Famous Quotes |
| A book burrows into your life in a
very profound way because the experience of reading is not passive. |
Erica Jong, O Magazine, 2003 |
| Youth cannot know how age thinks and
feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young. |
J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, 2003 |
British fantasy author |
| To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must
observe. |
Marilyn vos Savant |
| Indifference and neglect often do much more damage than outright dislike. |
J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, 2003 |
British fantasy author |
| Life is a great big canvas; throw all the paint on it you can. |
Danny Kaye |
US actor & singer (1913 -
1987) |
| Either you decide to stay in the shallow end of the pool or you go out in
the ocean. |
Christopher Reeve |
| Some people make headlines while others make history. |
Philip Elmer-DeWitt, in Time Magazine |
| Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. |
Plato |
Greek author & philosopher in Athens
(427 BC - 347 BC) |
| I would not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into
momentum. |
Frances Willard |
US educator & temperance activist
(1839 - 1898) |
| The grass is not, in fact, always
greener on the other side of the fence. Fences have nothing to do with it. The grass is greenest where it is watered. When
crossing over fences, carry water with you and tend the grass wherever you
may be. |
Robert Fulghum, It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It |
US author & Unitarian clergyman
(1937 - ) |
| I have found that if you love life, life will love you back. |
Arthur Rubinstein |
US (Polish-born) composer & pianist
(1886 - 1982) |
| The game of life is the game of
boomerangs. Our thoughts, deeds and words return to us sooner or later, with astounding accuracy. |
Florence Shinn |
| Help others get ahead. You will always stand taller with someone else on
your shoulders. |
Bob Moawad |
| Nothing is easy to the unwilling. |
Nikki Giovanni |
| The thing that is really hard, and
really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself. |
Anna Quindlen |
| People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them Benjamin
Franklin said it first. |
David H. Comins |
| We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails. |
Bertha Calloway |
| Worry is a misuse of imagination. |
Dan Zadra |
| Personality can open doors, but only character can keep them open. |
Elmer G. Letterman |
| There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from
the things we do. |
Freya Madeline Stark |
| Young people have an almost biological destiny to be hopeful. |
Marshall Ganz, quoted by Sara Rimer in New York Times |
| The truth is that there is nothing
noble in being superior to somebody else. The only real nobility is in being superior to your former self. |
Whitney Young |
US civil rights leader (1921 -
1971) |
| Life is like an ever-shifting kaleidoscope - a slight change, and all
patterns alter. |
Sharon Salzberg |
| Keeping score of old scores and
scars, getting even and one-upping, always make you less than you are. |
Malcolm Forbes |
US art collector, author, & publisher
(1919 - 1990) |
| Be life long or short, its completeness depends on what it was lived for. |
David Starr Jordan |
US biologist, educator, & ichthyologist (1851 - 1931) |
| The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds
left undone. |
Harriet Beecher Stowe |
US abolitionist & novelist
(1811 - 1896) |
| There is nothing like a newborn baby
to renew your spirit - and to buttress your resolve to make the world a better place. |
Virginia Kelley |
| While we have the gift of life, it
seems to me that only tragedy is to allow part of us to die - whether it is our spirit, our creativity, or our glorious
uniqueness. |
Gilda Radner |
US actress & comedienne (1946
- 1989) |
| You cannot live a perfect day
without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you. |
John Wooden |
US basketball coach (1910 - ) |
| If I have learnt anything, it is
that life forms no logical patterns. It is haphazard and full of beauties which I try to catch as they fly by, for who knows
whether any of them will ever return? |
Margot Fonteyn |
English ballet dancer (1919 -
1991) |
| To send a letter is a good way to go somewhere without moving anything
but your heart. |
Phyllis Theroux, in House Beautiful Magazine |
| Follow the grain in your own wood. |
Howard Thurman |
| Never deprive someone of hope; it might be all they have. |
H. Jackson Brown Jr. |
| Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you. |
Ralph Waldo Emerson |
US essayist & poet (1803 -
1882) |
| For the most part, fear is nothing
but an illusion. When you share it with someone else, it tends to disappear. |
Marilyn C. Barrick |
| One never knows what each day is
going to bring. The important thing is to be open and ready for it. |
Henry Moore |
British sculptor (1898 - 1986) |
| If you want others to be happy,
practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. |
The Dalai Lama |
Tibetan Buddhist religious leader
(1935 - ) |
| Nobody will believe in you unless you believe in yourself. |
Liberace |
US pianist (1919 - 1987) |
| The opportunity for brotherhood presents itself every time you meet a
human being. |
Jane Wyman |
US actress (1914 - ) |
| A true friend knows your weaknesses
but shows you your strengths; feels your fears but fortifies your faith; sees your anxieties but frees your spirit;
recognizes your disabilities but emphasizes your possibilities. |
William Arthur Ward |
| True friends are those who really know you but love you anyway. |
Edna Buchanan |
| Treat your friends as you do your pictures, and place them in their best
light. |
Jennie Jerome Churchill |
Mother of Winston Churchill (1854
- 1921) |
| There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror
that reflects it. |
Edith Wharton, Vesalius in Zante |
US novelist (1862 - 1937) |
| Only the mediocre are always at their best. |
Jean Giraudoux |
French diplomat, dramatist, & novelist (1882 - 1944) |
| Life is an escalator: You can move forward or backward; you can not
remain still. |
Patricia Russell-McCloud |
| Challenge is a dragon with a gift in its mouthàTame the dragon and the
gift is yours. |
Noela Evans |
| Everybody has difficult years, but a
lot of times the difficult years end up being the greatest years of your whole entire life, if you survive them. |
Brittany Murphy, Seventeen Magazine, September 2003 |
| Givers have to set limits because takers rarely do. |
Irma Kurtz, Cosmopolitan Magazine, September 2003 |
| You have to learn that if you start making sure you feel good, everything
will be okay. |
Ruben Studdard, Seventeen Magazine, September 2003 |
| Energy is eternal delight. |
William Blake |
English engraver, illustrator, & poet
(1757 - 1827) |
| You are built not to shrink down to less but to blossom into more. |
Oprah Winfrey, O Magazine, February 2003 |
US actress & television talk show host (1954 -
) |
| Winter is on my head, but eternal spring is in my heart. |
Victor Hugo |
French dramatist, novelist, & poet
(1802 - 1885) |
| The end result of kindness is that it draws people to you. |
Anita Roddick, A Revolution in Kindness, 2003 |
| I have witnessed the softening of the hardest of hearts by a simple
smile. |
Goldie Hawn |
US actress & comedienne (1945
- ) |
| Beginning today, treat everyone you
meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend them all the care, kindness and understanding you can
muster. Your life will never be the same again. |
Og Mandino, The Greatest Miracle in the World |
| Ask yourself: Have you been kind
today? Make kindness your daily modus operandi and change your world. |
Annie Lennox |
| I stand in awe of my body. |
Henry David Thoreau |
US Transcendentalist author (1817
- 1862) |
| But the body is deeper than the soul and its secrets inscrutable. |
E. M. Forster |
British novelist (1879 - 1970) |
| We should conduct ourselves not as
if we ought to live for the body, but as if we could not live without it. |
Seneca |
Roman dramatist, philosopher, & politician (5 BC - 65 AD) |
| Our own physical body possesses a wisdom which we who inhabit the body
lack. |
Henry Miller |
US author (1891 - 1980) |
| Our bodies are our gardens to which our wills are gardeners. |
William Shakespeare |
Greatest English dramatist & poet
(1564 - 1616) |
| When you encounter seemingly good
advice that contradicts other seemingly good advice, ignore them both. |
Al Franken, "Oh, the Things I Know", 2002 |
| IÆm good enough, IÆm smart enough, and dog-gone it, people like me. |
Al Franken, Stuart Smalley in Saturday Night Live, catchphrase |
| When one has nothing left to lose
one becomes courageous. We are timid only when we have something left to cling to. |
Don Juan Matus, The Second Ring Of Power by Carlos Castaneda |
| If I must choose between righteousness and peace, I choose righteousness. |
Theodore Roosevelt |
26th president of US (1858 - 1919) |
| In human relations a little language
goes farther than a little of almost anything else. Whereas one language now often makes a wall, two can make a gate. |
Walter V. Kaulfers, The Forbes Book of Business Quotations |
| Language is the armory of the human
mind, and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons of its future conquests. |
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Forbes Book of Business Quotations |
English critic & poet (1772 -
1834) |
| Language is the picture and counterpart of thought. |
Mark Hopkins, The Forbes Book of Business Quotations |
| The world is full of suffering but it is also full of people overcoming
it. |
Helen Keller |
US blind & deaf educator (1880
- 1968) |
| Until you can measure something and
express it in numbers, you have only the begining of understanding. |
Lord Kelvin |
| The oldest and strongest emotion of
mankind is fear. And the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. |
H. P. Lovecraft |
US horror & supernatural author
(1890 - 1937) |
| Beauty is truth, truth beauty. That is all ye know, and all ye need to
know. |
John Keats, - |
English lyric poet (1795 - 1821) |
| There is no being of any race who, if he finds the proper guide, cannot
attain to virtue. |
Cicero |
Roman author, orator, & politician
(106 BC - 43 BC) |
| Death be not proud, though some have
called thee<br>Mighty and dreadfull, for thou art not so,<br>For, those, whom thou thinkst, thou dost
overthrow,<br> die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me. |
John Donne, Death Be Not Proud |
English clergyman & poet (1572
- 1631) |
| A truly great book should be read in
youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by
moonlight. |
Robertson Davies |
| 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 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 |
| Holding on to anger, resentment and
hurt only gives you tense muscles, a headache and a sore jaw from clenching your teeth. Forgiveness gives you back
the laughter and the lightness in your life. |
Joan Lunden, in Healthy Living Magazine |
| The love of truth lies at the root of much humor. |
Robertson Davies |
| Many a promising career has been
wrecked by marrying the wrong sort of woman. The right sort of woman can distinguish between Creative Lassitude and
plain shiftlessness. |
Robertson Davies |
| Few people can see genius in someone who has offended them. |
Robertson Davies |
| In every American there is an air of
incorrigible innocence, which seems to conceal a diabolical cunning. |
A. E. Housman |
English classical scholar, poet, & satirist (1859 - 1936) |
| I sometimes think that the saving
grace of America lies in the fact that the overwhelming majority of Americans are possessed of two great qualities- a
sense of humor and a sense of proportion. |
Franklin D. Roosevelt |
32nd president of US (1882 - 1945) |
| The very first law in advertising is
to avoid the concrete promise and cultivate the delightfully vague. |
Bill Cosby |
US comedian & television actor
(1937 - ) |
| Murder is unique in that it
abolishes the party it injures, so that society has to take the place of the victim and on his behalf demand atonement or grant
forgiveness; it is the one crime in which society has a direct interest. |
W. H. Auden |
US (English-born) critic & poet
(1907 - 1973) |
| Genuine goodness is threatening to those at the opposite end of the moral
spectrum. |
Charles Spencer |
| When I took office, only high energy
physicists had ever heard of what is called the Worldwide Web.... Now even my cat has its own page. |
Bill Clinton, announcement of Next Generation Internet initiative, 1996 |
42nd president of the United States
(1946 - ) |
| The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done
by perfect men. |
George Eliot |
English novelist (1819 - 1880) |
| It is a paradoxical but profoundly
true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at
some more ambitious goal beyond it. |
Arnold Toynbee |
English historian & historical philosopher (1889 - 1975) |
| There is an ecstasy that marks the
summit of life, and beyond which life cannot rise. And such is the paradox of living, this ecstasy comes when one is
most alive, and it comes as a complete forgetfulness that one is alive. |
Jack London, The Call of the Wild |
US adventurer, author, & sailor
(1876 - 1916) |
| Perhaps better we not obscure the
idea that happiness and misery, kindness and greed, and good works and bad deeds are within the capacities of us
all, not merely a select few. |
David P. Mikkelson, snopes.com, September 8, 2003 |
Writer at snopes.com |
| Calendars are for careful people, not passionate ones. |
Chuck, The World According to Chuck weblog, September 8, 2003 |
author of The
World According to Chuck weblog |
| Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for
their country. |
Bertrand Russell |
British author, mathematician, & philosopher (1872 - 1970) |
| And in the sweetness of friendship
let there be laughter and the sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is
refreshed. |
Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet |
Lebanese artist & poet in US
(1883 - 1931) |
| Most of our imports come from other countries. |
George W. Bush, Robin Williams, Live on Broadway |
43rd President of US (1946 - ) |
| Religion is the opiate of the masses. |
Karl Marx, Urban Dictionary, under "Religion." |
German economist & Communist political philosopher (1818 - 1883) |
| A fact is a simple statement that
everyone believes. It is innocent, unless found guilty. A hypothesis is a novel suggestion that no one wants to believe.
It is guilty, until found effective. |
Edward Teller |
US (Hungarian-born) physicist
(1908 - 2003) |
| It is wonderful to be here in the great state of Chicago. |
Dan Quayle |
US Republican politician (1947
- ) |
| Diplomacy is the art of knowing what not to say. |
Matthew Trump, in Mother Earth News |
| I do not like this word "bomb." It is not a bomb. It is a
device that is exploding. |
Jacques le Blanc, French ambassador on nuclear weapons |
| Behold, how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in
unity. |
Bible, Psalms 133 |
| But I know somehow, that only when it is dark enough, can you see the
stars. |
Martin Luther King Jr. |
US black civil rights leader & clergyman (1929 - 1968) |
| I am not a star. A star is nothing more than a ball of gas. |
Elijah Wood |
| He that is good at making excuses is seldom good at anything else. |
Benjamin Franklin |
US author, diplomat, inventor, physicist, politician, & printer (1706 - 1790) |
| The philosophers have already perceived the world in various ways; the
point is to change it. |
Karl Marx, from "The Eleventh Thesis on Feuerbach" |
German economist & Communist political philosopher (1818 - 1883) |
| Those who would deny freedom to
others deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, cannot long retain it. |
Abraham Lincoln |
16th president of US (1809 - 1865) |
| History never looks like history when you are living through it. |
John W. Gardner, quoted by Bill Moyers |
US administrator (1912 - ) |
| I want to believe in intelligent
design, and hence I am suspicious of anything that seems to confirm my desire to believe. |
James Lileks, The Bleat web log, September 15, 2003 |
Columnist and Webmaster |
| [S]he refused to be bored chiefly because she wasnÆt boring. |
Zelda Fitzgerald, 1922 |
| She was conscious that the things she did were the things she had always
wanted to do. |
Zelda Fitzgerald, 1922 |
| The best of us must sometimes eat our words. |
J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets, 1999 |
British fantasy author |
| It is our choices...that show what we truly are, far more than our
abilities. |
J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets, 1999 |
British fantasy author |
| Bad spellers of the world, untie! |
Graffito |
| There is no gravity. The earth sucks. |
Graffito |
| Avoid having your ego so close to
your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it. |
Colin Powell |
US general (1937 - ) |
| Science comits suicide when it adopts a creed. |
Thomas H. Huxley |
English biologist (1825 - 1895) |
| Men will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon. |
Napoleon Bonaparte |
French general & politician
(1769 - 1821) |
| History, despite its wrenching pain,
cannot be unlived, however, if faced with courage, need not be lived again. |
Maya Angelou |
US author & poet (1928 - ) |
| Beware of sentimental alliances
where the consciousness of good deeds is the only compensation for noble sacrifices. |
Otto von Bismarck, Bismarck and the German Empire by Erich Eyck |
German Prussian politician (1815 -
1898) |
| If there is no struggle, there is no
progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet renounce controversy are people who want crops without ploughing
the ground. |
Frederick Douglass 1817-1895 |
| I enjoy being a highly overpaid actor. |
Roger Moore |
English actor (1927 - ) |
| In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary. |
Aaron Rose |
| I think the highest and lowest
points are the important ones. Anything else is just...in between. I want the freedom to try everything. |
Jim Morrison |
| I think of myself as an intelligent,
sensitive human with the soul of a clown, which always forces me to blow it at the most important moments. |
Jim Morrison |
| Expose yourself to your deepest
fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free. |
Jim Morrison |
| The board is set, the pieces are moving. We come to it at
last...<br> The great battle of our time. |
J. R. R. Tolkien, Gandalf, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King |
British scholar & fantasy novelist
(1892 - 1973) |
| Love is the very essence of life. |
Gordon B. Hinckley, Standing for Something |
| He who has not first laid his
foundations may be able with great ability to lay them afterwards, but they will be laid with trouble to the architect and
danger to the building. |
Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince |
Italian dramatist, historian, & philosopher (1469 - 1527) |
| The world is wide, and I will not waste my life in friction when it could
be turned into momentum. |
Frances Willard |
US educator & temperance activist
(1839 - 1898) |
| When you were born, you cried and
the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a manner that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice. |
Traditional Indian Saying |
| A poet is an unhappy being whose
heart it torn by secret sufferings, but whose lips are so strangely formed that when the sighs and the cries escape them,
they sound like beautiful music... and then people crowd about the poet and
say to him: "Sing for us soon again;" that is as much as to say.
"May new sufferings torment your soul." |
Soren Kierkegaard |
Danish philosopher (1813 - 1855) |
| Some people surrender their freedom
willingly but others are forced to surrender it. Imprisonment begins with birth. Society, parents they refuse to allow
you to keep the freedom you were born with. There are subtle ways to punish a
person for daring to feel. You see that everyone around you has destroyed his
true feeling nature. You imitate what you see. |
Jim Morrison |
| Success in life is measured, most easily, by the number of days that a
person is truly happy. |
Eric Edmeades, Editor, Success Express Journal (circa 1996) |
| A hair divides what is false and true. |
Omar Khayyam |
| Keep your face to the sun and you will never see the shadows. |
Helen Keller |
US blind & deaf educator (1880
- 1968) |
| An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. |
Henry de Bracton, De Legibus in 1240 |
| One must be poor to know the luxury of giving! |
Georges Eliot, Middlemarch |
| Toward the accomplishment of an aim,
which in wantonness of atrocity would seem to partake of the insane, he will direct a cool judgement, sagacious
and sound. These men are madmen, and of the most dangerous sort. |
Herman Melville, Billy Budd, Sailor |
US novelist & sailor (1819 -
1891) |
| Just living is not enough, said the Butterfly. One must have sunshine,
freedom, and a little flower. |
Hans Christian Anderson |
| Hope is the thing with feathers that
perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all. |
Emily Dickenson |
| I am not afraid of tomorrow, for I have seen yesterday and I love today. |
William Allen White |
| As you cannot have a sweet and
wholesome abode unless you admit the air and sunshine freely into your rooms, so a strong body and a bright, happy, or
serene countenance can only result from the free admittance into the mind of
thoughts of joy and goodwill and serenity. |
James Allen, "As A Man Thinketh" |
| so convincing were those dreams of
being awake that he woke from them in a state of complete exhaustion, and had to go straight back to sleep again. |
Joseph Heller, Catch 22 |
US novelist (1923 - ) |
| I have spent most of my time worrying about thigs that have never
happened. |
Mark Twain |
US humorist, novelist, short story author, & wit (1835 - 1910) |
| A penny saved is a penny earned. |
Benjamin Franklin |
US author, diplomat, inventor, physicist, politician, & printer (1706 - 1790) |
| Many people consider the things
which government does for them to be social progress, but they consider the things government does for others as
socialism. |
Chief Justice Earl Warren |
| The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind. |
Humphrey Bogart |
| People who like quotations love meaningless generalizations. |
Graham Greene, A Burnt-Out Case |
| An nescis mi fili, quantilla
prudentia regitur orbis?<br> Dost thou not know, my son, with what
little wisdom the world is governed? |
Count Oxenstierna, letter to his son, 1648 |
| Force, and fraud, are in war the two cardinal virtues. |
Thomas Hobbes, quoted from "Oxygen3, Panda Software |
English political philosopher
(1588 - 1679) |
| We have to play what is actually in
demand, and we have to play it as well and as beautifully and as expressively as ever we can. |
Herman Hesse, Steppenwolf |
| Some men storm imaginary Alps all
their lives and die in the foothills cursing difficulties which do not exist. |
Edgar Watson Howe |
US journalist (1853 - 1937) |
| Give me where to stand, and I will move the earth. |
Archimedes, 300 B.C. |
Greek inventor, mathematician, & physicist (287 BC - 212 BC) |
| I learned that it is the weak who
are cruel, and that gentleness is to be expected only from the strong. |
Leo Rosten |
US (Polish-born) author (1908
- ) |
| I have always found that angels have the vanity to speak of themselves as
the only wise. |
William Blake, Marriage of Heaven and Hell |
English engraver, illustrator, & poet
(1757 - 1827) |
| Better reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven. |
John Milton, Paradise Lost |
English poet (1608 - 1674) |
| Memory says, I did that. Pride replies, I could not have done that.
Eventually memory yields. |
Friedrich Nietzsche, from the book Lies my Teacher Told Me. By James W. Loewen (1995) |
German philosopher (1844 - 1900) |
| You gain strength, courage and
confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face.... You must do the thing which you think
you cannot do. |
Eleanor Rosevelt |
| The aim of life is to live, and to
live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware. |
Henry Miller |
US author (1891 - 1980) |
| You raise your voice when you should reinforce your argument. |
Samuel Johnson |
English author, critic, & lexicographer (1709 - 1784) |
| Deadlines are things that we pass through on the way to finishing. |
Peter Gabriel |
| We thought, because we had power, we had wisdom. |
Stephen Vincent Benet, Litany for Dictatorships, 1935 |
US poet & short story author
(1898 - 1943) |
| It is a truth universally
acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or
views of such a man on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so
well fixed in the minds of ths surrounding families, that he is considered as
the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters. |
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (opening lines) |
English novelist (1775 - 1817) |
| There was something awesome in the
thought of the solitary mortal standing by the open window and summoning in from the gloom outside the spirits of
the nether world. |
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle |
British mystery author & physician
(1859 - 1930) |
| A family is a family not because of
gender but because of values, like commitment, trust and love. |
Gray Davis |
| Frantic orthodoxy is never rooted in
faith but in doubt. It is when we are unsure that we are doubly sure. |
Reinhold Niebuhr |
US Protestant theologian (1892 -
1971) |
| Only when the last tree has been cut
down<br> Only when the last river has been poisoned<br> Only when the last fish has been caught<br> Only
then will you find that money cannot be eaten. |
Cree Indian Prophecy |
| I never said actors were cattle. I said that actors should be treated
like cattle. |
Alfred Hitchcock |
British movie director (1899 -
1980) |
| To know the pains of power, we must
go to those who have it; to know its pleasures, we must go to those who are seeking it. |
Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon, 1825 |
(1780 - 1832) |
| Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education. |
Bertrand Russell |
British author, mathematician, & philosopher (1872 - 1970) |
| Let us weigh the gain and the loss,
in wagering that God is. Consider these alternatives: if you win, you win all, if you lose you lose nothing. Do not
hesitate, then, to wager that he is. |
Blaise Pascal |
French mathematician, physicist
(1623 - 1662) |
| One ought every day at least to hear
a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words. |
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Unknown |
German dramatist, novelist, poet, & scientist (1749 - 1832) |
| Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has
crushed it. |
Mark Twain |
US humorist, novelist, short story author, & wit (1835 - 1910) |
| If you develop an ear for sounds
that are musical it is like developing an ego. You begin to refuse sounds that are not musical and that way cut yourself off
from a good deal of experience. |
John Cage |
US composer of avant-garde music
(1912 - 1992) |
| The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the
rain. |
Dolly Parton |
| To laugh often and much; to win the
respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the
betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others;
to leave the world a little better; whether by a healthy child, a garden
patch of a redeemed social condition; to know that one life has breathed
easier because you have lived. This is the meaning of success. |
Ralph Waldo Emerson |
US essayist & poet (1803 -
1882) |
| Where they have burned books, they
will end in burning human beings.<br> (Dort, wo man Bⁿcher verbrennt, verbrennt man am Ende auch Menschen) |
Heinrich Heine, From his play Almansor (1821) |
German critic & poet (1797 -
1856) |
| The sole advantage of power is that you can do more good. |
Baltasar Gracian, The Art of Worldly Wisdom, 1647 |
| The higher a man gets, the smaller he seems to those who cannot fly. |
Friedrich Nietzsche |
German philosopher (1844 - 1900) |
| Disgust with dirt can be so great
that it prevents us from cleaning ourselves - from "justifying"
ourselves. |
Friedrich Nietzsche, Aphorisms in Beyond Good and Evil |
German philosopher (1844 - 1900) |
| There is no such thing as justice--in or out of court. |
Clarence Darrow |
US defense lawyer (1857 - 1938) |
| The beauty of religious mania is
that it has the power to explain everything. Once God (or Satan) is accepted as the first cause of everything which
happens in the mortal world, nothing is left to chance... logic can be
happily tossed out the window. |
Stephen King |
US horror novelist & screenwriter
(1947 - ) |
| There is only one way to hurt
someone who has lost everything -- give him back something broken. |
Stephen R. Donaldson, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant |
| "The ultimate measure of a man
is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." |
Martin Luther King Jr. |
US black civil rights leader & clergyman (1929 - 1968) |
| The world has changed.<br> I
see it in the water. <br> I feel it in the Earth. <br> I smell it
in the air. <br> Much that once was is lost,
<br> For none now live who remember it. |
J. R. R. Tolkien |
British scholar & fantasy novelist
(1892 - 1973) |
| They deem me mad for I will not sell
my days for gold; I deem them mad for they think my days have a price. |
Kahlil Gibran |
Lebanese artist & poet in US
(1883 - 1931) |
| A patriot is mocked, scorned and
hated; yet when his cause succeeds, all men will join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot. |
Mark Twain |
US humorist, novelist, short story author, & wit (1835 - 1910) |
| It is when power is wedded to chronic fear that it becomes formidable. |
Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind, 1954 |
(1902 - 1983) |
| We should take care not to make the
intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality. |
Albert Einstein |
US (German-born) physicist (1879 -
1955) |
| Generous people are rarely mentally ill. |
Dr. Karl Menninger |
US psychiatrist (1893 - 1990) |
| This is the best kind of voyeurism, hearing joy from your neighbors. |
Chuck, The World According to Chuck weblog, October 14, 2003 |
author of The
World According to Chuck weblog |
| Authenticity matters little,
though--our willingness to accept legends depends far more upon their expression of concepts we want to believe than upon
their plausibility. |
David P. Mikkelson, snopes.com, February 25, 2000 |
Writer at snopes.com |
| You can forget a lot of things, but you cannot forget a womanÆs name and
claim to love her. |
Real Live Preacher, RealLivePreacher.com Weblog, October 20, 2003 |
Anonymous author of
RealLivePreacher.com |
| Love the ones you can. Touch the ones you can reach. Let the others go. |
Real Live Preacher, RealLivePreacher.com Weblog, October 20, 2003 |
Anonymous author of
RealLivePreacher.com |
| ItÆs the friends you can call up at four a.m. that matter. |
Marlene Dietrich |
German movie actress (1901 - 1992) |
| An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his
fellow citizens. |
Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Melish, January 13, 1813 |
3rd president of US (1743 - 1826) |
| The only time people dislike gossip is when you gossip about them. |
Will Rogers |
US humorist & showman (1879 -
1935) |
| We can forgive a child who is afraid
of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. |
Plato |
Greek author & philosopher in Athens
(427 BC - 347 BC) |
| For authentic living what is needed is the resolute confrontation of
death. |
Martin Heidegger |
| A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile
the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral. |
Antoine De Saint-Exupery |
French writer (1900 - 1944) |
| All changes, even the most longed
for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can
enter another. |
Anatole France |
French novelist (1844 - 1924) |
| Those who profess to favor freedom,
yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without planting up the ground. They want rain without thunder or
lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.
The struggle may not be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may
be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing
without a demand. It never did, and it never will. |
Frederick Douglas |
| People might not get all they work for in this world, but they must
certainly work for all they get. |
Frederick Douglas |
| I feel like a fugitive from the law of averages. |
William H. Mauldin |
US cartoonist & soldier (1921
- 2003) |
| The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they
oppose. |
Frederick Douglas |
| If there is no struggle, there is no progress. |
Frederick Douglas |
| I prefer to be true to myself, even
at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence. |
Frederick Douglas |
| A certain amount of danger is essential to the quality of life. |
Charles Lindberg |
| I do not consider it an insult, but
rather a compliment, to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure û- that is all
agnosticism means. |
Clarence Darrow, Scopes Trial, 1925 |
US defense lawyer (1857 - 1938) |
| I love and I hate. How can this be,
you ask in vain. I know not, but I feel it to be so and am wracked with pain. |
Gaius Valerius Catullus, Poem 85 |
| You are only as old as the woman you feel. |
Groucho Marx |
US comedian with Marx Brothers
(1890 - 1977) |
| He that commends me to mine own content<br> Commends me to the
thing I cannot get. |
William Shakespeare, A Comedy of Errors |
Greatest English dramatist & poet
(1564 - 1616) |
| Childhood has no forebodings, but then, it is soothed by no memories of
outlived sorrow. |
George Eliot, The Mill On The Floss, Ch 9 |
English novelist (1819 - 1880) |
| Power never takes a back step - only in the face of more power. |
Malcolm X, Malcolm X Speaks, 1965 |
US black nationalist leader (1925
- 1965) |
| But pride only helps us to be
generous; it never makes us so, any more than vanity makes us witty. |
George Eliot, Middlemarch, Ch 8 |
English novelist (1819 - 1880) |
| Every man who is not a monster,
mathematician or a mad philosopher, is the slave of some woman or other. |
George Eliot, Scenes of Clerical Life - Amos Barton |
English novelist (1819 - 1880) |
| What is not nailed down is mine. Anything that I can pry loose was not
nailed down. |
Harlen Ellison, interview with Charlie Rose |
| He who falls in love with himself, will have no rivals. |
Ben Franklin |
| To sin in silence while others doth protest makes cowards out of men. |
Ella Wheeler Wilcox |
| Hares can gambol over the body of a dead lion. |
Publilius Syrus |
(~100 BC) |
| It is better to think too much, than to think too little |
Eric Kopras, myself (i thought it up) |
| I can live two months on a good compliment. |
Mark Twain |
US humorist, novelist, short story author, & wit (1835 - 1910) |
| The Darkness has begun. There will be no dawn. |
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, Chapter 1 |
| If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise. |
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe |
German dramatist, novelist, poet, & scientist (1749 - 1832) |
| In the whole wretched business there was something generous that was
doing its best to flower. |
J. M. Coetzee, Disgrace (novel) |
| Cowardice asks the question - is it
safe?<br> Vanity asks the question - is it popular?<br> Expediency asks the question - is it political?<br> But
conscience asks the question - is it right?<br> <br> There comes
a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, popular, or
political; but because it is right. |
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. |
| Please choose the way of peace. ...
In the short term there may be winners and losers in this war that we all dread. But that never can, nor never will
justify the suffering, pain and loss of life your weapons will cause. |
Mother Teresa, -- Letter to U.S.
President George Bush and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, January 1991. |
Indian humanitarian & missionary
(1910 - 1997) |
| Time has laid its healing hand upon
the wound when we can look back at the the pain we once fainted under, and no bitterness or despair arises in our
heart. |
Jerome K. Jerome, "Idle thought of an Idle Fellow" |
British humor writer (1859 - 1927) |
| [Of the parralels between the
railways and the church] both had their heyday in the mid-nineteenth century; both own a great deal of Gothic-style
architecture which is expensive to maintain; both are regularly assailed by
critics; and both are firmly convinced that they are the best means of
getting man to his ultimate destination. |
Reverend W. Awdry (1911 - 1997) |
| The strongest is never strong enough
to be always the master, unless he transforms strength into right, and obedience into duty. |
Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, 1762 |
French political philosopher (1712
- 1778) |
| Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see. |
John Lennon, "Strawberry Fields" |
English singer & songwriter
(1940 - 1980) |
| I have never been able, really, to
regret anything in all my life. I have always been far much too absorbed in the present moment or the immediate future to
think back. |
Albert Camus, The Stranger |
French existentialist author & philosopher (1913 - 1960) |
| May not Music be described as the
Mathematics of sense, and Mathematics as the Music of reason? |
James Joseph Sylvester |
| If I could kick the person in the
tail that causes me the most problems I could not sit down for a week. |
Will Rogers |
US humorist & showman (1879 -
1935) |
| Black holes are where God divided by zero. |
Steven Wright |
US comedian and actor (1955 - ) |
| Fettucine Alfredo is just Macaroni and cheese for adults |
Mitch Hedburg |
| There but for the grace of God go [I]. |
John Bradford, Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins |
| The first man to compare the cheeks
of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot. |
Salvador Dali, from Dialogues with Marcel Duchamp, by Pierre Cabanne,
1987, pp. 13-14 |
Spanish Catalan Surrealist painter
(1904 - 1989) |
| Under the influence of art the walls expand, the roof rises, and it
becomes a temple. |
Robert Ingersoll, On Isadora Duncan |
US agnostic, agnostic apologist, lawyer, & orator (1833 - 1899) |
| The talent is in the choices. |
Robert De Niro |
| I just drank eighteen whiskies. That must be a record. |
Dylan Thomas |
Welsh poet (1914 - 1953) |
| I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just
squandered. |
George Best |
| Only the gentle are ever really strong. |
James Dean |
| No flower of art ever fully blossomed save it was nourished by tears of
agony. |
Isadora Duncan, The Sensational Life of Isadora Duncan |
| We have, I fear, confused power with greatness. |
Stewart L. Udall, commencement address, Dartmouth College, June 13, 1965 |
US politician (1920 - ) |
| The most valuable function performed by the federal government is
entertainment. |
Dave Barry |
US columnist & humorist (1947
- ) |
| The difference between a successful
person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will. |
Vincent Lombardi |
| There are people in the world so
hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread. |
Mahatma Ghandi |
| Power in defense of freedom is greater than power on behalf of tyranny
and oppression. |
Malcolm X |
US black nationalist leader (1925
- 1965) |
| When you do the common things in
life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world. |
George Washington Carver |
| Advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise. |
J. R. R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. |
British scholar & fantasy novelist
(1892 - 1973) |
| The best effect of fine persons is felt after we have left their
presence. |
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals, 1839 |
US essayist & poet (1803 -
1882) |
| The best weapons against the
infamies of life are courage, wilfulness and patience. Courage strenthens, wilfulness is fun and patience provides
tranquility. |
Hermann Hesse |
Swiss (German-born) author (1877 -
1962) |
| Humility is not disgraceful, and carries no loss of true pride. |
Ernest Hemingway, "The Old Man and the Sea" |
US author & journalist (1899 -
1961) |
| Older men declare war. But it is
youth that must fight and die. And it is youth who must inherit the tribulation, the sorrow, and the triumphs that are
aftermath of war. |
Herbert Hoover |
US mining engineer & politician
(1874 - 1964) |
| "Think as I think" said
the man, "or you are abominable. You are a toad." And after I had
thought on it, I said "I will then, be a
toad." |
Stephen Crane |
| Much silence and a good disposition, there are no two things better than
these. |
Prophet Mohammed, Bukhari |
| He is not of us who is not
affectionate to the little ones, and does not respect the old; and he is not of us, who does not order which is lawful, and
prohibits that which is unlawful. |
Prophet Mohammed, ibn abbas |
| Do you know what is better than
charity and fasting and prayer? It is keeping peace and good relations between people, as quarrels and bad feelings
destroy mankind. |
Prophet Mohammed, Muslim & Bukhari |
| Kindness is a mark of faith, and whoever is not kind has no faith. |
Prophet Mohammed, Muslim |
| Of all the pulpits from which human
voice is ever sent forth, there is none from which it reaches so far as from the grave. |
John Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture, 1849 |
English critic, essayist, & reformer
(1819 - 1900) |
| The best richness is the richness of the soul. |
Prophet Mohammed, Bukhari |
| It is better to sit alone than in
company with the bad; and it is, better still to sit with the good than alone. It is better to speak to a seeker of knowledge
than to remain silent; but silence is better than idle words. |
Prophet Mohammed, Bukhari |
| A Muslim who meets with others and
shares their burdens is better than one who lives a life of seclusion and contemplation. |
Prophet Mohammed, Muslim |
| What actions are most excellent? To
gladden the heart of human beings, to feed the hungry, to help the afflicted, to lighten the sorrow of the
sorrowful, and to remove the sufferings of the injured. |
Prophet Mohammad |
| When you see a person who has been
given more than you in money and beauty, look to those, who have been given less. |
Prophet Mohammed |
| To overcome evil with good is good, to resist evil by evil is evil. |
Prophet Mohammed |
| There shall be no compulsion in religion. |
Quran 2:263, Quran 2:263 |
| The best of the houses is the house where an orphan gets love and
kindness. |
Prophet Mohammed |
| Gratitude is the most exquisite form of courtesy. |
Jacques Maritain, Reflections on America, 1958 |
French diplomat & philosopher
(1882 - 1973) |
| There are three rings involved with
marriage. The engagement ring, the wedding ring, and the suffering. |
Woody Allen |
US movie actor, comedian, & director
(1935 - ) |
| æTell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!<br> For the soul is dead that slumbers, and things are not what they seem.<br> Life
is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal;<br> Dust thou
art; to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul.Æ |
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow |
US poet (1807 - 1882) |
| Our situation has the disaffected beauty of a chess game. |
Alan Moore, The league of extraordinary gentlemen, chapter 5 |
| If my theory of relativity proves to
be correct, Germany will claim me a German, and France will claim me a citizen of the world. However, if it proves
wrong, France will say IÆm a German, and Germany will say that IÆm a jew. |
Albert Einstein |
US (German-born) physicist (1879 -
1955) |
| The genius of you Americans is that
you never make clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves, which leave us to wonder at the possibility
that there may be something to them that we are missing. |
Gamel Abdel Nasser |
| We must hang together, gentlemen...else, we shall most assuredly hang
separately. |
Benjamin Franklin |
US author, diplomat, inventor, physicist, politician, & printer (1706 - 1790) |
| Riches may enable us to confer
favours, but to confer them with propriety and grace requires a something that riches cannot give. |
Charles Caleb Colton, Lacon, 1825 |
(1780 - 1832) |
| Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. |
Mahtma Gandhi |
| Those who want to live, let them
fight, and those who do not want to fight in this world of eternal struggle do not deserve to live. |
Adolf Hitler, His 3rd Public Speech After taking Power. |
German Nazi dictator, orator, & politician (1889 - 1945) |
| A fair woman is a paradise to the eye, a purgatory to the purse, and a
hell to the soul. |
Elizabeth Grymeston |
| Friendship improves hapiness and reduces misery, by doubting our joys and
dividing our grief. |
Joseph Addison, (1672-1719) |
English essayist, poet, & politician
(1672 - 1719) |
| There will always be dissident
voices heard in the land expresing opposition without alternatives, finding fault but never favor, perceiving gloom on every
side, and seeking influence without responsibility. |
John F. Kennedy, Speech for the Dallas Trade Mart which was never
delivered. |
US Democratic politician (1917 -
1963) |
| We have the right to lie, but not about the heart of the matter. |
Luis Rodriguez, Always Running |
| I felt like poisoning a monk. |
Umberto Eco, on why he wrote the novel "The Name of the Rose." |
Italian novelist & semiotician
(1932 - ) |
| The greatest improvement is made by the man who works most intelligently. |
Bill Bowerman |
| If you can fill the unforgiving
minute With sixty secondsÆ worth of distance runù Yours is the Earth and everything thatÆs in it, AndùyouÆll be a Man, my
son! |
Rudyard Kipling |
British (Indian-born) author (1865
- 1936) |
| To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the Gift. |
Steve Prefontaine |
| Somebody may beat me, but they are going to have to bleed to do it. |
Steve Prefontaine |
| If you have a body, you are an athlete. |
Bill Bowerman |
| A lot of people run a race to see
who is fastest. I run to see who has the most guts, who can punish himself into exhausting pace, and then at the end,
punish himself even more. Nobody is going to win a 5,000 meter race after
running an easy 2 miles. Not with me. If I lose forcing the pace all the way,
well, at least I can live with myself. |
Steve Prefontaine |
| Every pursuit is great when greatly pursued. |
Oliver Wendell Holmes |
US author & physician (1809 -
1894) |
| A gift in season is a double favor to the needy. |
Publilius Syrus |
(~100 BC) |
| Contraceptives should be used on every conceivable occasion. |
Spike Milligan, (1918 - 2002) |
| The difference between a good man and a bad man is the choice of cause. |
William James |
US Pragmatist philosopher & psychologist (1842 - 1910) |
| The life of the law has not been logic but experience. |
Oliver Wendell Holmes |
US author & physician (1809 -
1894) |
| There are dreams stronger than death. Men and women die holding these
dreams. |
Carl Sandburg |
US biographer & poet (1878 -
1967) |
| For I dipt into the future, as far
as human eye can see, saw the vision of the world, and the wonder that would be. |
Lord Alfred Tennyson, Ulysses |
| Beauty fades; dumb is forever. |
Judge Judy, From her book "Beauty fades; dumb is forever." |
| God reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists. |
Albert Einstein |
US (German-born) physicist (1879 -
1955) |
| I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another
step forward. |
Thomas Edison |
| An investment in knowledge still yields the best returns. |
Benjamin Franklin |
US author, diplomat, inventor, physicist, politician, & printer (1706 - 1790) |
| A single event can shape our lives or change the course of history. |
Deepak Chopra, The Return of Merlin |
| Accurate scholarship can<br>
unearth the whole offence<br> from luther untill noe<br> that has
driven a culture mad.<br> From what occured
at linz<br> what huge imago made <br> a psychopathic
god.<br> i and the public know<br> what all schoolchildren
learn<br> those to whom evil is done <br> do evil in return. |
W. H. Auden |
US (English-born) critic & poet
(1907 - 1973) |
| Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tries, and a
touch that never hurts. |
Charles Dickens |
English novelist (1812 - 1870) |
| We all know that art is not the truth, art is a lie that makes us realize
the truth. |
Pablo Picasso |
Spanish Cubist painter (1881 -
1973) |
| I believe in God like I believe in
the sun, not because I can see it, but because of it all things are seen. |
C. S. Lewis |
English essayist & juvenile novelist
(1898 - 1963) |
| If I am not making music, I have no reason for existing. |
Claude Debussy |
| Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind. |
William Shakespeare, Hamlet, 1600 |
Greatest English dramatist & poet
(1564 - 1616) |
| The very essence of love is uncertainty. |
Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Ernest |
Irish dramatist, novelist, & poet
(1854 - 1900) |
| Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff
life is made of. |
Benjamin Franklin |
US author, diplomat, inventor, physicist, politician, & printer (1706 - 1790) |
| Yet such is oft the course of deeds
that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them becuase they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere. |
J. R. R Tolkien, Elrond from The Lord of the Rings |
| The best and most beautiful things
in this world cannot be seen not touched... but felt in the heart. |
Hellen Keller |
| The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas. |
Linus Pauling |
| Critics are our friends, they tell us our faults. |
Benjamin Franklin |
US author, diplomat, inventor, physicist, politician, & printer (1706 - 1790) |
| Death tugs at my ear and says: "Live, I am coming." |
Oliver Wendell Holmes |
US author & physician (1809 -
1894) |
| What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and yet loses his
soul? |
Jesus Christ, Matthew 16:26 |
| The consciousness of self is the
greatest hindrance to the proper execution of all physical action. There is no fixed teaching. All I can provide is an
appropriate medicine for a particular ailment. |
Bruce Lee, Quotation from the book: (The Art of Jeet Kune Do) by Bruce
Lee |
US martial arts expert & movie actor
(1940 - 1973) |
| Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens. |
Jimi Hendrix |
| Today you play for a place in history, today you play for immortality. |
Gerard Houllier, UEFA Cup Final 2001 pre-match team talk |
| To summarize: it is a well-known
fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the
summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on
no account be allowed to do the job. To summarize the summary of the summary:
people are a problem. |
Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe |
English humorist & science fiction novelist (1952 - 2001) |
| Kites rise highest against the wind - not with it. |
Winston Churchill |
| We find that after years of struggle we do not take a journey, but rather
a journey takes us. |
John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley |
US novelist (1902 - 1968) |
| Your problems and mine, they are
nothing new. They are all just another small part of the generic nightmare. |
Lewis Ward |
| Boredom is a finicky creature, never
around when you need it, and always popping up when you want it the least. |
Lewis Ward |
| The future is an opaque mirror.
Anyone who tries to look into it sees nothing but the dim outlines of an old and worried face. |
Jim Bishop, New York Journal-American, March 14, 1959 |
| A little bad taste is like a nice dash of paprika. |
Dorothy Parker |
US author, humorist, poet, & wit
(1893 - 1967) |
| The only "ism" hollywood believes in is plagiarism. |
Dorothy Parker |
US author, humorist, poet, & wit
(1893 - 1967) |
| When you point to the moon, what do
you see in front of your finger; Your task is to feel, not to think, when you can understand that the lesson will be
learned. |
Bruce Lee, During a television interview |
US martial arts expert & movie actor
(1940 - 1973) |
| No sadder proof can be given by man of his own littleness than disbelief
in great men. |
Thomas Carlyle, Heroes and Hero Worship, 1840 |
Scottish author, essayist, & historian (1795 - 1881) |
| Imagination is the highest kite that one can fly. |
Lauren Becall |
| One cannot remain the same. Art is a
mirror which should show many reflections, and the artist should not always show the same face, or the face becomes
a mask. |
Yvette Gilbert, (1865-1944) |
| The outcome of any serious research
can only be to make two questions grow where only one grew before. |
Thorstein Veblen |
US economist & social philosopher
(1857 - 1929) |
| Invention is the mother of necessity. |
Thorstein Veblen |
US economist & social philosopher
(1857 - 1929) |
| Just as it would be madness to
settle on medical treatment for the body of a person by taking an opinion poll of the neighbors, so it is irrational to
prescribe for the body politic by polling the opinions of the people at
large. |
Plato |
Greek author & philosopher in Athens
(427 BC - 347 BC) |
| The man least dependent upon the morrow goes to meet the morrow most
cheerfully. |
Epicurus, 300 B.C. |
Greek philosopher (341 BC - 270
BC) |
| There is nothing that gives a man
consequence, and renders him fit for command, like a support that renders him independent of everybody but the State he
serves. |
George Washington |
First president of US (1732 -
1799) |
| It is better to have done something than to have been someone. |
Claude Monet |
| Happiness is a warm puppy. |
Charles M. Schultz, Linus in "Peanuts" |
| You know when people are stupid, it frustrates me. |
Julia Roberts, on Oprah, 11/18/03 |
| May your life be like a wildflower, growing freely in the beauty and joy
of each day. |
Native American Proverb |
| Keeping your body healthy is an
expression of gratitude to the whole cosmos - the trees, the clouds, everything. |
Thich Nhat Hanh |
| A preoccupation with the future not
only prevents us from seeing the present as it is but often prompts us to rearrange the past. |
Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind, 1954 |
(1902 - 1983) |
| Dreams come true. Without that possibility, nature would not incite us to
have them. |
John Updike |
US author (1932 - ) |
| Every day we do things, we are
things that have to do with peace. If we are aware of our life..., our way of looking at things, we will know how to make peace
right in the moment, we are alive. |
Thich Nhat Hanh |
| Fashion changes, style remains. |
Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel |
| I do not know what the future holds, but I know who holds the future. |
Oprah Winfrey, "The Oprah Winfrey Show" |
US actress & television talk show host (1954 -
) |
| Any proposition containing the word
"is" creates a linguistical structural confusion which will eventually give birth to serious fallacies. |
Alfred Korzybski, His book, Science And Sanity |
US (Polish-born) author, logician, & scientist (1879 - 1950) |
| Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet. |
Bob Dylan |
US singer & songwriter (1941
- ) |
| A minute of perfection was worth the
effort. A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection. |
Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club |
US writer (1962 - ) |
| We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. |
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Samuel Kercheval, July 12, 1816 |
3rd president of US (1743 - 1826) |
| No government ought to be without censors & where the press is free,
no one ever will. |
Thomas Jefferson, letter to George Washington, September 9, 1792 |
3rd president of US (1743 - 1826) |
| There is nothing like dream to create the future. Utopia to-day, flesh
and blood tomorrow. |
Victor Hugo, Les Miserables, 1862 |
French dramatist, novelist, & poet
(1802 - 1885) |
| To choose doubt as a philosophy of
life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation. |
Yann Martel, Life of Pi |
| Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers. |
Homer Simpson, The Simpsons |
| Experience is a comb that is given to you, when you have already lost you
hair. |
Giorgos Zambetas, Greek musician |
| For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars
makes me dream. |
Vincent Van Gogh |
Dutch painter (1853 - 1890) |
| Hope is the thing with feathers that
perches in the soul, and sings the words without the tune, and never stops at all. |
Emily Dickinson |
US poet (1830 - 1886) |
| Home computers are being called upon
to perform many new functions, including the consumption of homework formerly eaten by the dog. |
Doug Larson |
| To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority
myself. |
Albert Einstein |
US (German-born) physicist (1879 -
1955) |
| Our character...is an omen of our
destiny, and the more integrity we have and keep, the simpler and nobler that destiny is likely to be. |
George Santayana, "The German Mind: A Philosophical Diagnosis" |
US (Spanish-born) philosopher
(1863 - 1952) |
| I am patient with stupidity, but not with those who are proud of it. |
Edith Sitwell |
English biographer, critic, novelist, & poet (1887 - 1964) |
| Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or to lose. |
Lyndon B. Johnson, address to the nation, November 28, 1963 |
36th president of US (1908 - 1973) |
| Knowledge is love and light and vision. |
Helen Keller |
US blind & deaf educator (1880
- 1968) |
| Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the
overcoming of it. |
Helen Keller |
US blind & deaf educator (1880
- 1968) |
| You gain strength, courage, and
confidence by every experience by which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself,
"I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes
along. |
Eleanor Roosevelt |
US diplomat & reformer (1884 -
1962) |
| The journey in between what you once
were and who you are now beoming is where the dance of life really takes place. |
Barbara De Angelis |
| Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you
learn. |
C. S. Lewis |
English essayist & juvenile novelist
(1898 - 1963) |
| If you would be loved, love and be lovable. |
Benjamin Franklin |
US author, diplomat, inventor, physicist, politician, & printer (1706 - 1790) |
| To give pleasure to a single heart
by a single act is better than a thousand heads bowing in prayer. |
Gandhi |
| The greatest gift is a portion of thyself. |
Ralph Waldo Emerson |
US essayist & poet (1803 -
1882) |
| Kindness in words creates
confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love. |
Lao-tzu |
Chinese philosopher (604 BC - 531
BC) |
| The family-that dear octopus from
whese tentacles we never quite escape nor, in our inmost hearts, ever quite wish to. |
Dodie Smith |
| Never let the future disturb you.
You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present. |
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Meditations, 200 A.D. |
Roman Emperor, A.D. 161-180 (121
AD - 180 AD) |
| If God can work through me, he can work through anyone. |
St. Francis of Assisi |
| First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do. |
Epictetus |
Roman (Greek-born) slave & Stoic philosopher (55 AD - 135 AD) |
| You never lose by loving. You always lose by holding back. |
Barbara De Angelis |
| No one should drive a hard bargain with an artist. |
Ludwig von Beethoven |
| The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth. |
Jean Cocteau |
French dramatist, director, & poet
(1889 - 1963) |
| For a significant
man<br>woman, the one thought he values greatly, to the laughter and
scorn of insignificant men, is a key to hidden
treasure chambers; for those others, it is nothing but a piece of old iron. |
Friedrich Nietzsche |
German philosopher (1844 - 1900) |
| To conquer others is to have power, to conquer yourself is to know the
way. |
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching |
| Heaven endures and the earth last a long time because they do not live
for themselves. |
Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching |
| We know what we are, but know not what we may be. |
William Shakespeare, Hamlet, 1600 |
Greatest English dramatist & poet
(1564 - 1616) |
| It is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes
comes to the top. |
Virginia Woolf |
English novelist (1882 - 1941) |
| The people of the United States,
perhaps more than any other nation in history, love to abase themselves and proclaim their unworthiness, and seem to
find refreshment in doing so... That is a dark frivolity, but still
frivolity. |
Robertson Davies |
| It is, I think, an indisputable fact
that Americans are, as Americans, the most self- conscious people in the world, and the most addicted to the belief
that the other nations are in a conspiracy to under-value them. |
Henry James |
British (US -born) author (1843 -
1916) |
| The American, by nature, is
optimistic. He is experimental, an inventor and a builder who builds best when called upon to build greatly. |
John F. Kennedy |
US Democratic politician (1917 -
1963) |
| Americans never quit. |
General Douglas Macarthur |
US WWII general & war hero
(1880 - 1964) |
| The character inherent in the
American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not
sometimes got in its way. |
Henry David Thoreau |
US Transcendentalist author (1817
- 1862) |
| Like so many Americans, she was
trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops. |
Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five |
US novelist (1922 - ) |
| I was born an American; I will live an American; I shall die an American. |
Daniel Webster |
US diplomat, lawyer, orator, & politician (1782 - 1852) |
| I always consider the settlement of
America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in providence, for the illumination of
the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the
earth. |
John Adams |
US diplomat & politician (1735
- 1826) |
| America does not go abroad in search
of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and
vindicator only of her own. |
John Quincy Adams |
US diplomat & politician (1767
- 1848) |
| Unique among the nations, America
recognized the source of our character as being godly and eternal, not being civic and temporal. And because we have
understood that our source is eternal, America has been different. We have no
king but Jesus. |
John Ashcroft |
US politician (1942 - ) |
| America is the country where you buy
a lifetime supply of aspirin for one dollar and use it up in two weeks. |
John Barrymore |
US actor (1882 - 1942) |
| I just want to say this. I want to
say it gently but I want to say it firmly: There is a tendency for the world to say to America, "the big problems of the
world are yours, you go and sort them out," and then to worry when
America wants to sort them out. |
Tony Blair |
British politician (1953 - ) |
| America has believed that in
differentiation, not in uniformity, lies the path of progress. It acted on this belief; it has advanced human happiness, and it has
prospered. |
Louis D. Brandeis |
US jurist (1856 - 1941) |
| Our American values are not luxuries
but necessities, not the salt in our bread, but the bread itself. Our common vision of a free and just society is our
greatest source of cohesion at home and strength abroad, greater than the
bounty of our material blessings. |
Jimmy Carter |
US diplomat & Democratic politician
(1924 - ) |
| There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right
with America. |
Bill Clinton |
42nd president of the United States
(1946 - ) |
| There is nothing wrong with America
that the faith, love of freedom, intelligence and energy of her citizens cannot cure. |
Dwight D. Eisenhower |
US general & Republican politician
(1890 - 1969) |
| America - a great social and economic experiment, noble in motive and
far-reaching in purpose. |
Herbert Hoover |
US mining engineer & politician
(1874 - 1964) |
| America is not merely a nation but a nation of nations. |
Lyndon B. Johnson |
36th president of US (1908 - 1973) |
| Intellectually, I know that America
is no better than any other country; emotionally I know she is better than every other country. |
Sinclair Lewis |
US novelist (1885 - 1951) |
| If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the
few who are rich. |
John F. Kennedy, inaugural address, January 20, 1961 |
US Democratic politician (1917 -
1963) |
| The strength of the United States is
not the gold at Fort Knox or the weapons of mass destruction that we have, but the sum total of the education and the
character of our people. |
Claiborne Pell |
US Democratic politician (1918
- ) |
| I see America, not in the setting
sun of a black night of despair ahead of us, I see America in the crimson light of a rising sun fresh from the burning,
creative hand of God. I see great days ahead, great days possible to men and
women of will and vision. |
Carl Sandburg |
US biographer & poet (1878 -
1967) |
| America is a young country with an old mentality. |
George Santayana |
US (Spanish-born) philosopher
(1863 - 1952) |
| In the United States there is more
space where nobody is than where anybody is. This is what makes America what it is. |
Gertrude Stein |
US author in France (1874 - 1946) |
| There is a New America every morning when we wake up. It is upon us
whether we will it or not. |
Adlai E. Stevenson Jr. |
US diplomat & Democratic politician
(1900 - 1965) |
| Europe will never be like America.
Europe is a product of history. America is a product of philosophy. |
Margaret Thatcher |
British politician (1925 - ) |
| Just what is it that America stands
for? If she stands for one thing more than another it is for the sovereignty of self-governing people. |
Woodrow Wilson |
28th president of US (1856 - 1924) |
| America lives in the heart of every
man everywhere who wishes to find a region where he will be free to work out his destiny as he chooses. |
Woodrow Wilson |
28th president of US (1856 - 1924) |
| When I came back to Dublin I was
courtmartialed in my absence and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence. |
Brendan Behan |
Irish author & dramatist (1923
- 1964) |
| I am a Conservative to preserve all
that is good in our constitution, a Radical to remove all that is bad. I seek to preserve property and to respect order,
and I equally decry the appeal to the passions of the many or the prejudices
of the few. |
Benjamin Disraeli, campaign speech at High Wycombe, England, November 27,
1832 |
British politician (1804 - 1881) |
| Some people did what their neighbors
did so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them. |
George Eliot, Middlemarch |
English novelist (1819 - 1880) |
| Our deeds are like children that are born to us;they live and act apart
from our own will. |
George Eliot, Romola |
English novelist (1819 - 1880) |
| What we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed
hope. |
George Eliot, Middlemarch |
English novelist (1819 - 1880) |
| The troublesome ones in a family are usually either the wits or the
idiots. |
George Eliot, Middlemarch |
English novelist (1819 - 1880) |
| Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen. |
Bob Marley |
| One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain. |
Bob Marley |
| I had a dream last night that a hamburger was eating ME! |
Jerry Seinfeld, Seinfeld episode "The Van Buren Boys" -
broadcast on February 6, 1997 |
US comedian & television actor
(1954 - ) |
| The radical of one century is the
conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them. |
Mark Twain, Notebook, 1935 |
US humorist, novelist, short story author, & wit (1835 - 1910) |
| Let me beg for your mercy if I have failed to earn your respect. |
Jason DeBruin, The poem "Temporary Shame" |
| (i do not know what it is about you
that closes<br> and opens;only something in me understands<br> the voice of your eyes is deeper than all
roses)<br> nobody,not even the rain, has such small hands |
e.e. cummings |
| People who count their chickens
before they are hatched, act very wisely, because chickens run about so absurdly that it is impossible to count them
accurately. |
Oscar Wilde, Letter from Paris, dated May 1900 |
Irish dramatist, novelist, & poet
(1854 - 1900) |
| cold silence has a tendency to
atrophy any sense of <br> compassion, <br> between supposed lovers,<br> between supposed brothers.<br>
And I know the pieces fit. |
Maynard James Keenan, in the song "Schism", by Tool |
| The budget is like a mythical bean
bag. Congress votes mythicals beans into it, then reaches in and tries to pull real ones out. |
Will Rodgers |
| At the center of each human heart is
goodness, layered over with hurt, confusion, and mistaken ideas. Our task is to gently peel off layer after layer
until the unfettered heart can shed its love upon the world. |
Sue Patton Thoele, The Courage To Be Yourself Journal |
| Too much sanity may be madness - and
the maddest of all - to see life as it is, and not as it ought to be. |
Don Quixote, Man of La Mancha |
| Sex alleviates tension. Love causes it. |
Woody Allen |
US movie actor, comedian, & director
(1935 - ) |
| Judgement of beauty can err, what with the wine and the dark. |
Ovid |
Roman poet (43 BC - 17 AD) |
| What dreadful weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of
inelegance. |
Jane Austen |
English novelist (1775 - 1817) |
| Much silence and a good disposition, there are no two things better than
these. |
Prophet Muhammad, Bukhari |
| When two persons are together, two
of them must no whisper to each other, without letting the third hear; because it would hurt him. |
Prophet Mohammad, Bukhari & Muslim |
| Verily, a man teaching his child manners is better than giving one bushel
of grain in alms. |
Prophet Muhammad, Muslim |
| If you do not feel ashamed of anything, then you can do whatever you
like. |
Prophet Mohammad, Abu-Masud: Bukhari |
| Far away there in the sunshine are
my brightest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them and try to
follow where they lead. |
Louisa May Alcot |
| Men want sex. If men ruled the
world, they could get sex anywhere, anytime. Restaurants would give you sex instead of breath mints on the way out. Gas
stations would give sex with every fill-up. Banks would give sex to anyone
who opened a checking account. |
Scott Adams, The Dilbert Future |
US cartoonist (1957 - ) |
| Eternity is very long, especially towards the end. |
Woody Allen, Just Six Numbers, Martin Rees, page 71 |
US movie actor, comedian, & director
(1935 - ) |
| If men were born free, they would,
so long as they remained free, form no conception of good and evil. |
Baruch Spinoza, The Ethics |
Dutch Jewish philosopher (1632 -
1677) |
| I hate quotations. Tell me what you know. |
Ralph Waldo Emerson |
US essayist & poet (1803 -
1882) |
| A love of tradition has never
weakened a nation, indeed it has strengthened nations in their hour of peril; but the new view must come, the world must roll
forward. |
Sir Winston Churchill, speech in the House of Commons, November 29, 1944 |
British politician (1874 - 1965) |
| The mind has greater power over the
emotions, and is less subject thereto, insofar as it understands all things to be necessary. |
Baruch Spinoza, The Ethics |
Dutch Jewish philosopher (1632 -
1677) |
| He who loves God cannot endeavor that God should love him in return. |
Baruch Spinoza, The Ethics |
Dutch Jewish philosopher (1632 -
1677) |
| The highest endeavor of the mind, and the highest virtue, is to
understand things by intuition. |
Baruch Spinoza, The Ethics |
Dutch Jewish philosopher (1632 -
1677) |
| Blessedness is not the reward of
virtue, but virtue itself; neither do we rejoice therein, because we control our lusts, but contrariwise, because we rejoice
therein, we are able to control our lusts. |
Baruch Spinoza, The Ethics |
Dutch Jewish philosopher (1632 -
1677) |
| The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. |
Eleanor Roosevelt |
US diplomat & reformer (1884 -
1962) |
| The best holistic remedy for high blood pressure is a purring cat on your
lap. |
Kathrine Palmer Peterson, 516 Sensational Cat Quotes |
| War is the continuation of politics by other means. |
General Karl Von Clausewitz, Book: "On War" |
| A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows us that faith proves
nothing. |
Friedrich Nietzsche |
German philosopher (1844 - 1900) |
| All men profess honesty as long as
they can. To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so is something worse. |
John Quincy Adams |
US diplomat & politician (1767
- 1848) |
| I am a galley slave to pen and ink. |
Honore de Balzac |
French realist novelist (1799 -
1850) |
| Woe be to him that reads but one book. |
George Herbert |
English clergyman & metaphysical poet
(1593 - 1633) |
| One must be a wise reader to quote wisely and well. |
Amos Bronson Alcott |
US educator & Transcendentalist
(1799 - 1888) |
| Oh for a book and a shady nook... |
John Wilson |
Scottish author (1785 - 1854) |
| You can cover a great deal of country in books. |
Andrew Lang |
Scottish author & scholar
(1844 - 1912) |
| I read part of it all the way through. |
Samuel Goldwyn |
US (Polish-born) movie producer
(1882 - 1974) |
| Live always in the best company when you read. |
Sydney Smith |
English essayist (1771 - 1845) |
| The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession, what
there is of it. |
Mark Twain, Following the Equator |
US humorist, novelist, short story author, & wit (1835 - 1910) |
| Prosperity is only an instrument to be used, not a deity to be
worshipped. |
Calvin Coolidge, speech, June 11, 1928 |
30th president of US (1872 - 1933) |
| A human being has a natural desire to have more of a good thing than he
needs. |
Mark Twain, Following the Equator |
US humorist, novelist, short story author, & wit (1835 - 1910) |
| I cannot call to mind a single
instance where I have ever been irreverent, except toward the things which were sacred to other people. |
Mark Twain, "Is Shakespeare Dead?" |
US humorist, novelist, short story author, & wit (1835 - 1910) |
| Laws are sand, customs are rock.
Laws can be evaded and punishment escaped but an openly transgressed custom brings sure punishment. |
Mark Twain, The Gorky Incident |
US humorist, novelist, short story author, & wit (1835 - 1910) |
| I once had a sparrow alight upon my
shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that
circumstance that I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn. |
Henry David Thoreau |
US Transcendentalist author (1817
- 1862) |
| Those little nimble musicians of the
air, that warble forth their curious ditties, with which nature hath furnished them to the shame of art. |
Izaak Walton |
English biographer & fishing author
(1593 - 1683) |
| The moment a little boy is concerned
with which is a jay and which is a sparrow, he can no longer see the birds or hear them sing. |
Eric Berne |
US (Canadian-born) psychologist
(1910 - 1970) |
| God gives every bird its food, but He does not throw it into its nest. |
J. G. Holland |
| God loved the birds and invented trees. Man loved the birds and invented
cages. |
Jacques Deval, Afin de vivre bel et bien |
| There is nothing in which the birds
differ more from man than the way in which they can build and yet leave a landscape as it was before. |
Robert Lynd, The Blue Lion and Other Essays |
US sociologist (1892 - 1970) |
| A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a
song. |
Chinese Proverb |
| The bird of paradise alights only upon the hand that does not grasp. |
John Berry, Flight of White Crows |
| I meant to write about death, only life came breaking in as usual. |
Virginia Woolf, Diary, 17 February 1922 |
English novelist (1882 - 1941) |
| It is impossible to mentally or socially enslave a Bible reading People. |
Horace Greeley |
| Nobody picks on a strong man. |
Charles Atlas |
| In a minute there is time for decision and revisions that a minute will
reverse. |
T. S. Eliot |
British (US-born) critic, dramatist & poet (1888 - 1965) |
| Why should I do anything for posterity? What has posterity ever done for
me? |
Groucho Marx |
US comedian with Marx Brothers
(1890 - 1977) |
| To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all. |
George Orwell |
English essayist, novelist, & satirist (1903 - 1950) |
| Everybody dies. What matters is what you do between now and when it
happens to you. |
Orson Scott Card, Treasure Box |
US science fiction author (1951
- ) |
| If we value the pursuit of
knowledge, we must be free to follow wherever that search may lead us. The free mind is not a barking dog, to be tethered on a
ten-foot chain. |
Adlai E. Stevenson Jr., speech at the University of Wisconsin, Madison,
October 8, 1952 |
US diplomat & Democratic politician
(1900 - 1965) |
| The sane appear as strange to the mad as the mad to the sane |
Joe Orton, What the Butler Saw, Act II |
(1933 - 1967) |
| I have never seen a wild thing feel
sorry for itself. A little bird will fall dead, frozen from a bough, without ever having felt sorry for itself. |
D. H. Lawrence |
English novelist (1885 - 1930) |
| Human beings cannot stand too much reality. |
Thomas S. Eliot, Four Quartets |
| Not that you lied to me, but that I no longer believe you, has shaken me. |
Friedrich Nietzsce, Beyond Good and Evil |
| It is better to risk saving a guilty person than to condemn an innocent
one. |
Voltaire, Zadig |
French author, humanist, rationalist, & satirist (1694 - 1778) |
| During the Second World War, the
Germans took four years to build the Atlantic Wall. On four beaches it held up the Allies for about an hour; at Omaha
it held up the U.S. for less than one day. The Atlantic Wall must therefore
be regarded as one of the greatest blunders in military history. |
Stephen Ambrose, D-Day, page 577 |
American historian and author
(1936 - 2002) |
| Nothing so fortifies a friendship as a belief on the part of one friend
that he is superior to the other. |
Honore de Balzac |
French realist novelist (1799 -
1850) |
| First love is a kind of vaccination which saves a man from catching the
complaint a second time. |
Honore de Balzac |
French realist novelist (1799 -
1850) |
| Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other. |
John F. Kennedy, speech prepared for
delivery in Dallas the day of his assassination, November 22, 1963 |
US Democratic politician (1917 -
1963) |
| Behind every great fortune there is a crime. |
Honore de Balzac |
French realist novelist (1799 -
1850) |
| I do not know everything; still many things I understand. |
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe |
German dramatist, novelist, poet, & scientist (1749 - 1832) |
| Trade-offs have been with us ever since the late unpleasantness in the
Garden of Eden. |
Thomas Sowell, Editorial on Wal-Mart, 10-Dec-2003 |
(1930 - ) |
| It is pleasing to God whenever you rejoice or laugh from the bottom of
your heart. |
Martin Luther |
German religious reformer (1483 -
1546) |
| For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure. |
Ralph Waldo Emerson |
US essayist & poet (1803 -
1882) |
| To be great is to be misunderstood. |
Ralph Waldo Emerson |
US essayist & poet (1803 -
1882) |
| All people want is someone to listen. |
Hugh Elliott, Standing Room Only weblog,
May 8, 2003 |
Author
of the Standing Room Only Weblog (http://blogs.salon.com/0001573/). |
| Miracles: You do not have to look
for them. They are there, 24<br>7, beaming like radio waves all around you. Put up the antenna, turn up the volume -
snap... crackle... this just in, every person you talk to is a chance to
change the world... |
Hugh Elliott, Standing Room Only weblog,
May 6, 2003 |
Author
of the Standing Room Only Weblog (http://blogs.salon.com/0001573/). |
| To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing. |
Elbert Hubbard |
US author (1856 - 1915) |
| Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly. |
Robert F. Kennedy |
US Democratic politician (1925 -
1968) |
| Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it
permanent. |
Marilyn Vos Savant |
| There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it. |
Maya Angelou |
US author & poet (1928 - ) |
| When the destroyer comes, his first act will be to destroy all the books. |
Thomas More |
| I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library. |
Jorge Luis Borges |
Argentine novelist & poet
(1899 - 1986) |
| Any man with a moderate income can afford to buy more books than he can
read in a lifetime. |
Henry Holt |
| When books are burned in the end people will be burned too. |
Heinrich Heine |
German critic & poet (1797 -
1856) |
| Never lend books - nobody ever
returns them; the only books I have in my library are those which people have lent me. |
Anatole France |
French novelist (1844 - 1924) |
| I do begin to have bloody thoughts. |
William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 4 Scene 1 |
Greatest English dramatist & poet
(1564 - 1616) |
| I would fain die a dry death. |
William Shakespeare, The Tempest,,
Act 1 Scene 1 |
Greatest English dramatist & poet
(1564 - 1616) |
| What seest thou else<br> In the dark backward and abysm of time? |
William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act 1 Scene 2 |
Greatest English dramatist & poet
(1564 - 1616) |
| Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground. |
William Shakespeare, The Tempest,, Act 1 Scene 2 |
Greatest English dramatist & poet
(1564 - 1616) |
| Come what come may,<br> Time and the hour runs through the roughest
day. |
William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 1 Scene 3 |
Greatest English dramatist & poet
(1564 - 1616) |
| I have the consolation of having
added nothing to my private fortune during my public service, and of retiring with hands clean as they are empty. |
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Count Diodati, 1807 |
3rd president of US (1743 - 1826) |
| O would some power the giftie gie us
to see ourselves as others see us. <br>(O would some power the gift to give us to see ourselves as others see
us.) |
Robert Burns, Poem "To a Louse" - verse 8 |
Scottish national poet (1759 -
1796) |
| He who cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must pass
himself. |
George Herbert |
English clergyman & metaphysical poet
(1593 - 1633) |
| Scent is the soul of flowers, and sea flowers, as splendid as they may
be, have no soul! |
Jules Verne, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Chapter 34 |
| How tranquil is a coral tomb, and
may the heavens grant that my companions and I be buried in no other! |
Jules Verne, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Chapter 19 |
| Tyranny, like hell, is not easily
conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. |
Thomas Paine, Common Sense |
US patriot & political philosopher
(1737 - 1809) |
| I have a hundred times wished that one could resign life as an officer
resigns a commission. |
Robert Burns |
Scottish national poet (1759 -
1796) |
| I am one of those who believe that
spiritual progress is a rule of human life, but the approach to perfection is slow and painful. If a woman elevates
herself in one respect and is retarded in another, it is because the rough
trail that leads to the mountain peak is not free of ambushes of thieves and
lairs of wolves. |
Kahlil Gibran, The Broken Wings |
Lebanese artist & poet in US
(1883 - 1931) |
| No, it is remrable that everest did
not yield to the first few attempts; it would have been suprising and not a little sad if it had, for that is not the way
of great mountains. |
Jon Krakauer, Into Thin Air |
| We never learn to pray, really pray-
until we are in a situatioin where there is nothing left to do but pray. |
Victoria Damon |
| Whether we bring our enemies to justice, or justice to our enemies,
justice will be done. |
George W. Bush |
43rd President of US (1946 - ) |
| Do you want to know the secret of pain? If you just stop feeling it, you
can start to use it. |
Robert Englund |
| The very idea of a bird is a symbol
and a suggestion to the poet. A bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense his life. . . . The
beautiful vagabonds, endowed with every grace, masters of all climes, and
knowing no bounds -- how many human aspirations are realised in their free,
holiday-lives -- and how many suggestions to the poet in their flight and
song! |
John Burroughs, Birds and Poets, 1887 |
US essayist & naturalist (1837
- 1921) |
| When thou seest an eagle, thou seest a portion of genius; lift up thy
head! |
William Blake |
English engraver, illustrator, & poet
(1757 - 1827) |
| Much talking is the cause of danger.
Silence is the means of avoiding misfortune. The talkative parrot is shut up in a cage. Other birds, without speech,
fly freely about. |
Saskya Pandita |
| I hope you love birds too. It is economical. It saves going to heaven. |
Emily Dickinson |
US poet (1830 - 1886) |
| You cannot fly like an eagle with the wings of a wren. |
William Henry Hudson, Afoot in England, 1909 |
English critic & naturalist
(1841 - 1922) |
| I realized that If I had to choose, I would rather have birds than
airplanes. |
Charles Lindbergh, Interview shortly before his death, 1974 |
US aviator (1902 - 1974) |
| There I lay staring upward, while
the stars wheeled over... Faint to my ears came the gathered rumour of all lands: the springing and the dying, the song
and the weeping, and the slow everlasting groan of overburdened stone. |
J. R. R. Tolkien |
British scholar & fantasy novelist
(1892 - 1973) |
| He saw that it was an ironical thing
for him to be running thus toward that which he had been at such pains to avoid. But he said, in substance, to himself
that if the earth and the moon were about to clash, many people would
doubtless plan to get upon the roofs to witness the collision. |
Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage, chapter 8 |
| Loving is misery for women always. I
shall never forgive God for making me a woman and dearly am I beginning to pay for the honour of owning a pretty
face. |
Thomas Hardy, Far From the Madding Crowd |
| You go back. You search for what
made you happy when you were smaller. We are all grown up children, really... So one should go back and search for
what was loved and found to be real. |
Audrey Hepburn |
| The teaching of politics is that the
Government, which was set for protection and comfort of all good citizens, becomes the principal obstruction and
nuisance with which we have to contendà The cheat and bully and malefactor we
meet everywhere is the Government. |
Ralph Waldo Emerson, àJournal,
1860 |
| When a traveller returneth home, let
him not leave the countries where he hath travelled altogether behind him. |
Francis Bacon, 1597-1625 |
| Once you have traveled, the voyage
never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers, that the mind can never break off from the
journey. |
Pat Conroy, The Prince of Tides |
US novelist (1945 - ) |
| The world is a great book; he who never stirs from home reads only a
page. |
Saint Augustine |
Carthaginian author, saint, & church father (354 AD - 430 AD) |
| I think that parents only get so
offended by television because they rely on it as a babysitter and the sole educator of their kids. |
Trey Parker and Matt Stone, South Park, Death, 1997 |
| And for the season it was winter,
and they that know the winters of that country know them to be sharp and violent, and subject to cruel and fierce
storms. |
William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation |
American Pilgrim leader (1590 -
1657) |
| The tendinous part of the mind, so
to speak, is more developed in winter; the fleshy, in summer. I should say winter had given the bone and sinew to
literature, summer the tissues and the blood. |
John Burroughs, The Snow-Walkers |
US essayist & naturalist (1837
- 1921) |
| Winter lies too long in country towns; hangs on until it is stale and
shabby, old and sullen. |
Willa Cather, My Antonia |
US novelist (1873 - 1947) |
| Whose woods these are I think I
know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. |
Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening |
US poet (1874 - 1963) |
| Every mile is two in winter. |
George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum |
English clergyman & metaphysical poet
(1593 - 1633) |
| In the bleak midwinter Frosty wind
made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow, Snow on snow, In the bleak
midwinter, Long ago. |
Christina Rossetti, A Christmas Carol |
English poet (1830 - 1894) |
| If there comes a little thaw, Still
the air is chill and raw, Here and there a patch of snow, Dirtier than the ground below, Dribbles down a marshy flood;
Ankle-deep you stick in mud In the meadows while you sing, "This is
Spring." |
Christopher Pearce Cranch, A Spring Growl |
| A little Madness in the Spring Is wholesome even for the King. |
Emily Dickinson, No. 1333 |
US poet (1830 - 1886) |
| To deny our own impulses is to deny the very thing that makes us human. |
Andy and Larry Wachowski, The Matrix, 1999 |
| There are two things in particular
that it [the computer industry] failed to foresee: one was the coming of the Internet(... the other was the fact that the
century would end. |
Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt |
English humorist & science fiction novelist (1952 - 2001) |
| When life hands us a beutiful bouquet of flowers we stare at it in
cautious expectation of a bee. |
Dean Koontz, Shadow Fires ( early book) |
| Time is but the stream I go
a-fishing in. I drink at it but as I drink, I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. |
Henry David Thoreau, Walden |
US Transcendentalist author (1817
- 1862) |
| Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the
impossible. |
Helen Keller |
US blind & deaf educator (1880
- 1968) |
| Face your deficiencies and
acknowledge them; but do not let them master you. Let them teach you patience, sweetness, insight. |
Helen Keller |
US blind & deaf educator (1880
- 1968) |
| If a nation is ruled by two kings, both the kings and their subjects will
perish. |
Yeghishe |
| Tell me where I can escape death:
discover for me the country, show me the men to whom I must go, whom death does not visit. Discover to me a charm
against death. If I have not one, what do you wish me to do? I cannot escape
from death, but shall I die lamenting and trembling? . . . Therefore if I am
able to change externals according to my wish, I change them: but if I
cannot, I am ready to tear the eyes out of him who hinders me. |
Epictetus |
Roman (Greek-born) slave & Stoic philosopher (55 AD - 135 AD) |
| It never ceases to amaze me: we all
love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinions than our own. |
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations |
| You can win a million battles but you can only lose one. |
R. A. Salvatore, Homeland |
| Choice is an illusion, created between those with power, and those
without. |
Wachowski Brothers, The Matrix Reloaded |
| If we do not ever take time, how can we ever have time? |
Wachowski Brothers, The Matrix Reloaded |
| I started concentrating so hard on my vision that I lost sight. |
Robin Green, Northern Exposure, Burning Down the House, 1992 |
| One person can have a profound
effect on another. And two people...well, two people can work miracles. They can change a whole town. They can change the
world. |
Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, Cicely, 1992 |
| Joel: Ed, are you hallucinating?<br> Ed: Oh, yeah, but not right
now. |
Sy Rosen and Christian Williams, Northern Exposure, On Your Own, 1992 |
| People are simply incapable of prolonged, sustained goodness. |
Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, Do The Right Thing,
1992 |
| There can be no spirituality, no sanctity, no truth without the female
sex. |
Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, Revelations, 1993 |
| If our house be on fire, without
inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it. |
Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Lewis, Jr., May 9, 1798 |
3rd president of US (1743 - 1826) |
| As a scientist, I am not sure
anymore that life can be reduced to a class struggle, to dialectical materialism, or any set of formulas. Life is spontaneous
and it is unpredictable, it is magical. I think that we have struggled so
hard with the tangible that we have forgotten the intangible. |
Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, Zarya, 1994 |
| By mid-November I always like to have an extra 15 pounds on me. |
Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, First Snow, 1993 |
| Death is the enemy. I spent 10 years
of my life singlemindedly studying, practicing, fighting hand to hand in close quarters to defeat the enemy, to send
him back bloodied and humble and I am not going to roll over and surrender. |
Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, First Snow, 1993 |
| Women have more to offer this world
than just a fallopian tube. Nothing is going to change until you quit looking at us as just sperm receptacles. |
Barbara Hall, Northern Exposure, Baby Blues, 1994 |
| George Washington had a vision for this country. Was it three days of
uninterrupted shopping? |
Jeff Melvoin, Northern Exposure, Bolt from the Blue, 1994 |
| How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct. |
Benjamin Disraeli, speech, January 24, 1860 |
British politician (1804 - 1881) |
| Two men look out through the same bars: One sees the mud and one the
stars. |
Frederick Langbridge |
(1849 - 1923) |
| Truth is generally the best vindication against slander. |
Abraham Lincoln, letter to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, July 18, 1864 |
16th president of US (1809 - 1865) |
| They say dreams are the windows of
the soul--take a peek and you can see the inner workings, the nuts and bolts. |
Henry Bromel, Northern Exposure, The Big Kiss, 1991 |
| A man should not leave this earth
with unfinished business. He should live each day as if it was a pre-flight check. He should ask each morning, am I
prepared to lift-off? |
Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, All is Vanity, 1991 |
| Obsessions and fixations are not
really my field. All I know, when the mind really grabs hold of something, look out. |
Martin Sage and Sybil Adelman, Northern Exposure, The Bumpy Road to Love,
1991 |
| I always admired atheists. I think it takes a lot of faith. |
Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, Seoul Mates, 1991 |
| Rain usually makes me feel mellow.
Curl up in the corner time, slow down, smell the furniture. Today it just makes me feel wet. |
Jeff Melvoin, Northern Exposure, Dateline: Cicely, 1992 |
| Repetition is the death of art. |
Robin Green, Northern Exposure, Burning Down the House, 1992 |
| The idea of an election is much more
interesting to me than the election itself...The act of voting is in itself the defining moment. |
Jeff Melvoin, Northern Exposure, Democracy in America, 1992 |
| Be open to your dreams, people.
Embrace that distant shore. Because our mortal journey is over all too soon. |
David Assael, Northern Exposure, It Happened in Juneau, 1992 |
| Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth. |
Franklin D. Roosevelt, radio address, October 26, 1939 |
32nd president of US (1882 - 1945) |
| There is nothing sadder in this
world than the waste of human potential. The purpose of evolution is to raise us out of the mud, not have us grovelling in
it. |
Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, Cicely, 1992 |
| We hold in our hands, the most
precious gift of all: Freedom. The freedom to express our art. Our love. The freedom to be who we want to be. We are not
going to give that freedom away and no one shall take it from us! |
Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, Cicely, 1992 |
| Death is not extinguishing the light; it is putting out the lamp because
the Dawn has come. |
Rabindranath Tagore |
| Some of the best advice I ever received was "Man, that was
terrible". |
Tom Hanks |
| Ya know, if you treated every comic
the way you treated me tonight. You would never see a bad show. |
Buddy Hackett |
| Surround yourself with only people who are going to lift you higher. |
Oprah Winfrey |
US actress & television talk show host (1954 -
) |
| Not all treasure is silver and gold, mate. |
Johnny Depp, Pirates of the Caribbean |
| Religion is pickled God. |
H. G. Wells, H. G. Wells Society |
English author, historian, & utopian
(1866 - 1946) |
| Love is life. And if you miss love, you miss life. |
Leo Buscaglia |
| We are the hero of our own story. |
Mary McCarthy |
| Live as though Christ died yesterday, rose from the grave today, and is
coming back tomorrow. |
Theodore Epp |
| There was a star danced, and under that was I born. |
William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing |
Greatest English dramatist & poet
(1564 - 1616) |
| The truest expression of a people is in its dances and its music...
Bodies never lie. |
Agnes De Mille |
US choreographer & dancer
(1909 - 1993) |
| Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds. |
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Pan American Day address, April 15, 1939 |
32nd president of US (1882 - 1945) |
| Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around. |
Henry David Thoreau |
US Transcendentalist author (1817
- 1862) |
| Those who dance were thought to be quite insane by those who could not
hear the music. |
Angela Monet |
| It is better to looked over than overlooked. |
Mae West |
US movie actress (1892 - 1980) |
| We shall support whatever the enemy opposes and oppose whatever the enemy
supports. |
Mao Tse-Tung |
Chinese Communist politician (1893
- 1976) |
| Wise men have more to learn of fools than fools of wise men. |
Michel de Montaigne |
French essayist (1533 - 1592) |
| Peace and blessings manifest with
every lesson learned - and if your knowledge were your wealth then it would be well earned. |
Erykah Badu, A line from the song "On & On" |
| Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord
is to be praised. |
Solomon, King of Israel, The Bible Proverbs 31:30 |
| But the fruit of the Spirit is love,
joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things, there is no
law. |
The Apostle Paul (Saul of Tarsus), The Bible- Galations 5:22-23 NIV |
| When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. |
Franklin D. Roosevelt, quoted Kansas City Star, June 5, 1977 |
32nd president of US (1882 - 1945) |
| When there are monsters there are miracles. |
Ogden Nash |
US humorist & poet (1902 -
1971) |
| When he stood up, it was a very
complicated motion. If the deck chairs on the Ship to the Sea of Night had opened up, they would have done so like that.
It was like he was unfolding himself forever. |
Neil Gaiman, Good Omens |
| Look for the ridiculous in everything and you will find it. |
Jules Renard |
(1864 - 1910) |
| Any transition serious enough to
alter your definition of self will require not just small adjustments in your way of living and thinking but a full-on
metamorphosis. |
Martha Beck, O Magazine, Growing Wings, January 2004 |
| You can take from every experience
what it has to offer you. And you cannot be defeated if you just keep taking one breath followed by another. |
Oprah Winfrey, O Magazine, What I Know For Sure, January 2004 |
US actress & television talk show host (1954 -
) |
| That consciousness is everything and
that all things begin with a thought. That we are responsible for our own fate, we reap what we sow, we get what we
give, we pull in what we put out. I know these things for sure. |
Madonna, O Magazine, January 2004 |
US actress & rock singer (1958
- ) |
| We shall show mercy, but we shall not ask for it. |
Sir Winston Churchill, speech in the House of Commons, July 14, 1940 |
British politician (1874 - 1965) |
| We learn and grow and are transformed not so much by what we do but by
why and how we do it. |
Sharon Salzberg, O Magazine, The Power of Intention, January 2004 |
| Each decision we make, each action we take, is born out of an intention. |
Sharon Salzberg, O Magazine, The Power of Intention, January 2004 |
| How we treasure (and admire) the people who acknowledge us! |
Julie Morgenstern, O Magazine, Belatedly Yours, January 2004 |
| Let your light shine. Shine within you so that it can shine on someone
else. Let your light shine. |
Oprah Winfrey, O Magazine, January 2004 |
US actress & television talk show host (1954 -
) |
| Disconnecting from change does not recapture the past. It loses the
future. |
Kathleen Norris, O Magazine, January 2004 |
| Change, when it comes, cracks everything open. |
Dorothy Allison, O Magazine, January 2004 |
| We shall not fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire...Give us the
tools and we will finish the job. |
Sir Winston Churchill, BBC radio broadcast, Feb 9, 1941 |
British politician (1874 - 1965) |
| I think people want their illusions
and writers are mostly illusion. When you read their words, you read a flattened, incomplete version of the writer. |
Real Live Preacher, RealLivePreacher.com Weblog, January 05, 2004 |
Anonymous author of
RealLivePreacher.com |
| I have been truthful all along the
way. The truth is more interesting, and if you tell the truth you never have to cover your tracks. |
Real Live Preacher, RealLivePreacher.com Weblog, January 04, 2004 |
Anonymous author of
RealLivePreacher.com |
| Sometimes its good to contrast what
you like with something else. It makes you appreciate it even more. |
Darby Conley, Get Fuzzy, 2001 |
US cartoonist |
| The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of
today. |
Franklin D. Roosevelt, message for Jefferson Day, April 13, 1945 |
32nd president of US (1882 - 1945) |
| Living is having ups and downs and sharing them with friends. |
Trey Parker and Matt Stone, South Park, Prehistoric Ice Man, 1999 |
| The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off a prison spoon is something you
will never forget. |
Mitchell Burgess, Northern Exposure, Thanksgiving, 1992 |
| I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it
was hell. |
Harry S Truman, quoted by Time, June 9, 1975 |
33rd president of US (1884 - 1972) |
| The law is not so much carved in stone as it is written in water, flowing
in and out with the tide. |
Jeff Melvoin, Northern Exposure, Crime and Punishment, 1992 |
| Sometimes love will pick you up by the short hairs...and jerk the heck
out of you. |
Denise Dobbs, Northern Exposure, Survival of the Species, 1993 |
| Good food ends with good talk. |
Geoffrey Neighor, Northern Exposure, Duets, 1993 |
| Real meaningful endeavours, the biggies in human existence, often require
the sacrifice of others. |
Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, Northern Lights,
1993 |
| Words calculated to catch everyone may catch no one. |
Adlai E. Stevenson Jr., speech to
Democratic National Convention, Chicago, Illinois, July 21, 1952 |
US diplomat & Democratic politician
(1900 - 1965) |
| A person has three choices in life.
You can swim against the tide and get exhausted, or you can tread water and let the tide sweep you away, or you can
swim with the tide, and let it take you where it wants you to go. |
Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, Northern Lights,
1993 |
| Trees like to have kids climb on
them, but trees are much bigger than we are, and much more forgiving. |
Diane Frolov and Andrew Schneider, Northern Exposure, Old Tree, 1993 |
| I donÆt really do New YearÆs
resolutions because I donÆt think you should have to wait until December to start working on how to change yourself. I
think if youÆve got a problem, you need to fix it now. |
Clay Aiken |
| A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives. |
Jackie Robinson, baseball player |
| Working with children with autism
has provided me with an opportunity to see the world in a different way. I see them strive to overcome obstacles and
persevere, and learn to persevere myself. They are my inspiration. |
Clay Aiken |
| People feel comfortable around someone who is comfortable with himself. |
Clay Aiken, Teen People |
| Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has
to eat them. |
Adlai E. Stevenson Jr., quoted by Human Behavior, May 1978 |
US diplomat & Democratic politician
(1900 - 1965) |
| I am more and more convinced that
our happiness depends more on how we meet the events in our lives, than on those events themselves. |
Alexander Humboldt |
| Believe in life! Always human beings will live and progress to greater,
broader and fuller life. |
W. E. B. Du Bois, last message to the world, 1957 |
US black civil rights leader (1868
- 1963) |
| Although the constant shadow of
certain death looms over everyday, the pleasures and joys of life can be so fine and affecting that the heart is nearly
stilled in astonishment. |
Dean Koontz, Watchers |
| You can complain because roses have thorns, or you can rejoice because
thorns have roses. |
Ziggy Marley |
| No pessimist ever discovered the
secret of the stars or sailed an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit. |
Helen Keller |
US blind & deaf educator (1880
- 1968) |
| Character can not be developed in
ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and
success achieved. |
Helen Keller |
US blind & deaf educator (1880
- 1968) |
| It often happens that the real
tragedies in life occur in such an inarticulate manner that they hurt one by their crude violence, their absolute incoherence,
their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack of style. |
oscar wilde, Quoted in Ellmann |
Irish dramatist, novelist, & poet
(1854 - 1900) |
| An envious heart makes a treacherous ear. |
Zora Neale Hurston, "Their Eyes Were Watching God" |
US novelist of Harlem Renaissance
(1901 - 1960) |
| In the career of glory one gains
many things; the gout and medals, a pension and rheumatism....And also frozen feet, an arm or leg the less, a bullet
lodged between two bones which the surgeon cannot extract....all of these
fatigues experienced in your youth, you pay for when you grow old. Because
one has suffered in years gone by, it is necessary to suffer more, which does
not seem exactly fair. |
Elzear Blaze, La Vie Militaire |
| What we obtain too cheap, we esteem
too lightly... it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as Freedom should not be highly rated. |
Thomas Paine |
US patriot & political philosopher
(1737 - 1809) |
| Arbeit macht frei. (Work sets you free). |
Major Rudolph Hoss, Auschwitz Gate |
| Beauty is in the eye of the
beholder, and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye. |
Miss Piggy |
US Muppet and Pig |
| Crash programs fail because they are
based on the theory that, with nine women pregnant, you can get a baby a month. |
Wernher Von Braun |
US (German-born) rocket engineer
(1912 - 1977) |
| Music--the one incorporeal entrance
into the higher world of knowledge, which comprehends mankind, but which mankind cannot comprehend. |
Ludwig van Beethoven |
German Romantic composer (1770 -
1827) |
| We are what we love, not what loves us. |
Charlie Kaufman, Adaptation |
| I know you have come to kill me. Shoot, coward! You are only going to
kill a man. |
Che Guevara, His last words, spoken to his assassin. |
| The most profound statements are often said in silence. |
Lynn Johnston, For Better or For Worse, 01-15-04 |
Canadian cartoonist (1947 - ) |
| Beauty of whatever kind, in its
supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears. |
Edgar Allen Poe |
| My vigor, vitality, and cheek repel me. I am the kind of woman I would
run from. |
Nancy Astor |
British politician (1879 - 1964) |
| Democracy is not meant to be efficient, it is meant to be fair. |
Mario Cuomo |
| All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. |
Martin Luther King Jr. |
US black civil rights leader & clergyman (1929 - 1968) |
| Nonviolence is the answer to the
crucial political and moral questions of our time; the need for mankind to overcome oppression and violence without
resorting to oppression and violence. Mankind must evolve for all human
conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The
foundation of such a method is love. |
Martin Luther King Jr., December 11, 1964 |
US black civil rights leader & clergyman (1929 - 1968) |
| The hope of a secure and livable
world lies with disciplined nonconformists who are dedicated to justice, peace and brotherhood. |
Martin Luther King Jr., "Strength to Love" |
US black civil rights leader & clergyman (1929 - 1968) |
| Normal is getting dressed in clothes
that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for - in order to get to the job you
need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all
day so you can afford to live in it. |
Ellen Goodman |
American journalist (1941 - ) |
| Loneliness is the human condition.
No one is ever going to fill that space. The best thing you can do it to know yourself... know what you want. |
Janet Fitch, "White Oleander" |
| Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children |
William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair |
English novelist (1811 - 1863) |
| I have an idea that some men are
born out of their due place. Accident has cast them amid certain surroundings, but they have always a nostalgia for a
home they know not. They are strangers at their birthplace, and the leafy
lanes they have known from childhood or the populous streets in which they
have played, remain but a place of passage. They may spend their whole lives
aliens among their kindred and remain aloof among the only scenes they have
ever knows. Perhaps it is this sense of strangeness that sends men far and
wide in the search for something permanent, to which they may attach themselves.
Perhaps some deep-rooted atavism urges the wanderer back to lands which his
ancestors left in the dim beginnings of history. Sometimes a man hits upon a
place to which he mysteriously feels that he belongs. Here is the home he
sought, and he will settle amid scenes that he has never seen before, among
men he has never known, as though they were familiar to him from his birth.
Here at last he finds rest. |
W. Somerset Maugham |
English dramatist & novelist
(1874 - 1965) |
| To feel the right emotions is fully
as important as to hold the right ideas, and the great service of religion is the development of the right emotions. |
Geoffrey Parsons |
| The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to
be one. |
Ralph Waldo Emerson |
US essayist & poet (1803 -
1882) |
| I look upon the whole world as my fatherland, and every war has to me the
horror of a family fued. |
Helen Keller |
US blind & deaf educator (1880
- 1968) |
| Yes, I have cherished my
"demagogue" role. I know that societies often have killed the
people who have helped to change those societies.
And if I can die having bought any light, having exposed any meaningful truth
that will help to destroy the racist cancer that is maligant in the body of
America - then, all of the credit is due to Allah. Only the mistakes have
been mine. |
"Malcom X" ( 1964), The Atobiograghy of Malcom X |
| I believe in the forgiveness of sin and the redemption of ignorance. |
Adlai E. Stevenson Jr., retort to a heckler asking him to state his
beliefs, Time, November 1, 1963 |
US diplomat & Democratic politician
(1900 - 1965) |
| Hobbies cost money but interests are free. |
George Carlin, George Carlin: You Are All Diseased |
US comedian and actor (1937 - ) |
| You are free, and that is why you are lost. |
Franz Kafka |
Austrian (Czechoslovakian-born) author
(1883 - 1924) |
| Ya know, if you treat every comic
the way you treated me tonight, You would never see a bad show. |
Buddy Hackett |
| Tell no one the secret that you want
to keep, although he may be worthy of confidence; for no one will be so careful of your secret as yourself. |
Saadi, On the Duties of Society |
Persian poet (1184 - 1291) |
| He that has acquired learning and
nor practised what he has learnt, is like a man who ploughs but sows no seed. |
Saadi, On the Duties of Society |
Persian poet (1184 - 1291) |
| Better hold the hand for coin, though small, Than lose, for one half a
dang, it all. |
Saadi, On the Excellence of Contentment |
Persian poet (1184 - 1291) |
| When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite. |
Sir Winston Churchill, (1874-1965) |
British politician (1874 - 1965) |
| And the work of righteousness shall
be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever. |
Bible, Isaiah 32:17 |
| I knew I belonged to the public and
to the world, not because I was talented or even beautiful, but because I had never belonged to anything or anyone else. |
Marilyn Monroe |
US actress (1926 - 1962) |
| I know three things will never be believed-the true, the probable, and
the logical. |
John Steinbeck, The Winter of our Discontent, chapter 2 |
US novelist (1902 - 1968) |
| Where you tend a rose, my lad, a thistle may not grow. |
Frances Hodgson Burnett |
| The fool wonders, the wise man asks. |
Benjamin Disraeli |
British politician (1804 - 1881) |
| Perfection is the enemy of the good. |
Gustave Flaubert |
French realist novelist (1821 -
1880) |
| The only excuse for creating something useless is that one admires it
intensely. |
Oscar Wilde, Foreward, The Picture of Dorian gray |
Irish dramatist, novelist, & poet
(1854 - 1900) |
| We have enslaved the rest of the
animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to
formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form. |
William Ralph Inge |
English author & Anglican prelate
(1860 - 1954) |
| Too many people overvalue what they are, and undervalue what they are
not. |
Malcolm Forbes |
US art collector, author, & publisher
(1919 - 1990) |
| Actuated by the most glorious cause
that mankind ever fought in, I am determined to defend this post to the very last extremity. |
Colonel Morgan, In response to the British demand of the surrender of Fort Washington |
| There is more stupidity then hydrogen in the universe and it has a longer
shelf life. |
Frank Zappa |
US musician, singer, & songwriter
(1940 - 1993) |
| Our problems are man-made, therefore
they may be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. |
John F. Kennedy, speech at The American University, Washington, D.C.,
June 10, 1963 |
US Democratic politician (1917 -
1963) |
| A man who is careful with his palate is not likely to be careless with
his paragraphs. |
Clifton Fadiman |
US author, editor, & radio host
(1904 - ) |
| There is nothing remarkable about
it, all one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself. |
J. S . Bach |
| A peacock who rests on its feathers is just another turkey. |
Dolly Parton |
| It takes a lot of money to look as cheap as I do. |
Dolly Parton |
| If Love be rough with you, be rough with Love, prick Love for pricking,
and you beat Love down. |
William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 2 |
Greatest English dramatist & poet
(1564 - 1616) |
| Every person, all the events of your
life, are there because you have drawn them there. What you choose to do with them is up to you. |
Richard Bach |
| I want to go on living even after my
death,<br> And therefore I am grateful to God<br> For giving this giftà<br> Of expressing all that is in me. |
Ann Frank, Diary of Ann Frank |
| What really keeps me going is the constant belief that it could all
disappear tomorrow. |
Phil Donahue |
| To be great is to be misunderstood. |
Ralph Waldo Emerson |
US essayist & poet (1803 -
1882) |
| Imitation is suicide. |
Ralph Waldo Emerson |
US essayist & poet (1803 -
1882) |
| If you want to endure life, prepare yourself for death. |
Sigmund Freud, his essay on war & death |
Austrian psychologist (1856 -
1939) |
| Happines is like mercury. Hard to
hold, and when we drop it, it shatters into a million pieces. Maybe the bravest of all are those who have the courage to
reach for it again. |
Mary Higgins Clark, Kitchen Privileges, A Memoir |
| I was born modest. Not all over, but in spots. |
Mark Twain |
US humorist, novelist, short story author, & wit (1835 - 1910) |
| We live in a society of
victimization, where people are much more comfortable being victimized than actually standing up for themselves. |
Marilyn Manson |
| So long as there are men there will be wars. |
Albert Einstein |
US (German-born) physicist (1879 -
1955) |
| Each success only buys an admission ticket to a more difficult problem. |
Henry Kissinger, Wilson Library Bulletin, March 1979 |
US (German-born) diplomat & scholar
(1923 - ) |
| The problem most people have with
resisting temptation is that they never really want to discourage it altogether. |
Steve Martini |
| Poetry is an art, and chief of the
fine arts; the easiest to dabble in, the hardest to reach true perfection. |
E.C. Stedman |
| People donÆt want their lives fixed.
Nobody wants their problems solved. Their dramas. Their distractions. Their stories resolved. Their messes cleaned
up. Because what would they have left? Just the big scary unknown. |
Chuck Palahniuk |
US writer (1962 - ) |
| Someone bent on suicide wonÆt have much sense of humour left. |
Chuck Palahniuk |
US writer (1962 - ) |
| Society has traditionally always tried to find scapegoats for its
problems. Well, here I am. |
Marilyn Manson |
| Like the wind crying endlessly
through the universe, Time carries away the names and the deeds of conquerors and commoners alike. And all that we are,
all that remains, is in the memories of those who cared we came this way for
a brief moment. |
Harlan Ellison, "Paladin of the Lost Hour" |
US science fiction author & screenwriter (1934 -
) |
| Men want the same thing from women
that they want from their underwear... a little support, comfort, and freedom. |
Jerry Seinfeld |
US comedian & television actor
(1954 - ) |
| You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist. |
Indira Gandhi, quoted by Christian Science Monitor, May 17, 1982 |
Indian politician (1917 - 1984) |
| A man who works beyond the surface
of things,though he may be wrong himself, yet he clears the way for others and may make even his errors subservient
to the cause of truth. |
Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry Into The Sublime and Beautiful |
Irish orator, philosopher, & politician (1729 - 1797) |
| One should guard against preaching
to young people success in the customary form as the main aim in life. The most important motive for work in
school and in life is pleasure in work, pleasure in its result, and the
knowledge of the value of the result to the community. |
Albert Einstein |
US (German-born) physicist (1879 -
1955) |
| Propose to any englishman any
principle, or any instrument, however admirable, and you will observe that the whole effort of the english mind is
directed to find a difficulty, defect or an impossibility in it. |
Charles Babbage |
| It has just been twenty-three years
since I began to wander. In the next twenty-three years I wonder if there will come a time when life is no longer a
wonderful adventure; when there is not some interesting experience in things
or personalities waiting just around the corner. If that time does come, I
hope that my release will be swift. |
Roy Chapman Andrews, Ends of the Earth, 1929 |
| What we think about, expands. |
Marc Allen, Interview with Michael Toms |
| Within every adversity is an equal or greater opportunity. |
Napoleon Hill |
| We have so much time and so little to do. Strike that, reverse it. |
Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory |
British juvenile author (1916 -
1990) |
| I am not one of those who in expressing opinions confine themselves to
facts. |
Mark Twain, Wearing White Clothes speech, 1907 |
US humorist, novelist, short story author, & wit (1835 - 1910) |
| Sane and intelligent human beings
are like all other human beings, and carefully and cautiously and diligently conceal their private real opinions from
the world and give out fictitious ones in their stead for general
consumption. |
Mark Twain, Mark Twain In Eruption |
US humorist, novelist, short story author, & wit (1835 - 1910) |
| Our opinions do not really blossom into fruition until we have expressed
them to someone else. |
Mark Twain, quoted in Mark Twain and I, Opie Read, 1940 |
US humorist, novelist, short story author, & wit (1835 - 1910) |
| Stupid is forever, ignorance can be fixed. |
Don Wood |
| Good ideas are not adopted
automatically. They must be driven into practice with courageous patience. |
Hyman Rickover |
US (Polish-born) admiral (1900 -
1986) |
| Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier. |
Colin Powell |
US general (1937 - ) |
| The only way most people recognize their limits is by trespassing on
them. |
Tom Morris |
| Love is the big booming beat which covers up the noise of hate. |
Margaret Cho, weblog, 01-15-04 |
| Ugly. Is irrelevant. It is an
immeasurable insult to a woman, and then supposedly the worst crime you can commit as a woman. But ugly, as beautiful, is an
illusion. |
Margaret Cho, weblog, 01-27-04 |
| Thankfully, beauty is easier to
remove than apply, and a swipe of demaquillage in the right direction and you are you once again. |
Margaret Cho, weblog, 01-27-04 |
| Politics has less to do with where you live than where your heart is. |
Margaret Cho, weblog, 01-18-04 |
| This is the challenge of writing.
You have to be very emotionally engaged in what youÆre doing, or it comes out flat. You canÆt fake your way through
this. |
Real Live Preacher, RealLivePreacher.com Weblog, January 29, 2004 |
Anonymous author of
RealLivePreacher.com |
| He who cannot be a good follower cannot be a good leader. |
Aristotle |
Greek critic, philosopher, physicist, & zoologist (384 BC - 322 BC) |
| The secret of a good sermon is to
have a good beginning anf a good ending; and have the two as close together as possible. |
George Burns |
US actor & comedian (1896 -
1996) |
| When women are depressed they either eat or go shopping. Men invade
another country. |
Elayne Boosler |
| Find out who you are and do it on purpose. |
Dolly Parton |
| We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a
habit. |
Aristotle |
Greek critic, philosopher, physicist, & zoologist (384 BC - 322 BC) |
| The stage is not merely the meeting place of all the arts, but is also
the return of art to life. |
Oscar Wilde |
Irish dramatist, novelist, & poet
(1854 - 1900) |
| It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is
invisible to the eye. |
Antione de St. Exupery, The Little Prince |
| Fail, fail again, fail better. |
Samuel Beckett |
Irish author, dramatist, & novelist in France (1906 - 1989) |
| For no phase of life, whether public
or private, whether in business or in the home, whether one is working on what concerns oneself alone or dealing with
another, can be without its moral duty; on the discharge of such duties
depends all that is morally right, and on their neglect all that is morally
wrong in life. |
Marcus Tullius Cicero, On Duties I |
| Women are always being tested...but
ultimately, each of us has to define who we are individually and then do the very best job we can to grow into it. |
Hillary Rodham Clinton |
| We all use our imagination every
day. However, most of us are unaware that what we envision affects every cell of our bodies and every aspect of our
performance. |
Marilyn King |
| If one asks for success and prepares for failure, he will get the
situation he has prepared for. |
Florence Scovel Shinn |
| It is easy to love the people far
away. It is not always easy to love those close to us. It is easier to give a cup of rice to relieve hunger than to relieve
the loneliness and pain of someone unloved in our home. Bring love into your
home for this is where our love for each other must start. |
Mother Teresa |
Indian humanitarian & missionary
(1910 - 1997) |
| Fill your mind with the meaningless
stimuli of a world preoccupied with meaningless things, and it will not be easy to feel peace in your heart. |
Marianne Williamson |
| Optimism is the faith that leads to
achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence. |
Helen Keller |
US blind & deaf educator (1880
- 1968) |
| It is amazing that our souls -- our
eternal essences, with all their hopes an dreams and visions of an eternal world -- are contained within these temporal
bodies. |
Marion Woodman |
| Everything in your world is created by what you think. |
Oprah Winfrey |
US actress & television talk show host (1954 -
) |
| One of the secrets of a happy life is continuous small treats. |
Iris Murdoch |
British novelist (1919 - 1999) |
| Whenever you take a step forward you
are bound to disturb something. You disturb the air as you go forward, you disturb the dust, the ground. |
Indira Ghandi |
| Every small, positive change we make in ourselves repays us in confidence
in the future. |
Alice Walker |
US novelist (1944 - ) |
| Throw your dreams into space like a
kite, and you do not know what it will bring back; a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country. |
Anais Nin |
US (French-born) author & diarist
(1903 - 1977) |
| Instead of thinking about where you
are, think about where you want to be. It takes twenty years of hard work to become an overnight success. |
Diana Rankin |
| Great champions have an enormous
sense of pride. The people who excel are those who are driven to show the world and prove to themselves just how
good they are. |
Nancy Lopez |
