Two Millennia of Wisdom
Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.
Edward Abbey
You have to be able to center yourself, to let all of your emotions go... Don't ever forget that you play with your soul as well as your body.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton
A wise person does at once, what a fool does at last. Both do the same thing; only at different times.
John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton
To be able to look back upon one's past life with satisfaction is to live twice.
John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton
Good character is that quality which makes one dependable whether being watched or not, which makes one truthful when it is to one's advantage to be a little less than truthful, which makes one courageous when faced with great obstacles, which endows one with the firmness of wise self-discipline.
Arthur S. Adams
Success has made failures of many men.
Cindy Adams
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
Douglas Adams
Chaos often breeds life when order breeds habit.
Henry Brooks Adams
One friend in a lifetime is much, two are many, three are hardly possible. Friendship needs a certain parallelism of life, a community of thought, a rivalry of aim.
Henry Brooks Adams
Strategic thinking and planning are intimately connected with creativity and change. First of all, strategic thinking itself is a creative act. For most of us, strategic thinking is not automatic. It is a divergence from business as usual and not easy, since it causes us to confront the large uncertainties associated with the future. Most of us are aware that we should be thinking strategically about our personal lives. Those of us who do tend to accomplish our goals more readily.
James L. Adams
It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others.
Joseph Addison
A leader knows what's best to do; a manager knows merely how best to do it.
Ken Adelman
If ever we hear a case of lying, we must look for severe parents. A lie would have no sense unless the truth were felt as dangerous.
Alfred Adler
The hero is the one who kindles a great light in the world, who sets up blazing torches in the dark streets of life for men to see by. The saint is the man who walks through the dark paths of the world, himself a light.
Felix Adler
The future you shall know when it has come; before then, forget it.
Aeschylus
He that is neither one thing nor the other has no friends.
Aesop
He that is discontented in one place will seldom be content in another.
Aesop
Never trust the advice of a man in difficulties.
Aesop
If you allow men to use you for your own purposes, they will use you for theirs.
Aesop
Affairs are easier of entrance than of exit; and it is but common prudence to see our way out before we venture in.
Aesop
The little reed, bending to the force of the wind, soon stood upright again when the storm had passed over.
Aesop
There is nothing so easy but that it becomes difficult when you do it reluctantly.Publius Terentius Afer
Do not look where you fell, but where you slipped.
African proverb
When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.
African proverb
The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear.
Herbert Agar
Beauty is the adjustment of all parts proportionately so that one cannot add or subtract or change without impairing the harmony of the whole.
Leon Battista Alberti
Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.
Louisa May Alcott
You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself.
Alan Alda
If at first you don’t succeed, you are running about average.
M.H. Alderson
Great things are only possible with outrageous requests.
Thea Alexander
The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses—behind the lines, in the gym and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.
Muhammad Ali
The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.
Muhammad Ali
I figured that if I said it enough, I would convince the world that I really was the greatest.
Muhammad Ali
The secret of getting things done is to act!
Dante Alighieri
The more tranquil a man becomes, the greater is his success, his influence, his power for good. Calmness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom.
James Allen
Seventy percent of success in life is showing up.
Woody Allen
A dying man needs to die, as a sleepy man needs to sleep, and there comes a time when it is wrong, as well as useless, to resist.
Steward Alsop
No duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks.
St. Ambrose
When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.
American Indian saying
Science is the power of man and love his strength; man becomes man only by the intelligence, but he is man only by the heart.
Henri Frédéric Amiel
The man who insists on seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides.
Henri Frédéric Amiel
Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are travelling the dark journey with us. Oh be swift to love, make haste to be kind.
Henri Frédéric Amiel
Our duty is to be useful, not according to our desires, but according to our powers.
Henri Frédéric Amiel
Great men are true men, the men in whom nature has succeeded. They are not extraordinary—they are in the true order. It is the other species of men who are not what they ought to be.
Henri Frédéric Amiel
Conquering any difficulty always gives one a secret joy, for it means pushing back a boundary-line and adding to one's liberty.
Henri Frédéric Amiel
The language of truth is unadorned and always simple.
Marcellinus Ammianus
It doesn't matter how many say it cannot be done or how many people have tried it before; it's important to realize that whatever you're doing, it's your first attempt at it.
Wally “Famous” Amos
When we are motivated by goals that have deep meaning, by dreams that need completion, by pure love that needs expressing, then we truly live life.
Greg Anderson
Paradise is exactly like where you are right now... only much, much better.
Laurie Anderson
I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated.
Poul Anderson
If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.
Maya Angelou
If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain.
Maya Angelou
One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.
Maya Angelou
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.
Maya Angelou
To say yes, you have to sweat and roll up your sleeves and plunge both hands into life up to the elbows. It is easy to say no, even if saying no means death.
Jean Anouilh
Until the day of his death, no man can be sure of his courage.
Jean Anouilh
If you don't change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news?
Robert Anthony
Waiting is a trap. There will always be reasons to wait... The truth is, there are only two things in life, reasons and results, and reasons simply don't count.
Robert Anthony
You win only if you aren't afraid to lose.
Rocky Aoki
Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.
Guillaume Apollinaire
"Come to the edge," he said.
They said, "We are afraid."
"Come to the edge," he said.
They came. He pushed them... and they flew.
Guillaume Apollinaire
Write the bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble.
Arabic Parable
Choose your friends carefully. Your enemies will choose you.
Yassir Arafat
What it comes down to is that anybody can win with the best horse. What makes you good is if you can take the second or third-best horse and win.
Vicky Aragon
I'll do my dreaming with my eyes wide open, and I'll do my looking back with my eyes closed.
Tony Arata
We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization.
Gaius Petronius Arbiter
Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom.
Hannah Arendt
The wise learn many things from their enemies.
Aristophanes
Anybody can become angry—that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way—that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.
Aristotle
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act but a habit.
Aristotle
What lies in our power to do, lies in our power not to do.
Aristotle
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
Aristotle
I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies, for the hardest victory is over self.
Aristotle
Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.
Aristotle
Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.
Aristotle
A true friend is one soul in two bodies.
Aristotle
It is easy to perform a good action, but not easy to acquire a settled habit of performing such actions.
Aristotle
Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.
Aristotle
The world isn't interested in the storms you encountered, but whether or not you brought in the ship.
Raul Armesto
You can run with the big dogs or sit on the porch and bark.
Wallace Arnold
Flatter me, and I may not believe you.
Criticize me, and I may not like you.
Ignore me, and I may not forgive you.
Encourage me, and I may not forget you.
William Arthur
From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life.
Arthur Ashe
True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.
Arthur Ashe
One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation.
Arthur Ashe
Regardless of how you feel inside, always try to look like a winner. Even if you are behind, a sustained look of control and confidence can give you a mental edge that results in victory.
Arthur Ashe
Striving can be more important than arriving. If you are striving for excellence— if you are trying your best day by day with the wisest use of your time and energy to reach realistic goals—you are a success.
Marvin J. Ashton
Pleasure usually takes the form of me and now; joy is us and always.
Marvin J. Ashton
Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you've got to start young.
Fred Astaire
Thank God for competition. When our competitors upset our plans or outdo our designs, they open infinite possibilities of our own work to us.
Gil Atkinson
Keep doing good deeds long enough, and you'll probably turn out a good man in spite of yourself.
Louis Auchincloss
All that we are not stares back at what we are.
W. H. Auden
Our life is what our thoughts make it
Marcus Aurelius Antonius
How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.
Marcus Aurelius Antonius
If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.
Isaac Asimov
The most hopelessly stupid man is he who is not aware that he is wise.
Isaac Asimov
Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.
Isaac Asimov
Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.
W. H. Auden
A day dawns, quite like other days; in it, a single hour comes, quite like other hours; but in that day and in that hour the chance of a lifetime faces us.
Maltbie Babcock
It takes a person who is wide awake to make his dream come true.
Roger Babson
Imagination is the highest kite one can fly.
Lauren Bacall
We wait all these years to find someone who understands us, I thought, someone who accepts us as we are, someone with a wizard's power to melt stone to sunlight, who can bring us happiness in spite of trials, who can face our dragons in the night, who can transform us into the soul we choose to be. Just yesterday I found that magical Someone in the face we see in the mirror—it's us and our homemade masks.
Richard Bach
Here is the test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: if you're alive, it isn't.
Richard Bach
The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.
Richard Bach
There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves, no matter how unpleasant, are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn; whatever steps we take, they're necessary to reach the places we've chosen to go.
Richard Bach
The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work.
Richard Bach
Prosperity discovers vice, adversity discovers virtue.
Francis Bacon
There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that which is lost by not trying.
Francis Bacon
A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.
Francis Bacon
Arts and sciences should be like mines, where the noise of new works and further advances is heard on every side.
Francis Bacon
Knowledge is power.
Francis Bacon
It's not till sex has died out between a man and a woman that they can really love. And now I mean affection. Now I mean to be fond of (as one is fond of oneself)—to hope, to be disappointed, to live inside the other heart. When I look back on the pain of sex, the love like a wild fox so ready to bite, the antagonism that sits like a twin beside love, and contrast it with affection, so deeply unrepeatable, of two people who have lived a life together (and of whom one must die) it's the affection I find richer. It's that I would have again. Not all those doubtful rainbow colors.
Enid Bagnold
Right human relations is the only true peace.
Alice A. Bailey
What the world really needs is more love and less paperwork.
Pearl Bailey
There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now.
James Baldwin
Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.
James Baldwin
Freedom is not something that anybody can be given. Freedom is something that people take and people are as free as they want to be.
James Baldwin
The world is before you, and you need not take it or leave it as it was before you came in.
James Baldwin
Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.
James Baldwin
What makes humility so desirable is the marvelous thing it does to us; it creates in us a capacity for the closest possible intimacy with God.
Monica Baldwin
Contentment is a pearl of great price, and whoever procures it at the expense of ten thousand desires makes a wise and a happy purchase.
John Balguy
Knowledge is power, but enthusiasm pulls the switch.
Ivern Ball
Suspicion is far more to be wrong than right; more often unjust than just. It is no friend to virtue, and always an enemy to happiness.
Hosea Ballou
The motto of chivalry is also the motto of wisdom; to serve all, but love only one.
Honoré de Balzac
Can you find a man who loves the occupation that provides him with a livelihood? Professions are like marriages; we end by feeling only their inconveniences.
Honoré de Balzac
It is as absurd to say that a man can`t love one woman all the time as it is to say that a violinist needs several violins to play the same piece of music.
Honoré de Balzac
All humanity is passion; without passion, religion, history, novels, art would be ineffectual.
Honoré de Balzac
Beauty itself is but the sensible image of the infinite.
George Bancroft
For the cause that lacks assistance,
The wrong that needs resistance,
For the future in the distance,
And the good that I can do.
George Linnaeus Banks
The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win.
Roger Bannister
Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into glory.
William Barclay
Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.
Carl Bard
Those who say it can't be done are usually interrupted by others doing it.
Joel A. Barker
Television is the first truly democratic culture—the first culture available to everybody and entirely governed by what the people want. The most terrifying thing is what people do want.
Clive Barnes
It's so hard when I have to, And so easy when I want to.
Sondra Anice Barnes
We would worry less about what others think of us if we realized how seldom they do.
Ethel Barrett
I argue very well. Ask any of my remaining friends. I can win an argument on any topic, against any opponent. People know this, and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don't even invite me.
Dave Barry
You must learn day by day, year by year, to broaden your horizons. The more things you love, the more you are interested in, the more you enjoy, the more you are indignant about—the more you have left when anything happens.
Ethel Barrymore
Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn't know you left open.
John Barrymore
A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.
John Barrymore
The best theology would need no advocates; it would prove itself.
Karl Barth
Sometimes when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things—I am tempted to think there are no little things.
Bruce Barton
Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside of them was superior to circumstance.
Bruce Barton
Before you give up hope, turn back and read the attacks that were made on Lincoln.
Bruce Barton
Action and reaction, ebb and flow, trial and error, change—this is the rhythm of living. Out of our over-confidence, fear; out of our fear, clearer vision, fresh hope. And out of hope, progress.
Bruce Barton
During my eighty-seven years I have witnessed a whole succession of technological revolutions. But none of them has done away with the need for character in the individual or the ability to think.
Bernard M. Baruch
Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of our elders. Seek what they sought.
Basho
Education, whether for success or failure, is never finished. Building and sustaining the settings in which individuals can grow and unfold, not "kept in their place," but empowered to become all they can be, is not only the task of parents and teachers, but the basis of management and political leadership—and simple friendship.
Mary Catherine Bateson
City people just use parts of the city. They cut off a corner and make it theirs. Like deer going to meadows and bears to berry patches, they leave their pug marks on the same trails day after day. Follow someone around for a week and you can predict with reasonable certainty where he or she will be at what time of day for the rest of the year.
Larry Batson
The first task of a leader is to keep hope alive.
Joe Batten
Any healthy man can go without food for two days—but not without poetry.
Charles Baudelaire
In necessary things, unity; in doubtful things, liberty; in all things, charity.
Anne Baxter
Stubbornness does have its helpful features. You always know what you're going to be thinking tomorrow.
Glen Beaman
I am convinced that the world is not a mere bog in which men and woman trample themselves in the mire and die. Something magnificent is taking place here amid the cruelties and tragedies, and the supreme challenge to intelligence is that of making the noblest and best in our curious heritage prevail.
Charles A. Beard
I love the winning, I can take the losing, but most of all I love to play.
Boris Becker
Nothing is funnier than unhappiness, I grant you that. Yes, yes, it's the most comical thing in the world.
Samuel Beckett
Decisiveness is often the art of timely cruelty.
Henri Becquerel
If there were dreams to sell, what would you buy?
Thomas Lovell Beddoes
The cynic is one who never sees a good quality in a man, and never fails to see a bad one. He is a human owl, vigilant in darkness, and blind to light, mousing for vermin, and never seeing noble game.
Henry Ward Beecher
Never forget what a man says to you when he is angry.
Henry Ward Beecher
Speak when you're angry and you'll make the best speech you'll ever regret.
Henry Ward Beecher
It is not the going out of port, but the coming in, that determines the success of a voyage.
Henry Ward Beecher
A man that does not know how to be angry, does not know how to be good. Now and then a man should be shaken to the core with indignation over things evil.
Henry Ward Beecher
Nobody ever died of laughter.
Max Beerbohm
The fragrance always stays in the hand that gives the rose.
Hada Bejar
When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.
Alexander Graham Bell
With the power of conviction, there is no sacrifice.
Pat Benatar
Anything I've ever done that ultimately was worthwhile... initially scared me to death.
Betty Bender
Getters don't get—givers get.
Eugene Benge
All the experts are experts on what was. There are no experts on what will be.
David Ben Gurion
To be happy is to be able to become aware of oneself without fright.
Walter Benjamin
Federations work better than monolithic organizations because, along with strength, they offer the degree of flexibility we need to deal with these turbulent times.
Warren Bennis
All the best stories in the world are but one story in reality—the story of escape. It is the only thing which interests us all and at all times, how to escape.
A. C. Benson
Bad experience is a school that only fools keep going to.
Ezra Taft Benson
Nature has placed mankind under the government of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure ... they govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it.
Jeremy Bentham
Brilliance is typically the act of an individual, but incredible stupidity can usually be traced to an organization.
Jon Bentley
Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago.
Bernard Berenson
The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.
Henri Bergson
Life is 10 percent what you make it and 90 percent how you take it.
Irving Berlin
To understand is to perceive patterns.
Sir Isaiah Berlin
Each person designs his own life, freedom gives him the power to carry out his own designs, and power gives him the freedom to interfere with the designs of others.
Eric Berne
Life begets life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich.
Sarah Bernhardt
99% of the game is half mental.
Yogi Berra
It's not over until it's over
Yogi Berra
You can see a lot by observing.
Yogi Berra
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.
Yogi Berra
You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you are going, because you might not get there.
Yogi Berra
The bird of paradise alights only on the hand that does not grasp.
John Berry
To the illumined man or woman, a clod of dirt, a stone, and gold are the same.
The Bhagavad Gita
Out of compassion I destroy the darkness of their ignorance. From within them I light the lamp of wisdom and dispel all darkness from their lives.
The Bhagavad Gita
Admiration is our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.
Ambrose Bierce
Achievement is the end of endeavor and the beginning of disgust.
Ambrose Bierce
The way we imagine ourselves to appear to another person is an essential element in our conception of ourselves. In other words, I am not what I think I am, and I am not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am.
Robert Bierstedt
Be like a postage stamp. Stick to one thing until you get there.
Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw)
The best way to convince a fool that he is wrong is to let him have his way.
Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw)
Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well.
Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw)
True wisdom is plenty of experience, observation and reflection. False wisdom is plenty of ignorance, arrogance and impudence.
Josh Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw)
A smile starts on the lips, A grin spreads to the eyes, A chuckle comes from the belly; But a good laugh bursts forth from the soul, Overflows, and bubbles all around.
Carolyn Birmingham
It is difficult to live in the present, ridiculous to live in the future, and impossible to live in the past. Nothing is as far away as one minute ago.
Jim Bishop
Be grateful for luck. Pay the thunder no mind —listen to the birds. And don't hate nobody.
Eubie Blake
He who binds to himself a joy doth the winged life destroy. But he who kisses the joy as it flies lives in Eternity's sunrise.
William Blake
There are things that are known, and things that are unknown. In between there are doors.
William Blake
Love seeketh not Itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives it ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair.
William Blake
Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believed.
William Blake
No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.
William Blake
As a man is, so he sees.
William Blake
Our attitudes control our lives. Attitudes are a secret power working twenty-four hours a day, for good or bad. It is of paramount importance that we know how to harness and control this great force.
Tom Blandi
A person who trusts no one can't be trusted.
Jerome Blattner
Success doesn't mean the absence of failures; it means the attainment of ultimate objectives. It means winning the war, not every battle.
Edward Bliss
Competing in sports has taught me that if I'm not willing to give 120 percent, somebody else will.
Ron Blomberg
When the Japanese mend broken objects they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold, because they believe that when something's suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful.
Barbara Bloom
You have to choose where you look, and in making that choice you eliminate entire worlds.
Barbara Bloom
Teamwork is consciously espoused but unwittingly shunned by most people in business because they are deathly afraid of it. They think it will render them anonymous, invisible.
Srully Blotnick
What looks like a loss may be the very event which is subsequently responsible for helping to produce the major achievement of your life.
Srully Blotnick
The fact remains that the overwhelming majority of people who have become wealthy have become so thanks to work they found profoundly absorbing. The long term study of people who eventually become wealthy clearly reveals that their "Luck" arouse from the accidental dedication they had to an area they enjoyed.
Srully Blotnick
It is an all-too-human frailty to suppose that a favorable wind will blow forever.
Rick Bode
Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.
Paul Boese
The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.
Niels Bohr
Honor is like an island, rugged and without a beach; once we have left it, we can never return.
Nicholas Boileau
When you recover or discover something that nourishes your soul and bring joy, care enough about yourself to make room for it in your life.
Jean Shinoda Bolen
Strategy is the art of making use of time and space. I am less chary of the latter than the former; space we can recover, time never.
Napoleon Bonaparte
Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.
Napoleon Bonaparte
A man will fight harder for his interests than his rights
Napoleon Bonaparte
He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat.
Napoleon Bonaparte
The best way to keep one's word is not to give it.
Napoleon Bonaparte
A leader is a dealer in hope.
Napoleon Bonaparte
Ability is nothing without opportunity.
Napoleon Bonaparte
Do not fight too much with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.
Napoleon Bonaparte
Imagination rules the world.
Napoleon Bonaparte
Many people believe that humility is the opposite of pride, when, in fact, it is a point of equilibrium. The opposite of pride is actually a lack of self esteem. A humble person is totally different from a person who cannot recognize and appreciate himself as part of this world’s marvels
Rabbi Nilton Bonder
I like to be against the odds. I'm not afraid to be lonely at the top. With me, it's just the satisfaction of the game. Just performance.
Barry Bonds
It is the characteristic excellence of the strong man that he can bring momentous issues to the fore and make a decision about them. The weak are always forced to decide between alternatives they have not chosen themselves.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
If you never change your mind, why have one?
Edward de Bono
Many highly intelligent people are poor thinkers. Many people of average intelligence are skilled thinkers. The power of a car is separate from the way the car is driven.
Edward de Bono
Humor is by far the most significant activity of the human brain.
Edward de Bono
I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks.
Daniel Boone
Don't fear failure so much that you refuse to try new things. The saddest summary of a life contains three descriptions: could have, might have, and should have.
Louis Boone
The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance—it is the illusion of knowledge.
Daniel Boorstin
The courage to imagine the otherwise is our greatest resource, adding color and suspense to all our life.
Daniel Boorstin
Laughter is the closest distance between two people.
Victor Borge
Humor is something that thrives between man's aspirations and his limitations. There is more logic in humor than in anything else. Because, you see, humor is truth.
Victor Borge
No winter lasts forever; no spring skips it's turn.
Hal Borland
The belief that there is only one truth and that oneself is in possession of it seems to me the deepest root of all evil that is in the world.
Max Born
No one ever won a chess game by betting on each move. Sometimes you have to move backward to get a step forward.
Amar Gopal Bose
Show me a great company and I'll show you one that has radically changed itself and is looking forward to the opportunity of doing so again.
Lawrence A. Bossidy
The first and most important step toward success is the feeling that we can succeed.
Nelson Boswell
Few persons are made of such strong fiber that they will make a costly outlay when surface work will pass as well in the market.
E. M. Bounds
Nothing fails like success because we don't learn from it. We learn only from failure.
Kenneth Boulding
It is the passion that is in a kiss that gives to it its sweetness; it is the affection in a kiss that sanctifies it.
Christian Nestell Bovee
A failure establishes only this, that our determination to succeed was not strong enough.
John Christian Bovee
We all want to be happy, and we're all going to die. You might say those are the only two unchallengeably true facts that apply to every human being on this planet.
William Boyd
The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring.
Francis H. Bradley
We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship.
Omar Bradley
This is as true in everyday life as it is in battle: we are given one life and the decision is ours whether to wait for circumstances to make up our mind, or whether to act and, in acting, to live.
Omar Bradley
When you've got something to prove, there's nothing greater than a challenge.
Terry Bradshaw
Striving for excellence motivates you; striving for perfection is demoralizing.
Harriet Braiker
In truth, to attain to interior peace, one must be willing to pass through the contrary to peace.
Swami Brahmanada
This increasingly intelligent, fast-moving civilization needs to be applying some of its intelligence to things that change slowly. ... If we are constantly tending to the immediate, day-to-day problems, we'll lose that sense of the long term, and then we could be really sorry.
Stewart Brand
Always behave like a duck—keep calm and unruffled on the surface but paddle like the devil underneath.
Jacob M. Braude
Consider how hardt is to change yourself and you'll understand what little chance you have in trying to change others.
Jacob M. Braude
It is possible to give without loving, but it is impossible to love without giving.
Richard Braunstein
Don't be afraid of death so much as an inadequate life.
Bertolt Brecht
War is like love; it always finds a way.
Bertolt Brecht
The finest kind of friendship is between people who expect a great deal of each other but never ask it.
Sylvia Bremer
When you do not know what you are doing and what you are doing is the best—that is inspiration.
Robert Bresson
I don't think I can play any other way but all out. I enjoy the game so much because I'm putting so much into it.
George Brett
Let the world know you as you are, not as you think you should be, because sooner or later, if you are posing, you will forget the pose, and then where are you?
Fanny Brice
Show me a guy who’s afraid to look bad, and I’ll show you a guy you can beat every time.
Lou Brock
To me, being an intellectual doesn't mean knowing about intellectual issues; it means taking pleasure in them.
Jacob Bronowski
The hand is the cutting edge of the mind.
Jacob Bronowski
There is a serious defect in the thinking of someone who wants—more than anything else—to become rich. As long as they don't have the money, it'll seem like a worthwhile goal. Once they do, they'll understand how important other things are—and have always been.
Joseph Brooks
Reason is what tells us to ignore the present and live in the future. So all we do is make plans. We think that somewhere out there are going to be green pastures. It's crazy. Heaven is nothing but a grand, monumental instance of the future. Listen, now is good. Now is wonderful.
Mel Brooks
Whenever people say "we mustn't be sentimental", you can take it they are about to do something cruel. And if they add, "we must be realistic", they mean they are going to make money out of it.
Brigid Brophy
Trust your hunches. They're usually based on facts filed away just below the conscious level.
Dr. Joyce Brothers
Success is a state of mind. If you want success, start thinking of yourself as a success.
Dr. Joyce Brothers
You don't always get what you ask for, but you never get what you don't ask for... unless it's contagious!
Franklyn Broude
A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a joke or worried to death by a frown on the right person's brow.
Charles Brower
You can get by on charm for about 15 minutes. After that, you better know something.
H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
Opportunity dances with those who are already on the dance floor.
H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
Never let the odds keep you from pursuing what you know in your heart you were meant to do.
H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking.
H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
Your mind can only hold one thought at a time. Make it a positive and constructive one.
H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
About all you can do in life is be who you are. Some people will love you for you. Most will love you for what you can do for them, and some won't like you at all.
Rita Mae Brown
Moral passion without entertainment is propaganda, and entertainment without moral passion is television.
Rita Mae Brown
Good judgment comes from experience, and often experience comes from bad judgment.
Rita Mae Brown
Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly until you learn to do it well.
Steve Brown
Failure is an event, never a person.
William D. Brown
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! —and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Truth never hurts the teller.
Robert Browning
Ah, but a man's grasp should exceed his reach, Or what's a heaven for?
Robert Browning
When you can't say Fuck, you can't say Fuck The Government.
Lenny Bruce
Failure is the tuition you pay for success.
Walter Brunell
Talent, taste, wit, good sense are very different things, but by no means incompatible. Between good sense and good taste there exists the same difference as between cause and effect, and between wit and talent there is the same proportion as between a whole and its parts.
Jean de La Bruyere
No one can earn a million dollars honestly.
William Jennings Bryan
Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.
William Jennings Bryan
Inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that's where you renew your springs that never dry up.
Pearl S. Buck
The lack of emotional security of our American young people is due, I believe, to their isolation from the larger family unit. No two people - no mere father and mother - as I have often said, are enough to provide emotional security for a child. He needs to feel himself one in a world of kinfolk, persons of variety in age and temperament, and yet allied to himself by an indissoluble bond which he cannot break if he could, for nature has welded him into it before he was born.
Pearl S. Buck
I am comforted by life's stability, by earth's unchangeableness. What has seemed new and frightening assumes its place in the unfolding of knowledge. It is good to know our universe. What is new is only new to us.
Pearl S. Buck
Truth is always exciting. Speak it, then. Life is dull without it.
Pearl S. Buck
Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied.
Pearl S. Buck
You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.
Siddhartha Gautama Buddha
We are what we think. All that we are is the result of what we have thought. With our thoughts, we make the world.
Siddhartha Gautama Buddha
Your body is precious. It is your vehicle for awakening. Treat it with care.
Siddhartha Gautama Buddha
Believe nothing merely because you have been told it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be kind, conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings—that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide.
Siddhartha Gautama Buddha
As the fletcher whittles and makes straight his arrows, so the master directs his straying thoughts.
Siddhartha Gautama Buddha
To live a pure unselfish life, one must count nothing as one's own in the midst of abundance.
Siddhartha Gautama Buddha
Do not be afraid of beasts, but friends - as the beast will wound your body, but a friend will wound your soul.
Siddhartha Gautama Buddha
The thought manifests as the word;
The word manifests as the deed;
The deed develops into habit;
And habit hardens into character.
So watch the thought and its ways with care,
And let it spring from love
Born out of concern for all beings.
Siddhartha Gautama Buddha
Friendship is a strong and habitual inclination in two persons to promote the good and happiness of one another.
Eustace Budgell
They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.
Carl W. Buechner
They say the chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken. The chains you put around yourself now have enormous consequences as you go through life.
Warren Buffet
Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.
Warren Buffet
If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians.
Warren Buffet
Talent does what it can; genius does what it must.
George Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Love thou the rose, yet leave it on its stem.
George Edward Bulwer-Lytton
If all the gold in the world were melted down into a solid cube it would be about the size of an eight room house. If a man got possession of all that gold—billions of dollars worth – he could not buy a friend, character, peace of mind, clear conscience or a sense of eternity.
Charles F. Bunning
Age is something that doesn't matter, unless you are a cheese
Billie Burke
All government—indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act—is founded on compromise and barter.
Edmond Burke
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Edmond Burke
Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.
Edmond Burke
There is a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.
Edmond Burke
Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people.
Leo Burnett
Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty.
Daniel H. Burnham
I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see. The longer I live, the more my mind dwells upon the beauty and the wonder of the world.
John Burroughs
A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.
John Burroughs
If I don't have wisdom, I can teach you only ignorance.
Leo Buscaglia
Each of our acts makes a statement as to our purpose.
Leo Buscaglia
Don't brood. Get on with living and loving. You don't have forever.
Leo Buscaglia
Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
Samuel Butler
To himself everyone is immortal; he may know that he is going to die, but he can never know that he is dead.
Samuel Butler
Every man`s work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.
Samuel Butler
There are two great rules of life; the one general and the other particular. The first is that everyone can, in the end, get what he wants, if he only tries. That is the general rule. The particular rule is that every individual is, more or less, an exception to the rule.
Samuel Butler
To make pleasures pleasant, shorten them.
Charles Buxton
You will never find time for anything. If you want time you must make it
Charles Buxton
Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem more afraid of life than death.
James F. Byrnes
All who would win joy must share it; happiness was born a twin.
Lord George Gordon Byron
Sincerity may be humble but she cannot be servile.
Lord George Gordon Byron
I shall soon be six-and-twenty. Is there anything in the future that can possibly console us for not being always twenty-five?
Lord George Gordon Byron
I have a great mind to believe in Christianity for the mere pleasure of fancying I may be damned.
Lord George Gordon Byron
Truth is always strange, stranger than fiction.
Lord George Gordon Byron
Though I love my country, I do not love my countrymen.
Lord George Gordon Byron
America is a model of force and freedom and moderation - with all the coarseness and rudeness of its people.
Lord George Gordon Byron
A celebrity is one who is known to many persons he is glad he doesn't know.
Lord George Gordon Byron
There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in the lonely shore, there is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not Man the less, but Nature more.
Lord George Gordon Byron
Friendship may, and often does, grow into love, but love never subsides into friendship.
Lord George Gordon Byron
Absence - that common cure of love.
Lord George Gordon Byron
There are four questions of value in life, Don Octavio. What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for and what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same. Only love.
Lord George Gordon Byron
Sorrow is knowledge, those that know the most must mourn the deepest, the tree of knowledge is not the tree of life.
Lord George Gordon Byron
There is no such thing as a life of passion any more than a continuous earthquake, or an eternal fever. Besides, who would ever shave themselves in such a state?
Lord George Gordon Byron
All who joy would win must share it. Happiness was born a Twin.
Lord George Gordon Byron
This is the patent age of new inventions for killing bodies, and for saving souls. All propagated with the best intentions.
Lord George Gordon Byron
Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves.
Lord George Gordon Byron
Opinions are made to be changed - or how is truth to be got at?
Lord George Gordon Byron
A woman who gives any advantage to a man may expect a lover but will sooner or later find a tyrant.
Lord George Gordon Byron
The great art of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain.
Lord George Gordon Byron
There is not any memory with less satisfaction than the memory of some temptation we resisted.
James Branch Cabell
Risk more than others think is safe.
Care more than others think is wise.
Dream more than others think is practical.
Expect more than others think is possible.
Maxim Cadet
Men stumble over pebbles, never over mountains.
Emilie Cady
Well done is quickly done.
Augustus Caesar
In between goals is a thing called life, that has to be lived and enjoyed.
Sid Caesar
Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.
Herman Cain
A leader must have the courage to act against an expert's advice.
James Callaghan.
Leap, and the net will appear.
Julie Cameron
I asked God for strength, that I might achieve. I was made weak, that I might learn humbly to obey.
I asked for health, that I might do great things. I was given infirmity, that I might do better things.
I asked for riches, that I might be happy. I was given poverty, that I might be wise.
I asked for power, that I might have the praise of men. I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God.
I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life. I was given life, that I might enjoy all things...
I got nothing I asked for—but everything I hoped for.
Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.
I am, among men, most richly blessed!
Roy Campanella
What each must seek in his life never was on land or sea. It is something out of his own unique potentiality for experience, something that never has been and never could have been experienced by anyone else.
Joseph Campbell
People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life... I think that what we're really seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance within our innermost being and reality, so that we can actually feel the rapture of being alive.
Joseph Campbell
When you follow your bliss... doors will open where you would not have thought there would be doors, and where there wouldn't be a door for anyone else.
Joseph Campbell
Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow. Don't walk behind me, I may not lead. Walk beside me, and just be my friend.
Albert Camus
If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.
Albert Camus
We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love—first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage.
Albert Camus
We can foresee a time when . . . the only people at liberty will be prison guards who will then have to lock up one another.
Albert Camus
Charm is a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question.
Albert Camus
It doesn't matter how new an idea is; what matters is how new it becomes.
Elias Canetti
Everything you want is out there waiting for you to ask. Everything you want also wants you. But you have to take action to get it.
Jack Canfield
A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something.
Frank Capra
Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life.
Sandara Carey
There's no present. There's only the immediate future and the recent past.
George Carlin
The king is the man who can.
Thomas Carlyle
A person usually has two reasons for doing something: a good reason and the real reason.
Thomas Carlyle
Secrecy is the element of all goodness; even virtue, even beauty is mysterious.
Thomas Carlyle
No person was every rightly understood until they had been first regarded with a certain feeling, not of tolerance, but of sympathy.
Thomas Carlyle
To the vulgar eye, few things are wonderful that are not distant.
Thomas Carlyle
Nothing that was worthy in the past departs; no truth or goodness realized by man ever dies, or can die.
Thomas Carlyle
Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as Time.
Thomas Carlyle
True humor springs not more from the head than from the heart. It is not contempt; its essence is love. It issues not in laughter, but in still smiles, which lie far deeper.
Thomas Carlyle
Popular opinion is the greatest lie in the world.
Thomas Carlyle
Do the duty which lieth nearest to thee! Thy second duty will already have become clearer.
Thomas Carlyle
The merit of originality is not novelty; it is sincerity.
Thomas Carlyle
Every new opinion, at its starting, is precisely in a minority of one.
Thomas Carlyle
The tragedy of life is not so much what men suffer, but rather what they miss.
Thomas Carlyle
What you see, but can't see over, is as good as infinite.
Thomas Carlyle
Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!
Andrew Carnegie
The man who dies rich dies disgraced.
Andrew Carnegie
There are four ways, and only four ways, in which we have contact with the world. We are evaluated and classified by these four contacts: what we do, how we look, what we say, and how we say it.
Dale Carnegie
Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.
Dale Carnegie
The ideas I stand for are not mine. I borrowed them from Socrates. I swiped them from Chesterfield. I stole them from Jesus. And I put them in a book. If you don't like their rules, whose would you use?
Dale Carnegie
Many people think that if they were only in some other place, or had some other job, they would be happy. Well, that is doubtful. So get as much happiness out of what you are doing as you can and don't put off being happy until some future date.
Dale Carnegie
First ask yourself: What is the worst that can happen? Then prepare to accept it. Then proceed to improve on the worst.
Dale Carnegie
You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.
Dale Carnegie
I can't go back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.
Lewis Carroll
If I understood too clearly what I was doing, where I was going, then I probably wasn't working on anything very interesting.
Peter Carruthers.
To be prepared against surprise is to be trained. To be prepared for surprise is to be educated.
James Carse
You can do what you have to do, and sometimes you can do it even better than you think you can.
Jimmy Carter
Where there is no vision, there is no hope.
George Washington Carver
Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses.
George Washington Carver
How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these.
George Washington Carver
Each person has inside a basic decency and goodness. If he listens to it and acts on it, he is giving a great deal of what it is the world needs most. It is not complicated but it takes courage. It takes courage for a person to listen to his own goodness and act on it.
Pablo Casals
I feel the capacity to care is the thing which gives life its deepest significance.
Pablo Casals
No pressure, no diamonds.
Mary Case
Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.
M. Kathleen Casey
No matter how old you get, if you can keep the desire to be creative, you're keeping the man-child alive.
John Cassavetes
No person is important enough to make me angry.
Carlos Castaneda
Where there is great love there are always miracles.
Willa Cather
Example is more forcible than precept. People look at me six days in the week to see what I mean on the seventh.
Robert Cecil
Time ripens all things; no man is born wise.
Miguel de Cervantes
He who loses wealth loses much; he who loses a friend loses more; but he who loses his courage loses all.
Miguel de Cervantes
Man appoints and God disappoints.
Miguel de Cervantes
Never stand begging for what you have the power to earn.
Miguel de Cervantes
Tell me what company you keep and I'll tell you what you are.
Miguel de Cervantes
The most thoroughly wasted of days is that on which one has not laughed.
Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort
Do not suppose opportunity will knock twice at your door.
Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort
All passions exaggerate; and they are passions only because they do exaggerate.
Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort
There are people who have money and people who are rich.
Coco Chanel
How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something, but to be someone.
Coco Chanel
We smile at the ignorance of the savage who cuts down the tree in order to reach its fruit; but the same blunder is made by every person who is over eager and impatient in the pursuit of pleasure.
William Ellery Channing
Never make a defense or apology before you be accused.
King Charles I
I never wanted to be famous. I only wanted to be great.
Ray Charles
Enthusiasm is the greatest asset in the world. It beats money, power and influence.
Henry Chester
Learning is acquired by reading books; but the much more necessary learning, the knowledge of the world, is only to be acquired by reading men and studying all the various editions of them.
Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th earl of Chesterfield
Honest error is to be pitied, not ridiculed.
Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th earl of Chesterfield
Young men are apt to think themselves wise enough, as drunken men are apt to think themselves sober enough.
Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th earl of Chesterfield
Learning is acquired by reading books; but the much more necessary learning, the knowledge of the world, is only to be acquired by reading men, and studying all the various editions of them.
Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th earl of Chesterfield
Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness; no laziness; no procrastination: never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.
Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th earl of Chesterfield
Pleasure is a necessary reciprocal. No one feels it, who does not at the same time give it. To be pleased, one must please. What pleases you in others, will in general please them in you.
Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th earl of Chesterfield
Do not free the camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton
The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton
I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Experience which was once claimed by the aged is now claimed exclusively by the young.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton
The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton
It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't see the problem.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton
People generally quarrel because they cannot argue.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Being "contented" ought to mean in English, as it does in French, being pleased. Being content with an attic ought not to mean being unable to move from it and resigned to living in it; it ought to mean appreciating all there is in such a position.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton
There is a road from the eye to the heart that does not go through the intellect.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Courage is getting away from death by continually coming within an inch of it.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton
When a total commitment to growing is always with you, then all the events that arise in your life are instantly transformed into a great blessing.
Swami Chetanananda
Life itself is the proper binge.
Julia Child
He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever.
Chinese Proverb
Only a fool tests the depth of the water with both feet.
Chinese Proverb
Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without one.
Chinese Proverb
He who seeks revenge should remember to dig two graves.
Chinese Proverb
To guess is cheap. To guess wrong is expensive.
Chinese Proverb
Experience is a comb which nature gives to men when they are bald.
Chinese Proverb
If you are planning for one year, grow rice. If you are planning for 20 years, grow trees. If you are planning for centuries, grow men.
Chinese Proverb
Don't build a new ship out of old wood.
Chinese Proverb
You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair.
Chinese Proverb
Service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth.
Shirley Chisholm
Happiness is a continuation of happenings which are not resisted.
Deepak Chopra
Flow with whatever is happening and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.
Chuang Tzu
I wanted to be scared again... I wanted to feel unsure again. That's the only way I learn, the only way I feel challenged.
Connie Chung
Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm.
Winston Churchill
What is the use of living if it not be to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone?
Winston Churchill
Never, never, never, never—in nothing great and small—large and petty—Never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force and the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.
Winston Churchill
I have never accepted what many people have kindly said-namely that I inspired the nation. Their will was resolute and remorseless, and as it proved, unconquerable. It fell to me to express it.
Winston Churchill
A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.
Winston Churchill
The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.
Winston Churchill
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
Winston Churchill
To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.
Winston Churchill
When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber.
Winston Churchill
Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others.
Winston Churchill
If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future.
Winston Churchill
The problems of victory are more agreeable than the problems of defeat, but they are no less difficult.
Winston Churchill
The price of greatness is responsibility.
Winston Churchill
There is required for the composition of a great commander not only massive common sense and reasoning power, not only imagination, but also an element of legerdemain, an original and sinister touch, which leaves the enemy puzzled as well as beaten.
Winston Churchill
It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.
Winston Churchill
Every parent is at some time the father of the unreturned prodigal, with nothing to do but keep his house open to hope.
John Ciardi
The six most drastic mistakes made by humans…
Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.
You have to be able to center yourself, to let all of your emotions go... Don't ever forget that you play with your soul as well as your body.
Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
A wise person does at once, what a fool does at last. Both do the same thing; only at different times.
To be able to look back upon one's past life with satisfaction is to live twice.
Good character is that quality which makes one dependable whether being watched or not, which makes one truthful when it is to one's advantage to be a little less than truthful, which makes one courageous when faced with great obstacles, which endows one with the firmness of wise self-discipline.
Success has made failures of many men.
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
Chaos often breeds life when order breeds habit.
One friend in a lifetime is much, two are many, three are hardly possible. Friendship needs a certain parallelism of life, a community of thought, a rivalry of aim.
Strategic thinking and planning are intimately connected with creativity and change. First of all, strategic thinking itself is a creative act. For most of us, strategic thinking is not automatic. It is a divergence from business as usual and not easy, since it causes us to confront the large uncertainties associated with the future. Most of us are aware that we should be thinking strategically about our personal lives. Those of us who do tend to accomplish our goals more readily.
It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others.
A leader knows what's best to do; a manager knows merely how best to do it.
If ever we hear a case of lying, we must look for severe parents. A lie would have no sense unless the truth were felt as dangerous.
The hero is the one who kindles a great light in the world, who sets up blazing torches in the dark streets of life for men to see by. The saint is the man who walks through the dark paths of the world, himself a light.
The future you shall know when it has come; before then, forget it.
He that is neither one thing nor the other has no friends.
He that is discontented in one place will seldom be content in another.
Never trust the advice of a man in difficulties.
If you allow men to use you for your own purposes, they will use you for theirs.
Affairs are easier of entrance than of exit; and it is but common prudence to see our way out before we venture in.
The little reed, bending to the force of the wind, soon stood upright again when the storm had passed over.
There is nothing so easy but that it becomes difficult when you do it reluctantly.
Do not look where you fell, but where you slipped.
When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.
The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear.
Beauty is the adjustment of all parts proportionately so that one cannot add or subtract or change without impairing the harmony of the whole.
Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.
You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself.
If at first you don’t succeed, you are running about average.
Great things are only possible with outrageous requests.
The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses—behind the lines, in the gym and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.
The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.
I figured that if I said it enough, I would convince the world that I really was the greatest.
The secret of getting things done is to act!
The more tranquil a man becomes, the greater is his success, his influence, his power for good. Calmness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom.
Seventy percent of success in life is showing up.
No duty is more urgent than that of returning thanks.
When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.
Science is the power of man and love his strength; man becomes man only by the intelligence, but he is man only by the heart.
The man who insists on seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides.
Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are travelling the dark journey with us. Oh be swift to love, make haste to be kind.
Our duty is to be useful, not according to our desires, but according to our powers.
Great men are true men, the men in whom nature has succeeded. They are not extraordinary—they are in the true order. It is the other species of men who are not what they ought to be.
Conquering any difficulty always gives one a secret joy, for it means pushing back a boundary-line and adding to one's liberty.
The language of truth is unadorned and always simple.
It doesn't matter how many say it cannot be done or how many people have tried it before; it's important to realize that whatever you're doing, it's your first attempt at it.
When we are motivated by goals that have deep meaning, by dreams that need completion, by pure love that needs expressing, then we truly live life.
I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when you looked at it in the right way, did not become still more complicated.
If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.
If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain.
One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.
To say yes, you have to sweat and roll up your sleeves and plunge both hands into life up to the elbows. It is easy to say no, even if saying no means death.
Until the day of his death, no man can be sure of his courage.
If you don't change your beliefs, your life will be like this forever. Is that good news?
Waiting is a trap. There will always be reasons to wait... The truth is, there are only two things in life, reasons and results, and reasons simply don't count.
You win only if you aren't afraid to lose.
Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.
"Come to the edge," he said.
They said, "We are afraid."
"Come to the edge," he said.
They came. He pushed them... and they flew.
Write the bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble.
Choose your friends carefully. Your enemies will choose you.
What it comes down to is that anybody can win with the best horse. What makes you good is if you can take the second or third-best horse and win.
I'll do my dreaming with my eyes wide open, and I'll do my looking back with my eyes closed.
We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization.
Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom.
The wise learn many things from their enemies.
Anybody can become angry—that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way—that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act but a habit.
What lies in our power to do, lies in our power not to do.
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies, for the hardest victory is over self.
Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.
Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.
A true friend is one soul in two bodies.
It is easy to perform a good action, but not easy to acquire a settled habit of performing such actions.
Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.
The world isn't interested in the storms you encountered, but whether or not you brought in the ship.
You can run with the big dogs or sit on the porch and bark.
Flatter me, and I may not believe you.
Criticize me, and I may not like you.
Ignore me, and I may not forgive you.
Encourage me, and I may not forget you.
From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life.
True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost.
One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation.
Regardless of how you feel inside, always try to look like a winner. Even if you are behind, a sustained look of control and confidence can give you a mental edge that results in victory.
Striving can be more important than arriving. If you are striving for excellence— if you are trying your best day by day with the wisest use of your time and energy to reach realistic goals—you are a success.
Pleasure usually takes the form of me and now; joy is us and always.
Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you've got to start young.
Thank God for competition. When our competitors upset our plans or outdo our designs, they open infinite possibilities of our own work to us.
Keep doing good deeds long enough, and you'll probably turn out a good man in spite of yourself.
All that we are not stares back at what we are.
Our life is what our thoughts make it
How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.
If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.
The most hopelessly stupid man is he who is not aware that he is wise.
Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.
Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.
A day dawns, quite like other days; in it, a single hour comes, quite like other hours; but in that day and in that hour the chance of a lifetime faces us.
It takes a person who is wide awake to make his dream come true.
Imagination is the highest kite one can fly.
We wait all these years to find someone who understands us, I thought, someone who accepts us as we are, someone with a wizard's power to melt stone to sunlight, who can bring us happiness in spite of trials, who can face our dragons in the night, who can transform us into the soul we choose to be. Just yesterday I found that magical Someone in the face we see in the mirror—it's us and our homemade masks.
Here is the test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: if you're alive, it isn't.
The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.
There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves, no matter how unpleasant, are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn; whatever steps we take, they're necessary to reach the places we've chosen to go.
The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work.
Prosperity discovers vice, adversity discovers virtue.
There is no comparison between that which is lost by not succeeding and that which is lost by not trying.
A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.
Arts and sciences should be like mines, where the noise of new works and further advances is heard on every side.
Knowledge is power.
It's not till sex has died out between a man and a woman that they can really love. And now I mean affection. Now I mean to be fond of (as one is fond of oneself)—to hope, to be disappointed, to live inside the other heart. When I look back on the pain of sex, the love like a wild fox so ready to bite, the antagonism that sits like a twin beside love, and contrast it with affection, so deeply unrepeatable, of two people who have lived a life together (and of whom one must die) it's the affection I find richer. It's that I would have again. Not all those doubtful rainbow colors.
Right human relations is the only true peace.
What the world really needs is more love and less paperwork.
There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now.
Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.
Freedom is not something that anybody can be given. Freedom is something that people take and people are as free as they want to be.
The world is before you, and you need not take it or leave it as it was before you came in.
Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does. Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up.
Contentment is a pearl of great price, and whoever procures it at the expense of ten thousand desires makes a wise and a happy purchase.
Knowledge is power, but enthusiasm pulls the switch.
Suspicion is far more to be wrong than right; more often unjust than just. It is no friend to virtue, and always an enemy to happiness.
The motto of chivalry is also the motto of wisdom; to serve all, but love only one.
Can you find a man who loves the occupation that provides him with a livelihood? Professions are like marriages; we end by feeling only their inconveniences.
It is as absurd to say that a man can`t love one woman all the time as it is to say that a violinist needs several violins to play the same piece of music.
All humanity is passion; without passion, religion, history, novels, art would be ineffectual.
Beauty itself is but the sensible image of the infinite.
For the cause that lacks assistance,
The wrong that needs resistance,
For the future in the distance,
And the good that I can do.
The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win.
Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into glory.
Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.
Those who say it can't be done are usually interrupted by others doing it.
Television is the first truly democratic culture—the first culture available to everybody and entirely governed by what the people want. The most terrifying thing is what people do want.
It's so hard when I have to, And so easy when I want to.
We would worry less about what others think of us if we realized how seldom they do.
I argue very well. Ask any of my remaining friends. I can win an argument on any topic, against any opponent. People know this, and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don't even invite me.
You must learn day by day, year by year, to broaden your horizons. The more things you love, the more you are interested in, the more you enjoy, the more you are indignant about—the more you have left when anything happens.
Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn't know you left open.
A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.
The best theology would need no advocates; it would prove itself.
Sometimes when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things—I am tempted to think there are no little things.
Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside of them was superior to circumstance.
Before you give up hope, turn back and read the attacks that were made on Lincoln.
Action and reaction, ebb and flow, trial and error, change—this is the rhythm of living. Out of our over-confidence, fear; out of our fear, clearer vision, fresh hope. And out of hope, progress.
During my eighty-seven years I have witnessed a whole succession of technological revolutions. But none of them has done away with the need for character in the individual or the ability to think.
Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of our elders. Seek what they sought.
Education, whether for success or failure, is never finished. Building and sustaining the settings in which individuals can grow and unfold, not "kept in their place," but empowered to become all they can be, is not only the task of parents and teachers, but the basis of management and political leadership—and simple friendship.
City people just use parts of the city. They cut off a corner and make it theirs. Like deer going to meadows and bears to berry patches, they leave their pug marks on the same trails day after day. Follow someone around for a week and you can predict with reasonable certainty where he or she will be at what time of day for the rest of the year.
The first task of a leader is to keep hope alive.
Any healthy man can go without food for two days—but not without poetry.
In necessary things, unity; in doubtful things, liberty; in all things, charity.
Stubbornness does have its helpful features. You always know what you're going to be thinking tomorrow.
I am convinced that the world is not a mere bog in which men and woman trample themselves in the mire and die. Something magnificent is taking place here amid the cruelties and tragedies, and the supreme challenge to intelligence is that of making the noblest and best in our curious heritage prevail.
I love the winning, I can take the losing, but most of all I love to play.
Nothing is funnier than unhappiness, I grant you that. Yes, yes, it's the most comical thing in the world.
Decisiveness is often the art of timely cruelty.
If there were dreams to sell, what would you buy?
The cynic is one who never sees a good quality in a man, and never fails to see a bad one. He is a human owl, vigilant in darkness, and blind to light, mousing for vermin, and never seeing noble game.
Never forget what a man says to you when he is angry.
Speak when you're angry and you'll make the best speech you'll ever regret.
It is not the going out of port, but the coming in, that determines the success of a voyage.
A man that does not know how to be angry, does not know how to be good. Now and then a man should be shaken to the core with indignation over things evil.
Nobody ever died of laughter.
The fragrance always stays in the hand that gives the rose.
When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us.
With the power of conviction, there is no sacrifice.
Anything I've ever done that ultimately was worthwhile... initially scared me to death.
Getters don't get—givers get.
All the experts are experts on what was. There are no experts on what will be.
To be happy is to be able to become aware of oneself without fright.
Federations work better than monolithic organizations because, along with strength, they offer the degree of flexibility we need to deal with these turbulent times.
All the best stories in the world are but one story in reality—the story of escape. It is the only thing which interests us all and at all times, how to escape.
Bad experience is a school that only fools keep going to.
Nature has placed mankind under the government of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure ... they govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every effort we can make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate and confirm it.
Brilliance is typically the act of an individual, but incredible stupidity can usually be traced to an organization.
Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago.
The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.
Life is 10 percent what you make it and 90 percent how you take it.
To understand is to perceive patterns.
Each person designs his own life, freedom gives him the power to carry out his own designs, and power gives him the freedom to interfere with the designs of others.
Life begets life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich.
99% of the game is half mental.
It's not over until it's over
You can see a lot by observing.
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.
You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you are going, because you might not get there.
The bird of paradise alights only on the hand that does not grasp.
To the illumined man or woman, a clod of dirt, a stone, and gold are the same.
Out of compassion I destroy the darkness of their ignorance. From within them I light the lamp of wisdom and dispel all darkness from their lives.
Admiration is our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves.
Achievement is the end of endeavor and the beginning of disgust.
The way we imagine ourselves to appear to another person is an essential element in our conception of ourselves. In other words, I am not what I think I am, and I am not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am.
Be like a postage stamp. Stick to one thing until you get there.
The best way to convince a fool that he is wrong is to let him have his way.
Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well.
True wisdom is plenty of experience, observation and reflection. False wisdom is plenty of ignorance, arrogance and impudence.
A smile starts on the lips, A grin spreads to the eyes, A chuckle comes from the belly; But a good laugh bursts forth from the soul, Overflows, and bubbles all around.
It is difficult to live in the present, ridiculous to live in the future, and impossible to live in the past. Nothing is as far away as one minute ago.
Be grateful for luck. Pay the thunder no mind —listen to the birds. And don't hate nobody.
He who binds to himself a joy doth the winged life destroy. But he who kisses the joy as it flies lives in Eternity's sunrise.
There are things that are known, and things that are unknown. In between there are doors.
Love seeketh not Itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives it ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair.
Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believed.
No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.
As a man is, so he sees.
Our attitudes control our lives. Attitudes are a secret power working twenty-four hours a day, for good or bad. It is of paramount importance that we know how to harness and control this great force.
A person who trusts no one can't be trusted.
Success doesn't mean the absence of failures; it means the attainment of ultimate objectives. It means winning the war, not every battle.
Competing in sports has taught me that if I'm not willing to give 120 percent, somebody else will.
When the Japanese mend broken objects they aggrandize the damage by filling the cracks with gold, because they believe that when something's suffered damage and has a history it becomes more beautiful.
You have to choose where you look, and in making that choice you eliminate entire worlds.
Teamwork is consciously espoused but unwittingly shunned by most people in business because they are deathly afraid of it. They think it will render them anonymous, invisible.
What looks like a loss may be the very event which is subsequently responsible for helping to produce the major achievement of your life.
The fact remains that the overwhelming majority of people who have become wealthy have become so thanks to work they found profoundly absorbing. The long term study of people who eventually become wealthy clearly reveals that their "Luck" arouse from the accidental dedication they had to an area they enjoyed.
It is an all-too-human frailty to suppose that a favorable wind will blow forever.
Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future.
The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.
Honor is like an island, rugged and without a beach; once we have left it, we can never return.
When you recover or discover something that nourishes your soul and bring joy, care enough about yourself to make room for it in your life.
Strategy is the art of making use of time and space. I am less chary of the latter than the former; space we can recover, time never.
Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide.
A man will fight harder for his interests than his rights
He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat.
The best way to keep one's word is not to give it.
A leader is a dealer in hope.
Ability is nothing without opportunity.
Do not fight too much with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.
Imagination rules the world.
Many people believe that humility is the opposite of pride, when, in fact, it is a point of equilibrium. The opposite of pride is actually a lack of self esteem. A humble person is totally different from a person who cannot recognize and appreciate himself as part of this world’s marvels
I like to be against the odds. I'm not afraid to be lonely at the top. With me, it's just the satisfaction of the game. Just performance.
It is the characteristic excellence of the strong man that he can bring momentous issues to the fore and make a decision about them. The weak are always forced to decide between alternatives they have not chosen themselves.
Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility.
If you never change your mind, why have one?
Many highly intelligent people are poor thinkers. Many people of average intelligence are skilled thinkers. The power of a car is separate from the way the car is driven.
Humor is by far the most significant activity of the human brain.
I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks.
Don't fear failure so much that you refuse to try new things. The saddest summary of a life contains three descriptions: could have, might have, and should have.
The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance—it is the illusion of knowledge.
The courage to imagine the otherwise is our greatest resource, adding color and suspense to all our life.
Laughter is the closest distance between two people.
Humor is something that thrives between man's aspirations and his limitations. There is more logic in humor than in anything else. Because, you see, humor is truth.
No winter lasts forever; no spring skips it's turn.
The belief that there is only one truth and that oneself is in possession of it seems to me the deepest root of all evil that is in the world.
No one ever won a chess game by betting on each move. Sometimes you have to move backward to get a step forward.
Show me a great company and I'll show you one that has radically changed itself and is looking forward to the opportunity of doing so again.
The first and most important step toward success is the feeling that we can succeed.
Few persons are made of such strong fiber that they will make a costly outlay when surface work will pass as well in the market.
Nothing fails like success because we don't learn from it. We learn only from failure.
It is the passion that is in a kiss that gives to it its sweetness; it is the affection in a kiss that sanctifies it.
A failure establishes only this, that our determination to succeed was not strong enough.
We all want to be happy, and we're all going to die. You might say those are the only two unchallengeably true facts that apply to every human being on this planet.
The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring.
We need to learn to set our course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship.
This is as true in everyday life as it is in battle: we are given one life and the decision is ours whether to wait for circumstances to make up our mind, or whether to act and, in acting, to live.
When you've got something to prove, there's nothing greater than a challenge.
Striving for excellence motivates you; striving for perfection is demoralizing.
In truth, to attain to interior peace, one must be willing to pass through the contrary to peace.
This increasingly intelligent, fast-moving civilization needs to be applying some of its intelligence to things that change slowly. ... If we are constantly tending to the immediate, day-to-day problems, we'll lose that sense of the long term, and then we could be really sorry.
Always behave like a duck—keep calm and unruffled on the surface but paddle like the devil underneath.
Consider how hardt is to change yourself and you'll understand what little chance you have in trying to change others.
It is possible to give without loving, but it is impossible to love without giving.
War is like love; it always finds a way.
When you do not know what you are doing and what you are doing is the best—that is inspiration.
I don't think I can play any other way but all out. I enjoy the game so much because I'm putting so much into it.
Let the world know you as you are, not as you think you should be, because sooner or later, if you are posing, you will forget the pose, and then where are you?
Show me a guy who’s afraid to look bad, and I’ll show you a guy you can beat every time.
To me, being an intellectual doesn't mean knowing about intellectual issues; it means taking pleasure in them.
The hand is the cutting edge of the mind.
There is a serious defect in the thinking of someone who wants—more than anything else—to become rich. As long as they don't have the money, it'll seem like a worthwhile goal. Once they do, they'll understand how important other things are—and have always been.
Reason is what tells us to ignore the present and live in the future. So all we do is make plans. We think that somewhere out there are going to be green pastures. It's crazy. Heaven is nothing but a grand, monumental instance of the future. Listen, now is good. Now is wonderful.
Whenever people say "we mustn't be sentimental", you can take it they are about to do something cruel. And if they add, "we must be realistic", they mean they are going to make money out of it.
Trust your hunches. They're usually based on facts filed away just below the conscious level.
Success is a state of mind. If you want success, start thinking of yourself as a success.
You don't always get what you ask for, but you never get what you don't ask for... unless it's contagious!
A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a joke or worried to death by a frown on the right person's brow.
You can get by on charm for about 15 minutes. After that, you better know something.
Opportunity dances with those who are already on the dance floor.
Never let the odds keep you from pursuing what you know in your heart you were meant to do.
Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking.
Your mind can only hold one thought at a time. Make it a positive and constructive one.
About all you can do in life is be who you are. Some people will love you for you. Most will love you for what you can do for them, and some won't like you at all.
Moral passion without entertainment is propaganda, and entertainment without moral passion is television.
Good judgment comes from experience, and often experience comes from bad judgment.
Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly until you learn to do it well.
Failure is an event, never a person.
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! —and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Truth never hurts the teller.
Ah, but a man's grasp should exceed his reach, Or what's a heaven for?
When you can't say Fuck, you can't say Fuck The Government.
Failure is the tuition you pay for success.
Talent, taste, wit, good sense are very different things, but by no means incompatible. Between good sense and good taste there exists the same difference as between cause and effect, and between wit and talent there is the same proportion as between a whole and its parts.
No one can earn a million dollars honestly.
Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.
Inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that's where you renew your springs that never dry up.
The lack of emotional security of our American young people is due, I believe, to their isolation from the larger family unit. No two people - no mere father and mother - as I have often said, are enough to provide emotional security for a child. He needs to feel himself one in a world of kinfolk, persons of variety in age and temperament, and yet allied to himself by an indissoluble bond which he cannot break if he could, for nature has welded him into it before he was born.
I am comforted by life's stability, by earth's unchangeableness. What has seemed new and frightening assumes its place in the unfolding of knowledge. It is good to know our universe. What is new is only new to us.
Truth is always exciting. Speak it, then. Life is dull without it.
Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied.
You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.
We are what we think. All that we are is the result of what we have thought. With our thoughts, we make the world.
Your body is precious. It is your vehicle for awakening. Treat it with care.
Believe nothing merely because you have been told it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be kind, conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings—that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide.
As the fletcher whittles and makes straight his arrows, so the master directs his straying thoughts.
To live a pure unselfish life, one must count nothing as one's own in the midst of abundance.
Do not be afraid of beasts, but friends - as the beast will wound your body, but a friend will wound your soul.
The thought manifests as the word;
The word manifests as the deed;
The deed develops into habit;
And habit hardens into character.
So watch the thought and its ways with care,
And let it spring from love
Born out of concern for all beings.
Friendship is a strong and habitual inclination in two persons to promote the good and happiness of one another.
They say the chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken. The chains you put around yourself now have enormous consequences as you go through life.
Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.
If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians.
Talent does what it can; genius does what it must.
Love thou the rose, yet leave it on its stem.
If all the gold in the world were melted down into a solid cube it would be about the size of an eight room house. If a man got possession of all that gold—billions of dollars worth – he could not buy a friend, character, peace of mind, clear conscience or a sense of eternity.
Age is something that doesn't matter, unless you are a cheese
All government—indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act—is founded on compromise and barter.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.
There is a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.
Curiosity about life in all of its aspects, I think, is still the secret of great creative people.
Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty.
I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see. The longer I live, the more my mind dwells upon the beauty and the wonder of the world.
A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.
If I don't have wisdom, I can teach you only ignorance.
Each of our acts makes a statement as to our purpose.
Don't brood. Get on with living and loving. You don't have forever.
Life is like playing a violin solo in public and learning the instrument as one goes on.
To himself everyone is immortal; he may know that he is going to die, but he can never know that he is dead.
Every man`s work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself.
There are two great rules of life; the one general and the other particular. The first is that everyone can, in the end, get what he wants, if he only tries. That is the general rule. The particular rule is that every individual is, more or less, an exception to the rule.
To make pleasures pleasant, shorten them.
You will never find time for anything. If you want time you must make it
Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem more afraid of life than death.
All who would win joy must share it; happiness was born a twin.
Sincerity may be humble but she cannot be servile.
I shall soon be six-and-twenty. Is there anything in the future that can possibly console us for not being always twenty-five?
I have a great mind to believe in Christianity for the mere pleasure of fancying I may be damned.
Truth is always strange, stranger than fiction.
Though I love my country, I do not love my countrymen.
America is a model of force and freedom and moderation - with all the coarseness and rudeness of its people.
A celebrity is one who is known to many persons he is glad he doesn't know.
There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in the lonely shore, there is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not Man the less, but Nature more.
Friendship may, and often does, grow into love, but love never subsides into friendship.
Absence - that common cure of love.
There are four questions of value in life, Don Octavio. What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for and what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same. Only love.
Sorrow is knowledge, those that know the most must mourn the deepest, the tree of knowledge is not the tree of life.
There is no such thing as a life of passion any more than a continuous earthquake, or an eternal fever. Besides, who would ever shave themselves in such a state?
All who joy would win must share it. Happiness was born a Twin.
This is the patent age of new inventions for killing bodies, and for saving souls. All propagated with the best intentions.
Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools, and those who dare not, are slaves.
Opinions are made to be changed - or how is truth to be got at?
A woman who gives any advantage to a man may expect a lover but will sooner or later find a tyrant.
The great art of life is sensation, to feel that we exist, even in pain.
There is not any memory with less satisfaction than the memory of some temptation we resisted.
Risk more than others think is safe.
Care more than others think is wise.
Dream more than others think is practical.
Expect more than others think is possible.
Men stumble over pebbles, never over mountains.
Well done is quickly done.
In between goals is a thing called life, that has to be lived and enjoyed.
Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.
A leader must have the courage to act against an expert's advice.
Leap, and the net will appear.
I asked God for strength, that I might achieve. I was made weak, that I might learn humbly to obey.
I asked for health, that I might do great things. I was given infirmity, that I might do better things.
I asked for riches, that I might be happy. I was given poverty, that I might be wise.
I asked for power, that I might have the praise of men. I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God.
I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life. I was given life, that I might enjoy all things...
I got nothing I asked for—but everything I hoped for.
Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.
I am, among men, most richly blessed!
What each must seek in his life never was on land or sea. It is something out of his own unique potentiality for experience, something that never has been and never could have been experienced by anyone else.
People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life... I think that what we're really seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance within our innermost being and reality, so that we can actually feel the rapture of being alive.
When you follow your bliss... doors will open where you would not have thought there would be doors, and where there wouldn't be a door for anyone else.
Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow. Don't walk behind me, I may not lead. Walk beside me, and just be my friend.
If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.
We always deceive ourselves twice about the people we love—first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage.
We can foresee a time when . . . the only people at liberty will be prison guards who will then have to lock up one another.
Charm is a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question.
It doesn't matter how new an idea is; what matters is how new it becomes.
Everything you want is out there waiting for you to ask. Everything you want also wants you. But you have to take action to get it.
A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something.
Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life.
There's no present. There's only the immediate future and the recent past.
The king is the man who can.
A person usually has two reasons for doing something: a good reason and the real reason.
Secrecy is the element of all goodness; even virtue, even beauty is mysterious.
No person was every rightly understood until they had been first regarded with a certain feeling, not of tolerance, but of sympathy.
To the vulgar eye, few things are wonderful that are not distant.
Nothing that was worthy in the past departs; no truth or goodness realized by man ever dies, or can die.
Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. Silence is deep as Eternity; speech is shallow as Time.
True humor springs not more from the head than from the heart. It is not contempt; its essence is love. It issues not in laughter, but in still smiles, which lie far deeper.
Popular opinion is the greatest lie in the world.
Do the duty which lieth nearest to thee! Thy second duty will already have become clearer.
The merit of originality is not novelty; it is sincerity.
Every new opinion, at its starting, is precisely in a minority of one.
The tragedy of life is not so much what men suffer, but rather what they miss.
What you see, but can't see over, is as good as infinite.
Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!
The man who dies rich dies disgraced.
There are four ways, and only four ways, in which we have contact with the world. We are evaluated and classified by these four contacts: what we do, how we look, what we say, and how we say it.
Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.
The ideas I stand for are not mine. I borrowed them from Socrates. I swiped them from Chesterfield. I stole them from Jesus. And I put them in a book. If you don't like their rules, whose would you use?
Many people think that if they were only in some other place, or had some other job, they would be happy. Well, that is doubtful. So get as much happiness out of what you are doing as you can and don't put off being happy until some future date.
First ask yourself: What is the worst that can happen? Then prepare to accept it. Then proceed to improve on the worst.
You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.
I can't go back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.
If I understood too clearly what I was doing, where I was going, then I probably wasn't working on anything very interesting.
To be prepared against surprise is to be trained. To be prepared for surprise is to be educated.
You can do what you have to do, and sometimes you can do it even better than you think you can.
Where there is no vision, there is no hope.
Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses.
How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these.
Each person has inside a basic decency and goodness. If he listens to it and acts on it, he is giving a great deal of what it is the world needs most. It is not complicated but it takes courage. It takes courage for a person to listen to his own goodness and act on it.
I feel the capacity to care is the thing which gives life its deepest significance.
No pressure, no diamonds.
Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.
No matter how old you get, if you can keep the desire to be creative, you're keeping the man-child alive.
No person is important enough to make me angry.
Where there is great love there are always miracles.
Example is more forcible than precept. People look at me six days in the week to see what I mean on the seventh.
Time ripens all things; no man is born wise.
He who loses wealth loses much; he who loses a friend loses more; but he who loses his courage loses all.
Man appoints and God disappoints.
Never stand begging for what you have the power to earn.
Tell me what company you keep and I'll tell you what you are.
The most thoroughly wasted of days is that on which one has not laughed.
Do not suppose opportunity will knock twice at your door.
All passions exaggerate; and they are passions only because they do exaggerate.
There are people who have money and people who are rich.
How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something, but to be someone.
We smile at the ignorance of the savage who cuts down the tree in order to reach its fruit; but the same blunder is made by every person who is over eager and impatient in the pursuit of pleasure.
Never make a defense or apology before you be accused.
I never wanted to be famous. I only wanted to be great.
Enthusiasm is the greatest asset in the world. It beats money, power and influence.
Learning is acquired by reading books; but the much more necessary learning, the knowledge of the world, is only to be acquired by reading men and studying all the various editions of them.
Honest error is to be pitied, not ridiculed.
Young men are apt to think themselves wise enough, as drunken men are apt to think themselves sober enough.
Learning is acquired by reading books; but the much more necessary learning, the knowledge of the world, is only to be acquired by reading men, and studying all the various editions of them.
Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness; no laziness; no procrastination: never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.
Pleasure is a necessary reciprocal. No one feels it, who does not at the same time give it. To be pleased, one must please. What pleases you in others, will in general please them in you.
Do not free the camel of the burden of his hump; you may be freeing him from being a camel.
The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.
I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act.
Experience which was once claimed by the aged is now claimed exclusively by the young.
The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.
It isn't that they can't see the solution. It is that they can't see the problem.
People generally quarrel because they cannot argue.
Being "contented" ought to mean in English, as it does in French, being pleased. Being content with an attic ought not to mean being unable to move from it and resigned to living in it; it ought to mean appreciating all there is in such a position.
There is a road from the eye to the heart that does not go through the intellect.
Courage is getting away from death by continually coming within an inch of it.
When a total commitment to growing is always with you, then all the events that arise in your life are instantly transformed into a great blessing.
Life itself is the proper binge.
He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes; he who does not ask a question remains a fool forever.
Only a fool tests the depth of the water with both feet.
Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without one.
He who seeks revenge should remember to dig two graves.
To guess is cheap. To guess wrong is expensive.
Experience is a comb which nature gives to men when they are bald.
If you are planning for one year, grow rice. If you are planning for 20 years, grow trees. If you are planning for centuries, grow men.
Don't build a new ship out of old wood.
You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair.
Service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth.
Happiness is a continuation of happenings which are not resisted.
Flow with whatever is happening and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.
I wanted to be scared again... I wanted to feel unsure again. That's the only way I learn, the only way I feel challenged.
Success is going from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm.
What is the use of living if it not be to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone?
Never, never, never, never—in nothing great and small—large and petty—Never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force and the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.
I have never accepted what many people have kindly said-namely that I inspired the nation. Their will was resolute and remorseless, and as it proved, unconquerable. It fell to me to express it.
A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.
The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day.
When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber.
Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others.
If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future.
The problems of victory are more agreeable than the problems of defeat, but they are no less difficult.
The price of greatness is responsibility.
There is required for the composition of a great commander not only massive common sense and reasoning power, not only imagination, but also an element of legerdemain, an original and sinister touch, which leaves the enemy puzzled as well as beaten.
It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.
Every parent is at some time the father of the unreturned prodigal, with nothing to do but keep his house open to hope.
The six most drastic mistakes made by humans…
1. The delusion that individual advancement is made by crushing others.
2. The tendency to worry about things that cannot be changed.
3. Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot do it ourselves.
4. Refusing to set aside trivial preferences.
5. Neglecting development and refinement of the mind, and not acquiring the habits of reading and study.
6. Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do.
We find comfort among those who agree with us; growth among those who don't.
You've got to sing like you don't need the money. You've got to love like you'll never get hurt. You've got to dance like there's nobody watching. You've got to come from the heart, if you want it to work.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.
Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.
Intelligence is nothing without delight.
The man who seeks all his applause from outside has his happiness in another's keeping .
Respect commands itself and it can neither be given nor withheld when it is due.
A man who waits to believe in action before acting is anything you like, but he's not a man of action. You must act as you breathe.
A man's life is interesting primarily when he has failed—I well know. For it's a sign that he tried to surpass himself.
When a man asks himself what is meant by action he proves that he isn't a man of action. Action is a lack of balance. In order to act you must be somewhat insane. A reasonably sensible man is satisfied with thinking.
You don't drown by falling in the water; you drown by staying there.
You are only as wise as others perceive you to be.
To most men experience is like the stern lights of a ship, which illuminate only the track it has passed.
What a man is ashamed of is always at bottom himself; and he is ashamed of himself at bottom always for being afraid.
There are two types of people—those who come into a room and say, "Well, here I am!" and those who come in and say, "Ah, there you are.”
Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones
Silence is foolish if we are wise, but wise if we are foolish.
None of us is as smart as all of us.
Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.
To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
He who merely knows right principles is not equal to him who loves them.
If you enjoy what you do, you'll never work another day in your life.
It does not matter how slowly you go, as long as you don't stop.
Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practices it will have neighbors.
Mankind differs from the animals only by a little, and most people throw that away.
It is better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness.
If language is not correct, then what is said is not what is meant; if what is said is not what is meant, then what must be done remains undone; if this remains undone, morals and art will deteriorate; if justice goes astray, the people will stand about in helpless confusion. Hence there must be no arbitrariness in what is said. This matters above everything.
Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire.
To be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it.
I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.
Silence is a friend who will never betray.
A man who has committed a mistake and doesn't correct it, is committing another mistake.
It`s only those who do nothing that make no mistakes.
Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
The slogan 'press on' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
Too often opportunity knocks, but by the time you push back the chain, push back the bolt, unhook the locks and shut off the burglar alarm, it's too late.
Candor is a proof of both a just frame of mind, and of a good tone of breeding. It is a quality that belongs equally to the honest man and to the gentleman.
Love is too strong a word to say it too early, but it has too beautiful a meaning to say it too late.
Pessimism is a waste of time.
When the imagination and will power are in conflict, are antagonistic, it is always the imagination which wins, without any exception.
No one really knows enough to be a pessimist.
An empowered organization is one in which individuals have the knowledge, skill, desire, and opportunity to personally succeed in a way that leads to collective organizational success.
The way we see the problem is the problem.
It's easy to say "no!" when there's a deeper "yes!" burning inside.
We are not human beings on a spiritual journey. We are spiritual beings on a human journey.
People who are truly effective have the humility and reverence to recognize their own perceptual limitations and to appreciate the rich resources available through interaction with the hearts and minds of other human beings.
To expect defeat is nine-tenths of defeat itself.
We are, each of us angels with only one wing; and we can only fly by embracing one another.
Chance is the only source of true novelty.
If you will discipline yourself to make your mind self-sufficient you will thereby be least vulnerable to injury from the outside.
He who stops being better stops being good.
It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are.
We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.
To be nobody-but-yourself—in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else—means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight. Never stop fighting.
Aristotle was famous for knowing everything. He taught that the brain exists merely to cool the blood and is not involved in the process of thinking. This is true only of certain persons.
You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end, each of us must work for our own improvement and, at the same time, share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.
There are two kinds of men who never amount to very much: Those who cannot do what they are told, and those who can do nothing else.
Make your plans as fantastic as you like, because 25 years from now, they will seem mediocre. Make your plans 10 times as great as you first planned, and 25 years from now you will wonder why you did not make them 50 times as great.
Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
In the practice of tolerance, one's enemy is the best teacher.
This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.
The difference between false memories and true ones is the same as for jewels: it is always the false ones that look the most real, the most brilliant.
It is good taste, and good taste alone, that possesses the power to sterilize and is always the first handicap to any creative functioning.
At the age of six I wanted to be a cook. At seven I wanted to be Napoleon. And my ambition has been growing steadily ever since.
Two monologues do not make a dialogue.
Heroes and cowards feel exactly the same fear. Heroes react differently, that's all.
Defeat never comes to any man until he admits it.
Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.
The pursuit of truth will set you free; even if you never catch up with it.
It is a fatal fault to reason whilst observing, though so necessary beforehand and so useful afterwards.
A man's friendships are one of the best measures of his worth.
A man who dares to waste one hour of life has not discovered the value of life.
It is easier to resist at the beginning than at the end.
While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die.
Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve. He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.
Simplicity is the extreme degree of sophistication.
He who does not value life does not deserve it.
My passions were all gathered together like fingers that made a fist. Drive is considered aggression today; I knew it then as purpose.
A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove... but the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child.
If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.
Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion.
We are one, after all, you and I. Together we suffer, together exist, and forever will recreate each other.
While there is a lower class I am in it; while there is a criminal element I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
Your goal should be out of reach but not out of sight.
Nothing more enhances authority than silence.
A true leader always keeps an element of surprise up his sleeve, which others cannot grasp but which keeps his public excited and breathless.
The best helping hand that you will ever receive is the one at the end of your own arm.
We believe at once in evil, we only believe in good upon reflection. Is this not sad?
If you can't describe what you are doing as a process, you don't know what you're doing.
Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival.
Water can be both good and bad, useful and dangerous. To the danger, however, a remedy has been found: learning to swim.
Beware lest in your anxiety to avoid war you obtain a master.
Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.
The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you. In between, the leader is a servant.
Self-revelation is a cruel process. The real picture, the real "you" never emerges. Looking for it is as bewildering as trying to know how you really look. Ten different mirrors show you ten different faces.
You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; in just the same way, you learn to love by loving.
It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well.
In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.
To gain that which is worth having, it may be necessary to lose everything else.
Reflect on your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.
A wounded deer leaps the highest.
That love is all there is is all we know of love.
Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops, at all.
It's such a little thing to weep,
So short a thing to sigh;
And yet by trades the size of these
We men and women die!
We never know how high we are,
Till we are called to rise.
And then, if we are true to plan,
Our statures touch the skies.
To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.
Adults are obsolete children.
Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong.
You can't test courage cautiously.
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.
Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so you apologize for truth.
As a general rule, the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information.
The secret of success is constancy of purpose.
The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.
It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.
Nothing can resist the human will that will stake even its existence on its stated purpose.
Seeing much, suffering much, and studying much, are the three pillars of learning.
Never complain and never explain.
Change is inevitable. Change is constant.
It's like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.
When it's all over, it's not who you were... it's whether you made a difference.
No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect, he ceases to love.
There is nothing higher and stronger and more wholesome and useful for life in later years than some good memory, especially a memory connected with childhood, with home. If a man carries many such memories with him into life, he is safe to the end of his days, and if we have only one good memory left in our hearts, even that may sometime be the means of saving us.
If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
In the struggle for justice the only reward is the opportunity to be in the struggle. You can't expect that you're going to have it tomorrow. You just have to keep working on it.
Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.
People might not get all they work for in this world, but they must certainly work for all they get.
The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get even less than you settled for.
Fear can be headier than whiskey, once man has acquired a taste for it.
A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes.
I never remember feeling tired by work, though idleness exhausts me completely.
The World is a great mirror. It reflects back to you what you are. If you are loving, if you are friendly, if you are helpful, the World will prove loving and friendly and helpful to you. The World is what you are.
Management means, in the last analysis, the substitution of thought for brawn and muscle, of knowledge for folkways and superstition, and of cooperation for force. It means the substitution of responsibility for obedience to rank, and of authority of performance for authority of rank.
The only things that evolve by themselves in an organization are disorder, friction and malperformance.
If you think education is expensive, try ignorance!
The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said.
Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes... but no plans.
Effective leaders delegate a good many things; they have to or they drown in trivia. But they do not delegate the one thing that only they can do with excellence, the one thing that will make a difference, the one thing that will set standards, the one thing they want to be remembered for. They do it.
No institution can possibly survive if it needs geniuses or supermen to manage it. It must be organized in such a way as to be able to get along under a leadership composed of average human beings.
Production is not the application of tools to materials, but of logic to work.
What is the first duty—and continuing responsibility—of the business manager? To strive for the best possible economic results from the resources currently employed or available.
The purpose of the corporation is to be economically efficient. It must therefore be measured by a yardstick of efficiency, which means objectively, impersonally and independently of emotions or desires.
Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable.
You will find, as you look back upon your life, that the moments when you really lived are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love.
We first make our habits, and then our habits make us.
The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.
If there is anybody in this land who thoroughly believes that the meek shall inherit the earth they have not often let their presence be known.
It is one of the beautiful compensations of this life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
Everything that can be invented has been invented.
The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it's the same problem you had last year.
Friendship consists in forgetting what one gives, and remembering what one receives.
Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing the things historians usually record, while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry and even whittle statues. The story of civilization is the story of what happened on the banks. Historians are pessimists because they ignore the banks for the river.
Woe to him who teaches men faster than they can learn.
Everything you are against weakens you. Everything you are for empowers you.
There is no scarcity of opportunity to make a living at what you love; there's only a scarcity of resolve to make it happen.
Fast is fine, but accuracy is everything.
Respect your efforts, respect yourself. Self-respect leads to self-discipline. When you have both firmly under your belt, that's real power.
It takes tremendous discipline to control the influence, the power you have over other people's lives.
Accident is veiled necessity.
We usually learn to wait only when we have no longer anything to wait for.
An opinion may be controverted; a prejudice, never.
How wise must one be to be always kind.
The wise man is seldom prudent.
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.
Service is the rent we pay for being. It is the very purpose of life, and not something you do in your spare time.
Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.
The first requisite for success is the ability to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem incessantly without growing weary.
Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that don't work.
Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless.
Hell, there are no rules here—we're trying to accomplish something.
Nearly every man who develops an idea works it up to the point where it looks impossible and then gets discouraged. That's not the place to become discouraged.
If you would thoroughly know anything, teach it to others.
Desiderata
Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs; the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.
Be careful. Strive to be happy.
Without deep reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people.
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
The important thing is to not stop questioning.
A human being is part of the whole, called by us "Universe”, limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a prison, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons close to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from our prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all humanity and the whole of nature in its beauty.
The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance and even our very existence depend on it. Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life.
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.
Out of clutter, find Simplicity. From discord, find Harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies Opportunity.
The world that we have made as a result of the level of thinking we have done thus far creates problems that we cannot solve at the same level as they were created.
The only way to escape the personal corruption of praise is to go on working.
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.
Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
The man who enjoys marching in line and file to the strains of music falls below my contempt: he received his great brain by mistake; the spinal cord would have been amply sufficient.
It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.
Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.
What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.
Only strength can cooperate. Weakness can only beg.
A platoon leader doesn't get his platoon to go by getting up and shouting and saying, 'I am smarter. I am bigger. I am stronger. I am the leader.' He gets men to go along with him because they want to do it for him and they believe in him.
Never waste a minute thinking about people you don`t like.
The best morale exists when you never hear the word mentioned. When you hear a lot of talk about it, it's usually lousy.
Be unselfish. That is the first and final commandment for those who would be useful and happy in their usefulness. If you think of yourself only, you cannot develop because you are choking the source of development, which is spiritual expansion through thought for others.
Blessed is the influence of one true, loving human soul on another.
To manage men one ought to have a sharp mind in a velvet sheath.
Nothing is so good as it seems before-hand.
It is never too late to be what you might have been.
If you haven't the strength to impose your own terms upon life, you must accept the terms it offers you.
Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
Think not forever of yourselves, O Chiefs, nor of your own generation. Think of continuing generations of our families, think of our grandchildren and of those yet unborn, whose faces are coming from beneath the ground.
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started... and know the place for the first time.
Success is never final and failure is never fatal. It's courage that counts.
Big Ideas are so hard to recognize, so fragile, so easy to kill. Don't forget that, all of you who don't have them.
Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted.
We find delight in the beauty and happiness of children that makes the heart too big for the body.
Self-trust is the essence of heroism.
We all boil at different degrees.
The best effect of fine persons is felt after we have left their presence.
Valor consists in the power of self-recovery.
The secret of ugliness consists not in irregularity, but in being uninteresting.
I look on that man as happy, who, when there is question of success, looks into his work for a reply.
The less a man thinks or knows about his virtues, the better we like him.
Imitation is suicide.
Every great and commanding moment in the annuls of the world is the triumph of some enthusiasm.
Man was born to be rich, or grow rich by use of his faculties, by the union of thought with nature. Property is an intellectual production. The game requires coolness, right reasoning, promptness, and patience in the players. Cultivated labor drives out brute labor.
My chief want in life is someone who shall make me do what I can.
Is the parent better than the child into whom he has cast his ripened being? Whence, then, this worship of the past?
All mankind loves a lover.
Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.
The characteristic of genuine heroism is its persistency. All men have wandering impulses, fits and starts of generosity. But when you have resolved to be great, abide by yourself, and do not try to reconcile yourself with the world. The heroic cannot be common, nor the common heroic.
It is hard to go beyond your public. If they are satisfied with cheap performance, you will not easily arrive at better. If they know what is good, and require it, you will aspire and burn until you achieve it. But from time to time in history, men are born a whole age too soon.
When I was praised I lost my time, for instantly I turned around to look at the work I had thought slightly of, and that day I made nothing new.
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.
Every man is a divinity in disguise, a god playing the fool.
No man thoroughly understands a truth until he has contended against it.
To different minds, the same world is a hell, and a heaven.
Conservatism makes no poetry, breathes no prayer, has no invention; it is all memory. Reform has no gratitude, no prudence, no husbandry.
People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.
He who has a thousand friends Has not a friend to spare, While he who has one enemy Shall meet him everywhere.
What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
Don't SAY things. What you ARE stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.
Always do what you are afraid to do.
Every man I meet is in some way my superior.
People do not grow old; when they cease to grow, they become old.
All great masters are chiefly distinguished by the power of adding a second, a third, and perhaps a fourth step in a continuous line. Many a man had taken the first step. With every additional step you enhance immensely the value of your first.
He then learns that in going down into the secrets of his own mind he has descended into the secrets of all minds.
Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds.
Blame is safer than praise.
Without ambition one starts nothing. Without work one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it.
Children are all foreigners.
Language is a city to the building of which every human being brought a stone.
Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great.
Ideas must work through the brains and arms of men, or they are no better than dreams.
The glory of friendship is not the outstretched hand, nor the kindly smile, nor the joy of companionship; it is the spiritual inspiration that comes to one when he discovers that someone else believes in him and is willing to trust him with his friendship.
To be great is to be misunderstood.
The man who knows how will always have a job. The man who also knows why will always be his boss.
The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.
No great thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.
To accuse others for one's own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one's education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one's education is complete.
In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king.
A compromise is the art of dividing a cake in such a way that everyone believes he has the biggest piece.
The first rule of tinkering is to save all the parts.
Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing.
Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad.
If you don’t do what’s best for your body, you’re the one who comes up on the short end.
When a woman behaves like a man, why can't she behave like a nice man?
There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who face reality; and then there are those who turn one into the other.
Hard work spotlights the character of people; some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all.
What is the recipe for successful achievement? To my mind there are just four essential ingredients: Choose a career you love, give it the best there is in you, seize your opportunities, and be a member of the team.
When it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change.
The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.
One of the indictments of civilizations is that happiness and intelligence are so rarely found in the same person.
You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.
There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the infinite passion of life.
You exist only in what you do.
Living is loving to live, Loving the life that you live, Living is more than a plan to survive, The man who is living is more than alive.
Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself.
Delegating means letting others become the experts and hence the best.
Thought, not money, is the real business capital, and if you know absolutely that what you are doing is right, then you are bound to accomplish it in due season.
If something is exceptionally well done it has embedded in its very existence the aim of lifting the common denominator rather than catering to it.
The essence of our effort to see that every child has a chance must be to assure each an equal opportunity, not to become equal, but to become different—to realize whatever unique potential of body, mind and spirit he or she possesses.
Knowledge is a process of piling up facts; wisdom lies in their simplification.
Leadership is about taking an organization to a place it would not have otherwise gone without you, in a value-adding, measurable way.
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.
No such thing as a man willing to be honest—that would be like a blind man willing to see.
Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.
Creative thinking may mean simply the realization that there's no particular virtue in doing things the way they always have been done.
A total commitment is paramount to reaching the ultimate in performance.
You don't get harmony when everybody sings the same note.
My problem lies in reconciling my gross habits with my net income.
Do what's right. Do it right. Do it right now.
Since you have to do the things you have to do, be wise enough to do some of the things you want to do.
When looking back, usually I'm more sorry for the things I didn't do than for the things I shouldn't have done.
Diamonds are nothing more than chunks of coal that stuck to their jobs.
Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.
You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do.
Anyone who stops learning is old, whether twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning today is young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.
If you think of standardization as the best that you know today, but which is to be improved tomorrow, you get somewhere.
My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.
Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.
Whether you think that you can or that you can't, you are usually right.
...the only history that is worth a tinker's dam is the history we make today.
If you take all the experience and judgment of men over fifty out of the world, there wouldn't be enough left to run it.
If money is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability.
Winners are those people who make a habit of doing the things losers are uncomfortable doing.
It embarrasses me to think of all those years I was buying silk suits and alligator shoes that were hurting my feet; cars that I just parked, and the dust would just build up on them.
Courage is the capacity to conduct oneself with restraint in times of prosperity and with courage and tenacity when things do not go well.
To laugh often and love much; to win the respect of intelligent persons and the affection of children; to earn the approbation of honest critics; to appreciate beauty; to give of one's self; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived—that is to have succeeded.
Normal is not something to aspire to, it's something to get away from.
If you could only love enough, you could be the most powerful person in the world.
To imagine is everything, to know is nothing at all.
An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don't.
Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.
Where there is hatred let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light; and
Where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much
Seek to be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and
It is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked throughout the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken away from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth—that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart:
The salvation of man is through love and in love
I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world may still know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when a man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way—an honorable way—in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. For the first time in my life, I was able to understand the words, "The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory."
Live as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time
What is to give light must endure the burning.
There are two ways of being happy: We must either diminish our wants or augment our means—either may do—the result is the same and it is for each man to decide for himself and to do that which happens to be easier.
They that will not be counseled, cannot be helped. If you do not hear reason she will rap you on the knuckles.
Wealth is not his who has it, but his who enjoys it.
Your net worth to the world is usually determined by what remains after your bad habits are subtracted from your good ones.
If a man could half his wishes he would double his troubles.
To be humble to superiors is duty, to equals courtesy, to inferiors nobleness.
Human felicity is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day.
He that waits upon fortune, is never sure of a dinner.
A spoonful of honey will catch more flies than a gallon of vinegar.
Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself to it.
It is easy to see, hard to foresee.
The heart of a fool is in his mouth, but the mouth of a wise man is in his heart.
You may delay, but time will not.
When you're finished changing, you're finished.
I know by my own pot how the others boil.
Creative minds have always been known to survive any kind of bad training.
Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.
Immature love says: "I love you because I need you." Mature love says "I need you because I love you."
The task we must set for ourselves is not to feel secure, but to be able to tolerate insecurity.
Well-being means to be fully born, to become what one potentially is; it means to have the full capacity for joy and sadness or, to put it still differently, to awake from the half slumber the average man lives in, and to be fully awake.
The world is full of willing people, some willing to work, the others willing to let them.
Two roads diverged in a wood and I—I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.
The realist always falls in love with a girl he has grown up with, the romanticist with a girl from off somewhere.
The best way out is always through.
In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life. It goes on.
Peace is not something you wish for; it's something you make, something you do, something you are, and something you give away!
All truth is safe and nothing else is safe, but he who keeps back truth, or withholds it from men, from motives of expediency, is either a coward or a criminal.
There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly.
Pollution is nothing but the resources we are not harvesting. We allow them to disperse because we've been ignorant of their value.
God, to me, it seems, is a verb not a noun, proper or improper.
Sometimes I think we're alone. Sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the thought is staggering.
Don't fight forces, use them.
We are not going to be able to operate our Spaceship Earth successfully nor for much longer unless we see it as a whole spaceship and our fate as common. It has to be everybody or nobody.
Great nations are simply the operating fronts of behind-the-scenes, vastly ambitious individuals who had become so effectively powerful because of their ability to remain invisible while operating behind the national scenery.
If you are the master be sometimes blind, if you are the servant be sometimes deaf.
Wealth is our organized capability to cope effectively with the environment in sustaining our healthy regeneration, and decreasing both the physical and metaphysical restrictions of the forward days of our lives."
... we can account wealth more precisely as the number of forward days for a specific number of people we are physically prepared to sustain at a physically stated time and space liberating level of metabolic and metaphysical regeneration.
Better a tooth out than always aching.
A stumble may prevent a fall.
More than we use is more than we want.
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself.
One's eyes are what one is, one's mouth is what one becomes.
Don't you wish there were a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence? There's one marked "Brightness," but it doesn't work.
Even if you fall on your face, you're still moving forward.
You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.
You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
I can only hope you will realize the import of what you are doing. And if you do, your path will be easy—easy because you will take delight in difficulties and you will laugh in hope when everybody is in despair.
The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.
To believe in something, and not to live it, is dishonest.
Whenever you have truth it must be given with love, or the message and the messenger will be rejected.
It is easy enough to be friendly to one's friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.
Live as if your were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within.
Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.
Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.
Self-pity is easily the most destructive of the non-pharmaceutical narcotics; it is addictive, gives momentary pleasure and separates the victim from reality.
Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.
Every time you break the law you pay, and every time you obey the law you pay.
Leaders don't invent motivation in their followers, they unlock it.
If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life. With confidence, you have won even before you have started.
Humor is an affirmation of dignity, a declaration of man's superiority to all that befalls him.
Imagination is the only weapon in the war against reality.
If you cannot find peace within yourself, you will never find it anywhere else.
Expressing anger is a form of public littering.
Reason can answer questions, but imagination has to ask them.
The ability to learn faster than your competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage.
To listen to some devout people, one would imagine that God never laughs.
In the end, more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all—security, comfort, freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society, but for the society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free.
The winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.
We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.
We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.
Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh, and the greatness which does not bow before children.
To understand the heart and mind of a person, look not at what he has already achieved, but at what he aspires to do.
Generosity is not giving me that which I need more than you do, but it is giving me that which you need more than I do.
Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
Yes, there is a Nirvanah. It is leading your sheep to a green pasture, and in putting your child to sleep, and in writing the last line of your poem.
The reality of the other person lies not in what he reveals to you but in what he cannot reveal to you. Therefore, if you would understand him, listen not to what he says but rather to what he does not say.
Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
I have learned silence from the talkative, tolerance from the intolerant and kindness from the unkind.
Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, and though they are with you, and yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love, but not your thoughts. for they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward, not tarries with yesterday.
One may not reach the dawn save by the path of the night.
Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.
No matter what accomplishments you make, somebody helped you.
Great people talk about ideas. Small people talk about other people.
Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.
Welcome everything that comes to you, but do not long for anything else.
Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it.
Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.
The powers of mind are everywhere ascendant over the brute force of things.
I have made decisions that turned out to be wrong, and went back and did it another way, and still took less time than many who procrastinated over the original decision. Your brain is capable of handling 140,000 million bits of information in one second, and if you take hours or days or weeks to reach a vital decision, you are short-circuiting your most valuable property.
I hate to see things done by halves. If it be right, do it boldly, if it be wrong leave it undone.
Only the mediocre are always at their best.
When possible make the decisions now, even if action is in the future. A reviewed decision usually is better than one reached at the last moment.
Nothing splendid was ever created in cold blood. Heat is required to forge anything. Every great accomplishment is the story of a flaming heart.
Just remember—when you think all is lost, the future remains.
It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow.
All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience.
Nothing shows a man's character more than what he laughs at.
He who possesses science and art, possesses religion as well; he who possesses neither of these had better have religion.
If you must tell me your opinions, tell me what you believe in. I have plenty doubts of my own.
A person is never happy till their vague striving has itself marked out its proper limitations.
Many people take no care of their money till they come nearly to the end of it, and others do just the same with their time.
He only earns his freedom and his life Who takes them every day by storm.
What business is it of yours if I love you?
Life is the childhood of our immortality.
Rest not. Life is sweeping by; go and dare before you die. Something mighty and sublime, leave behind to conquer time.
People have a peculiar pleasure in making converts, that is, in causing others to enjoy what they enjoy, thus finding their own likeness represented and reflected back to them.
Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.
As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.
One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture and, if possible, speak a few reasonable words.
Whatever you cannot understand, you cannot possess.
Know thyself? If I knew myself, I`d run away.
Some of our weaknesses are born in us, others are the result of education; it is a question which of the two gives us most trouble.
Correction does much, but encouragement does more.
Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.
Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.
What we do not understand we do not possess.
The struggle of the male to learn to listen to and respect his own intuitive, inner prompting is the greatest challenge of all. His conditioning has been so powerful that it has all but destroyed his ability to be self-aware.
It seemed to me pretty plain, that they had more of love than matrimony in them.
Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
Win as if you were used to it, lose as if you enjoyed it for a change.
Enjoyment is not a goal, it is a feeling that accompanies important ongoing activity.
If you tell the truth, you have infinite power supporting you; but if not, you have infinite power against you.
You can commit no greater folly than to sit by the road side until someone comes along and invites you to ride with him to wealth or influence.
The wise man does at once what the fool does finally.
Renew your brilliance. It is the privilege of the Phoenix. Excellence grows old and so does fame. Custom wears down our admiration, and a mediocre novelty can conquer the greatest eminence in its old age. So be reborn in courage, in intellect, in happiness, and in all else. Dare to renew your brilliance, dawning many times, like the sun, only changing your surroundings. Withhold it and make people miss it; renew it and make them applaud.
What is worth doing is worth finishing. If it isn't worth finishing, why begin at all?
When I am working on a problem, I never think about beauty. I think only how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.
Never open the door to a lesser evil, for other and greater ones invariably slink in after it
There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening, that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium, and be lost. The world will not have it.
We must free ourselves of the hope that the sea will ever rest. We must learn to sail in high winds.
Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened.
When you hire people that are smarter than you are, you prove you are smarter than they are.
Goodness is uneventful. It does not flash, it glows.
Looking back, I have this to regret, that too often when I loved, I did not say so.
Winning breeds confidence and confidence breeds winning.
All profoundly original art looks ugly at first.
When we are not sure, we are alive.
There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.
Security is when everything is settled. When nothing can happen to you. Security is the denial of life.
You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it is.
Life is like a dogsled team. If you ain't the lead dog, the scenery never changes.
I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom.
In my day, we didn't have self-esteem, we had self-respect, and no more of it than we had earned.
I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do.
Some people bear three kinds of trouble—the ones they've had, the ones they have, and the ones they expect to have.
I've noticed two things about men who get big salaries. They are almost invariably men who, in conversation or in conference, are adaptable. They quickly get the other fellow's view. They are more eager to do this than to express their own ideas. Also, they state their own point of view convincingly.
Every time you go out on the ice, there are slight flaws. You can always think of something you should have done better. These are the things you must work on.
Those who stand for nothing fall for anything.
If you don't have a dream, how’re you going to make a dream come true?
We’ve got to learn to live with chaos and uncertainty, to try to be comfortable with it and not to look for certainty where we won’t get it.
When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don't blame the lettuce. You look into the reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with our friends or our family, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like lettuce.
People deal too much with the negative, with what is wrong. Why not try and see positive things, to just touch those things and make them bloom?
The way to live our vision on a daily basis is to understand that right now is the only time we have.
Your belief determines your action, and your action determines your results. But first you have to believe.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority. By definition, there are already enough people to do that.
Purity is the feminine, Truth the masculine, of Honour.
Half the failures of this world arise from pulling in one's horse as he is leaping.
The bravest thing you can do when you are not brave is to profess courage and act accordingly.
The most important thing in an argument, next to being right, is to leave an escape hatch for your opponent, so that he can gracefully swing over to your side without too much apparent loss of face.
We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we move from the passive voice to the active voice; that is, until we have stopped saying 'It got lost,' and say, 'I lost it.'
When I hear somebody sigh, “Life is hard,” I am always tempted to ask, “Compared to what?”
Happiness is as a butterfly which when pursued is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down quietly may alight upon you.
Luck is earned. Luck doesn't mean that the whole world is out to do you good. Luck is working so hard at your craft, service or enterprise that sooner or later you get a break.
If you see in any given situation only what everybody else can see, you can be said to be so much a representative of your culture that you are a victim of it.
Notice the difference between what happens when a man says to himself, I have failed three times, and what happens when he says, I am a failure.
The truth is that there is only one terminal dignity—love. And the story of a love is not important—what is important is that one is capable of love. It is perhaps the only glimpse we are permitted of eternity.
My mother drew a distinction between achievement and success. She said that achievement is the knowledge that you have studied and worked hard and done the best that is in you. Success is being praised by others. That is nice but not as important or satisfying. Always aim for achievement and forget about success.
Rudeness, the absence of the sacrament of consideration, is but another mark that our time-is-money society is lacking in spirituality, if not also in its enjoyment of life.
The only vice which cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy.
When a thing ceases to be a subject of controversy, it ceases to be a subject of interest.
Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they might have been.
Those who have the largest hearts, have the soundest understandings; and he is the truest philosopher who can forget himself.
The art of pleasing consists in being pleased.
If mankind had wished for what is right, they might have had it long ago.
If a person has no delicacy, he has you in his power.
It is well that there is no one without a fault; for he would not have a friend in the world.
Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock.
If you load responsibility on a man unworthy of it he will always betray himself.
The road to wisdom? Well, it's plain and simple to express: Err and err again but less and less and less.
Mark this well, you proud men of action! You are, after all, nothing but unconscious instruments of the men of thought.
Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.
I never learned from a man who agreed with me.
Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
May you live as long as you love and love as long as you live.
Belief gets in the way of learning.
The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on.
There was only one catch and that was Catcaph2, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask, and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to.
There are men who would quickly love each other if once they were to speak to each other; for when they spoke they would discover that their souls had only separated by phantoms and delusions.
You are everything that is, your thoughts, your life, your dreams come true. You are everything you choose to be. You are as unlimited as the endless universe.
Genius is nothing but continued attention.
Never mistake motion for action.
Fear of death increases in exact proportion to increase in wealth.
Cowardice, as distinguished from panic, is almost always simply a lack of ability to suspend the functioning of the imagination.
The world breaks everyone, and afterward many are strong at the broken places.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
A tree growing out of the ground is as wonderful today as it ever was. It does not need to adopt new and startling methods.
Wise anger is like fire from a flint: there is great ado to get it out; and when it does come, it is out again immediately.
Plain women know more about men than beautiful ones do.
Don't give in! Make your own trail.
Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then.
If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.
No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man
The beginning of knowledge is the discovery of something we do not understand.
You must lose a fly to catch a trout.
Gather ye rose-buds while ye may, Old time is still aflying. And this same flower that smiles today, Tomorrow will be dying.
Happiness is a how, not a what; a talent, not an object.
I have known it for a long time but I have only just experienced it. Now I know it not only with my intellect, but with my eyes, with my heart, with my stomach.
It is certainly possible that the future of human thought is this: that it will be swamped under a flood of human silliness.... It is possible for clever cynical men to control (the many) by supplying them with drugs, by keeping them from reading good books or thinking original thoughts, changing them ultimately into idiots by giving them a good time.
The easiest thing to do, whenever you fail, is to put yourself down by blaming your lack of ability for your misfortunes.
Just because nobody complains doesn't mean all parachutes are perfect.
Persistence is to the character of man as carbon is to steel.
It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.
If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am not for others, what am I? And if not now, when?
Judge not thy friend until thou standest in his place.
One must marry one's feelings to one's beliefs and ideas. That is probably the only way to achieve a measure of harmony in one's life.
I swear to Apollo the physician, by Aesculapius, Hygeia, and Panacea, and I take to witness all the gods, all the goddesses, to keep according to my ability and my judgment the following oath: To consider dear to me as my parents him who taught me this art: to live in common with him and if necessary to share my goods with him; to look upon his children as my own brothers, to teach them this art if they so desire without fee or written promise; to impart to my sons and the sons of the master who taught me and the disciplines who have enrolled themselves and have agreed to the rules of the profession, but to these alone, the precepts and the instruction. I will prescribe regimen for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone…. But I will preserve the purity of my life and my art…. In every house where I come I will enter only for the good of my patients, keeping myself far from all intentional ill-doing and all seduction, especially from the pleasures of love with women or with men, be they free or slaves. All that may come to my knowledge in the exercise of my profession in daily commerce with men, which ought not to be spread abroad, I will keep secret and never reveal. If I keep this oath faithfully, may I enjoy my life and practice my art, respected by all men and in all times; but if I swerve from it or violate it, may the reverse be my lot.
Life is short, art long, opportunity fleeting, experience treacherous, judgement difficult.
Kindness can become its own motive. We are made kind by being kind.
We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.
In times of profound change, the learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.
Our achievements speak for themselves. What we have to keep track of are our failures, discouragements and doubts. We tend to forget the past difficulties, the many false starts, and the painful groping. We see our past achievements as the end results of a clean forward thrust, and our present difficulties as signs of decline and decay.
Men weary as much of not doing the things they want to do as of doing the things they do not want to do.
Action is the only reality; not only reality but morality as well.
In my room as a kid... I'd play a fighter and get knocked to the floor and come back to win.
Love is like pi—natural, irrational, and very important.
The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.
Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take Hofstadter's Law into account.
You must get involved to have an impact. No one is impressed with the won-lost record of the referee.
The most precious possession that ever comes to a man in this world is a woman's heart.
To find something you can enjoy is far better than finding something you can possess.
Never tell a young person that anything cannot be done. God may have been waiting centuries for someone ignorant enough of the impossible to do that very thing.
I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving. To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it, but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.
Every event that a man would master must be mounted on the run, and no man ever caught the reins of a thought except as it galloped past him.
The mind of a bigot is like the pupil of the eye; the more light you pour on it, the more it will contract.
The mode by which the inevitable comes to pass is effort.
A man may fulfill the object of his existence by asking a question he cannot answer, and attempting a task he cannot achieve.
The best of a book is not the thought which it contains, but the thought which it suggests; just as the charm of music dwells not in the tones but in the echoes of our hearts.
Our dead brothers still live for us and bid us think of life, not death—of life to which in their youth they lent the passion and glory of Spring. As I listen, the great chorus of life and joy begins again, and amid the awful orchestra of seen and unseen powers and destinies of good and evil, our trumpets sound once more a note of daring, hope, and will.
I have no respect for the passion of equality, which seems to me merely idealizing envy.
A good soldier, like a good horse, cannot be of a bad color.
I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.
The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins.
The true test of character is not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we don't know what to do.
Ability is what you're capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.
I won't accept anything less than the best a player's capable of doing... and he has the right to expect the best that I can do for him and the team!
The charity that is a trifle to us can be precious to others.
And what he greatly thought, he nobly dared.
Success is 99 percent failure.
I am not judged by the number of times I fail, but by the number of times I succeed; and the number of times I succeed is in direct proportion to the number of times I can fail and keep on trying.
Why don't you want to do what you know you should do? The reason you don't is that you're in conflict with yourself.
You don't manage people; you manage things. You lead people.
If it's a good idea, go ahead and do it. It is much easier to apologize than it is to get permission.
Carpe diem, quam minimus credula postero. [Seize today, and put as little trust as you can in tomorrow.]
It is your business, when the wall next door catches fire.
It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it.
You can't fatten the pig on market day.
One-half of knowing what you want is knowing what you must give up before you get it.
You have succeeded in life when all you really want is only what you really need.
What people say behind your back is your standing in the community in which you live.
He who influences the thought of his times influences the times that follow.
Character is the result of two things: mental attitude and the way we spend our time.
There was one who thought he was above me, and he was above me until he had that thought.
I would rather be able to appreciate things I cannot have than to have things I am not able to appreciate.
The secret of success is this: there is no secret of success.
A retentive memory may be a good thing, but the ability to forget is the true token of greatness.
Do your work with your whole heart, and you will succeed—there's so little competition.
One machine can do the work of 50 ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.
The supernatural is the natural not yet understood.
If you want work well done, select a busy man—the other kind has no time.
He who has achieved success has worked well, laughed often and loved much.
The man who is anybody and who does anything is surely going to be criticized, vilified, and misunderstood. That is part of the penalty for greatness, and every great man understands it; and understands, too, that it is no proof of greatness. The final proof of greatness lies in being able to endure continuously without resentment.
Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.
There is something that is much more scarce, something far finer, something rarer than ability. It is the ability to recognize ability.
Life in abundance comes only through great love.
To know when to be generous and when firm - that is wisdom.
Love grows by giving. The love we give away is the only love we keep. The only way to retain love is to give it away.
If pleasures are greatest in anticipation, just remember that this is also true of trouble.
Life is just one damn thing after another.
The only way to entertain some folks is to listen to them.
The fellow that agrees with everything you say is either a fool or he is getting ready to skin you.
If you play it safe in life, you've decided that you don't want to grow anymore.
Hold fast to dreams For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly.
Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones.
When a woman is talking to you, listen to what she says with her eyes.
Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters.
Popularity? It's glory's small change.
Whatever happens to you, it will previously have happened to everyone you know, only more so.
Children need love, especially when they don't deserve it.
Always keep your composure. You can't score from the penalty box; and to win, you have to score.
The art of communication is the language of leadership.
The believer is happy. The doubter is wise.
Goals are dreams with deadlines.
It takes a clever man to turn cynic and a wise man to be clever enough not to.
I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.
The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are dead.
To see ourselves as others see us is a most salutary gift. Hardly less important is the capacity to see others as they see themselves.
After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is Music.
Several excuses are always less convincing than one.
Experience is not what happens to you, but what you do with what happens to you.
Under the present dispensation, the great majority of factories are little despotisms, benevolent in some cases, malevolent in others. Even where benevolence prevails, passive obedience is demanded of the workers, who are ruled by overseers, not of their own election, but appointed from above. In theory they may be the subjects of a democratic state; but in practice they spend the whole of their working lives as the subjects of a petty tyrant.
There is the greatest practical benefit in making a few failures early in life.
The great end of life is not knowledge but action.
The rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a man's foot long enough to enable him to put the other somewhat higher.
The opposite of love is not hate, the opposite of love is ignorance.
Doubt is the beginning, not the end, of wisdom.
Happiness is not a reward—it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment—it is a result.
Anger blows out the lamp of the mind. In the examination of a great and important question, everyone should be serene, slow-pulsed and calm.
The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.
If you are seeking creative ideas, go out walking. Angels whisper to a man when he goes for a walk.
The trick is to make sure you don't die waiting for prosperity to come.
It is not a fish until it is on the bank.
A sharp tongue is the only edge tool that grows keener with constant use.
Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart.
The best armor is to keep out of range.
One man with courage makes a majority.
It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word.
Both tears and sweat are salty, but they render a different result. Tears will get you sympathy; sweat will get you change.
There is no reason to look down on any man unless you're helping him up.
We've removed the ceiling above our dreams. There are no more impossible dreams.
A free man is as jealous of his responsibilities as he is of his liberties.
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.
Genius is the art of nonhabitual thought.
Pessimism leads to weakness, optimism to power.
The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.
When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this—you haven't.
Who travels for love finds a thousand miles not longer than one.
Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare.
Fall seven times, stand up eight.
The only real training for leadership is leadership.
In matters of style, swim with the current. In matters of principle, stand like a rock.
Great innovations should not be forced on slender majorities.
I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.
It is neither wealth nor splendor, but tranquility and occupation, which give happiness.
But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life; and thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part of life is sunshine.
I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another.
Information is the currency of democracy.
Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there is one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded faith.
I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
It is to secure our rights that we resort to government at all.
Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.
Nothing gives a person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and inalienable rights; that among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
When the stomach is full, it is easy to talk of fasting.
… preferring to store her money in the stomachs of the needy rather than hide it in a purse.
The shy man does have some slight revenge upon society for the torture it inflicts upon him. He is able, to a certain extent, to communicate his misery. He frightens other people as much as they frighten him. He acts like a damper upon the whole room, and the most jovial spirits become, in his presence, depressed and nervous.
Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.
Blessed are you when men hate you, when they exclude you and insult you and reject your name as evil, because of the Son of Man.
Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven.
For that is how their fathers treated the prophets.
But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort.
Woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep.
Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for that is how their fathers treated the false prophets.
But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.
If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also.
If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic.
Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.
Do to others as you would have them do to you.
If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even `sinners' love those who love them.
And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you?
Even `sinners' do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you?
Even `sinners' lend to `sinners,' expecting to be repaid in full.
But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back.
Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.
Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.
Do not judge, and you will not be judged.
Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned.
Forgive, and you will be forgiven.
Give, and it will be given to you.
A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap.
For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, because the kingdom of heaven belongs to them.
Blessed are those who mourn, because they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, because they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, because they will be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful, because they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart, because they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers, because they will be called the children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness, because the kingdom of heaven belongs to them.
Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you and say all kinds of evil things about you falsely on account of me.
Rejoice and be glad because your reward is great in heaven, for they persecuted the prophets before you in the same way.
You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its flavor, how can it be made salty again?
It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and walked on by people.
You are the light of the world. A city located on a hill cannot be hidden.
People do not light a lamp and put it under a basket but it on a lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house.
In the same way, let your light shine before people, so that they can see your good deeds and give honor to your Father in heaven.
Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.
I have not come to abolish but to fulfill.
I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth pass away not the smallest letter or stroke of a letter will pass from the law until everything takes place.
So anyone who breaks one of the least of these commands and teaches others to do this, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven;
but whoever does them and teaches others to do so will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
For I tell you, unless your righteousness goes beyond that of the experts in the law and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
You have heard that it was said to an older generation, ‘Do not murder,’ and ‘whoever murders will be subjected to judgment.’
But I say to you that anyone who is angry with a brother will be subjected to judgment.
And whoever insults a brother will be brought before the council, and whoever says ‘Fool’ will be sent to fiery hell.
So then, if you bring your gift to the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar.
First go and be reconciled to your brother and then come and present your gift.
Reach agreement quickly with your accuser while on the way to court, or he may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to a warden, and you will be thrown into prison.
I tell you the truth, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.
You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’
But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.
If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away.
It is better to lose one of your members than to have your whole body thrown into hell.
If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.
It is better to lose one of your members than to have your whole body go into hell.
It was said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife must give her a legal document.’
But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife except for immorality makes her commit adultery, and anyone who marries a woman who has been divorced commits adultery.
Again, you have heard that it was said to an older generation, ‘Do not break an oath, but fulfill your vows to the Lord.’
But I say to you, do not take oaths at all; not by heaven, because it is the throne of God, not by earth, because it is his footstool, and not by Jerusalem, because it is the city of the great King.
Do not take an oath by your head, because you are not able to make one hair white or black.
Let your word be ‘Yes, yes’ or ‘No, no.’ More than this is from the evil one.
You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’
But I say to you, do not resist the evildoer.
But whoever strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other to him as well.
And if someone wants to sue you and to take your tunic, also give him your coat.
And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two.
Give to the one who asks you, and do not reject the one who wants to borrow from you.
You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor’ and ‘hate your enemy.’
But I say to you, love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be like your Father in heaven, since he causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.
For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? The tax collectors do that too, don’t they?
And if you only greet your brothers, what more do you do? The Gentiles do that too, don’t they?
So then, you be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Be careful about not living righteously merely to be seen by people.
Otherwise you have no reward with your Father in heaven.
Thus whenever you do charitable giving, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in synagogues and on streets so that people will praise them.
I tell you the truth, they have their reward.
But when you do your giving, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your gift may be in secret.
And your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you.
Whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, because they love to pray while standing in synagogues and on street corners so that people can see them.
Truly I say to you, they have their reward.
But whenever you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret.
And your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you.
When you pray, do not babble repetitiously like the Gentiles, because they think that by their many words they will be heard.
Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
So pray this way: Our Father in heaven, may your name be honored, may your kingdom come, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Please give us bread for today, and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
Please do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.
For if you forgive others their sins, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
But if you do not forgive others, your Father will not forgive you your sins.
When you fast, do not look sullen like the hypocrites, for they make their faces unattractive so that people will see them fasting.
I tell you the truth, they have their reward. When you fast put oil on your head and wash your face so that it will not be obvious to others when you are fasting, but only to your Father who is in secret.
And your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you.
Do not accumulate for yourself treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal.
But accumulate for yourself treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal.
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body.
If then your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light.
But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness.
If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
No one is able to serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.
No one is able to serve God and possessions.
Because of this I say to you, do not worry about your life, as to what you will eat or drink, or about your body, as to what you will wear.
Isn’t there more to life than food and more to the body than clothing?
Look at the birds of the sky: they do not sow, or harvest, or gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
Aren’t you more valuable than they are? Can any of you add time to his life by worrying? Why worry about clothing?
Think about how the flowers of the field grow. They do not work or spin, yet I say to you that Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these!
And if God clothes the grass of the field this way, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire to heat the oven, won’t he clothe you even more, you people of little faith?
So then, don’t worry saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’
For the unconverted pursue these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them.
But seek first his kingdom and righteousness, and all these things will be given to you.
So then, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Today has enough trouble of its own.
Do not judge, and you will not be judged. For by the standard you judge you will be judged, and the measure you use will be the measure you receive.
Why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye, but fail to see the beam of timber in your own eye?
Or why do you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye,’ while there is a beam in your own eye?
You hypocrite! First remove the beam from your eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
Do not give what is holy to dogs or throw your pearls before pigs; otherwise they will trample them under their feet and turn around and tear you to pieces.
Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find.
Knock and the door will be opened for you.
For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.
Is there anyone among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?
Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?
So then, if you, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!
In everything, do to others as you would want them to do to you, for this fulfills the law and the prophets.
Enter through the narrow gate, because the gate is wide and the way is spacious that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.
But the gate is narrow and the way is difficult that leads to life, and there are few who find it.
Watch out for false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are voracious wolves.
You will recognize them by their fruit. People don’t gather grapes from thorns or figs from thistles, do they?
In the same way, every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit.
A good tree is not able to bear bad fruit, nor a bad tree to bear good fruit.
Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
So then, you will recognize them by their fruit.
Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the kingdom of heaven, only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.
On that day, many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, and in your name cast out demons and do many powerful deeds?’
Then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you. Go away from me, lawbreakers!’
Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them is like a wise man who built his house on rock.
The rain fell, the flood came, and the winds beat against that house; but it did not collapse because it had been founded on rock.
Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them is like a foolish man who built his house on sand.
The rain fell, the flood came, and the winds beat against that house, and it collapsed; it was a tremendous fall!
Value is the most invincible and impalpable of ghosts, and comes and goes unthought of while the visible and dense matter remains as it was.
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude.
Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
For our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.
Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood.
So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Treat a person as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat him as he could be, and he will become what he should be.
What convinces is conviction. Believe in the argument you are advancing. If you don’t, you’re as good as dead. The other person will sense something isn’t there and no chain of reasoning, no matter how logical or elegant or brilliant, will win your case for you.
What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.
It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.
Change is not made without inconvenience, even from worst to better.
Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind.
Few things are impossible to diligence and skill ... Great works are performed, not by strength, but perseverance.
Do not accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience. You will find it a calamity.
To keep your secret is wisdom; but to expect others to keep it is folly.
No man ever yet became great by imitation.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
The ultimate result of all ambition is to be happy at home.
Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords; but, like all other pleasures immoderately enjoyed, the excesses of hope must be expiated by pain; and expectations improperly indulged must end in disappointment.
If you can't be happy where you are, it's a cinch you can't be happy where you ain't.
Children are unpredictable. You never know what inconsistency they're going to catch you in next.
The trouble with being punctual is that nobody's there to appreciate it.
Imagine what a harmonious world it could be if every single person, both young and old shared a little of what he is good at doing.
And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.
Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow that talent to the dark place where it leads.
Success isn't something you chase. It's something you have to put forth the effort for constantly. Then maybe it'll come when you least expect it. Most people don't understand that.
You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.
Obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.
When my friends are one-eyed, I look at their profile.
Chance generally favors the prudent.
Without women, the beginning of our life would be helpless; the middle devoid of pleasure; and the end, of consolation.
We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.
The pendulum of the mind alternates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.
Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
If better is to come, good must step aside.
By his own verdict no guilty man was ever acquitted.
He conquers twice who conquers himself in victory.
From a certain point onward there is no longer any turning back. That is the point that must be reached.
Authority is not power; that's coercion. Authority is not knowledge; that's persuasion, or seduction. Authority is simply that the author has the right to make a statement and to be heard.
When your work speaks for itself, don't interrupt.
I always have to dream up there against the stars. If I don't dream I will make it, I won't even get close.
Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.
Once the total problem is broken into patches, the patches are co-evolving with one another. An adaptive move by one patch changes the 'fitness' and deforms the fitness landscape, or, alternatively, the 'energy landscape' of adjacent patches.
Only things the dreamers make live on. They are the eternal conquerors.
By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.
A thing of beauty is a joy forever. Beauty is truth, truth beauty.
Nothing you do for children is ever wasted. They seem not to notice us, hovering, averting our eyes, and they seldom offer thanks, but what we do for them is never wasted.
Shyness is just egotism out of its depth.
Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow.
Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.
All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming it.
Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.
To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.
Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature. Nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or it is nothing.
Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.
The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.
When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.
We are confronted with insurmountable opportunities.
It is vanity to desire a long life and to take no heed of a good life.
Some people follow their dreams, others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission.
If you can learn from hard knocks, you can also learn from soft touches.
The real test of friendship is: Can you literally do nothing with the other person? Can you enjoy together those moments of life that are utterly simple? They are the moments people look back on at the end of life and number as their most sacred experiences.
Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.
The quality of American life must keep pace with the quantity of American goods. This country cannot afford to be materially rich and spiritually poor.
Our task now is not to fix the blame for the past but to fix the course for the future.
When written in Chinese, the word 'crisis' is composed of two characters—one represents danger, and the other represents opportunity.
There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction.
Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.
Birds sing after a storm; why shouldn't people feel as free to delight in whatever remains to them?
He who angers you conquers you.
Problems are the price of progress. Don’t bring me anything but trouble. Good news weakens me.
The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress.
Teach a highly educated person that it is not a disgrace to fail and that he must analyze every failure to find its cause. He must learn how to fail intelligently, for failing is one of the greatest arts in the world.
A problem well stated is a problem half solved.
There is a great difference between knowing and understanding: you can know a lot about something and not really understand it.
In the long run, we are all dead.
The importance of money flows from it being a link between the present and the future.
A loving person lives in a loving world. A hostile person lives in a hostile world. Everyone you meet is your mirror.
Come, fill the cup, and in the fire of spring
Your winter garment of repentance fling.
The bird of time has but a little way
To flutter - and the bird is on the wing.
To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.
It is very dangerous to go into eternity with possibilities which one has oneself prevented from becoming realities. A possibility is a hint from God.
Purity of heart is to will one thing.
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
It seems essential, in relationships and all tasks, that we concentrate only on what is most significant and important.
There is more of a connection than many realize between the order and purpose of the universe and the order and harmony which exists in a happy and good family.
It is important for us to cultivate in our own family a sense that we belong together eternally, that whatever changes outside our home, there are fundamental aspects of our relationship which will never change.
A champion is afraid of losing. Everyone else is afraid of winning.
In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
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.
We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.
A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on an installment plan.
We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
We all think about it, and every now and then I think about my own death, and I think about my own funeral....I don't want a long funeral. If you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace prize....tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards...I'd like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to give his life serving others. I'd like somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to love somebody....say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. That I was a drum major for righteousness and all the other shallow things will not matter. I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind, but I just want to leave a committed life behind.
We all may have come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.
The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.
I keep six honest serving-men (They taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When And How and Where and Who.
Never praise a sister to a sister in the hope of your compliments reaching the proper ears.
We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse.
The trouble in America is not that we are making too many mistakes, but that we are making too few.
He deserves Paradise who makes his companions laugh.
Honor isn't about making the right choices. It's about dealing with the consequences.
Producing major change in an organization is not just about signing up one charismatic leader. You need a group—a team—to be able to drive the change. One person, even a terrific charismatic leader, is never strong enough to make all this happen.
Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win.
You can delegate authority, but you can never delegate responsibility for delegating a task to someone else. If you picked the right man, fine, but if you picked the wrong man, the responsibility is yours—not his.
What is needed, rather than running away or controlling or suppressing or any other resistance, is understanding fear; that means, watch it, learn about it, come directly into contact with it. We are to learn about fear, not how to escape from it.
Mutual aid is as much a law of animal life as mutual struggle.
Few people have ever seriously wished to be exclusively rational. The good life which most desire is a life warmed by passions and touched with that ceremonial grace which is impossible without some affectionate loyalty to traditional form and ceremonies.
People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.
There are no mistakes, no coincidences. All events are blessings given to us to learn from.
The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice, there is little we can do to change until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds.
There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.
If we want everything to remain as it is, it will be necessary for everything to change.
Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don't recognize them.
Somebody should tell us, right at the start of our lives, that we are dying. Then we might live life to the limit, every minute of every day. Do it! I say. Whatever you want to do, do it now! There are only so many tomorrows.
When you want to win a game, you have to teach. When you lose a game, you have to learn.
A coach is someone who tells you what you don’t want to hear, and has you see what you don’t want to see, so you can be who you have always known you could be.
Happiness is something that comes into our lives through doors we don't even remember leaving open.
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
I have three precious things which I hold fast and prize. The first is gentleness; the second is frugality; the third is humility, which keeps me from putting myself before others. Be gentle and you can be bold; be frugal and you can be liberal; avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men.
Knowing others is wisdom; Knowing the self is enlightenment; Mastering others requires force; Mastering the self needs strength.
He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.
To be deeply loved by someone gives you strength; To deeply love someone gives you courage.
To see things in the seed is genius.
Truthful words are not beautiful; beautiful words are not truthful. Good words are not persuasive; persuasive words are not good.
Nothing in the world is more flexible and yielding than water. Yet when it attacks the firm and the strong, none can withstand it, because they have no way to change it. So the flexible overcome the adamant, the yielding overcome the forceful. Everyone knows this, but no one can do it.
When the best leader's work is done, the people say, We did it ourselves.
The reason people blame things on the previous generations is that there's only one other choice.
The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a person's determination.
Experience is the worst teacher; it gives the test before presenting the lesson.
Are you willing to be sponged out, erased, canceled, made nothing? Are you willing to be made nothing? dipped into oblivion? If not, you will never really change.
Those that go searching for love only make manifest their own lovelessness, and the loveless never find love, only the loving find love, and they never have to seek for it.
All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.
There could be no honor in a sure success, but much might be wrested from a sure defeat.
There go the people. I must follow them, for I am their leader.
The world does not pay for what a person knows. But it pays for what a person does with what he knows.
Duty then is the sublimest word in the English language. You should do your duty in all things. You can never do more, you should never wish to do less.
Never do a wrong thing to make a friend or to keep one.
Public speaking is done in the public tongue, the national or tribal language; and the language of our tribe is the men's language. Of course women learn it. We're not dumb. If you can tell Margaret Thatcher from Ronald Reagan, or Indira Gandhi from General Somoza, by anything they say, tell me how. This is a man's world, so it talks a man's language.
Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.
What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy?
It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters in the end.
To love is to place our happiness in ensuring the happiness of another.
If being an egomaniac means I believe in what I do and in my art or music, then in that respect you can call me that ... I believe in what I do, and I'll say it.
Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will be as one.
Life is what happens while you are making other plans.
Many search for happiness as we look for a hat we wear on our heads.
I try to leave out the parts that people skip.
… the geometry of life is designed to keep us at the point of maximum tension between certainty and uncertainty, order and chaos. Every important call is a close one. We survive and evolve by the skin of our teeth. We really wouldn't want it any other way.
Thank heaven, for little girls For little girls get bigger ev'ry day Thank heaven for little girls They grow up in the most delightful way!
Despite the success cult, men are most deeply moved not by the reaching of the goal but by the grandness of the effort involved in getting there—or failing to get there.
Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember.
Politeness has been defined to be artificial good-nature; but we may affirm, with much greater propriety, that good-nature is natural politeness.
To believe with certainty we must begin with doubting.
Having children makes one no more a parent than having a piano makes you a pianist.
Successful people are very lucky. Just ask any failure.
Go to the truth beyond the mind. Love is the bridge.
If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? Why are you waiting?
The definition of a good parent or manager is one who says, You can become whatever it is you seriously want to become; my job is to help you become it.
Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve.
I sometimes wonder whether all pleasures are not substitutes for joy.
Mere change is not growth. Growth is the synthesis of change and continuity, and where there is no continuity there is no growth.
Those who are enjoying something, or suffering something together, are companions. Those who enjoy or suffer one another, are not.
A woman means by Unselfishness chiefly taking trouble for others; a man means not giving trouble to others... Thus while the woman thinks of doing good offices and the man of respecting other people's rights, each sex, without any obvious unreason, can and does regard the other as radically selfish.
We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.
Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up save in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.
You only live once—but if you work it right, once is enough.
Sometimes men come by the name of genius in the same way that certain insects come by the name of centipede—not because they have a hundred feet, but because most people can't count above fourteen.
We have no words for speaking of wisdom to the stupid. He who understands the wise is wise already.
He who says he hates every kind of flattery and says it in earnest, certainly does not yet know every kind of flattery.
It is a golden rule not to judge men by their opinions but rather by what their opinions make of them.
To err is human also in so far as animals seldom or never err, or at least only the cleverest of them do so.
If moderation is a fault, then indifference is a crime.
Memories are all we really own.
The best thing about the future is that it only comes one day at a time.
It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: "And this, too, shall pass away." How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction!
Whatever you are, be a good one.
If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend six sharpening my ax.
You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.
The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just.
How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.
I will study and get ready, and perhaps my chance will come.
I don't like that man. I must get to know him better.
To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.
I do the very best I know how—the very best I can; and mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.
Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.
Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?
I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him.
I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow.
A woman is the only thing that I am afraid of that I know will not hurt me.
We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.
The most exhausting thing in my life is being insincere.
Only in growth, reform, and change, paradoxically enough, is true security to be found.
Don't tell me how hard you work. Tell me how much you get done.
While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, another is busy making mistakes and becoming superior.
When all men think alike, no one thinks very much.
It requires wisdom to understand wisdom: the music is nothing if the audience is deaf.
The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and the will to carry on.
There is no pleasure in having nothing to do. The fun is in having lots to do and not doing it.
The difference between a professional person and a technician is that a technician knows everything about his job except its ultimate purpose and his place in the scheme of things.
Men are seldom blessed with good fortune and good sense at the same time.
In grave difficulties, and with little hope, the boldest measures are the safest.
Don't be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps.
Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all time thing. You don’t win once in a while, you don’t do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.
Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit.
Fatigue makes cowards of us all.
The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.
The quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.
The spirit, the will to win, and the will to excel are the things that endure. These qualities are so much more important than the events that occur.
We didn't loose the game; we just ran out of time.
I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of a man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.
Part of being sane is being a little bit crazy.
A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity.
$100 placed at 7 percent interest compounded quarterly for 200 years will increase to more than $100,000,000, by which time it will be worth nothing.
Believe me, every man has his secret sorrows, which the world knows not; and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad.
No man is so poor as to have nothing worth giving.
The heights by great men reached and kept Were not attained by sudden flight, But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upward in the night.
Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life.
The two big advantages I had at birth were to have been born wise and to have been born in poverty.
Sex appeal is 50 per cent what you've got, and 50 per cent what people think you've got.
There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of the people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.
I never thought I didn't have a card to play.
Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or by the handle.
Men in earnest have no time to waste in patching fig leaves for the naked truth.
The misfortunes hardest to bear are those which never came.
We're all stumbling towards the light with varying degrees of grace at any given moment.
Do, or do not. There is no try.
The brave don't live forever, but the cautious don't live at all. Here's to the brave!
When you have determined what you want, you have made the most important decision of your life. You have to know what you want in order to attain it.
If I knew the world was going to end tomorrow, I would still plant a tree today
The art of acceptance is the art of making someone who has just done you a small favor wish that he might have done you a greater one.
There is no security on this earth; there is only opportunity.
It takes a great man to give sound advice tactfully, but a greater to accept it graciously.
It is not essential … that a prince should have all the good qualities … But it is most essential that he should seem to have them.
Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times.
Never was anything great achieved without danger.
Make no small plans for they have not the power to stir men`s blood.
Men in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All men have eyes; but few have the gift of penetration.
The wise man does at once what the fool does finally.
It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle than to initiate a new order of things.
Measure success by success, not by the number of failures it takes to achieve it.
Someone who thinks the world is always cheating him is right. He is missing that wonderful feeling of trust in someone or something.
Would you want to do business with a person who was 99% honest?
Confidence is courage at ease.
Growth is a greater mystery than death. All of us can understand failure, we all contain failure and death within us, but not even the successful man can begin to describe the impalpable elations and apprehensions of growth.
Because there is very little honor left in American life, there is a certain built-in tendency to destroy masculinity in American men.
The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.
If we don't stand for something, we may fall for anything.
Usually when people are sad, they don't do anything. They just cry over their condition. But when they get angry, they bring about a change.
I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me.
Within you right now is the power to do things you never dreamed possible. This power becomes available to you just as you can change your beliefs.
We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right.
A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you NOT to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we consciously give other people permission to do the same.
Realize that true happiness lies within you. Waste no time and effort searching for peace and contentment and joy in the world outside. Remember that there is no happiness in having or in getting, but only in giving. Reach out. Share. Smile. Hug. Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.
Most of us would like to be smarter than we are, stronger than we are, richer than we are, but we don't feel all that comfortable with people who are.
But warm, eager, living life—to be rooted in life—to learn, to desire, to know, to feel, to think, to act. That is what I want. And nothing less. That is what I must try for.
Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinion of others, for those other voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.
Decide promptly, but never give any reasons. Your decisions may be right, but your reasons are sure to be wrong.
You will always have to live with yourself, and it is to your best interest to see that you have good company—a clean, pure, straight, honest, upright, generous, magnanimous companion.
You cannot measure a man by his failures. You must know what use he makes of them. What did they mean to him. What did he get out of them.
Resolve that whatever you do, you will bring the whole man to it; that you will fling the whole weight of your being into it.
Deep within man dwell those slumbering powers; powers that would astonish him, that he never dreamed of possessing; forces that would revolutionize his life if aroused and put into action.
Achievement is not always success, while reputed failure often is. It is honest endeavor, persistent effort to do the best possible under any and all circumstances.
Only in quiet waters things mirror themselves undistorted. Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world.
We don't love qualities, we love persons; sometimes by reason of their defects as well as of their qualities.
Ah, great it is to believe the dream As we stand in youth by the starry stream; But a greater thing is to fight life through And say at the end, "The dream is true!"
Your goals, minus your doubts, equal your reality.
It is easier to believe than to doubt.
The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.
In the dark womb where I began My mother's life made me a man. Through all the months of human birth Her beauty fed my common death. I cannot see, nor breathe, nor stir but through the death of some of her.
To the man who only has a hammer, everything he encounters begins to look like a nail.
Be yourself is about the worst advice you can give to some people.
Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.
When I was young I was amazed at Plutarch's statement that the elder Cato began at the age of eighty to learn Greek. I am amazed no longer. Old age is ready to undertake tasks that youth shirked because they thought it would take too long.
It's no good trying to keep up old friendships. It's painful for both sides. The fact is, one grows out of people, and the only thing is to face it.
It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.
Make sure the thing you're living for is worth dying for.
If you have a great ambition, take as big a step as possible in the direction of fulfilling it. The step may only be a tiny one, but trust that it may be the largest one possible for now.
Make no judgements where you have no compassion.
People with bad consciences always fear the judgement of children.
Humility leads to strength and not to weakness. It is the highest form of self-respect to admit mistakes and to make amends for them.
To accept what you are is to be content, and contentment is the greatest wealth. To work with patience is to gather power.
Leadership is action, not position.
Remember your past mistakes just long enough to profit by them.
It is important to our friends to believe that we are unreservedly frank with them, and important to friendship that we are not.
In the arithmetic of love, one plus one equals everything and two minus one equals nothing.
We would all like a reputation for generosity and we'd all like to buy it cheap.
There is only one thing more painful than learning from experience and that is not learning from experience.
'Jobs' represent a relatively recent pattern of work. From the 15th century to the 20th century, there is a steady progress of fragmentation of the stages of work that constitute 'mechanisation' and 'specialisation.' These procedures cannot serve for survival or sanity in this new time.
The first step is to measure whatever can be easily measured. That is O.K. as far as it goes. The second step is to disregard that which can't be easily measured or to give it an arbitrary quantitative value. This is artificial and misleading. The third step is to presume that what can't be measured easily really isn't important. This is blindness. The fourth step is to say that what can't be easily measured really doesn't exist. This is suicide.
The value of action is that we make mistakes; mistakes show us what we need to learn.
Never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can change the world; indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.
Women want mediocre men, and men are working to become as mediocre as possible.
Blessed are those who give without remembering. And blessed are those who take without forgetting.
If you have learned how to disagree without being disagreeable, then you have discovered the secret of getting along—whether it be business, family relations, or life itself.
Happiness is like a kiss...you must share it to enjoy it.
When you forgive, you in no way change the past—but you sure do change the future.
Before you speak ask yourself if what you are going to say is true, is kind, is necessary, is helpful. If the answer is no, maybe what you are about to say should be left unsaid.
He who has never failed somewhere... that man can not be great.
We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men; and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.
The school of hard knocks is an accelerated curriculum.
The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught.
The only really happy folk are married women and single men.
Bachelors know more about women than married men do. If they didn't, they'd be married too.
On one issue at least, men and women agree; they both distrust women.
Temptation is a woman's weapon and a man's excuse.
There's always an easy solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong.
A home is not a mere transient shelter: its essence lies in the personalities of the people who live in it.
Easy is right. Begin right And you are easy. Continue easy and you are right. The right way to go easy Is to forget the right way And forget that the going is easy.
The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt.
Every noble acquisition is attended with its risks; he who fears to encounter the one must not expect to obtain the other.
He who excuses himself, accuses himself.
Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.
Truth is not beautiful, neither is it ugly. Why should it be either? Truth is Truth.
Saving lives is not a top priority in the halls of power. Being compassionate and concerned about human life can cause a man to lose his job. It can cause a woman not to get the job to begin with.
The disappearance of a sense of responsibility is the most far-reaching consequence of submission to authority.
One person with a belief is equal to a force of ninety-nine who have only interest.
Everybody likes a kidder, but nobody lends him money.
Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.
The real leader has no need to lead—he is content to point the way.
The world is not to be put in order; the world is order, incarnate. It is for us to harmonize with this order.
Until we lose ourselves, there is no hope of finding ourselves.
In this age, which believes that there is a short cut to everything, the greatest lesson to be learned is that the most difficult way is, in the long run, the easiest.
To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything or nothing about it.
Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can play weird—that's easy. What's hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making the simple complicated is commonplace—making the complicated simple, awesomely simple—that's creativity.
Strategy is not the consequence of planning, but the opposite: its starting point.
If you ask managers what they do, they will most likely tell you that they plan, organize, coordinate and control. Then watch what they do. Don't be surprised if you can't relate what you see to those four words.
I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education.
The only sure thing about luck is that it will change.
The worst tempered people I have ever met were those who knew that they were wrong.
It infuriates me to be wrong when I know I'm right.
Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music.
We can be knowledgeable with other men's knowledge but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom.
He who fears he will suffer, already suffers from his fear.
I know what I am fleeing from, but not what I am in search of.
Once you have decided to keep a certain pile, it is no longer yours; for you can't spend it.
My life has been filled with terrible misfortune; most of which never happened.
Confidence in another person's virtue is no light evidence of your own.
Make your educational laws strict and your criminal ones can be gentle; but if you leave youth its liberty you will have to dig dungeons for ages.
The most universal quality is diversity.
We like someone because. We love someone although.
Love talked about is easily turned aside, but love demonstrated is irresistible.
No problem can be solved until it is reduced to some simple form. The changing of a vague difficulty into a specific, concrete form is a very essential element in thinking.
There is only one rule for being a good talker -- learn to listen.
Cherish all your happy moments; they make a fine cushion for your old age.
Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it.
There are three ingredients in the good life: learning, earning, and yearning.
Stand upright, speak thy thoughts, declare The truth thou hast, that all may share; Be bold, proclaim it everywhere: They only live who dare.
Until you make peace with who you are, you'll never be content with what you have.
Concentration is why some athletes are better than others. You develop that concentration in training. You can't be lackluster in training and concentrate in a meet.
Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be.
Viewing the child solely as an immature person is a way of escaping comforting him.
When a person acts without knowledge of what he thinks, feels, needs or wants, he does not yet have the option of choosing to act differently.
Life is the only art that we are required to practice without preparation, and without being allowed the preliminary trials, the failures and botches, that are essential for training.
Only entropy comes easy.
A little inaccuracy sometimes saves a ton of explanation.
The young have aspirations that never come to pass, the old have reminiscences of what never happened.
Until one is committed there is the chance to draw back; always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would not otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man would have dreamed would come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets: "Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it! Boldness has genius, magic, and power in it."
To be persuasive, we must be believable. To be believable, we must be credible. To be credible, we must be truthful.
Using the wisdom of strategy, think of the enemy as your own troops. When you think in this way, you can move him at will and be able to chase him around. You become the general and the enemy becomes your troops.
There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.
I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.
When you identify with your company's purpose and experience ownership in a shared vision, you find yourself doing your life's work instead of just doing time.
When you have confidence, you can have a lot of fun. And when you have fun, you can do amazing things,
All celebrated people lose on a close view.
Forethought we may have, undoubtedly, but not foresight.
With audacity one can undertake anything, but not do everything.
A certain amount of opposition is a great help to a man. Kites rise against, not with, the wind.
Will is the means by which we overcome the problems that life or genes have handed us. Without it, there is no true character.
Life is like a game of cards. The hand you are dealt is determinism; the way you play it is free will.
The policy of being too cautious is the greatest risk of all.
Nobody really cares if you're miserable, so you might as well be happy.
If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
By asking for the impossible we obtain the best possible.
Forgiveness is the final form of love.
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
In Germany, they came first for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists but I didn't speak up because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time nobody was left to speak up.
Not necessity, not desire—no, the love of power is the demon of men. Let them have everything—health, food, a place to live, entertainment—they are and remain unhappy and low-spirited; for the demon waits and waits and will be satisfied.
Distrust all men in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.
The more abstract the truth you want to teach, the more thoroughly you must seduce the senses to accept it.
Verily, I have often laughed at the weaklings who thought themselves good because they had no claws.
Believe me! The secret of reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from life is to live dangerously!
We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.
When one has much to put into them, a day has a hundred pockets.
The most common lie is that which one lies to himself; lying to others is relatively an exception.
That which does not destroy me, makes me stronger.
Whenever we're afraid, its because we don't know enough. If we understood enough, we would never be afraid.
Women have no sympathy and my experience of women is almost as large as Europe.
We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are.
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.
Risk is essential. There is not growth of inspiration in staying within what is safe and comfortable. Once you find out what you do best, why not try something else?
If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn.
If children live with hostility, they learn to fight.
If children live with fear, they learn to be apprehensive.
If children live with pity, they learn to feel sorry for themselves.
If children live with ridicule, they learn to be shy.
If children live with jealousy, they learn what envy is.
If children live with shame, they learn to feel guilty.
If children live with tolerance, they learn to be patient.
If children live with encouragement, they learn to be confident.
If children live with praise, they learn to appreciate.
If children live with approval, they learn to be themselves.
If children live with acceptance, they learn to find love in the world.
If children live with recognition, they learn to have a goal.
If children live with sharing, they learn to be generous.
If children live with honesty and fairness, they learn what truth and justice are.
If children live with security, they learn to have faith in themselves and in those around them.
If children live with friendliness, they learn that the world is a nice place in which to live.
If children live with serenity, they learn to have peace of mind.
With what are your children living?
I am willing to put myself through anything; temporary pain or discomfort means nothing to me as long as I can see that the experience will take me to a new level. I am interested in the unknown, and the only path to the unknown is through breaking barriers, an often-painful process.
Confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence.
It's not so much how busy you are, but why you are busy. The bee is praised; the mosquito is swatted.
Discovery consists of looking at the same thing as everyone else and thinking something different.
The really idle man gets nowhere. The perpetually busy man does not get much further.
It is easy to be beautiful; it is difficult to appear so.
I've always felt it was not up to anyone else to make me give my best.
Happiness is the harvest of a quiet eye.
When we have begun to take charge of our lives, to own ourselves, there is no longer any need to ask permission of someone.
The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.
A great leader never sets himself above his followers except in carrying responsibilities.
It takes as much imagination to create debt as to create income.
Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.
The quickest way to end a war is to lose it.
Creativity is so delicate a flower that praise tends to make it bloom, while discouragement often nips it in the bud.
Ambition is a lust that is never quenched, but grows more inflamed and madder by enjoyment.
Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
Change is always powerful. Let your hook be always cast. In the pool where you least expect it, will be a fish.
How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?
Ain't no man can avoid being born average, but there ain't no man got to be common.
Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.
Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way. And don't pray when it rains if you don't pray when the sun shines.
A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.
Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation is principle is always a vice.
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.
I’ve always made a total effort, even when the odds seemed entirely against me. I never quit trying; I never felt that I didn’t have a chance to win.
The most basic rule of survival in any situation is never look like food.
I require three things in a man. He must be handsome, ruthless and stupid.
If you want to see what God thinks of money, just look at all the people He gave it to
Love is like quicksilver in the hand. Leave the fingers open and it stays. Clutch it, and it darts away.
The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.
I do not admire the excellence of a virtue like courage unless I see at the same time an excess of the opposite virtue, as in Epaminondas, who possessed extreme courage and extreme kindness. We show greatness not by being at one extreme, but by touching both at once and occupying all the space in between.
Did you ever observe to whom the accidents happen? Chance favors only the prepared mind.
The will to win is important, but the will to prepare is vital.
Be willing to make decisions. That's the most important quality in a good leader. Don't fall victim to the ready-aim-aim-aim-aim syndrome. You must be willing to fire.
Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash.
If a man does his best, what else is there?
We herd sheep, we drive cattle, we lead people. Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.
Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.
The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.
“How does one become a butterfly?" she asked pensively. "You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar."
Until you value yourself, you will not value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.
You cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time.
The honest man must be a perpetual renegade, the life of an honest man a perpetual infidelity. For the man who wishes to remain faithful must make himself perpetually unfaithful to all the continual, successive, indefatigable, renascent errors.
Enthusiasm is everything. It must be taut and vibrating like a guitar string.
I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.
Patience in the present, faith in the future, and joy in the doing.
The racism, the sexism, I never let it be my problem, it's their problem. If I see a door comin' my way, I'm knockin' it down. And if I can't knock down the door, I'm sliding through the window. I'll never let it stop me from what I wanna do.
Dramatic change often comes as a response to imminent collapse.
Promote people who love people, who cherish their subordinates' accomplishments, and who create excitement. Promote into leadership position those who perform like leaders.
Success is focusing the full power of all you are on what you have a burning desire to achieve.
The only discipline that lasts is self discipline.
The Universe is full of magical things, patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.
Never permit a dichotomy to rule your life, a dichotomy in which you hate what you do so you can have pleasure in your spare time. Look for a situation in which your work will give you as much happiness as your spare time.
Youth has no age.
If you have made mistakes, don't worry. There can always be a fresh start. For this thing we call 'failure' is not the falling down, but the staying down.
… the double law of attraction and radiation or of sympathy and antipathy, of fixedness and movement, which is the principle of Creation, and the perpetual cause of life.
What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal.
To live only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain that sustain life, not the top.
An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and coverting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out and that the growing generation is familiarized with the idea from the beginning
Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.
I exhort you also to take part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and greater than every other earthly combat.
You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.
The part can never be well unless the whole is well.
No one ever teaches well who wants to teach, or governs well who wants to govern.
When men speak ill of thee, live so as nobody may believe them.
"He means well” is useless unless he does well.
The real winners in life are the people who look at every situation with an expectation that they can make it work or make it better.
To make no mistakes is not in the power of man; but from their errors and mistakes the wise and good learn wisdom for the future.
Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things, which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little.
Learn to be pleased with everything; with wealth, so far as it makes us beneficial to others; with poverty, for not having much to care for; and with obscurity, for being unenvied.
That man is not truly brave who is afraid either to seem or to be, when it suits him, a coward.
Nobody's ever the greatest anything.
If you want greater prosperity in your life, start forming a vacuum to receive it.
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
'Tis education forms the common mind; Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined.
A man should never be ashamed to admit that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.
For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight, His can't be wrong whose life is in the right.
To err is human, to forgive is divine.
In a full heart there is room for everything, and in an empty heart there is room for nothing.
He who foresees calamities, suffers them twice over.
Something that is yours forever is never precious.
You can do anything you want to do. What is rare is this actual wanting to do a specific thing: wanting it so much that you are practically blind to all other things, that nothing else will satisfy you.
Every artist is a man who has freed himself from his family, his nation, his race. Every man who has shown the world the way to beauty, to true culture, has been a rebel, a 'universal' without patriotism, without home, who has found his people everywhere.
As a free society matures it becomes more permissive, because the converse is too horrible to contemplate.
The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.
An animal will always look for a person's intentions by looking them right in the eyes.
It's this simple: If I never try anything, I never learn anything. If I never take a risk, I stay where I am. If I go ahead and do it, that affects how much I continue wanting to do it. When I hold myself back, I trade appearances for the opportunity to find out what I am like.
Live as if everything you do will eventually be known.
In any contest between power and patience, bet on patience.
Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are developed.
Muddy water when still becomes clear.
We are healed from suffering only by experiencing it to the full.
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.
A mirror reflects a man's face, but what he is really like is shown by the kind of friends he chooses.
Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it and, above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light.
All right, they're on our left, they're on our right, they're in front of us, they're behind us... they can't get away this time. [When surrounded by eight enemy divisions during the Korean War]
Dance like no one is watching, Love like you'll never be hurt, Sing like no one is listening, Live like it's heaven on earth.
If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers.
I base my fashion taste on what doesn't itch.
I wanted a perfect ending. But I learned that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next.
Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.
An honest man is one who knows that he can’t consume more than he has produced.
The closest to perfection a person ever comes is when he fills out a job application form.
Hit the ball over the fence and you can take your time going around the bases.
What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.
Kindness is tenderness. Kindness is love, but perhaps greater than love. Kindness is good will. Kindness says, I want you to be happy.
The whole point of getting things done is knowing what to leave undone.
Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are.
Problems can become opportunities when the right people come together.
Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear.
You play the hand you're dealt. I think the game's worthwhile.
Women in general want to be loved for what they are and men for what they accomplish.
Watch out for emergencies. They are your big chance.
Love is like an hourglass, with the heart filling up as the brain empties.
It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.
For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name, He writes—not that you won or lost—but how you played the Game.
Do not wait for extraordinary circumstances to do good; try to use ordinary situations.
He who gives up the smallest part of a secret has the rest no longer in his power.
Never part without loving words to think of during your absence. It may be that you will not meet again in this life.
It is only reason that teaches silence. The heart teaches us to speak.
I can give you a six-word formula for success: 'Think things through - then follow through.'
Courage is doing what you're afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you are scared.
When you’re playing against a stacked deck, compete even harder. Show the world how much you’ll fight for the winner’s circle. If you do, someday the cellophane will crackle off a fresh pack, one that belongs to you, and the cards will be stacked in your favor.
There are only two options regarding commitment. You’re either IN or you’re OUT. There’s no such thing as life in-between.
All emotions are pure which gather you and lift you up; that emotion is impure which seizes only one side of your being and so distorts you.
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms or books that are written in a foreign tongue. The point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live your way some distant day into the answers.
This is the miracle that happens every time to those who really love; the more they give, the more they possess.
The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and greater things.
There is a tendency today to absolve individuals of moral responsibility and treat them as victims of social circumstances. You buy that—you pay with your soul. It's not men who limit women. It's not straights who limit gays. It's not whites who limit blacks. What limits people is lack of character. What limits people is that they don't have the fucking nerve or imagination to star in their own movie, let alone direct it.
Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.
You risked your life, but what else have you ever risked? Have you ever risked disapproval? Have you ever risked a belief? I see nothing particularly courageous in risking one's life. So you lose it, you go to your hero's heaven and everything is milk and honey 'til the end of time, right? You get your reward and suffer no earthly consequences. That's not courage. Real courage is risking something that you have to keep on living with, real courage is risking something that might force you to rethink your thoughts and suffer change and stretch consciousness. Real courage is risking one's clichés.
There is no such thing as a weird human being. It's just that some people require more understanding than others.
We pay just as dearly for our triumphs as we do for our defeats. Go ahead and fail. But fail with wit, fail with grace, fail with style. A mediocre failure is as insufferable as a mediocre success. Embrace failure! Seek it out. Learn to love it. That may be the only way any of us will ever be free.
We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love.
A good hitting instructor is able to mold his teaching to the individual. If a guy stands on his head, you perfect that.
Courage is the willingness to get up after you've been knocked down. You have to consider the staying condition of the person. That's the real yardstick of courage, that bounce-back resilience. You have to take the buffeting. And you have to rise from that fallen position feeling whole rather than battered.
Anxiety is a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.
Stupid people never forgive nor forget, the naive forgive and forget, the wise forgive but never forget.
Nothing so much prevents our being natural as the desire to seem so.
Jealousy is always born with love but it does not die with it.
Neither the sun nor death can be looked at steadily.
The accent of a man`s native country remains in his mind and his heart, as it does in his speech.
Our enemies are nearer the truth in their opinion of us than we are ourselves.
We sometimes think that we hate flattery, but we only hate the manner in which it is done.
Absence extinguishes small passions and increases great ones, as the wind will blow out a candle and blow in a fire.
The surest way to be deceived is to consider oneself cleverer than others.
It is with true love as it is with ghosts; everyone talks about it, but few have seen it.
We should often be ashamed of our finest actions if the world understood all the motives behind them.
Every right implies a responsibility, every opportunity an obligation, every possession a duty.
Just think how happy you would be if you lost everything you have right now, and then got it back again.
The very essence of the creative is its novelty, and hence we have no standard by which to judge it.
Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
So live that you wouldn't be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip.
Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.
Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.
Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock.
If Stupidity got us into this mess, then why can't it get us out?
The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.
We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret or disappointment.
For every disciplined effort there is a multiple reward.
Truth is not determined by majority vote.
Success is not to be pursued; it is to be attracted by the person you become.
Failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.
Let a good person do good deeds with the same zeal that an evil person does bad ones.
People will sit up and take notice of you if you will sit up and take notice of what makes them sit up and take notice.
You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in 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."
You always admire what you really don't understand.
Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both.
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
Do what you feel in your heart to be right—for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do and damned if you don't.
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of the dream.
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
More than an end to war, we want an end to the beginnings of all wars.
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts about reality.
If you treat people right they will treat you right—ninety percent of the time.
There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.
The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.
Do what you can with what you have where you are.
We need the iron qualities that go with true manhood. We need the positive virtues of resolution, of courage, of indomitable will, of power to do without shrinking the rough work that must always be done.
There has never yet been a man in our history who led a life of ease whose name is worth remembering.
The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.
It is not the critic who counts. Not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause. Who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, "Certainly, I can!"—then get busy and find out how to do it.
Don't hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting, but never hit soft.
When you play, play hard; when you work, don't play at all.
Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time.
In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.
Men do not fail; they give up trying.
Courage is the capacity to confront what can be imagined.
I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be honorable, to be compassionate. It is, after all, to matter: to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.
I learned that it is the weak who are cruel, and that gentleness is to be expected only from the strong.
You stick your head above the crowd and attract attention, and sometime, maybe, somebody will throw a rock at you. That's the territory. You buy the land, you get the Indians.
There are very few people who are not ashamed of having been in love when they no longer love each other.
Although modesty is natural to man, it is not natural to children. Modesty only begins with the knowledge of evil.
Do not judge and you will never be mistaken.
To endure is the first thing that a child ought to learn, and that which he will have the most need to know.
The person who has lived the most is not the one with the most years but the one with the richest experiences.
Virtue is a state of war, and to live in it we have always to combat with ourselves.
The training of children is a profession, where we must know how to waste time in order to save it.
Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.
Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom.
The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem.
Most people ask for happiness on condition. Happiness can only be felt if you don't set any condition.
My mother taught me very early to believe I could achieve any accomplishment I wanted to. The first was to walk without braces.
The universe is made of stories, not atoms.
I think there is a choice possible to us at any moment, as long as we live. But there is no sacrifice. There is a choice, and the rest falls away. Second choice does not exist. Beware of those who talk about sacrifice.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
Only let the moving waters calm down, and the sun and moon will be reflected on the surface of your being.
The lion is most handsome when looking for food.
There is a force within that gives you life - seek that. In your body there lies a priceless jewel - seek that. Oh, wandering Sufi, if you are in search of the greatest treasure, don't look outside. Look within, and seek That.
Happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of traveling.
All life is six to five against.
You can become a winner only if you are willing to walk over the edge.
What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist.
When thought becomes excessively painful, action is the finest remedy.
Success by the laws of competition signifies a victory over others by obtaining the direction and profits of their work. This is the real source of all great riches.
To make your children capable of honesty is the beginning of education.
Nothing is ever done beautifully which is done in rivalship; or nobly, which is done in pride.
The secret of language is the secret of sympathy and its full charm is possible only to the gentle.
The common practice of keeping up appearances with society is a mere selfish struggle of the vain with the vain.
I believe the true test of a truly great man is his humility.
Tell me what you like and I'll tell you what you are.
Change is one thing, progress is another. 'Change' is scientific, 'progress' is ethical; change is indubitable, whereas progress is a matter of controversy.
To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.
No man treats a car as foolishly as he treats another human being. When the car will not go, he does not attribute its annoying behaviour to sin; he does not say 'you are a wicked motorcar and I shall not give you any more petroleum until you go. He attempts to find out what is wrong and to set it right.
At least half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of boredom.
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.
In all things it is a good idea to hang a question mark now and then on the things we have taken for granted.
One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.
Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education.
Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth, more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.
Television allows thousands of people to laugh at the same joke and still remain alone.
Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.
The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.
To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.
The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy; I mean that if you are happy you will be good.
If all our happiness is bound up entirely in our personal circumstances it is difficult not to demand of life more than it has to give.
The hardest thing in life is to know which bridge to cross and which to burn.
Pray to God, but keep rowing to shore.
The church is near but the road is icy, the bar is far away but I will walk carefully.
There is no shame in not knowing; the shame lies in not finding out.
You just can't beat the person who never gives up.
Never let the fear of striking out get in your way.
The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition.
Shakespeare, Leonardo Da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, and Lincoln never saw a movie, heard a radio, or looked at a TV. They had loneliness and knew what to do with it. They were not afraid of being lonely because they knew that was when the creative mood in them would mark.
Whenever I get to a low point, I go back to the basics. I ask myself, "Why am I doing this?" It comes down to passion.
Life has taught us that love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.
Have you ever thought, not only about the airplane but about whatever man builds, that all of man's industrial efforts, all his computations and calculations, all the nights spent over working drafts and blueprints, invariably culminate in the production of a thing whose sole and guiding principle is the ultimate principle of simplicity.
To be a man is to be responsible. It is to feel shame at the sight of what seems to be unmerited misery. It is to take pride in a victory won by one's comrades. It is to feel, when setting one's stone, that one is contributing to the building of the world.
A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.
What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.
If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.
How could there be any question of acquiring or possessing, when the one thing needful for a man is to become—to be at last, and to die in the fullness of his being.
You know you've achieved perfection in design, not when you have nothing more to add, but when you have nothing more to take away.
Tell me who admires you and loves you, and I will tell you who you are.
Failures are divided into two classes—those who thought and never did, and those who did and never thought.
I feel that the greatest reward for doing is the opportunity to do more.
One approaches the journey's end. But the end is a goal, not a catastrophe.
Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.
Nothing happens unless first a dream.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people who weren't there.
Fun is a good thing but only when it spoils nothing better.
Love makes us poets and the approach of death makes us philosophers.
Perhaps the only true dignity of man is his capacity to despise himself.
Sanity is a madness put to good uses.
Chaos is a name for any order that produces confusion in our minds.
The best way to escape from a problem is to solve it.
Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure.
Our dignity is not in what we do, but what we understand.
So that's what Hell is: I'd never have believed it... Do you remember, brimstone, the stake, the gridiron?... What a joke! No need of a gridiron, Hell is other people.
Everything has been figured out, except how to live.
Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.
The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.
No one has ever bet enough on a winning horse.
Pride, like laudanum and other poisonous medicines, is beneficial in small, though injurious in large quantities. No man who is not pleased with himself, even in a personal sense, can please others.
I learned that if you want to make it bad enough, no matter how bad it is, you can make it.
Talent is something, but tact is everything. It is the interpreter of all riddles, the surmounter of all difficulties, the remover of all obstacles.
Scientists and educators alike need to realize that the educated person is not the person who can answer the questions, but the person who can question the answers.
No greater grief than to remember days of gladness when sorrow is at hand.
It is criminal to steal a purse, daring to steal a fortune, a mark of greatness to steal a crown. The blame diminishes as the guilt increases.
Some people change their ways when they see the light, others when they feel the heat.
With people of limited ability modesty is merely honesty. But with those who possess great talent it is hypocrisy.
Money is human happiness in the abstract: he, then, who is no longer capable of enjoying human happiness in the concrete devotes his heart entirely to money.
It is a clear gain to sacrifice pleasure in order to avoid pain.
Honor has not to be won; it must only not be lost.
Without books the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are the engines of change, windows on the world, "Lighthouses" as the poet said "erected in the sea of time." They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind. Books are humanity in print.
Everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world.
Care more than others think wise, Risk more than others think safe, Dream more than others think practical, Expect more than others think possible.
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius—and a lot of courage—to move in the opposite direction.
The mind is the limit. As long as the mind can envision the fact that you can do something, you can do it—as long as you really believe 100 percent.
When placed in command—take charge.
The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it.
A great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.
It is not enough merely to exist. It's not enough to say, "I'm earning enough to support my family. I do my work well. I'm a good father, husband, churchgoer." That's all very well. But you must do something more. Seek always to do some good, somewhere. Every man has to seek in his own way to realize his true worth. You must give some time to your fellow man. Even if it's a little thing, do something for those who need help, something for which you get no pay but the privilege of doing it. For remember, you don't live in a world all your own. Your brothers are here too.
I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.
An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while the pessimist sees only the red stoplight.... The truly wise person is colorblind.
Sometimes our light goes out, but is blown again into flame by an encounter with another human being. Each of us owes the deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this inner light.
Integrity is not a 90 percent thing, not a 95 percent thing; either you have it or you don't.
Eagles come in all shapes and sizes, but you will recognize them chiefly by their attitudes.
We can't help everyone, but everyone can help someone.
The willow which bends to the tempest often escapes better than the oak which resists it; and so in great calamities, it sometimes happens that light and frivolous spirits recover their elasticity and presence of mind sooner than those of a loftier character.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive!
One hour of life, crowded to the full with glorious action, and filled with noble risks, is worth whole years of those mean observances of paltry decorum in which men steal through existence, like sluggish waters through a marsh, without either honor or observation.
Creation is a better means of self-expression than possession; it is through creating, not possessing, that life is revealed.
Take only memories, leave nothing but footprints.
Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.
Learned helplessness is the giving-up reaction, the quitting response that follows from the belief that whatever you do doesn't matter.
Failure changes for the better, success for the worse.
We should give as we would receive, cheerfully, quickly, and without hesitation; for there is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers.
Why is there no man who confesses his vices? It is because he has not yet laid them aside. It is a waking man only who can tell his dreams.
All cruelty springs from weakness.
Take from men ambition and vanity and you will have neither heroes nor patriots.
Many a man has found the acquisition of wealth only a change, not an end, of miseries.
Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.
As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.
Our care should not be to have lived long as to have lived enough.
It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.
Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for kindness.
If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.
Opportunity has hair in front; behind she is bald. If you seize her by the forelock, you may hold her; but if suffered to escape, not Jupiter himself can catch her again.
Not he who has little, but he who wishes more, is poor.
Life without the courage for death is slavery.
Friendship always benefits; love sometimes injures.
Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
If we desire to judge justly, we must persuade ourselves that none of us is without sin.
If you wait for tomorrow, tomorrow comes. If you don't wait for tomorrow, tomorrow comes.
It isn't the mountain ahead that wears you out; it's the grain of sand in your shoe.
Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It's not.
Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win,
By fearing to attempt.
They do not love that do not show their love.
In time we hate that which we often fear.
What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
Who steals my purse steals trash; 'tis something, nothing; '
Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.
It is meant that noble minds keep ever with their likes;
For who so firm that cannot be seduced.
Some men never seem to grow old.
Always active in thought, always ready to adopt new ideas, they are never chargeable with foggyism.
Satisfied, yet ever dissatisfied, settled, yet ever unsettled, they always enjoy the best of what is, are the first to find the best of what will be.
Fierce extremes In their continuances will not feed themselves.
All's well that ends well.
Action is eloquence.
And oftentimes excusing of a fault
Doth make the fault the worse by the excuse.
Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Be not afraid of greatness; some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.
Things won are done, joy's soul lies in the doing.
He is not great who is not greatly good.
Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind;
The thief doth fear each bush an officer.
... and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
I served my king, he would not in mine age
Have left me naked to mine enemies.
Strong reasons make strong actions.
This above all: to thine own self be true.
And it must follow as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
'Tis one thing to be tempted, another thing to fall.
Our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.
Striving to better, oft we mar what's well.
Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.
As long as I have a want, I have a reason for living. Satisfaction is death.
Attention and activity lead to mistakes as well as to successes; but a life spent in making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no "brief candle" for me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.
Hell is paved with good intentions, not with bad ones. All men mean well.
Life at its noblest leaves mere happiness far behind; and indeed cannot endure it. Happiness is not the object of life; life has no object; it is an end in itself; and courage consists in the readiness to sacrifice happiness for an intenser quality of life.
As long as I can conceive something better than myself I cannot be easy unless I am striving to bring it into existence or clearing the way for it.
The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity.
The fickleness of the women I love is only equaled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me.
A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time. When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, The one I feed the most.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.
To be in hell is to drift; to be in heaven is to steer.
The only man who behaved sensibly was my tailor; he took my measurement anew every time he saw me, while all the rest went on with their old measurements and expected them to fit me.
Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire; you will what you imagine; and at last you create what you will.
All great truths begin as blasphemies.
I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one's business on earth, like the male spider, who is killed by the female the moment he has succeeded in his courtship. I like a state of continual becoming, with a goal in front and not behind.
You see things; and you say, "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I say "Why not?"
Forget about likes and dislikes. They are of no consequence. Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness, but it is greatness.
There is nothing that can be changed more completely than human nature when the job is taken in hand early enough.
When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his Duty.
Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.
When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part.
We must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty is the best policy.
A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
Martyrdom is the only way a person can become famous without ability.
The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is.
If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.
Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.
The liar’s punishment is, not in the least that he cannot be believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.
Of all the damnable waste of human life that ever was invented, clerking is the worst.
Life does not cease to be funny when people die; any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
Self-sacrifice enables us to sacrifice other people without blushing.
Do not do unto others as you would they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.
Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. All progress depends on the unreasonable man.
People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances that they want, and if they can't find them, make them.
We mingle in society not so much to meet others as to escape ourselves.
Experience increases our wisdom but doesn`t reduce our follies.
The wheel that squeaks the loudest is the one that gets the grease.
Most people when they come to you for advice, come to have their own opinions strengthened, not corrected.
Pain has its own rules, and those people who tell you the human race seeks to avoid it do not, of course, know what they`re talking about.
Happiness is different from pleasure. Happiness has something to do with struggling and enduring and accomplishing.
Growth demands a temporary surrender of security.
Happiness is essentially a state of going somewhere wholeheartedly, one-directionally, without regret or reservation.
Trouble is part of your life—if you don't share it, you don't give the person who loves you a chance to love you enough.
I think that there were only two people in my high school that were comfortable there, and I think they are both pumping gas now.
One thing I never want to be accused of is not working.
The minute you start talking about what you’re going to do if you lose, you have lost.
It is the experience of living that is important, not searching for meaning. We bring meaning by how we love the world.
You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try.
The key to wisdom is knowing all the right questions.
We must believe in free will, we have no choice.
There is great treasure there behind our skull and this is true about all of us. This little treasure has great, great powers, and I would say we only have learnt a very, very small part of what it can do.
Every child has great ambitions. As he grows, he is bombarded by negative suggestions—you can't do this; you can't do that; be careful; look for security, and so on. Year by year, he experiences the "realities" of life, and his ambitions fade away. Figuratively speaking, most children die by the time they reach their adulthood.
The white man knows how to make everything, but he does not know how to distribute it.
Anger is a great force. If you control it, it can be transmuted into a power which can move the whole world.
The task of management is not to apply a formula but to decide issues on a case-by-case basis. No fixed, inflexible rule can ever be substituted for the exercise of sound business judgment in the decision-making process.
Take my assets—but leave me my organization and in five years I'll have it all back.
All’s fair in love and war.
Hope is the companion of power, and mother of success; for who so hopes strongly has within him the gift of miracles.
If you make every game a life and death proposition, you're going to have problems. For one thing, you'll be dead a lot.
To believe in something not yet proved and to underwrite it with our lives: it is the only way we can leave the future open. Man, surrounded by facts, permitting himself no surmise, no intuitive flash, no great hypothesis, no risk, is in a locked cell. Ignorance cannot seal the mind and imagination more surely.
To deny we need and want power is to deny that we hope to be effective.
Never try to reason the prejudice out of a man. It wasn't reasoned into him, and cannot be reasoned out.
Swing hard, in case they throw the ball where you're swinging.
Nothing is so strong as gentleness and nothing is so gentle as real strength.
Wisdom begins in wonder.
The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms.
Remember, what is unbecoming to do is also unbecoming to speak of.
What you cannot enforce, do not command.
He is richest who is content with the least.
Be as you wish to seem.
Know Thyself.
Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people.
If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap, whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be content to take their own and depart.
Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity.
Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty.
The business of the samurai consists in reflecting on his own station in life, in discharging loyal service to his master if he has one, in deepening his fidelity in associations with friends and, with due consideration of his own position, in devoting himself to duty above all.
The salvation of mankind lies only in making everything the concern of all.
One should never direct people towards happiness, because happiness too is an idol of the market-place. One should direct them towards mutual affection. A beast gnawing at its prey can be happy too, but only human beings can feel affection for each other, and this is the highest achievement they can aspire to.
Existence is no more than the precarious attainment of relevance in an intensely mobile flux of past, present, and future.
Sanity is a cozy lie.
The only interesting answers are those that destroy the questions.
Taste has no system and no proofs.
Victims suggest innocence. And innocence, by the inexorable logic that governs all relational terms, suggests guilt.
For a long time it seemed to me that life was about to begin—real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.
Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.
It is easy to dodge our responsibilities, but we cannot dodge the consequences of dodging our responsibilities.
Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want.
Confidence doesn't come out of nowhere. It's a result of something... hours and days and weeks and years of constant work and dedication.
If all the rich people in the world divided up their money amongst themselves there wouldn't be enough to go around.
What is the difference between unethical and ethical advertising? Unethical advertising uses falsehoods to deceive the public; ethical advertising uses truth to deceive the public.
There ain't no answer. There ain't going to be any answer. There never has been an answer. That's the answer.
The wise man questions the wisdom of others because he questions his own, the foolish man, because it is different from his own.
Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and the spirit of a man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, or in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man.
They say a clean cut heals soonest. There's nothing sadder to me than associations held together by nothing but the glue of postage stamps. If you can't see or hear or touch a man, it's best to let him go.
Power can be taken, but not given. The process of the taking is empowerment in itself.
Beauty is the promise of happiness.
The key to being a good manager is keeping the people who hate me away from those who are still undecided.
If you have tried to do something and failed, you are vastly better off than if you had tried to do nothing and succeeded. You must never regret what might have been. The past that did not happen is as hidden from us as the future we cannot see.
I believe that if we really want human brotherhood to spread and increase until it makes life safe and sane, we must also be certain that there is no one true faith or path by which it may spread.
It is often easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
Flattery is all right- if you don't inhale.
Accuracy is to a newspaper what virtue is to a lady, but a newspaper can always print a retraction.
Our business in this world is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits.
Don`t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.
Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others.
A friend is a present you give yourself.
To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.
The cruelest lies are often told in silence.
To be idle requires a strong sense of personal identity.
You cannot run away from a weakness; you must sometimes fight it out or perish. And if that be so, why not now, and where you stand?
The test of tolerance comes when we are in a majority; the test of courage comes when we are in a minority.
We have a problem. "Congratulations." But it's a tough problem. "Then double congratulations."
There is little difference in people, but that little difference makes a big difference. That little difference is attitude. The big difference is whether it is positive or negative.
You can take no credit for beauty at sixteen. But if you are beautiful at sixty, it will be your soul's own doing.
The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.
It’s a little like wrestling a gorilla. You don’t quit when you're tired—you quit when the gorilla is tired.
Hurry? I have no time to hurry.
When someone tells me there is only one way to do things, it always lights a fire under my butt. My instant reaction is, “I’m gonna prove you wrong.”
To fall in love is easy, even to remain in it is not difficult; our human loneliness is cause enough. But it is a hard quest worth making to find a comrade through whose steady presence one becomes steadily the person one desires to be.
The only time you don't fail is the last time you try anything—and it works.
Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.
Opportunities multiply as they are seized.
To defeat a strong enemy: Deploy forces to defend the strategic points; exercise vigilance in preparation, do not be indolent. Deeply investigate the true situation, secretly await their laxity. Wait until they leave their strongholds, then seize what they love.
Visible goodwill is the strongest negotiation strategy. Don't let somebody else determine your behavior.
In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's mind there are few.
There are three things which if one does not know, one cannot live long in the world: what is too much for one, what is too little for one, and what is just right for one.
Courage is not the towering oak that sees storms come and go; it is the fragile blossom that opens in the snow.
Kindness is an inner desire that makes us want to do good things even if we do not get anything in return. It is the joy of our life to do them. When we do good things from this inner desire, there is kindness in everything we think, say, want and do.
Shared joy is double joy. Shared sorrow is half sorrow.
Fear less, hope more; Whine less, breathe more; Talk less, say more; Hate less, love more; And all good things are yours.
The world is full of abundance and opportunity, but far too many people come to the fountain of life with a sieve instead of a tank car… a teaspoon instead of a steam shovel. They expect little and as a result they get little.
The best advice on the art of being happy is about as easy to follow as advice to be well when one is sick.
We expect everything and are prepared for nothing.
When the world has once begun to use us ill, it afterwards continues the same treatment with less scruple or ceremony, as men do to a whore.
The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.
No wise man ever wished to be younger.
Vision is the art of seeing things that are invisible.
May you live all the days of your life.
To refuse graciously is to confer a favor.
Never promise more than you can perform.
That should be considered long which can be decided but once.
The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.
When a person can no longer laugh at himself, it is time for others to laugh at him.
Some people say they haven't yet found themselves. But the self is not something one finds; it is something one creates.
Knowledge is gained by learning; trust by doubt; skill by practice; love by love.
Discovery consists in seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what no one else has thought.
A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind.
Even the bravest men are frightened by sudden terrors.
You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water. Don't let yourself indulge in vain wishes.
I slept and dreamt that life was Joy. I woke and saw that life was Duty. I acted, and behold, Duty was Joy.
If you can't change your fate, change your attitude.
People don't change their behavior unless it makes a difference for them to do so.
From my tribe I take nothing. I am the maker of my own fortune.
To the right, books; to the left, a tea-cup. In front of me, the fireplace; behind me, the post. There is no greater happiness than this.
We have only to believe. And the more threatening and irreducible reality appears, the more firmly and desperately we must believe. Then, little by little, we shall see the universal horror unbend, and then smile upon us, and then take us in its more than human arms.
The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides, and gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, we shall have discovered fire.
T’is better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.
People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered. Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you win false friends and enemies. Succeed anyway.
The good you do will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.
People really need help but may attack you if you help them. Help people anyway.
Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you've got anyway.
Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.
If you judge people you have no time to love them.
It's not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.
We can do no great things; only small things with great love.
If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.
Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.
Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness: kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile.
Everybody today seems to be in such a terrible rush, anxious for greater developments and greater riches and so on, so that children have very little time for their parents. Parents have very little time for each other, and in the home begins the disruption of peace of the world.
Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.
A good laugh is sunshine in a house.
To love and win is the best thing. To love and lose, the next best.
The wisdom of hindsight, so useful to historians and indeed to authors of memoirs, is sadly denied to practicing politicians.
Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.
I've always believed no matter how many shots I miss, I'm going to make the next one.
We leave traces of ourselves wherever we go, on whatever we touch.
There are no solitary, free-living creatures: Every form of life is dependent on other forms... We should go warily into the furture, looking for ways to be more useful, listening more carefully for the signals, watching our step, and having an eye out for partners.
Try a thing you haven't done three times. Once, to get over the fear of doing it. Twice, to learn how to do it. And a third time, to figure out whether you like it or not.
Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each.
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
It is never too late to give up your prejudices.
Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.
There is no remedy for love but to love more.
To regret deeply is to live afresh.
A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
Anyone in a free society where the laws are unjust has an obligation to break the law.
Men have become the tools of their tools.
What is the good of having a nice house without a decent planet to put it on?
Most of the luxuries and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.
It is only when we forget our learning, do we begin to know.
Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.
If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavors to live the life he imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.
True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance.
Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but religiously follows the new.
Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.
Experience is in the fingers and head. The heart is inexperienced.
What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.
Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.
The secret of Happiness is Freedom, and the secret of Freedom, Courage.
Depression is rage spread thin.
The first duty of love is to listen.
Born often under another sky, placed in the middle of an always moving scene, himself driven by the irresistible torrent which draws all about him, the American has no time to tie himself to anything, he grows accustomed only to change, and ends by regarding it as the natural state of man. He feels the need of it, more he loves it, for the instability; instead of meaning disaster to him, it seems to give birth only to miracles all about him.
The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.
All happy families resemble one another; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own fashion.
The strongest of all warriors are these two—Time and Patience.
The more we live by our intellect, the less we understand the meaning of life.
Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.
There is no greatness where there is not simplicity.
I always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific.
I always wondered why somebody doesn't do something about that. Then I realized I was somebody.
For fast acting relief, try slowing down.
A good manager doesn't try to eliminate conflict; he tries to keep it from wasting the energies of his people. If you're the boss and your people fight you openly when they think that you are wrong—that's healthy.
The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play.
To love one person with a private love is poor and miserable; to love all is glorious.
Better to be pruned to grow than cut up to burn.
As long as you’re going to be thinking anyway, think big.
I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it's hell.
Carry the battle to them. Don't let them bring it to you. Put them on the defensive. And don't ever apologize for anything.
Well, I wouldn't say that I was in the great class, but I had a great time while I was trying to be great.
I always remember an epitaph that is in the cemetery at Tombstone, Arizona. It says: 'Here lies Jack Williams. He done his damnedest.' I think that is the greatest epitaph a man can have.
...there is no poison on earth more potent, nor half so deadly, as a partial truth mixed with passion.
A heart in love with beauty never grows old.
Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary.
If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.
Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.
The man who sets out to carry a cat by its tail learns something that will always be useful and which never will grow dim or doubtful.
Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
I can teach anybody how to get what they want out of life. The problem is that I can't find anybody who can tell me what they want.
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear.
When I was fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have him around. When I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.
Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.
The public is the only critic whose opinion is worth anything at all.
Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.
It is not best that we should all think alike; it is differences of opinion that make horse races.
Put all your eggs in the one basket and—WATCH THAT BASKET.
The miracle, or the power, that elevates the few is to be found in their industry, application, and perseverance under the prompting of a brave, determined spirit.
Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.
Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.
The man who is ostentatious of his modesty is twin to the statue that wears a fig-leaf.
Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does the work.
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
The proper office of a friend is to side with you when you are in the wrong.
History may not repeat itself, but it does rhyme a lot.
By trying, we can easily learn to endure adversity —another man's, I mean.
Let us be thankful for the fools; but for them the rest of us could not succeed.
We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it—and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again, and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.
All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.
Reputations are made by searching for things that can't be done and doing them.
We have, I fear, confused power with greatness.
It is only by expressing all that is inside that purer and purer streams come.
Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.
Life is doubt, and faith without doubt is nothing but death.
Conceit is bragging about yourself. Confidence means you believe you can get the job done.
Desire! That's the one secret of every man's career. Not education. Not being born with hidden talents. Desire.
Who sees all beings in his own Self, and his own Self in all beings, loses all fear.
Dreams come true; without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them.
My first thought about art, as a child, was that the artist brings something into the world that didn't exist before, and that he does it without destroying something else. A kind of refutation of the conservation of matter. That still seems to me its central magic, its core of joy.
Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or doing it better.
My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person. He believed in me.
The weakness of strength is that it counts only on strength.
Things that I felt absolutely sure of but a few years ago, I do not believe now. This thought makes me see more clearly how foolish it would be to expect all men to agree with me.
Time is Too slow for those who Wait, Too swift for those who Fear, Too long for those who Grieve; Too short for those who Rejoice; But for those who Love, Time is Eternity.
Some succeed because they are destined to, but most succeed because they are determined to.
Use what talent you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best.
Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.
Love is something eternal; the aspect may change, but not the essence.
If one is master of one thing and understands one thing well, one has at the same time, insight into and understanding of many things.
Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.
I always think that the best way to know God is to love many things.
The biggest things are often the easiest to do because there is so little competition.
The wicked are always surprised to find that the good can be clever.
Men sometimes feel injured by praise because it assigns a limit to their merit; few people are modest enough not to take offense that one appreciates them.
If you don't invest very much, then defeat doesn't hurt very much and winning is not very exciting.
As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests
Fortune favors the bold.
As a twig is bent the tree inclines.
To love and to be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.
Common sense is not so common.
Present opportunities are not to be neglected; they rarely visit us twice.
Anyone who seeks to destroy the passions instead of controlling them is trying to play the angel.
Fear follows crime and is its punishment.
He is a hard man who is only just, and a sad one who is only wise.
Love is a canvas furnished by Nature and embroidered by imagination.
As long as people believe in absurdities, they will continue to commit atrocities.
If God created us in his own image, we have more than reciprocated.
To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.
Man is free at the moment he wishes to be.
He who helps in the saving of others, saves himself as well.
We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.
I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.
We are what we imagine ourselves to be.
Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be.
The winners in life think constantly in terms of I can, I will, and I am. Losers, on the other hand, concentrate their waking thoughts on what they should have or would have done, or what they can’t do.
Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.
Expect the best, plan for the worst, and prepare to be surprised.
If there are twelve clowns in a ring, you can jump in the middle and start reciting Shakespeare, but to the audience, you'll just be the thirteenth clown.
Beauty is altogether in the eye of the beholder.
Success is not a doorway, it's a staircase.
Today, the person who is the real risk-taker is anonymous and nonheroic. It's the one trying to make institutions work.
The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.
The pessimist complains about the wind; The optimist expects it to change; The realist adjusts his sails.
Blessed is he who has learned to admire but not envy, to follow but not imitate, to praise but not flatter, and to lead but not manipulate.
Forgiveness is a funny thing. It warms the heart and cools the sting.
It is wise to direct your anger towards problems, not people; to focus your energies on answers, not excuses.
If you can imagine it, you can achieve it. If you can dream it, you can become it.
Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.
The vocabulary of pleasure depends on the imagery of pain.
What is difficulty? Only a word indicating the degree of effort required to accomplish something! A mere notice of the necessity for exertion; a scarecrow to children and fools and a stimulus to real men.
Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him.
I believe that any man's life will be filled with constant and unexpected encouragement, if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day, and as nearly as possible reaches the high water mark of pure and useful living.
True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity, before it is entitled to the appellation.
Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force! It is a dangerous servant and a terrible master.
Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation, for 'tis better to be alone than in bad company.
Be courteous to all, but intimate with few; and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence.
Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained—but if everything is ventured, and still nothing gained, give up and venture elsewhere.
Whenever an individual or a business decides that success has been attained, progress stops.
A man flattened by an opponent can get up again. A man flattened by conformity stays down for good.
The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.
Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.
Character is doing the right thing when nobody's looking. There are too many people who think that the only thing that's right is to get by, and the only thing that's wrong is to get caught.
A man desires praise that he may be reassured, that he may be quit of his doubting of himself; he is indifferent to applause when he is confident of success.
I became an optimist when I discovered that I wasn't going to win any more games by being anything else.
To live with fear and not be afraid is the final test of maturity.
The capacity to give one's attention to a sufferer is a very rare and difficult thing; it is almost a miracle; it is a miracle. Nearly all those who think they have this capacity do not possess it. Warmth of heart, impulsiveness, pity are not enough.
If you pick the right people and give them the opportunity to spread their wings—and put compensation as a carrier behind it—you almost don't have to manage them.
Only in a police state is the job of a policeman easy.
Do all the good you can, By all the means you can, In all the ways you can, In all the places you can, At all the times you can, To all the people you can, As long as ever you can.
Love conquers all things except poverty and toothache.
He who hesitates is a damned fool.
Saving love doesn't bring any interest.
One has to abandon altogether the search for security, and reach out to the risk of living with both arms. One has to court doubt and darkness as the cost of knowing. One needs a will stubborn in conflict, but apt always to total acceptance of every consequence of living and dying.
There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it.
The things we fear most in organizations—fluctuations, disturbances, imbalances—are the primary sources of creativity.
We live on an island surrounded by a sea of ignorance. As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
Until the eyes of self esteem are open, there will be no true sight. Until the voice of self motivation has spoken you cannot take action. Until the listening of self control is heard, you roam endlessly. Until you master all these things, you are useless to self, and to mankind.
Do not attempt to do a thing unless you are sure of yourself; but do not relinquish it simply because someone else is not sure of you.
Whether a man is burdened by power or enjoys power; whether he is trapped by responsibility or made free by it; whether he is moved by other people and outer forces or moves them—this is of the essence of leadership.
Blessed are they who heal us of self-despising. Of all services which can be done to man, I know of none more precious.
Intelligence is quickness to apprehend as distinct from ability, which is capacity to act wisely on the thing apprehended.
Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are cavalry charges in a battle—they are limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments.
Simple solutions seldom are. It takes a very unusual mind to undertake analysis of the obvious.
An enormous part of our mature experience cannot be expressed in words.
It is said that people work hard for money, a leader and a cause. But the weight of these three differs. A leader motivates more powerfully than money, and a cause motivates more powerfully than a leader.
Of all the words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these... it might have been.
Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go and do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.
The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live.
Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about.
Our obligation is to give meaning to life and in doing so to overcome the passive, indifferent life.
There may be many times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.
Teaching is the greatest act of optimism.
Talk happiness. The world is sad enough without your woe. No path is wholly rough.
Progress always involves risk; you can't steal second base and keep your foot on first base.
Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.
Life is far too important to be taken seriously.
As long as war is regarded as wicked it will always have its fascinations. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular.
Argument's are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing.
There is no such thing as a moral book or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. That is all.
The soul is born old but grows young. That is the comedy of life. And the body is born young and grows old. That is life's tragedy.
The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.
In life, we are all in the gutter. Some of us just tend to look up at the stars.
The condition of perfection is idleness; the aim of perfection is youth.
Each time that one loves is the only time one has ever loved. Difference of object does not alter singleness of passion. It merely intensifies it. We can have but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible.
To love one's self is the beginning of a lifelong romance.
Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.
Those whom the gods love grow young.
The only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.
Private information is practically the source of every large modern fortune.
Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing.
Only the shallow know themselves.
Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else`s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
Many who have spent a lifetime in it can tell us less of love than the child that lost a dog yesterday.
It's when you're safe at home that you wish you were having an adventure. When you're having an adventure you wish you were safe at home.
My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy the ice cream while it's on your plate.
Seek the lofty by reading, hearing and seeing great work at some moment every day.
He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder.
I can't stand a naked light bulb, any more than I can a rude remark or a vulgar action.
Only the curious will learn and only the resolute will overcome the obstacles to learning. The quest quotient has always excited me more than the intelligence quotient.
Success in almost any field depends more on energy and drive than it does on intelligence. This explains why we have so many stupid leaders.
There is a price which is too great to pay for peace, and that price can be put in one word. One cannot pay the price of self-respect.
If you want to make enemies, try to change something.
One cool judgment is worth a dozen hasty councils. The thing to do is to supply light and not heat.
I couldn't wait for success, so I went ahead without it.
The limits of my language are the limits of my world.
The human body is the best picture of the human soul.
Everything that can be thought at all can be thought clearly. Everything that can be said can be said clearly.
The beauty myth moves for men as a mirage; its power lies in its ever-receding nature. When the gap is closed, the lover embraces only his own disillusion.
Love is born in fire, is planted like a seed Love cannot give you everything, but it gives you what you need.
The only time a woman can really succeed in changing a man is when he is a baby.
If you can't have faith in what is held up to you for faith, you must find things in yourself, for a life without faith in something is too narrow a place to live.
Don't measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability.
Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.
Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.
Nothing will work unless you do.
Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation. Your character is what you really are while your reputation is merely what others think you are.
You cannot live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.
I am the world’s worst salesman. Therefore, I must make it easy for people to buy.
The best portion of a good man's life is his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.
The child is father of the man.
The inappropriate cannot be beautiful.
I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.
We could hardly wait to get up in the morning.
Laughter between two is sometimes a closer act of love than any other.
Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.
A half truth is a whole lie.
Never let a day pass that you will have cause to say, I will do better tomorrow.
It is better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one than to have an opportunity and not be prepared.
Resentment is one burden that is incompatible with your success. Always be the first to forgive, and forgive yourself first always.
If two men on a job agree all the time, then one is useless. If they disagree all the time, then both are useless.
The tighter you squeeze, the less you have.
The truth is on the march and nothing will stop it.