given--when
Christmas Day comes there is still the same warm feeling we had as children, the same
warmth that enfolds our hearts and our homes.”
Joan Winmill Brown
“A life of reaction is a life of slavery, intellectually and spiritually. One must fight for a
life of action, not reaction.”
“It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is
yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.”
373
“The notion of political correctness . declares certain topics. certain expressions . even
certain gestures off-limits. What began as a crusade for civility has soured into a cause
of conflict and even censorship.”
“But the greatest menace to our civilization today is the conflict between giant
organized systems of self-righteousness -- each system only too delighted to find that the
other is wicked -- each only too glad that the sins give it the pretext for still deeper
hatred and animosity.”
Herbert Butterfield (1900-79), Vice Chancellor, Cambridge
374
Wisdom
"To me, being an intellectual doesn't mean knowing about intellectual issues; it means
“It's no coincidence that in no known language does the phrase 'As pretty as an airport'
appear.”
learn.”
“Many a crown of wisdom is but the golden chamber pot of success, worn with pompous
dignity.”
“Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people.”
day.”
William Adams
375
"Animals, in their generation, are wiser than the sons of men; but their wisdom is
“If you don't know where you're going, you'll end up somewhere else.”
“The wisest of the wise may err.”
“The future you shall know when it has come; before then forget it.”
“A doubtful friend is worse than a certain enemy. Let a man be one thing or the other,
“You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.”
376
"I sit beside my lonely fire and pray for wisdom yet: for calmness to remember or
“True wisdom is less presuming than folly. The wise man doubteth often, and changeth
his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubteth not; he knoweth all things but his own
ignorance.”
Lajeunesse
“I need to know the price of a gallon of milk and a dozen eggs. I need to know right
now.”
Lamar Alexander, Former govenor and presidential candidate
even.”
377
378
Wishing
"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the
“Exiles feed on hope.”
Elaine Agather
personality"
justice.”
“My object will be, if possible, to form Christian men, for Christian boys I can scarcely
hope to make.”
379
Parliament
impossible.”
John Perry Barlow
380
them like new with two magic words Hi, Dad!
Parliament
impossible.”
John Perry Barlow
381
them like new with two magic words Hi, Dad!”
382
Women
less.”
“A woman seldom asks advice before she has bought her wedding clothes.”
“When I was a young man I vowed never to marry until I found the ideal woman. Well, I
“I like to help women help themselves, as that is, in my opinion, the best way to settle the
woman question. Whatever we can do and do well we have a right to, and I don't think
any one will deny us.”
Alan Alda
“Marriage is that relation between man and woman in which the independence is equal,
Louis K. Anspacher
“Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less.”
Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906), American suffragist
“I declare to you that woman must not depend upon the protection of man, but must be
taught to protect herself, and there I take my stand.”
Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906), American suffragist
“They came out in the millions to show their dogged support for the woman the
dictatorship claimed it had defeated in the election.”
383
"I married beneath me. All women do.”
Parliament
anomaly.”
Margaret Atwood
“Males and females have never seemed to fully understand each other. It will probably
continue this way, but I think that's part of the magic of it all.”
Scott Bairstow
“No man should marry until he has studied anatomy and dissected at least one woman.”
“A woman knows the face of the man she loves like a sailor knows the open sea.”
“When women love us, they forgive us everything, even our crimes;when they do not
“If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she
will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there are men on base.”
384
“No man or woman who tries to pursue an ideal in his or her won way is without
enemies.”
Daisy Bates
"No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that
L. Frank Baum
“If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same
things.”
Saul Bellow (b. 1915), Canadian-born American writer
“A liberal is a man or a woman or a child who looks forward to a better day, a more
tranquil night, and a bright, infinite future.”
“I realized early on that the academy and the literary world alike-and I don't think there
really is a distinction between the two-are always dominated by fools, knaves,
charlatans and bureaucrats. And that being the case, any human being, male or female,
of whatever status, who has a voice of her or his own, is not going to be liked.”
Harold Bloom (b. 1930), US literary critic, theorist
“People are always asking couples whose marriage has endured at least a quarter of a
century for their secret for success. Actually, it is no secret at all. I am a forgiving
woman. Long ago, I forgave my husband for not being Paul Newman.”
“We've got a generation now who were born with semi equality. They don't know how it
was before, so they think, this isn't too bad. We're working. We have our attaché' cases
385
“The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens
“Just when you think there's nothing to write about, Nixon says, 'I am not a crook.'
Jimmy Carter says, 'I have lusted after women in my heart.' President Reagan says, 'I
have just taken a urinalysis test, and I am not on dope.'“
Art Buchwald (b. 1925), American newspaper columnist”
“When her last child is off to school, we don't want the talented woman wasting her time
in work far below her capacity. We want her to come out running.”
Mary Ingraham Bunting, President, Radcliffe College
386
Worrying
“Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you’ll have
to ram them down people’s throats.”
Howard Aiken (1900-1972), American engineer, developed first computers for IBM
“If the grass is greener in the other fellow’s yard - let him worry about cutting it.”
“Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world.”
“A girl becomes a wife with her eyes wide open. She knows that those sweetest words, “I
take thee to be my wedded husband,” really mean, “I promise thee to cook three meals a
day for 60 years; thee will I clean up after; thee will I talk to even when thou art not
listening; thee will I worry about, cry over and take all manner of hurts from.”“
“If being wealthy is taken to mean having the means to satisfy one’s every want, all but
the very poor can become rich as thou at a single stroke of a magician’s wand, simply
by ceasing to want more than is really necessary for sustaining life. By being content
with little and not giving a rap for what the neighbours think, one can attain a very large
John Blofeld
“One attraction of Latin is that you can immerse yourself in the poems of Horace and
Catullus without fretting over how to say, “Have a nice day.”
“There are two days in the week about which and upon which I never worry. Two
carefree days, kept sacredly free from fear and apprehension. One of these days is
Yesterday … And the other day I do not worry about is Tomorrow.”
Robert Jones Burdette
“If you can’t sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there and worrying.
It’s the worry that gets you, not the loss of sleep.”
“Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for
anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from
387
life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what
treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.”
Robertson Davies (b. 1913), Canadian novelist
“At different stages in our lives, the signs of love may vary: dependence, attraction,
contentment, worry, loyalty, grief, but at heart the source is always the same. Human
beings have the rare capacity to connect with each other, against all odds.”
Michael Dorris
“If worry were an effective weight-loss program, women would be invisible.”
Nancy Drew
“Do not worry about your problems in mathematics. I assure you, my problems with
mathematics are much greater than yours.”
“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which
are beyond the power of our will.”
Epictetus (AD 55?-135?), Greek Stoic philosopher
“I believe God is managing affairs and that He doesn’t need any advice from me. With
God in charge, I believe everything will work out for the best in the end. So what is there
to worry about.”
automobile
“Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the
sunlight.”
Constitution
“More men die of worry than of work, because more men worry than work.”
Robert Lee Frost (1874-1963), American poet, “A Boy’s Will,” “In the Clearing”
388
“Don’t worry about anything. Worrying never solved anything. All it does is distort your
mind.”
Milton Garland, At 103, the oldest worker in the U.S.
“Worry a little every day and in a lifetime you will lose a couple of years. If something is
wrong, fix it if you can. But train yourself not to worry. Worry never fixes anything.”
Mary Hemingway
“Don’t worry about your originality. You couldn’t get rid of it even if you wanted to. It
will stick with you and show up for better or worse in spite of all you or anyone else can
do.”
Robert Henri
“Abiding happiness is not simply a possibility, but a duty; all may live above the
troubles of life; worry is a poison and happiness is a medicine.”
Newell Dwight Hillis
“I’m tired. I’m tired of feeling rejected by the American people. I’m tired of waking up
in the middle of the night worrying about the war.”
“If you ain’t never pick up the sword, you ain’t never have to worry about fallin’ on it.”
Meldrick Lewis
“Above all, this country is our own. Nobody has to get up in the morning and worry
what his neighbors think of him. Being a Jew is no problem here.”
Golda Meir (1898-1978), Prime Minister of Israel
“Thomas Jefferson once said, “We should never judge a president by his age, only by
his works.” And ever since he told me that I stopped worrying.”
Ronald Wilson Reagan (b. 1911), 40th US President, Republican
“This was a great year for preventive worrying. Seldom in recent history have so many
people worried about so many things that didn’t happen in the end.”
James Barrett “Scotty” Reston (b. 1909), Scottish-born American journalist, Pulitzer
winner
“If any of us had a child that we thought was as bad as we know we are, we would have
cause to start to worry.”
389
William Penn Adair “Will” Rogers (1879-1935), American humorist noted for commentary
on American society and politics
“Early in my business career I learned the folly of worrying about anything. I have
always worked as hard as I could, but when a thing went wrong and could not be
righted, I dismissed it from my mind.”
Julius Rosenwald
“Don’t worry so much about your self-esteem. Worry more about your character.
Integrity is its own reward.”
Dr. Laura Schlessinger
“That’s the secret to life... replace one worry with another....”
Charles Monroe Schulz (b. 1922), American cartoonist, “Peanuts”
390
Writing
"A memorandum is written not to inform the reader but to protect the writer.”
“'Honour thy father and thy mother' stands written among the three laws of most
revered righteousness.”
Edward Albee
Saul David Alinsky
Eric Anderson
“Everyman's life is a fairy tale written by God's fingers.”
Hans Christian Anderson (1805-75), Danish master of the fairy tale
“Talent is like a faucet; while it is open, you have to write. Inspiration? - a hoax
fabricated by poets for their self-importance.”
Julie Arabi
“Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.”
“Jokes of the proper kind, properly told, can do more to enlighten questions of politics,
philosophy, and literature than any number of dull arguments.”
391
"From my close observation of writers...they fall into two groups:1) those who bleed
copiously and visibly at any bad review, and 2) those who bleed copiously and secretly
at any bad review.”
“Reading makes a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.”
“It seems to me that those songs that have been any good, I have nothing much to do
with the writing of them. The words have just crawled down my sleeve and come out on
the page.”
“You write in order to change the world, knowing perfectly well that you probably can't,
but also knowing that literature is indispensable to the world... The world changes
according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way ...
people look at reality, then you can change it.”
“The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes
another.”
“Why do writers write? Because it isn't there.”
Thomas Berger
“Every composer knows the anguish and despair occasioned by forgetting ideas which
one has not time to write down.”
(Louis) Hector Berlioz (1803-69), French composer
good judgment.”
“I realized early on that the academy and the literary world alike-and I don't think there
really is a distinction between the two-are always dominated by fools, knaves,
charlatans and bureaucrats. And that being the case, any human being, male or female,
of whatever status, who has a voice of her or his own, is not going to be liked.”
Harold Bloom (b. 1930), US literary critic, theorist
392
“I think the measure of your success to a certain extent will be the amount of things
written about you that aren't true.”
Derek Curtis Bok (b. 1930), American educator, University administrator, President,
Harvard
"Writing, I think, is not apart from living. Writing is a kind of double living. The writer
experiences everything twice. Once in reality and once in the mirror which waits always
before or behind.”
Catherine Drinker Bowen
“If, in instructing a child, you are vexed with it for want of adroitness, try, if you have
never tried before, to write with your left hand, and then remember that a child is all left
hand.”
J. F. Boyse
“Our live experiences, fixed in aphorisms, stiffen into cold epigrams. Our heart's blood,
as we write it, turns to mere dull ink.”
F. H. Bradley (1846-1924), English philosopher
“What is important-what lasts-in another language is not what is said but what is
written. For the essence of an age, we look to its poetry and its prose, not its talk
shows.”
“The writer who possesses the creative gift owns something of which he is not always
master- something that at time strangely wills and works for itself.”
“Life comes before literature, as the material always comes before the work. The hills
are full of marble before the world blooms with statues. “
“As against having beautiful workshops, studios, etc., one writes best in a cellar on a
rainy day.”
“Just when you think there's nothing to write about, Nixon says, 'I am not a crook.'
Jimmy Carter says, 'I have lusted after women in my heart.' President Reagan says, 'I
have just taken a urinalysis test, and I am not on dope.'“
Art Buchwald (b. 1925), American newspaper columnist
393
“Every man's work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or
anything else, is always a portrait of himself.”
another genesis.”
Colin Campbell
394
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395

3000 Quotes for Life

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