Who Said It? · Memorable Quotes

We ust find our duties in what comes to us, not in what might have been.

The strongest principle of growth lies in the human choice.

The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone.

It is never too late to be what you might have been.
George Eliot - Romola
Our deeds are like children that are born to us;they live and act apart from our own will.

What do we live for if not to make life less difficult for each other?

The reward of one duty is the power to fulfill another.

Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us worthy evidence of the fact.

Different taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.
George Eliot - Scenes of Clerical Life - Amos Barton
Every man who is not a monster, mathematician or a mad philosopher, is the slave of some woman or other.

Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.

Ignorance gives one a large range of probabilities.
George Eliot - Middlemarch, Ch 8
But pride only helps us to be generous; it never makes us so, any more than vanity makes us witty.

It is only a poor sort of happiness that could ever come by caring very much about our own pleasures. We can only have the highest happiness such as goes along with being a great man, by having wide thoughts and much feeling for the rest of the world as well as ourselves.
George Eliot - Middlemarch
Some people did what their neighbors did so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them.
George Eliot - 1819-1880
It is never too late to become what we might have been.

When one is grateful for something too good for common thanks, writing is less unsatisfactory than speech-one does not, at least, hear how inadequate the words are.
George Eliot - The Mill On The Floss, Ch 9
Childhood has no forebodings, but then, it is soothed by no memories of outlived sorrow.

There is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and have recovered hope.

No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can feel trust and reverence.

Perhaps the most delightful friendships are those in which there is much agreement, much disputation, and yet more personal liking.

It is a common enough case, that of a man being suddenly captivated by a woman nearly the opposite of his ideal.

Wear a smile and have friends,
wear a scowl and have wrinkles.
George Eliot - The Mill on the Floss, 1860
There is no feeling, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music.

Keep true, never be ashamed of doing right; decide on what you think is right and stick to it.

One must be poor to know the luxury of giving.
George Eliot - "Middlemarch", Book I, ch.1
Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into relief by poor dress.
George Eliot - a.k.a. Mary Ann Evans
Excessive literary production is a social offense.

I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music.

Can any man or woman choose duties? No more that they can choose their birthplace, or their father or mother.
George Eliot - Silas Marner (1861)
Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.

The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men.
George Eliot - Middlemarch
The troublesome ones in a family are usually either the wits or the idiots.

The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice.
George Eliot - internet
No evil dooms us hopelessly, except the evil we love, and desire to continue in and make no effort to escape from.
George Eliot - Romola, 1863
Our deeds are like children that are born to us; they live and act apart from our own will. Nay, children may be strangled, but deeds never: they have an indestructible life both in and out of our consciousness.
George Eliot - Middlemarch
What we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.
George Eliot - Felix Holt, the Radical, 1866
The scornful nostril and the high head gather not the odors that lie on the track of truth.

Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.

- George Eliot

He who has never envied the vegetable has missed the human drama.

The Art of Love: knowing how to combine the temperment of a vampire with the discretion of an anemone.

Music is the refuge of souls ulcerated by happiness.

The history of ideas is the history of the grudges of solitary men.

Music is the refuge of souls ulcerated by happiness.

- E.M. Cioran

Imitation is suicide.

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a little better; whether by a healthy child, a garden patch of a redeemed social condition; to know that one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is the meaning of success.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesman and philosophers and divines.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - "Self-Reliance", 1841
Speak what you think today in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today.

If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Letters and Social Aims (Quotation and Originality)
Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - "American Civilization", The Atlantic Monthly, 1862
Hitch your wagon to a star.

What a new face courage puts on everything.

Science does not know its debt to imagination. Goethe did not believe that a great naturalist could exist without this faculty.

The key to every man is his thought. Sturdy and defying though he look, he has a helm which he obeys, which is the idea after which all his facts are classified. He can only be reformed by showing him a new idea which commands his own.

As we grow old?the beauty steals inward.

Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors.

All our progress is an unfolding, like a vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge as the plant has root, bud, and fruit. Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.

Our knowledge is the amassed thought and experience of innumerable minds.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - "Nature"
The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eyes and the heart of the child.

I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the Stern Fact, the Sad Self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from.

Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.

Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we can.

All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.

We take care of our health, we lay up money, we make our roof tight and our clothing sufficient, but who provides wisely that he shall not be wanting the best property of all -- friends?

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. No man has learned anything rightly, until he know that every day is Doomsday.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Conduct of Life
The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.

Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.

My evening visitors, if they cannot see the clock, should find the time in my face.

Happiness is a perfume which you cannot pour on someone without getting some on yourself.

Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.

The only way to have a friend is to be one.

Every sweet has its sour; every evil its good.

The peril of every fine faculty is the delight of playing with it for pride. Talent is commonly developed at the expense of character, and the greater it grows, the more is the mischief. Talent is mistaken for genius, a dogma or system for truth, ambition for greatest, ingenuity for poetry, sensuality for art.

There are two classes of poets - the poets by education and practice, these we respect; and poets by nature, these we love.

A good intention but fixed and resolute - bent on high and holy ends, we shall find means to them on every side and at every moment; and even obstacles and opposition will but make us "like the fabled specter-ships," which sail the fastest in the very teeth of the wind.

Life is a perpetual instruction in cause and effect.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Natural History of Intellect (1893)
The bitterest tragic element in life to be derived from an intellectual source is the belief in a brute Fate or Destiny.

Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Essay: Nature
To the body and mind which have been cramped by noxious work or company, nature is medicinal and restores their tone.

Insist on yourself; never imitate... Every great man is unique.

There is no thought in any mind, but it quickly tends to convert itself into a power.

Nature hates calculators.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Society and Solitude: Works and Days, 1870
A man builds a fine house; and now he has a master, and a task for life; he is to furnish, watch, show it, and keep it in repair, the rest of his days.

Sooner of later that which is now life shall be poetry, and every fair and manly trait shall add a richer strain to the song.

If eyes were made for seeing,
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Self-Reliance
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

All men are in some degree impressed by the face of the world; some men even to delight. This love of beauty is taste. Others have the same love in such success that, not content with admiring, they seek to embody it in new forms. The creation of beauty is art.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Address on The Method of Nature, 1841
He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses.

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in, forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day, you shall begin it well and serenely...

By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Self Reliance (essay)
...the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness, the independence of solitude.

People only see what they are prepared to see.

I hate quotations.

Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.

You must pay for conformity. All goes well as long as you run with conformists. But you, who are honest men in other particulars, know that there is alive somewhere a man whose honesty reaches to this point also, that he shall not kneel to false gods, and, on the day when you meet him, you sink into the class of counterfeits.

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little course, and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice. Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - The Method of Nature (1841)
Talent finds its models, methods, and ends in society, exists for exhibition, and goes to the soul only for power to work. Genius is its own end, and draws its means and the style of its architecture from within.

I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.

To be great is to be misunderstood.

When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.

The only way to have a friend is to be one.

Truth is the summit of being; justice is the application of it to affairs.

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

The measure of a master is his success in bringing all men around to his opinion twenty years later.

Take egotism out and you would castrate the benefactors.

We are prisoners of ideas.

Money, which represents the prose of life, and which is hardly spoken of in parlors without an apology, is, in its effects and laws, as beautiful as roses.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - "The Rhodora"
If eyes were made for seeing, then beauty is its own excuse for being.

The greatest homage we can pay truth is to use it.

To be great is to be misunderstood.

Who so would be a man, must be a nonconformist.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - quoting a friend
Being perfectly well-dressed gives a feeling of tranquility that religion is powerless to bestow.

Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we can.

The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.

Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it. I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.

None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.

The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.

Common sense is as rare as genius.

There is no den in the wide world to hide a rogue. Commit a crime and the earth is made of glass. Commit a crime, and it seems as if a coat of snow fell on the ground, such as reveals in the woods the track of every partridge, and fox, and squirrel.

A friend might well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.

We aim above the mark to hit the mark.

Nature magically suits a man to his fortunes, by making them the fruit of his character.

Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.

Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.

People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.

God enters by a private door into every individual.

You cannot do wrong without suffering wrong.

The imbecility of men is always inviting the impudence of power.

Sooner of later that which is now life shall be poetry, and every fair and manly trait shall add a richer strain to the song.

There is always room for a man of force, and he makes room for many.

Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for his competitors, for it is that which all are practising every day while they live.

Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.

We are students of words; we are shut up in schools, and colleges, and recitation rooms, for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bag of wind, a memory of words, and do not know a thing

Finish each day before you begin the next, and interpose a solid wall of sleep between the two. This you cannot do without temperance.

Give all to love; obey thy heart.

Whoever is open, loyal, true; of humane and affable demeanour; honourable himself, and in his judgement of others; faithful to his word as to law, and faithful alike to God and man....such a man is a true gentleman.

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer.

I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do or any kindness that I can show for any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.

Each man takes care that his neighbor shall not cheat him. But a day comes when he begins to care that he does not cheat his neighbor. Then all goes well -- he has changed his market-cart into a chariot of the sun.

The less government we have the better.

So of cheerfulness, or a good temper, the more it is spent, the more it remains.

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.

I see her not dispirited, not weak, but well, remembering that she has seen dark times before, indeed with a kind of instinct that she sees a little better in a cloudy day.

What can we see, read, acquire, but ourselves. Take the book, my friend, and read your eyes out, you will never find there what I find.

To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of our own mind.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Society and Solitude (1870)
As soon as there is life there is danger.

We are students of words: we are shut up in schools, and colleges, and recitation-rooms, for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bag of wind, a memory of words, and do not know a thing.

Every hero becomes a bore at last.

Always do what you are afraid to do.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Letters and Social Aims: Quotation and Originality, 1876
In the highest civilization, the book is still the highest delight. He who has once known its satisfactions is provided with a resource against calamity.

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - (attributed)
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Letters and Social Aims: The Comic, 1876
Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit.

We are born believing. A man bears beliefs, as a tree bears apples.

Before we acquire great power, we must acquire wisdom to use it well.

The ancestor of every action is a thought.

Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves.

To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day who allows it to be invated by worry, fret and anxiety.

To know one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

The only gift is a portion of thyself.

The power of love, as the basis of a State, has never been tried.

If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me.

Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.

People only see what they are prepared to see.

The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.

What you are shouts so loud in my ears I cannot hear what you say.

I hate quotations.

The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

The more he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Journals, 1839
The best effect of fine persons is felt after we have left their presence.

Make yourself necessary to somebody. Do not make life hard to any.

A man of genius is privileged only as far as he is genius. His dullness is as insupportable as any other dullness.

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could.

The first wealth is health.

Often a certain abdication of prudence and foresight is an element of success.

Character is higher than intellect... A great soul will be strong to live, as well as to think.

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - An Essay on Self-Reliance
To be great is to be misunderstood.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - New England Reformers, 1844
Men are conservatives when they are least vigorous, or when they are most luxurious. They are conservatives after dinner.

The glory of friendship is not the outstreched 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.

Here is the world, sound as a nut, perfect, not the smallest piece of chaos left, never a stitch nor an end, not a mark of haste, or botching, or second thought; but the theory of the world is a thing of shreds and patches.

The adventitious beauty of poetry may be felt in the greater delight with a verse given in a happy quotation than in the poem.

The best lightning rod for your protection is your own spine.

What a searching preacher of self-command is the varying phenomenon of health.

A friend is one before whom I may think aloud.

Self-trust is the essence of heroism

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Society and Solitude
The true test of a civilization is not the census, nor the size of the cities, nor the crops?no, but the kind of man the country turns out.

There is nothing capricious in nature and the implanting of a desire indicates that its gratification is in the constitution of the creature that feel it.

The reward for a thing well done is to have done it.

A child is a curly, dimpled lunatic.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Journal (May 1849)
Immortality. I notice that as soon as writers broach this question they begin to quote. I hate quotation. Tell me what you know.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Letters and Social Aims: Progress of Culture, 1876
Every artist was first an amateur.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Self Reliance
Envy is ignorance, imitation is suicide.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Self-Reliance
It is very easy in the world to live by the opinion of the world. It is very easy in solitude to be self-centered. But the finished man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

It makes a great difference in the force of a sentence, whether a man be behind it or no.

Do the thing we fear, and death of fear is certain.

Every man I meet is in some way my superior.

When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.

Tis the good reader that makes the good book.

The world belongs to the energetic.

There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant.

The people are to be taken in very small doses.

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experience.

Ideas must work through the brains and arms of men, or they are no better than dreams.

Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.

We become what we think about all day long.

Proverbs are the literature of reason, or the statements of absolute truth, without qualification. Like the sacred books of each nation, they are the sanctuary of its intuitions.

People wish to be settled. It is only as far as they are unsettled that there is any hope for them.

Let not a man guard his dignity, but let his dignity guard him.

The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.

When you strike at a king, you must kill him.

Colleges hate geniuses, just as convents hate saints.

For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure.

The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the ordinary.

If a man knows the law, find out, though he live in a pine shanty, and resort to him. And if a man can pipe or sing, so as to wrap the imprisoned soul in an elysium; or can paint a landscape, and convey into souls and ochres all the enchantments of Spring or Autumn; or can liberate and intoxicate all people who hear him with delicious songs and verses; it is certain that the secret cannot be kept; the first witness tells it to a second, and men go by fives and tens and fifties to his doors.

The faith that stand on authority is not faith.

The greatest gift is a portion of thyself.

That which we persist in doing becomes easier, not that the task itself has become easier, but that our ability to perform it has improved.

Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.

The life of man is the true romance, which when it is valiantly conduced, will yield the imagination a higher joy than any fiction.

The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one.

We do what we must, and call it by the best names.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Letters and Social Aims: The Comic, 1876
Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit.

A man makes inferiors his superiors by heat; self-control is the rule.

Nothing, at last, is sacred; but the integrity of your own mind.

Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for competitors.

Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait.

There is no beautifier of complexion, or form, like the wish to scatter joy and not pain around us.

This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.

The essence of all jokes, of all comedy, seems to be an honest or well intended halfness; a non performance of that which is pretended to be performed, at the same time that one is giving loud pledges of performance. The balking of the intellect, is comedy and it announces itself in the pleasant spasms we call laughter.

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.

Children are all foreigners.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Essays, First Series: Prudence, 1841
Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great.

Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others with out getting a few drops on yourself.

Every great and commanding moment in the annals of the world is the triumph of some enthusiasm.

Work is victory.

The next thing to saying a good thing yourself, is to quote one.

Condense some daily experience into a glowing symbol, and an audience is electrified.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

Work and acquire, and thou hast chained the wheel of Chance.

To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.

I look on that man as happy, who, when there is question of success, looks into his work for a reply.

A friend might well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.

Without a rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar.

Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.

What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.

Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air?

He is great who confers the most benefits.

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

What omniscience has music! So absolutely impersonal, yet every sufferer feels his secret sorrow soothed.

To be great is to be misunderstood.

Trust your instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

Those who cannot tell what they desire or expect, still sigh and struggle with indefinite thoughts and vast wishes.

What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Journals, 1824
When a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart.

Commit a crime and the earth is made of glass.

Do what you know and perception is converted into character.

Solitude, the safeguard of mediocrity.

Nature is a mutable cloud, which is always and never the same.

The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.

I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every man is wise when attacked by a mad dog; fewer when pursued by a mad woman; only the wisest survive when attacked by a mad notion.

Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.

A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.

There is no nonsense so gross that society will not, at some time, make a doctrine of it and defend it with every weapon of communal stupidity.
Robertson Davies - "The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks"
To be a book-collector is to combine the worst characteristics of a dope fiend with those of a miser.

Many a promising career has been wrecked by marrying the wrong sort of woman. The right sort of woman can distinguish between Creative Lassitude and plain shiftlessness.

A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.

The love of truth lies at the root of much humor.

The people of the United States, perhaps more than any other nation in history, love to abase themselves and proclaim their unworthiness, and seem to find refreshment in doing so... That is a dark frivolity, but still frivolity.

Few people can see genius in someone who has offended them.
Robertson Davies - "A Voice from the Attic", 1960
The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to the idealised past.
Robertson Davies - The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks, 1947
I object to being told that I am saving daylight when my reason tells me that I am doing nothing of the kind... At the back of the Daylight Saving scheme, I detect the bony, blue-fingered hand of Puritanism, eager to push people into bed earlier, and get them up earlier, to make them healthy, wealthy, and wise in spite of themselves.
Robertson Davies - "Fifth Business"
He was a genius - that is to say, a man who does superlatively and without obvious effort something that most people cannot do by the uttermost exertion of their abilities.

- Robertson Davies

Not many can admit their fears, but those who can lead a fulfilling life of happiness knowing they hide nothing and need not to.

- Cyrus Corteise

Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.
Lao-Tzu - The Way of Lao-tzu
The best [man] is like water.
Water is good; it benefits all things and does not compete with them.
It dwells in [lowly] places that all disdain.
This is why it is so near to Tao.

The softest things in the world to overcome the hardest things in the world.
Lao-Tzu - The Way of Lao-tzu
The Way of Heaven is to benefit others and not to injure.
The Way of the sage is to act but not to compete.
Lao-Tzu - Tao Te Ching
The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao.
The name that can be named is not the eternal Name.
Lao-Tzu - The Way of Lao-tzu
To have little is to possess.
To have plenty is to be perplexed.
Lao-Tzu - The Way of Lao-tzu
To know that you do not know is the best.
To pretend to know when you do not know is a disease.

Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.
Lao-Tzu - The Way of Lao-tzu
When armies are mobilized and issues are joined,
The man who is sorry over the fact will win.

A good manager is best when people barely know that he exists. Not so good when people obey and acclaim him. Worse when they despise him.

He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.

The good man is the teacher of the bad,
And the bad is the material from which the good may learn.
He who does not value the teacher,
Or greatly care for the material,
Is greatly deluded although he may be learned.
Such is the essential mystery.
Lao-Tzu - The Way of Lao-tzu
When the people of the world all know beauty as beauty,
There arises the recognition of ugliness.
When they all know the good as good,
There arises the recognition of evil.
Lao-Tzu - The Way of Lao-tzu
When the highest type of men hear Tao,
They diligently practice it.
When the average type of men hear Tao,
They half believe in it.
When the lowest type of men hear Tao,
They laugh heartily at it.
Without the laugh, there is no Tao.
Lao-Tzu - The Way of Lao-tzu
He who knows does not speak.
He who speaks does not know.

Seek not happiness too greedily, and be not fearful of happiness.
Lao-Tzu - The Way of Lao-tzu
People are difficult to govern because they have too much knowledge.
Lao-Tzu - The Way of Lao-tzu
There is no calamity greater than lavish desires.
There is no greater guilt than discontentment.
And there is not greater disaster than greed.
Lao-Tzu - The Way of Lao-tzu
Manifest plainness,
Embrace simplicity,
Reduce selfishness,
Have few desires.
Lao-Tzu - The Way of Lao-tzu
To be worn out is to be renewed.

Conquering others takes force, conquering yourself is true strength.
Lao-Tzu - The Way of Lao-tzu
The more laws and order are made prominent,
The more thieves and robbers there will be.

Arms are instruments of ill omen. . . . When one is compelled to use them, it is best to do so without relish. There is no glory in victory, and to glorify it despite this is to exult in the killing of men. . . . When great numbers of people are killed, one should weep over them with sorrow. When victorious in war, one should observe mourning rites.
Lao-Tzu - Tao te Ching
Learning builds daily accumulation, but the prictice of Tao builds daily simplification. Simplify and simplify, until all contamination from relative, contridictory thinking is eliminated. Then one does nothing, yet nothing is left undone. One who wins the world does so by not meddling with it. One who meddles with the world loses it.
Lao-Tzu - The Way of Lao-tzu
The softest things in the world overcome the hardest things in the world.
Through this I know the advantage of taking no action.

Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.
Lao-Tzu - The Way of Lao-tzu
He who knows others is wise;
He who know himself is enlightened.
Lao-Tzu - The Way of Lao-tzu
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

The journey of a thousand leagues begins from beneath your feet.

Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.
Lao-Tzu - The Way of Lao-tzu
He who loves the world as his body may be entrusted with the empire.
Lao-Tzu - The Way of Lao-tzu
I have three treasures. Guard and keep them:
The first is deep love,
The second is frugality,
And the third is not to dare to be ahead of the world.
Because of deep love, one is courageous.
Because of frugality, one is generous.
Because of not daring to be ahead of the world, one becomes the leader of the world.

- Lao-Tzu

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.

- James Oppenheim

If a man takes no thought about what is distant, he will find sorrow near at hand.

Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practices it will have neighbors.

I am not one who was born in the possession of knowledge; I am one who is fond of antiquity, and earnest in seeking it there.

If a man withdraws his mind from the love of beauty, and applies it as sincerely to the love of the virtuous; if, in serving his parents, he can exert his utmost strength; if, in serving his prince, he can devote his life; if in his intercourse with his friends, his words are sincere - although men say that he has not learned, I will certainly say that he has.
Confucius
Be not ashamed of mistakes and thus make them crimes.
Confucius
He who learns but does not think, is lost! He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.

To be able to practice five things everywhere under heaven constitutes perfect virtue...[They are] gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness.

Recompense injury with justice, and recompense kindness with kindness.
Confucius
The superior man, when resting in safety, does not forget that danger may come. When in a state of security he does not forget the possibility of ruin. When all is orderly, he does not forget that disorder may come. Thus his person is not endangered, and his States and all their clans are preserved.
Confucius
The superior man is modest in his speech but exceeds in his actions.
Confucius
Everything has its beauty but not everyone sees it.
Confucius
He who merely knows right principles is not equal to him who loves them.
Confucius - nalects, IV.11
While the gentleman cherishes benign rule, the small man cherishes his native land. While the gentleman cherishes a respect for the law, the small man cherishes generous treatment.
Confucius
Ignorance is the night of the mind, but a night without moon and star.
Confucius - Analects
They must often change who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.

[The superior man] acts before he speaks, and afterwards speaks according to his actions.
Confucius
He who will not economize will have to agonize.
Confucius
To govern is to correct. If you set an example by being correct, who would dare remain incorrect?

The determined scholar and the man of virtue will not seek to live at the expense of injuring their virtue. They will even sacrifice their lives to preserve their virtue complete.

Virtue is more to man than either water or fire. I have seen men die from treading on water and fire, but I have never seen a man die from treading the course of virtue.

Fine words and an insinuating appearance are seldom associated with true virtue.

While you are not able to serve men, how can you serve spirits [of the dead]?...While you do not know life, how can you know about death?

What the superior man seeks is in himself. What the mean man seeks is in others.
Confucius
It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.
Confucius
Study the past if you would define the future.
Confucius - Analects, IV.7
In his errors a man is true to type. Observe the errors and you will know the man.
Confucius
Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.

Without an acquaintance with the rules of propriety, it is impossible for the character to be established.

Things that are done, it is needless to speak about...things that are past, it is needless to blame.
Confucius
The superior man acts before he speaks, and afterwards speaks according to his action.

The superior man...does not set his mind either for anything, or against anything; what is right he will follow.
Confucius
What the superior man seeks is in himself; what the small man seeks is in others.
Confucius
To be able under all circumstances to practice five things constitutes perfect virtue; these five things are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness and kindness.
Confucius
Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
Confucius
Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.

When you have faults, do not fear to abandon them.
Confucius
Respect yourself and others will respect you.
Confucius
I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.

The scholar who cherishes the love of comfort is not fit to be deemed a scholar.
Confucius
When anger rises, think of the consequences.

He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it.
Confucius - The Confucian Analects, bk. 11:11
While you are not able to serve men, how can you serve spirits [of the dead]?...While you do not know life, how can you know about death?

There are three things which the superior man guards against. In youth...lust. When he is strong...quarrelsomeness. When he is old...covetousness.

When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it - this is knowledge.

The firm, the enduring, the simple, and the modest are near to virtue.

What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.
Confucius
When we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves.

I have not seen a person who loved virtue, or one who hated what was not virtuous. He who loved virtue would esteem nothing above it.

The cautious seldom err.
Confucius
The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.

Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles.

When we see men of worth, we should think of equaling them; when we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves.

The man of virtue makes the difficulty to be overcome his first business, and success only a subsequent consideration.
Confucius
Forget injuries, never forget kindnesses.
Confucius
Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.
Confucius
The essence of knowledge is, having it, to apply it; not having it, to confess your ignorance.
Confucius - Analects
A youth is to be regarded with respect. How do you know that his future will not be equal to our present?
Confucius
By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.
Confucius - Analects
Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.

Have no friends not equal to yourself.
Confucius
To see what is right, and not to do it, is want of courage or of principle.
Confucius - Analects, XV.24
Do not impose on others what you yourself do not desire.

To go beyond is as wrong as to fall short.

The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.

He with whom neither slander that gradually soaks into the mind, nor statements that startle like a wound in the flesh, are successful may be called intelligent indeed.
Confucius
I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.

With coarse rice to eat, with water to drink, and my bended arm for a pillow - I have still joy in the midst of these things. Riches and honors acquired by unrighteousness are to me as a floating cloud.
Confucius
The superior man is modest in his speech, but excels in his actions.

The superior man is satisfied and composed; the mean man is always full of distress.

The superior man cannot be known in little matters, but he may be entrusted with great concerns. The small man may not be entrusted with great concerns, but he may be known in little matters.
Confucius
It is not possible for one to teach others who cannot teach his own family.
Confucius - Analects, XIV.12
If a man remembers what is right at the sign of profit, is ready to lay down his life in the face of danger, and does not forget sentiments he has repeated all his life when he has been in straitened circumstances for a long time, he may be said to be a complete man.
Confucius
If a man take no thought about what is distant, he will find sorrow near at hand
Confucius
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.
Confucius
It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop.

He who speaks without modesty will find it difficult to make his words good.

The man who in view of gain thinks of righteousness; who in the view of danger is prepared to give up his life; and who does not forget an old agreement however far back it extends - such a man may be reckoned a complete man.
Confucius - Roots of Wisdom 4th edition
Humankind differs from the animals only by a little, and most people throw that away.

The people may be made to follow a path of action, but they may not be made to understand it.
Confucius - Analects, IV.3
It is only the benevolent man who is capable of liking or disliking other men.

By nature, men are nearly alike; by practice, they get to be wide apart.
Confucius
Do not be desirous of having things done quickly. Do not look at small advantages. Desire to have things done quickly prevents their being done thoroughly. Looking at small advantages prevents great affairs from being accomplished.

Is virtue a thing remote? I wish to be virtuous, and lo! Virtue is at hand.
Confucius
I hear and I forget.
I see and I believe.
I do and I understand.
Confucius
Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
Confucius
Be not ashamed of mistakes and thus make them crimes.

- Confucius - The Confucian Analects

Truth is so difficult to find that, when one hears it, it shines through.

Even the longest hours come to an end.
Jose Raul Bernardo - Silent Wing (Simon & Schuster, 1998)
When you tell the truth, people listen.
Jose Raul Bernardo - Silent Wing (Simon & Schuster, 1998)
Souls woven together by the gods can never be unraveled.
Jose Raul Bernardo - The Wise Women of Havana (HarperCollins, 2002)
Metaphors are the weapons of cowards.
Jose Raul Bernardo - The Wise Women of Havana (HarperCollins, 2002)
Happiness is a way of praying.
Jose Raul Bernardo - The Secret of the Bulls (Simon & Schuster, 1996
Art does not imitate life. Art is much more powerful than that. Art brings life back. And it does it by exposing the secrets we all carry inside.
Jose Raul Bernardo - The Wise Women of Havana (HarperCollins, 2002)
Happiness cannot be found--it must be created anew everyday.
Jose Raul Bernardo - Silent Wing (Simon & Schuster, 1998)
When honor and truth are at odds, let truth prevail.

- Jose Raul Bernardo - Silent Wing (Simon & Schuster, 1998) One of the Best Novels of 1998 (LA Times)

And dreams in their development have breath,
And tears, and tortures, and the touch of joy;
They leave a weight upon our waking thoughts,
They take a weight from off our waking toils,
They do divide our being.
Lord Byron - Don Juan
Society is now one polished horde, --- Formed of two mighty tribes, the Bores and Bored.
Lord Byron - Don Juan
Man, being reasonable, must get drunk; The best of life is but intoxication.

[Poetry] is the lava of the imagination whose eruption prevents an earthquake.

Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine.

How sweet and soothing is this hour of calm! I thank thee, night! for thou has chased away these horrid bodements which, amidst the throng, I could not dissipate; and with the blessing of thy benign and quiet influence now will I to my couch, although to rest is almost wronging such a night as this.
Lord Byron - Letter to Thomas Moore
What is hope? nothing but the paint on the face of Existence; the least touch of truth rubs it off, and then we see what a hollow-cheeked harlot we have got hold of.

But words are things; and a small drop of ink,
Falling, like dew, upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.
Lord Byron - last words
Goodnight

Sweet is revenge - especially to women.

A pretty woman is a welcome guest.

For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause for breath,
And love itself have rest.

Opinions are made to be changed - or how is the truth to be got at.

On with the dance! Let joy be undefined!

The drying up a single tear has more of honest fame than shedding seas of gore.

Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure; Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure.
Lord Byron - Stanzas to Augusta
In the desert a fountain is springing,
In the wide waste there still is a tree,
And a bird in the solitude singing,
Which speaks to my spirit of thee.

Always laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine.

All who would win joy, must share it; happiness was born a twin.

With just enough of learning to misquote.

- Lord Byron

The truth is that all of us attain the greatest success and happiness possible in this life whenever we use our native capacities to their greatest extent.

- Dr. Smiley Blanton

Remember that happiness is a way of travel - not a destination.

- Roy M. Goodman

We are alone, absolutely alone on this chance planet: and, amid all the forms of life that surround us, not one, excepting the dog, has made an alliance with us.

Remember that happiness is as contagious as gloom. It should be the first duty of those who are happy to let others know of their gladness.
Maurice Maeterlinck - Wisdom and Destiny, 1898
When we lose one we love, our bitterest tears are called forth by the memory of hours when we loved not enough.

- Maurice Maeterlinck

We should conduct ourselves not as if we ought to live for the body, but as if we could not live without it.

Enjoy present pleasures in such a way as not to injure future one.

Be silent as to services you have rendered, but speak of favours you have received.

We most often go astray on a well trodden and much frequented road.

The greatest remedy for anger is delay.

No one can wear a mask for very long.
Seneca - Letters to Lucilius V
Fear keeps pace with hope. Nor does their so moving together surprise me; both belong to a mind in suspense, to a mind in a state of anxiety through looking into the future. Both are mainly due to projecting our thoughts far ahead of us instead of adapting ourselves to the present. Thus it is that foresight, the greatest blessing humanity has been given, is transformed into a curse.

What difference does it make how much you have? What you do not have amounts to much more.

Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.
Seneca - Epistles
There is no great genius without some touch of madness.

It is the sign of a weak mind to be unable to bear wealth.

Fate rules the affairs of mankind with no recognizable order.

Toil to make yourself remarkable by some talent or other.

Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.

If a man does not know to what port he is steering, no wind is favourable to him.
Seneca - Epistles
Live among men as if God beheld you; speak to God as if men were listening.

The greatest loss of time is delay and expectation, which depend upon the future. We let go the present, which we have in our power, and look forward to that which depends upon chance, and so relinquish a certainty for an uncertainty.

Enjoy present pleasures in such a way as not to injure future ones.

It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man and the security of a god.

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that things are difficult.

A good conscience fears no witness, but a guilty conscience is solicitous even in solitude. If we do nothing but what is honest, let all the world know it. But if otherwise, what does it signify to have nobody else know it, so long as I know it myself? Miserable is he who slights that witness.

The path of precept is long, that of example short and effectual.

We should every night call ourselves to an account; What infirmity have I mastered today? What passions opposed? What temptation resisted? What virtue acquired? Our vices will abort of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.

What does reason demand of a man? A very easy thing--to live in accord with his nature.

Life without the courage for death is slavery.
Seneca - Moral Letters to Lucilius, 64 A.D.
Nothing is as certain as that the vices of leisure are gotten rid of by being busy.

I shall never be ashamed of citing a bad author if the line is good.

There is nothing in the world so much admired as a man who knows how to bear unhappiness with courage.

Anger, if not restrained, is frequently more hurtful to us that injury that provokes it.

What once were vices are manners now.

Unjust dominion cannot be eternal.

Most powerful is he who has himself in his power.
Seneca - Epistles
If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living.

Speech is the mirror of the mind.
(Imago Animi Sermo Est)

One hand washes the other.
(Manus Manum Lavet)

It is a great thing to know the season for speech and the season for silence.

He who spares the wicked injures the good.

Many things have fallen only to rise higher.

Consult your friend on all things, especially on those which respect yourself. His counsel may then be useful where your own self-love might impair your judgment.

It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity.
Seneca - Epistles
The best ideas are common property.
Seneca - Epistles
Fire is the test of gold; adversity, of strong men.

As was his language so was his life.
Seneca - Epistles
You can tell the character of every man when you see how he receives praise.

All art is an imitation of nature.

Nothing deters a good man from doing what is honourable.

Without an adversary prowess shrivels. We see how great and efficient it really is only when it shows by endurance what it is capable of.

There is no great genius free from some tincture of madness.

I will govern my life and thoughts as if the whole world were to see the one and read the other, for what does it signify to make anything a secret to my neighbor, when to God, who is the searcher of our hearts, all our privacies are open?

There is a noble manner of being poor and who does not know it will never be rich.

Let tears flow of their own accord: their flowing is not inconsistent with inward peace and harmony.
Seneca - Epistles
It is quality rather than quantity that matters.

The first step towards amendment is the recognition of error.

An unpopular rule is never long maintained.

To be always fortunate, and to pass through life with a soul that has never known sorrow, is to be ignorant of one half of nature.

While we are postponing, life speeds by.

Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labour the body.

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.

If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.

One should count each day a separate life.

To be feared is to fear: no one has been able to strike terror into others and at the same time enjoy peace of mind.

Be not too hasty either with praise or blame; speak always as though you were giving evidence before the judgement-seat of the Gods.

If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable.

Enjoy present pleasures in such a way as not to injure future ones.

The comfort of having a friend may be taken away, but not that of having had one.

The mind is slow to unlearn what it learnt early.

It should be our care not so much to live a long life as a satisfactory one.

The arts are the servant; wisdom its master.

Wisdom does not show itself so much in precept as in life - in firmness of mind and a mastery of appetite. It teaches us to do as well as to talk; and to make our words and actions all of a color.

While we are postponing, life speeds by.

To see a man fearless in dangers. untainted with lusts, happy in adversity, composed in a tumult, and laughing at all those things which are generally either coveted or feared, all men must acknowledge that this can be from nothing else but a beam of divinity that influences a mortal body.

It is easier to exclude harmful passions than to rule them, and to deny them admittance than to control them after they have been admitted.
Seneca - Epistles
It is better, of cours, to know useless things than to know nothing.

While the fates permit, live happily; life speeds on with hurried step, and with winged days the wheel of the headlong year is turned.

I require myself not to be equal to the best, but to be better then the bad.

Nothing is so bitter that a calm mind cannot find comfort in it.

Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body.

Where reason fails, time oft has worked a cure.

It is pleasant at times to play the madman.

truth never perishes (Veritas numquam perit)

Desultory reading is delightful, but to be beneficial, our reading must be carefully directed.
Seneca - Epistulae Morales
"Just as I shall select my ship when I am about to go on a voyage, or my house when I propose to take a residence, so I shall choose my death when I am about to depart from life. "

The most onerous slavery is to be a slave to oneself.

He will live ill who does not know how to die well.
Seneca - Epistuloe ad Lucilium, Epis. LXX, 9
Everything may happen. (Omnio fieri possent.)

I do not distinguish by the eye, but by the mind, which is the proper judge.

It is rash to condemn where you are ignorant.

Where the speech is corrupted, the mind is also.
Seneca - 65 AD
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten.
Seneca - Epistles
It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.

If virtue precede us every step will be safe.

Time heals what reason cannot.

Wealth is the slave of a wise man. The master of a fool.

Dangerous is wrath concealed. Hatred proclaimed doth lose its chance of wreaking vengeance.

- Seneca

No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.

Do not accustom yourself to use big words for little matters.

The Irish are a fair people - they never speak well of one another.

As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly.

Of all the griefs that harass the distrest,
Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest.

You must have taken great pains, sir; you could not naturally been so very stupid.

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

An injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere.

Being in a ship is like being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.

I would rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world.

Our aspirations are our possibilities.

Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind.

No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library.

Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language.

Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.

A man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him.

If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself alone. A man should keep his friendships in constant repair.

Knowledge is of two kinds: we know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.

There are few minds to which tyranny is not delightful.

He is a benefactor of mankind who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may be easily impressed on the memory, and so recur habitually to the mind.
Samuel Johnson - (attributed)
Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good.

You teach your daugthers the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company.

A cucumber should be well-sliced, dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out.
Samuel Johnson - Life of Boerhaave
Men are generally idle, and ready to satisfy themselves, and intimidate the industry of others, by calling that impossible which is only difficult.

The Irish are a fair people - they never speak well of one another

Americans are a race of convicts and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging.

A fishing rod is a stick with a hook at one end and a fool at the other.

Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.

Golf is a game in which you claim the privileges of age, and retain the playthings of childhood.

Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
Samuel Johnson - Lives of the Poets
What we hope ever to do with ease we may learn first to do with diligence.

In order that all men may be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.

Grief is a species of idleness.
Samuel Johnson - Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.

The world is not yet exhaused; let me see something tomorrow which I never saw before.
Samuel Johnson - Taxation No Tyranny
There will always be a part, and always a very large part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate pain, and eagerness for the nearest good.

You raise your voice when you should reinforce your argument.

While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.

The Irish are a fair people - they never speak well of one another.

To get a name can happen but to few; it is one of the few things that cannot be brought. It is the free gift of mankind, which must be deserved before it will be granted, and is at last unwillingly bestowed.
Samuel Johnson - Letter to Lord Chesterfield, 1775
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble.

Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others.

Hope is necessary in every condition.

Abstinence is as easy to me, as temperance would be difficult.

Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

There are, in every age, new errors to be rectified and new prejudices to be opposed.

I hate mankind, for I think of myself as one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.
Samuel Johnson - Rambler #18
There is no observation more frequently made by such as employ themselves in surveying the conduct of mankind, than that marriage, though the dictate of nature, and the institution of Providence, is yet very often the cause of misery, and that those who enter into that state can seldom forbear to express their repentance, and their envy of those whom either chance or caution hath withheld from it.
Samuel Johnson - A Dictionary of the English Language
Oats. A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.

I have found you an argument: but I am not obliged to find you an understanding.

Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords.

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.

If you are idle, be not solitary. If you are solitary, be not idle.

Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say.

When once a man has made celebrity necessary to his happiness, he has put it in the power of the weakest and most timorous malignity, if not to take away his satisfaction, at least to withhold it. His enemies may indulge their pride by airy negligence and gratify their malice by quiet neutrality.
Samuel Johnson - (attributed)
A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything.

Adversity has ever been considered the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself.
Samuel Johnson - Rasselas
Such is the common process of marriage. A youth and maiden exchange meeting by chance, or brought together by artifice, exchange glances, reciprocate civilities, go home, and dream of one another. Having little to divert attention, or diversify thought, they find themselves uneasy when they are apart, and therefore conclude that they shall be happy together. They marry, and discover what nothing but voluntary blindness had before concealed; they wear out life in altercations, and charge nature with cruelty.

No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary be not idle.

Few things are impossible to diligence and skill.

Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind.
Samuel Johnson - (attributed; also attributed to Ann Landers)
The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.

We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.

Hope itself is a species of happiness, and perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords.

- Samuel Johnson

We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love, one another.
Jonathan Swift - Miscellanies, 1711
Ambition often puts men upon doing the meanest offices; so climbing is performed in the same posture with creeping.

One of the best rules in conversation is, never to say a thing which any of the company can reasonably wish had been left unsaid.
Jonathan Swift - Thoughts on Various Subjects
When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.

May you live all the days of your life.

When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.
Jonathan Swift - Thoughts on Various Subjects
When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.

It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into.

He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.

I row after health like a waterman...

Happiness is the perpetual possession of being well deceived.

A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart.

As blushing will sometimes make a whore pass for a virtuous woman, so modesty may make a fool seem a man of sense.

I wonder what fool it was that first invented kissing.

The stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.
Jonathan Swift - "A Modest Proposal"
I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled, and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout.

When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in confederacy against him.
Jonathan Swift - A Critical Essay upon the Faculties of the Mind (1709)
There is nothing in this world constant, but inconsistancy.

It is impossible that anything so natural, so necessary, and so universal as death, should ever have been designed by Providence as an evil to mankind.

Fine words! I wonder where you stole them.

No wise man ever wished to be younger.

We have enough religion to hate each other, but not enough to love each other.

- Jonathan Swift

You can choose to be happy or sad and whichever you choose that is what you get. No one is really responsible to make someone else happy, no matter what most people have been taught and accept as true.

Words can be like baseball bats when used maliciously.

Thoughts are funny little things,
They can make paupers or make kings.

The birthplace of success for each person is in his Inner-Consciousness. The Inner-Consciousness will use whatever it is given. If constructive thoughts are planted positive outcomes will be the result. Plant the seeds of failure and failure will follow. And since the only real freedom a person has is the choice of what thoughts he will feed to his Inner-Consciousness he is totally responsible for the outcomes he gets.

Everyone values things differently. In other words, they place their own value on everything that affects their lives. Also from moment to moment they may even change their values. Such as a person, who values diamonds above all else, might be willing to trade a gallon of diamonds for a drink of water to save his life in a desert. What this means is value is a relative thing depending on a need or a perceived need. Yet, how many people will argue and even violently fight over the perceived value of something or some idea only later have an entirely different view point or value.

To be healthy, wealthy, happy and successful in any and all areas of your life you need to be aware that you need to think healthy, wealthy, happy and successful thoughts twenty four hours a day and cancel all negative, destructive, fearful and unhappy thoughts. These two types of thought cannot coexist if you want to share in the abundance that surrounds us all.

It is not the hours we put in on the job, it is what we put into the hours that counts.

The world will change for the better when people decide they are sick and tired of being sick and tired of the way the world is, and decide to change themselves.

Without relationships, no matter how much wealth, fame, power, prestige and seeming success by the standards and opinions of the world one has, happiness will constantly eluded him.

Never value the valueless. The trick is to know how to recognize it.

If you want to be truly successful invest in yourself to get the knowledge you need to find your unique factor. When you find it and focus on it and persevere your success will blossom.

Poor is the man who does not know his own intrinsic worth and tends to measure everything by relative value. A man of financial wealth who values himself by his financial net worth is poorer than a poor man who values himself by his intrinsic self worth.

Would you want to do business with a person who was 99% honest?

I was always puzzled by the fact that people have a great deal of trouble and pain when and if they are forced or feel forced to change a belief or circumstance which they hold dear. I found what I believe is the answer when I read that a Canadian neurosurgeon discovered some truths about the human mind which revealed the intensity of this problem. He conducted some experiments which proved that when a person is forced to change a basic belief or viewpoint, the brain undergoes a series of nervous sensations equivalent to the most agonizing torture.

When you have too much month for you paycheck, then what you need to do is realize that there is abundance all around you and focus on the abundance and not your lack and as night follows day abundance will come to you.

Everyone is in business for himself, for he is selling his services, labor or ideas. Until one realizes that this is true he will not take conscious charge of his life and will always be looking outside himself for guidance.

Our subconscious minds have no sense of humor, play no jokes and cannot tell the difference between reality and an imagined thought or image. What we continually think about eventually will manifest in our lives. Unfortunately most of us are completely unaware of this fact and we do not monitor our thoughts with the care needed so that we can create in our lives the results we say we want. Since the great majority of people do not feel worthy and deserving of abundant good fortune, radiant good health and total success in all areas of their lives that overriding thought pattern controls the results people get. The first order of business of anyone who wants to enjoy success in all areas of his
her life is to take charge of the internal dialogue they have and only think, say and behavior in a manner consistent with the results they truly desire.

- Sidney Madwed

Forgive me my nonsense as I also forgive the nonsense of those who think they talk sense.

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.
Robert Frost - The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Love is an irresistable desire to be irresistably desired.
Robert Frost - (attributed)
A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.

A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawer.

Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.
Robert Frost - The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -- I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.

A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper.

A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain.

The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.
Robert Frost - Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow.

A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel.

You can be a rank insider as well as a rank outsider.

A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel.

The chief reason for going to school is to get the impression fixed for life that there is a book side for everything.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.

There are tones of voices that mean more than words.

The only lasting beauty is the beauty of the heart.
Robert Frost - "The Death of a Hired Man"
Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.

By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be a boss and work twelve hours a day.

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper.

A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain.

We dance in a circle and suppose, while the secret sits in the middle and knows.

The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office.

You can be a rank insider as well as a rank outsider.

Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.

As it is more blessed to give than receive, so it must be more blessed to receive than to give back.

The best way out is always through.

Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat.
Robert Frost - The Black Cottage
Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favor.

The world is full of willing people, some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.

A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel.

Love is the irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.

An idea is a feat of association.

Do not follow where the path may lead...Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.

The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office.

- Robert Frost

There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do.

- Freya Madeline Stark

There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way.

- Eykis

Intense love does not measure, it just gives.

The most terrible poverty is loneliness and the feeling of being unloved.

Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echos are truly endless.

I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love.

What we do is less than a drop in the ocean. But if it were missing, the ocean would lack something.

Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the worst poverty of all.

There are many in the world dying for a piece of bread, but there are many more dying for a little love.

If you find serenity and happiness, some people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.

Kind words are short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.

If you try, you will find it impossible to do one great thing. You can only do many small things with great love.
Mother Teresa - Robin Williams
You can do no great things, just small things with great love.

If you judge people, you have no time to love them.
Mother Teresa - -- Letter to U.S. President George Bush and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, January 1991.
Please choose the way of peace. ... In the short term there may be winners and losers in this war that we all dread. But that never can, nor never will justify the suffering, pain and loss of life your weapons will cause.

Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier.
Mother Teresa - in her Nobel lecture
Let us make one point, that we meet each other with a smile, when it is difficult to smile. Smile at each other, make time for each other in your family.

We can do no great things; only small things with great love.

It is easy to love the people far away. It is not always easy to love those close to us. It is easier to give a cup of rice to relieve hunger than to relieve the loneliness and pain of someone unloved in our home. Bring love into your home for this is where our love for each other must start.

Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.

Joy is prayer - Joy is strength - Joy is love - Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.

- Mother Teresa

Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves.

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.

Big shots are only little shots who kept on shooting.

Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.

One of the most appalling comments on our present way of life is that half of all the beds in our hospitals are reserved for patients with nervous and mental troubles, patients who have collapsed under the crushing burden of accumulated yesterdays and fearful tomorrows. Yet a vast majority of those people would be walking the streets today, leading happy, useful lives, if they had only heeded the words of Jesus: "Have no anxiety about the morrow"; or the words of Sir William Osler; "Live in day-tight compartments.

Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain - and most fools do.

When we hate our enemies, we are giving them power over us: power over our sleep, our appetites, our blood pressure, our health, and our happiness. Our enemies would dance with joy if only they knew how they were worrying us, lacerating us, and getting even with us! Our hate is not hurting them at all, but our hate is turning our own days and nights into a hellish turmoil.

If you want to win friends, make it a point to remember them. If you remember my name, you pay me a subtle compliment; you indicate that I have made an impression on you. Remember my name and you add to my feeling of importance.

Take a chance! All life is a chance. The man who goes furthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare.

When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bustling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity.

The man who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare. The sure-thing boat never gets far from shore.

Did you ever see an unhappy horse? Did you ever see bird that had the blues? One reason why birds and horses are not unhappy is because they are not trying to impress other birds and horses.

Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.
Dale Carnegie - How To Win Friends and Influence People
People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.

If you believe in what you are doing, then let nothing hold you up in your work. Much of the best work of the world has been done against seeming impossibilities. The thing is to get the work done.

Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain -- and most fools do.

You can make more friends in two months by becoming more interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get people interested in you.

It is the way we react to circumstances that determines our feelings.

- Dale Carnegie

I looked with chameleon eyes upon the changing face of the world, looked with anonymous vision upon my uncompleted self.
Anais Nin
Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.
Anais Nin
We are like sculptors, constantly carving out of others the image we long for, need, love or desire, often against reality, against their benefit, and always, in the end, a disappointment, because it does not fit them.
Anais Nin
The personal, if it is deep enough, becomes universal, mythical, symbolic.
Anais Nin
When you make a world tolerable for yourself, you make a world tolerable for others.
Anais Nin
Each friend represents a world in us, a world not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.
Anais Nin - "Winter of Artifice"
Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.
Anais Nin
Our life is composed greatly from dreams, from the unconscious, and they must be brought into connection with action. They must be woven together.
Anais Nin
Each friend represents a world in us, a world not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.
Anais Nin
I walk ahead of myself in perpetual expectancy of miracles.
Anais Nin
Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back; a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country.
Anais Nin
There are only two kinds of freedom in the world; the freedom of the rich and powerful, and the freedom of the artist and the monk who renounces possessions.
Anais Nin
And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
Anais Nin
If what Proust says is true, that happiness is the absence of fever, then I will never know happiness. For I am possessed by a fever for knowledge, experience, and creation.

- Anais Nin - House of Incest

The secret of happiness is to make others believe they are the cause of it.

- Al Batt - in National Enquirer

Nobody, as long as he moves about among the chaotic currents of life, is without trouble.

As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of being.

It all depends on how we look at things, and not on how they are themselves.

There can be no transforming of darkness into light and of apathy into movement without emotion.

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

Religion is a defense against the experience of God.

In studying the history of the human mind one is impressed again and again by the fact that the growth of the mind is the widening of the range of consciousness, and that each step forward has been a most painful and laborious achievement. One could almost say that nothing is more hateful to man than to give up even a particle of his unconsciousness. Ask those who have tried to introduce a new idea!

The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.

The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

Great talents are the most lovely and often the most dangerous fruits on the tree of humanity. They hang upon the most slender twigs that are easily snapped off.

We cannot change anything unless we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.

If one does not understand a person, one tends to regard him as a fool.
Carl Jung - "Memories, Dreams, Reflections", 1962
As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.

Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also.

Show me a sane man, and I will cure him for you.

Nobody, as long as he moves about among the chaotic currents of life, is without trouble.

Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism.

To me dreams are part of nature, which harbors no intention to deceive but expresses something as best it can.

The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.

Sometimes, indeed, there is such a discrepancy between the genius and his human qualities that one has to ask oneself whether a little less talent might not have been better.

All the works of man have their origin in creative fantasy. What right have we then to depreciate imagination.
Carl Jung - "On the Psychology of the Unconciousness", 1917
Where love rules, there is no will to power, and where power predominates, love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other.

The pendulum of the mind alternates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.

Creative powers can just as easily turn out to be destructive. It rests solely with the moral personality whether they apply themselves to good things or to bad. And if this is lacking, no teacher can supply it or take its place

An understanding heart is everything in a teacher, and cannot be esteemed highly enough. One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feeling. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child.

The word "happiness" would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.

Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol, morphine or idealism.

I have always been impressed by the fact that there are a surprising number of individuals who never use their minds if they can avoid it, and an equal number who do use their minds, but in an amazingly stupid way.

The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown.

Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment and especially on their children than the unlived life of the parent.

I could not say I believe. I know! I have had the experience of being gripped by something that is stronger than myself, something that people call God.

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
Carl Jung - "Modern Man in Search of a Soul"
The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.

- Carl Jung

When you can think of yesterday without regret and tomorrow without fear, you are near contentment.

If you would attain greatness, think no little thoughts.

Few cases of eyestrain have been developed by looking on the bright side of things.

One should be more concerned about what his conscience whispers than about what other people shout.

Children begin by loving their parents. As they grow older, they judge them. Sometimes they forgive them.

If people did not prefer reaping to sowing, there would not be a hungry person in the land.

If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, just what does an empty desk mean?

You can buy education, but wisdom is a gift from God.

If you get up one time more than you fall, you will make it through.

If happiness could be brought, few of us could pay the price.

The more you talk to yourself, the more apt you are to lie.

Get into the habit of asking yourself if what you are doing can be handled by someone else.

Courage is always greatest when blended with meekness; intellectual ability is most admired when it sparkles in the setting of modest self-distrust; and never does the human soul appear so strong as when it foregoes revenge and dares to forgive any injury.

It is impossible to make wisdom hereditary.

What we are doing at the moment is more that just one thing added to the rest; it is a memoir.

Practical observation commonly consists of collecting a few facts and loading them with guesses.

A house is made of walls and beams; a home is built with love and dreams.

Our five senses are incomplete without the sixth - a sense of humor.

Religion is a man using a divining rod. Philosophy is a man using a pick and shovel.

He that boasts of his own knowledge proclaims his ignorance

Prejudice is the reasoning of fools.

To save time is to lengthen life.

A man is getting along on the road to wisdom when he begins to realize that his opinion is just an opinion.

A patient going to a doctor for his first visit was asked, "And whom did you consult before coming to me?"
"Only the village druggist," was the answer.
"And what sort of foolish advice did that numbskull give you?" asked the doctor, his tone and manner denoting his contempt for the advice of the layman.
"Oh," replied his patient, with no malice aforethought, "he told me to come and see you."

A college education never hurt anybody who was willing to learn after he got it.

No poet sings because he must sing. At least no great poet does. A great poet sings because he chooses to sing

Our health always seems much more valuable after we lose it.

Wise men are not always silent, but they know when to be.

Many of us have heard opportunity knocking at our door, but by the time we unhooked the chain, pushed back the bolt, turned two locks, and shuts off the burglar alarm - it was gone.

Freedom is a package deal - with it comes responsibilities and consequences.

Enthusiasm is that kindling spark which marks the difference between the leaders in every activity and the laggards who put in just enough to "get by."

It is easier to believe a lie that one has heard a thousand times than to believe a fact that no one has heard before.

Cheerfulness greases the axles of the world.

Gossip is sometimes referred to as halitosis of the mind

You know how you hate to be interrupted, so why are you always doing it to me.

Freedom also includes the right to mismanage your own affairs.

It never occurs to some politicians that Lincoln is worth imitating as well as quoting.

Make service your first priority, not success and success will follow.

Friendship is a living thing that lasts only as long as it is nourished with kindness, empathy and understanding.

A patient man is one who can put up with himself.

One thing about the school of experience is that it will repeat the lesson if you flunk the first time.

The hardest work in the world is that which should have been done yesterday.

There is a growing suspicion that what the world needs now is a religion that will cover the other six days of the week.

The best way to end a war is not to begin it.

Practicing the Golden Rule is not a sacrifice; it is an investment.

Spare minutes are the Gold-dust of time; the portions of life most fruitful in good and evil; the gaps through which temptations enter.

The price is what you pay; the value is what you receive.

Think highly of yourself, for the world takes you at your own estimate.

If wisdom were on sale in the open market, the stupid would not even ask the price.

Many people seem to think that opportunity means a chance to get money without earning it.

"What made the deepest impression upon you?" inquired a friend one day of Lincoln, "when you stood in the presence of the Falls of Niagara, the greatest of natural wonders?" ---- "The thing that stuck me most forcibly when I saw the Falls," Lincoln responded with the characteristic deliberation, "was where in the world did all that water come from?"

Some have half-baked ideas because their ideals are not heated up enough.

Flattery looks like friendship, just like a wolf looks like a dog.

Beware of the man who knows the answer before he understands the question.

Only those who have the patience to do simple things perfectly ever acquire the skill to do difficult things easily.

It is strange that we do not temper our resentment of criticism with a thought for our many faults which have escaped us.

Time invested in improving ourselves cuts down on time wasted in disapproving of others.

The biggest shortage of all is the shortage of common sense.

It is a pleasure to give advice, humiliating to need it, normal to ignore it.

Where ambition ends happiness begins.

If you had it all to do over, would you fall in love with yourself again?

Happiness is in the heart, not in the circumstances.

Early civilizations complained about still earlier ones, much as we do about both

An expert gossiper knows how much to leave out of a conversation

Hate pollutes the mind.

The guilty catch themselves.

We are born brave, trusting and greedy, and most of us remain greedy.

It is usually best to be generous with praise, but cautious with criticism.

A little tact and wise management may often evade resistance, and carry a point, where direct force might be in vain.

Shortchange your education now and you may be short of change the rest of your life.

Successful leaders have the courage to take action where others hesitate.

Acknowledgment - If you wish your merit to be known, acknowledge that of other people.

The best answer to answer to anger is silence.

Age withers only the outside.

Our children seem to have wonderful taste, or none - depending, of course, on whether or not they agree with us.

After all, life is really simple; we ourselves create the circumstances that complicate it.

Successful men follow the same advice they prescribe for others.

The deadliest contagion is majority opinion.

Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.

Where we go and what we do advertises what we are.

So few people think. When we find one who really does, we call him a genius

The secret of success is to do all you can do without thought of success.

Catch your people doing something right and let them know you appreciate it.

If someone offers to furnish a sure test, ask what the test was which made the sure test sure.

The written word can be erased - not so with the spoken word.

Excellence is best described as doing the right things right - selecting the most important things to be done and then accomplishing them 100% correctly.

Perpetual worry will get you to one place ahead of time - the cemetery.

No poet sings because he must sing. At least no great poet does. A great poet sings because he chooses to sing.

Vacant minds must have their uses, yet it seems a pity to waste first-class bodies on them.

Peace won by the compromise of principles is a short-lived achievement.

Someone has described science as an orderly arrangement of what, at the moment, seems to be facts.

Enthusiasm is very good lubrication for the mind.

"Oh," replied his patient, with no malice aforethought, "he told me to come and see you."

The brain that bubbles with phrases has hard work to collect its thoughts.

"Luck" is a very good word if you put a P before it.

People who know the least always argue the most.

Advice is the only commodity on the market where the supply always exceeds the demand.

One thing you can give and still keep is your word.

If you look for the positive things in life; you will find them.

The truly educated man is that rare individual who can separate reality from illusion.

It would take battalions of angels to protect us from our dreaded dangers, though in a long lifetime few of the dangers come to anything.

Opportunities are often missed because we are broadcasting when we should be listening.

So live that your memories will be part of your happiness.

Behind every successful man there are usually a lot of unsuccessful years.

One of the weaknesses of our age is our apparent inability to distinguish our need from our greed.

A conscience is like a baby. It has to go to sleep before you can.

If the truth be known, most successes are built on a multitude of failures.

A good laugh is sunshine in a house.

The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.

Humor - the perfect relationship of the parts to the whole.

The good Lord gave me a brain that works so fast that in one moment I can worry as much as it would take others a whole year to achieve.

Desire for security keeps littleness little and threatens the great with smallness.

Life is tragic for those who have plenty to live on and nothing to live for.

Many things are worse than defeat,and compromise with evil is one of them.

The best leader is the one who has the sense to surround himself with outstanding people and self-restraint not to meddle with how they do their jobs.

Mistakes are a great educator when one is honest enough to admit them and willing to learn from them

Luck always seems to be against the man who depends on it.
Author Unknown - (apocryphal)
The tipping custom originated in England when small sums were dropped into a box marked T.I.P.S. --TO INSURE PROMPT SERVICE.

There is one way to handle the ignorant and malicious critic. Ignore him.

Having supplied them with names, omnipotence, justice, knowledge, Providence, - what are they?

If a man defrauds you one time, he is a rascal; if he does it twice, you are a fool.

An expert knows all the answers - if you ask the right questions.

Nine out of ten people who change their minds are wrong the second time too.

People are changed, not by coercion or intimidation, but by example.

Happiness will never come to those who fail to appreciate what they already have.

Create the kind of climate in your organization where personal growth is expected, recognized and rewarded.

Why keep on enacting laws when we already have more than we can break.

Let your friends be the friends of your deliberate choice.

If we miraculously became the people we hate, how lovable we would find ourselves.

The best mind might be the wisest mind if it were a mind alone that produces wisdom.

A fellow who says he has never told a lie has just told one.

A lot of good arguments are spoiled by some fool who knows what he is talking about.

The greatest paradox of them all is to speak of "civilized warfare."

You can judge your age by the amount of pain you feel when you come in contact with a new idea

Too many people confine their exercise to jumping to conclusions, running up bills, stretching the truth, bending over backward, lying down on the job, sidestepping responsibility and pushing their luck.

Procrastination is the grave in which opportunity is buried.

Peace may cost as much as war, but it is a better buy.

Our wisdom comes usually from our experience, and our experience comes largely from our experience.

Some people lose their health getting wealth and then lose their wealth gaining health.

To feel "fit as a fiddle" you must tone down your middle.

Find expression for a sorrow and it will become dear to you. Find expression for a joy, and you will intensify its ecstasy.

Every success is built on the ability to do better than good enough.

When thoughts fails of words, they find imagination waiting at their elbow to teach a new language without words.

Like swift water an active mind never stagnates.

Hatred is a boomerang which is sure to hit you harder than the one at whom you throw it.

Good habits are formed; bad habits we fall into.

A handful of common sense is worth a bushel of learning.

Results are what you expect, and consequences are what you get.

No one finds life worth living; he must make it worth living.

Opinions are the cheapest commodities in the world.

Religion is meant to be bread for daily use, not cake for special occasions.

Imagination was given man to compensate for what he is not, and a sense of humor to console him for what he is.

Imagination is the pontoon bridge making way for the timid feet of reason.

We cannot be too earnest, too persistent, too determined, about living superior to the herd-instinct.

A good marriage winds up as a meeting of minds, which had better be pretty good to start with.

The average person living to age 70 has 613,000 hours of life. This is too long a period not to have fun.

It is better to live richly than to die rich.

Conversation is an exercise of the mind; gossip is merely an exercise of the tongue.

The man who has strong opinions and always says what he thinks is courageous - and friendless.

The shortest answer is the doing the thing.

Most people pay too much for the things they get for nothing.

Men of genius are admired, men of wealth are envied, men of power are feared; but only men of character are trusted

Courage is not the absence of fear, but the conquest of it.

A smooth sea never made a skillful mariner, neither do uninterrupted prosperity and success qualify for usefulness and happiness. The storms of adversity, like those of the ocean, rouse the faculties, and excite the invention, prudence, skill and fortitude or the voyager. The martyrs of ancient times, in bracing their minds to outward calamities, acquired a loftiness of purpose and a moral heroism worth a lifetime of softness and security.

Behavior is what a man does, not what he thinks, feels, or believes

The time to stop talking is when the other person nods his head affirmatively but says nothing.

Thinking things has been done through the ages; knowing things remains to be done.

Criticism is the disapproval of people, not for having faults, but having faults different from your own.

Education is not received. It is achieved.

Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it by the handle of anxiety, or by the handle of faith.

Nothing improves the memory more than trying to forget.

No punishment of the unrighteous has ever been too severe in the eyes of the righteous.

He who ashamed of his poverty would be equally proud of his wealth.

Too many people run out of ideas long before they run out of words.

None of us are responsible for all the things that happen to us, but we are responsible for the way we act when they do happen.

To live so that you would not be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip, is to have lived well

It is almost impossible to smile on the outside without feeling better on the inside.

We promise according to our hopes and perform according to our fears.

Today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.

Replying to the tributes paid to him at a testimonial dinner, Herbert Bayard Swope said; "I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure. Try to please everybody."

When you laugh, be sure to laugh at what people do and not at what people are.

Nature abhors a vacuum. When a head lacks brains, nature fills it with conceit.

The human mind must believe in something, so why not let it believe what it does believe.

One look around us ought to show that all our arbitrary measures and bounds have been clamped on us by mankind.

Before a diamond shows its brilliancy and prismatic colors it has to stand a good deal of cutting and smoothing.

You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you. You cannot escape the results of your thoughts.

A great fortune in the hands of a fool is a great misfortune.

Life is too short to be taken seriously.

The size of a man is measured by the size of the thing that makes him angry.

A good name, like good will, is attained by many actions and may be lost by one.

Before a man can wake up and find himself famous he has to wake up and find himself.

Friendship is love with understanding.

Love is to man an embarrassment, even a word; it is to a woman an excuse for existence, especially the word.

Children are natural mimics; they act like their parents in spite of every effort to teach them good manners.

There are many roads to hate, but envy is the shortest of them all.

Outstanding leaders appeal to the hearts of their followers - not their minds.

- Author Unknown

Give all to love; obey thy heart.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Conduct of Life
The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.

Here is the world, sound as a nut, perfect, not the smallest piece of chaos left, never a stitch nor an end, not a mark of haste, or botching, or second thought; but the theory of the world is a thing of shreds and patches.

It makes a great difference in the force of a sentence, whether a man be behind it or no.

Take egotism out and you would castrate the benefactors.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Essay: Nature
To the body and mind which have been cramped by noxious work or company, nature is medicinal and restores their tone.

People wish to be settled. It is only as far as they are unsettled that there is any hope for them.

If a man knows the law, find out, though he live in a pine shanty, and resort to him. And if a man can pipe or sing, so as to wrap the imprisoned soul in an elysium; or can paint a landscape, and convey into souls and ochres all the enchantments of Spring or Autumn; or can liberate and intoxicate all people who hear him with delicious songs and verses; it is certain that the secret cannot be kept; the first witness tells it to a second, and men go by fives and tens and fifties to his doors.

We become what we think about all day long.

He is great who confers the most benefits.

When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.

What omniscience has music! So absolutely impersonal, yet every sufferer feels his secret sorrow soothed.

Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.

To know one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

I hate quotations.

Often a certain abdication of prudence and foresight is an element of success.

There is no den in the wide world to hide a rogue. Commit a crime and the earth is made of glass. Commit a crime, and it seems as if a coat of snow fell on the ground, such as reveals in the woods the track of every partridge, and fox, and squirrel.

Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors.

As we grow old?the beauty steals inward.

The greatest gift is a portion of thyself.

A friend might well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.

The world belongs to the energetic.

Insist on yourself; never imitate... Every great man is unique.

Nature hates calculators.

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a little better; whether by a healthy child, a garden patch of a redeemed social condition; to know that one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is the meaning of success.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Letters and Social Aims: The Comic, 1876
Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit.

The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.

Nothing, at last, is sacred; but the integrity of your own mind.

The imbecility of men is always inviting the impudence of power.

Do what you know and perception is converted into character.

Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it. I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.

We aim above the mark to hit the mark.

So of cheerfulness, or a good temper, the more it is spent, the more it remains.

Money, which represents the prose of life, and which is hardly spoken of in parlors without an apology, is, in its effects and laws, as beautiful as roses.

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experience.

The glory of friendship is not the outstreched 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.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Society and Solitude: Works and Days, 1870
A man builds a fine house; and now he has a master, and a task for life; he is to furnish, watch, show it, and keep it in repair, the rest of his days.

What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Journals, 1824
When a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart.

Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for competitors.

Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.

The key to every man is his thought. Sturdy and defying though he look, he has a helm which he obeys, which is the idea after which all his facts are classified. He can only be reformed by showing him a new idea which commands his own.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Address on The Method of Nature, 1841
He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses.

The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the ordinary.

Solitude, the safeguard of mediocrity.

Who so would be a man, must be a nonconformist.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Self-Reliance
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them.

Science does not know its debt to imagination. Goethe did not believe that a great naturalist could exist without this faculty.

Sooner of later that which is now life shall be poetry, and every fair and manly trait shall add a richer strain to the song.

The adventitious beauty of poetry may be felt in the greater delight with a verse given in a happy quotation than in the poem.

Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.

That which we persist in doing becomes easier, not that the task itself has become easier, but that our ability to perform it has improved.

What a new face courage puts on everything.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Journal (May 1849)
Immortality. I notice that as soon as writers broach this question they begin to quote. I hate quotation. Tell me what you know.

The less government we have the better.

The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.

A good intention but fixed and resolute - bent on high and holy ends, we shall find means to them on every side and at every moment; and even obstacles and opposition will but make us "like the fabled specter-ships," which sail the fastest in the very teeth of the wind.

There is no thought in any mind, but it quickly tends to convert itself into a power.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - (attributed)
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

Whoever is open, loyal, true; of humane and affable demeanour; honourable himself, and in his judgement of others; faithful to his word as to law, and faithful alike to God and man....such a man is a true gentleman.

Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait.

The best lightning rod for your protection is your own spine.

If I have lost confidence in myself, I have the universe against me.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Letters and Social Aims: Quotation and Originality, 1876
In the highest civilization, the book is still the highest delight. He who has once known its satisfactions is provided with a resource against calamity.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - An Essay on Self-Reliance
To be great is to be misunderstood.

Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Self-Reliance
It is very easy in the world to live by the opinion of the world. It is very easy in solitude to be self-centered. But the finished man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - "American Civilization", The Atlantic Monthly, 1862
Hitch your wagon to a star.

To be great is to be misunderstood.

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

The measure of a master is his success in bringing all men around to his opinion twenty years later.

There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant.

A friend is one before whom I may think aloud.

Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air?

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesman and philosophers and divines.

The power of love, as the basis of a State, has never been tried.

The people are to be taken in very small doses.

To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

I hate quotations.

The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.

There is always room for a man of force, and he makes room for many.

No great man ever complains of want of opportunity.

The ancestor of every action is a thought.

The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.

He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day who allows it to be invated by worry, fret and anxiety.

To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we can.

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

Work and acquire, and thou hast chained the wheel of Chance.

Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.

The peril of every fine faculty is the delight of playing with it for pride. Talent is commonly developed at the expense of character, and the greater it grows, the more is the mischief. Talent is mistaken for genius, a dogma or system for truth, ambition for greatest, ingenuity for poetry, sensuality for art.

Character is higher than intellect... A great soul will be strong to live, as well as to think.

We are prisoners of ideas.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we can.

People only see what they are prepared to see.

You must pay for conformity. All goes well as long as you run with conformists. But you, who are honest men in other particulars, know that there is alive somewhere a man whose honesty reaches to this point also, that he shall not kneel to false gods, and, on the day when you meet him, you sink into the class of counterfeits.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Letters and Social Aims: Progress of Culture, 1876
Every artist was first an amateur.

Tis the good reader that makes the good book.

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

Make yourself necessary to somebody. Do not make life hard to any.

What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.

Ideas must work through the brains and arms of men, or they are no better than dreams.

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

I see her not dispirited, not weak, but well, remembering that she has seen dark times before, indeed with a kind of instinct that she sees a little better in a cloudy day.

There is no beautifier of complexion, or form, like the wish to scatter joy and not pain around us.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - The Method of Nature (1841)
Talent finds its models, methods, and ends in society, exists for exhibition, and goes to the soul only for power to work. Genius is its own end, and draws its means and the style of its architecture from within.

Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.

Nature magically suits a man to his fortunes, by making them the fruit of his character.

The only gift is a portion of thyself.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - "Self-Reliance", 1841
Speak what you think today in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today.

Commit a crime and the earth is made of glass.

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could.

Sooner of later that which is now life shall be poetry, and every fair and manly trait shall add a richer strain to the song.

The only way to have a friend is to be one.

What a searching preacher of self-command is the varying phenomenon of health.

Those who cannot tell what they desire or expect, still sigh and struggle with indefinite thoughts and vast wishes.

My evening visitors, if they cannot see the clock, should find the time in my face.

A child is a curly, dimpled lunatic.

People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of their character.

God enters by a private door into every individual.

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. No man has learned anything rightly, until he know that every day is Doomsday.

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Letters and Social Aims (Quotation and Originality)
Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it.

If eyes were made for seeing,
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being.

By necessity, by proclivity, and by delight, we all quote. In fact, it is as difficult to appropriate the thoughts of others as it is to invent.

To be great is to be misunderstood.

The reward for a thing well done is to have done it.

Happiness is a perfume which you cannot pour on someone without getting some on yourself.

Every man I meet is in some way my superior.

I look on that man as happy, who, when there is question of success, looks into his work for a reply.

All men are in some degree impressed by the face of the world; some men even to delight. This love of beauty is taste. Others have the same love in such success that, not content with admiring, they seek to embody it in new forms. The creation of beauty is art.

We do what we must, and call it by the best names.

Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.

Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

What can we see, read, acquire, but ourselves. Take the book, my friend, and read your eyes out, you will never find there what I find.

A friend might well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.

The only way to have a friend is to be one.

Self-trust is the essence of heroism

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in, forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day, you shall begin it well and serenely...

We are students of words; we are shut up in schools, and colleges, and recitation rooms, for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bag of wind, a memory of words, and do not know a thing

We are students of words: we are shut up in schools, and colleges, and recitation-rooms, for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bag of wind, a memory of words, and do not know a thing.

Finish each day before you begin the next, and interpose a solid wall of sleep between the two. This you cannot do without temperance.

Colleges hate geniuses, just as convents hate saints.

We take care of our health, we lay up money, we make our roof tight and our clothing sufficient, but who provides wisely that he shall not be wanting the best property of all -- friends?

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

The next thing to saying a good thing yourself, is to quote one.

What you are shouts so loud in my ears I cannot hear what you say.

Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Self Reliance (essay)
...the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness, the independence of solitude.

Truth is the summit of being; justice is the application of it to affairs.

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

Trust your instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.

The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one.

The faith that stand on authority is not faith.

Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet.

The greatest homage we can pay truth is to use it.

The more he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.

I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do or any kindness that I can show for any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.

Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others with out getting a few drops on yourself.

When you strike at a king, you must kill him.

If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.

When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.

Common sense is as rare as genius.

You cannot do wrong without suffering wrong.

To be great is to be misunderstood.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Society and Solitude
The true test of a civilization is not the census, nor the size of the cities, nor the crops?no, but the kind of man the country turns out.

The life of man is the true romance, which when it is valiantly conduced, will yield the imagination a higher joy than any fiction.

I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new.

Our knowledge is the amassed thought and experience of innumerable minds.

There is nothing capricious in nature and the implanting of a desire indicates that its gratification is in the constitution of the creature that feel it.

The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.

The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.

Let not a man guard his dignity, but let his dignity guard him.

The essence of all jokes, of all comedy, seems to be an honest or well intended halfness; a non performance of that which is pretended to be performed, at the same time that one is giving loud pledges of performance. The balking of the intellect, is comedy and it announces itself in the pleasant spasms we call laughter.

Condense some daily experience into a glowing symbol, and an audience is electrified.

Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.

Proverbs are the literature of reason, or the statements of absolute truth, without qualification. Like the sacred books of each nation, they are the sanctuary of its intuitions.

All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - "Nature"
The sun illuminates only the eye of the man, but shines into the eyes and the heart of the child.

Without a rich heart, wealth is an ugly beggar.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Self Reliance
Envy is ignorance, imitation is suicide.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - New England Reformers, 1844
Men are conservatives when they are least vigorous, or when they are most luxurious. They are conservatives after dinner.

The first wealth is health.

I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.

Guard well your spare moments. They are like uncut diamonds. Discard them and their value will never be known. Improve them and they will become the brightest gems in a useful life.

Do the thing we fear, and death of fear is certain.

A man of genius is privileged only as far as he is genius. His dullness is as insupportable as any other dullness.

Every sweet has its sour; every evil its good.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Society and Solitude (1870)
As soon as there is life there is danger.

A man makes inferiors his superiors by heat; self-control is the rule.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Natural History of Intellect (1893)
The bitterest tragic element in life to be derived from an intellectual source is the belief in a brute Fate or Destiny.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Journals, 1839
The best effect of fine persons is felt after we have left their presence.

Imitation is suicide.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Letters and Social Aims: The Comic, 1876
Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit.

Conversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for his competitors, for it is that which all are practising every day while they live.

This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.

Nature is a mutable cloud, which is always and never the same.

Before we acquire great power, we must acquire wisdom to use it well.

People only see what they are prepared to see.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - "The Rhodora"
If eyes were made for seeing, then beauty is its own excuse for being.

To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine.

Children are all foreigners.

Whatever games are played with us, we must play no games with ourselves.

Every hero becomes a bore at last.

Every great and commanding moment in the annals of the world is the triumph of some enthusiasm.

I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea, and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the Stern Fact, the Sad Self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from.

Each man takes care that his neighbor shall not cheat him. But a day comes when he begins to care that he does not cheat his neighbor. Then all goes well -- he has changed his market-cart into a chariot of the sun.

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of our own mind.

Always do what you are afraid to do.

None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone.

All our progress is an unfolding, like a vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge as the plant has root, bud, and fruit. Trust the instinct to the end, though you can render no reason.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - quoting a friend
Being perfectly well-dressed gives a feeling of tranquility that religion is powerless to bestow.

For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure.

There are two classes of poets - the poets by education and practice, these we respect; and poets by nature, these we love.
Ralph Waldo Emerson - Essays, First Series: Prudence, 1841
Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great.

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little course, and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice. Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.

Life is a perpetual instruction in cause and effect.

We are born believing. A man bears beliefs, as a tree bears apples.

Work is victory.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness. Know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness.

The capacity for passion is both cruel and divine.

Life in common among people who love each other is the ideal of happiness.

It is a mistake to regard age as a downhill grade toward dissolution. The reverse is true. As one grows older, one climbs with surprising strides.

- George Sand

I know not, sir, whether Bacon wrote the works of Shakespeare, but if he did not it seems to me that he missed the opportunity of his life.

The secret of happiness in not in what one likes to do, but in what one has to do.

God gave us memories that we might have roses in December.

Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else.

God gave us memory that we might have roses in December.

Life is a long lesson in humility.

- James M. Barrie

First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.

Control thy passions, lest they take vengeance on thee.

First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.
Epictetus - Enchiridion
It is the action of an uninstructed person to reproach others for his own misfortune; of one entering instruction, to reproach himself; and one perfectly instructed, to reproach neither others nor himself.

First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak.

Know, first, who you are; and then adorn yourself accordingly.
Epictetus - Discourses
When you close your doors, and make darkness within, remember never to say that you are alone, for you are not alone; nay, God is within, and your genius is within. And what need have they of light to see what you are doing?

A wise man is he who does not grieve for the thing which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.

If you do not wish to be prone to anger, do not feed the habit; give it nothing which may tend to its increase.

The two powers which in my opinion constitute a wise man are those of bearing and forebearing.

Tell me where I can escape death: discover for me the country, show me the men to whom I must go, whom death does not visit. Discover to me a charm against death. If I have not one, what do you wish me to do? I cannot escape from death, but shall I die lamenting and trembling? . . . Therefore if I am able to change externals according to my wish, I change them: but if I cannot, I am ready to tear the eyes out of him who hinders me.

Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.

We have two ears and one mouth so we may listen more and talk the less.

First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.

Only the educated are free.
Epictetus - Discourses
What is the first business of one who practices philosophy? To get rid of self-conceit. For it is impossible for anyone to begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows.

Preach not to others what they should eat, but eat as becomes you, and be silent.

Bear in mind that you should conduct yourself in life as at a feast.

No man is free who is not master of himself.

There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.

First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak.
Epictetus - Discourses
When you close your doors, and make darkness within, remember never to say that you are alone, for you are not alone; nay, God is within, and your genius is within. And what need have they of light to see what you are doing?
Epictetus - Serendipity
If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.

Difficulties show men what they are. In case of any difficulty remember that God has pitted you against a rough antagonist that you may be a conqueror, and this cannot be without toil.
Epictetus - Discourses
Only the educated are free.

The good or ill of a man lies within his own will.

- Epictetus

O generations of men, how I count you as equal with those who live not at all!
Sophocles - Antigone
Wisdom outweighs any wealth.
Sophocles - Oedipus at Colonus
Stranger in a strange country.
Sophocles
A short saying oft contains much wisdom.
Sophocles - Trachiniae
A prudent mind can see room for misgiving, lest he who prospers would one day suffer reverse.
Sophocles - Oedipus Rex
The greatest griefs are those we cause ourselves.
Sophocles - Antigone
The ideal condition
Would be, I admit, that men should be right by instinct;
But since we are all likely to go astray,
The reasonable thing is to learn from those who can teach.
Sophocles - Electra
Death is not the worst thing; rather, when one who craves death cannot attain even that wish.
Sophocles
To revive sorrow is cruel.
Sophocles - Antigone
Grief teaches the steadiest minds to waver.
Sophocles - Creusa
Truly, to tell lies is not honorable;
but when the truth entails tremendous ruin,
To speak dishonorably is pardonable.
Sophocles - Antigone
I have nothing but contempt for the kind of governor who is afraid, for whatever reason, to follow the course that he knows is best for the State; and as for the man who sets private friendship above the public welfare - I have no use for him either.
Sophocles
One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.
Sophocles - Acrisius
To him who is in fear everything rustles.
Sophocles
The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.
Sophocles
What you cannot enforce, do not command.
Sophocles - Oedipus at Colonus
One word
Frees us of all the weight and pain of life:
That word is love.
Sophocles
Much speech is one thing, well-timed speech is another.
Sophocles - Oedipus at Colonus
The good befriend themselves.
Sophocles - Trachiniae
Rash indeed is he who reckons on the morrow, or haply on days beyond it; for tomorrow is not, until today is past.
Sophocles - Antigone
Nobody likes the man who brings bad news.
Sophocles - Trachiniae
Knowledge must come through action; you can have no test which is not fanciful, save by trial.
Sophocles - Oedipus Rex
Time eases all things.
Sophocles - Antigone
For God hates utterly
The bray of bragging tongues.
Sophocles
Who feels no ills, should, therefore, fear them; and when fortune smiles, be doubly cautious, lest destruction come remorseless on him, and he fall unpitied.
Sophocles - Electra
Death is not the worst; rather, in vain
To wish for death, and not to compass it.
Sophocles - Ajax
It is not righteousness to outrage
A brave man dead, not even though you hate him.
Sophocles - Tiresias. Oedipus the King 315
How terrible it is to have wisdom when it does not benefit those who have it.
Sophocles - Antigone
There is no happiness where there is no wisdom;
No wisdom but in submission to the gods.
Big words are always punished,
And proud men in old age learn to be wise.
Sophocles - Ajax
Men of ill judgment oft ignore the good
That lies within their hands, till they have lost it.
Sophocles - Electra (c.409 BC)
The end excuses any evil.
Sophocles - Oedipus at Colonus
It made our hair stand up in panic fear.
Sophocles - Antigone
How dreadful it is when the right judge judges wrong!

- Sophocles - Oedpius Rex

I am still determined to be cheerful and happy, in whatever situation I may be; for I have also learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.

- Martha Washington

The happiness of most people we know is not ruined by great catastrophes or fatal errors, but by the repetition of slowly destructive little things.

Americans cannot realize how many chances for mental improvement they lose by their inveterate habit of keeping six conversations when there are twelve in the room.

Touch the earth, love the earth, honour the earth, her plains, her valleys, her hills, and her seas; rest your spirit in her solitary places.

- Ernest Dimnet

Genius is entitled to respect only when it promotes the peace and improves the happiness of mankind.

- Lord Essex

If one speaks or acts with a cruel mind, misery follows, as the cart follows the horse... If one speaks or acts with a pure mind, happiness follows, as a shadow follows its source.

Travel only with thy equals or thy betters; if there are none, travel alone.

- The Dhammapada

Happiness is not a destination. It is a method of life.

- Burton Hills

I think I may define taste to be that faculty of the soul which discerns the beauties of an author with pleasure, and the imperfections with dislike.

Laughter, while it lasts, slackens and unbraces the mind, weakens the faculties, and causes a kind of remissness and dissolution in all the powers of the soul.

From social intercourse are derived some of the highest enjoyments of life; where there is a free interchange of sentiments the mind acquires new ideas, and by frequent exercise of its powers, the understanding gains fresh vigor.

Laughter, while it lasts, slackens and unbraces the mind, weakens the faculties and causes a kind of remissness and dissolution in all the powers of the soul; and thus it may be looked on as weakness in the composition of human nature. But if we consider the frequent reliefs we receive from it and how often it breaks the gloom which is apt to depress the mind and damp our spirits, with transient, unexpected gleams of joy, one would take care not to grow too wise for so great a pleasure of life.
Joseph Addison - Women and Liberty
Arguments out of a pretty mouth are unanswerable.

Ridicule is generally made use of to laugh men out of virtue and good sense, by attacking everything praiseworthy in human life.

It is folly for an eminent person to think of escaping censure, and a weakness to be affected by it. All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and indeed of every age, have passed through this fiery persecution. There is no defense against reproach but obscurity; it is a kind of concomitant to greatness, as satires and invectives were an essential part of a Roman triumph.
Joseph Addison - (1672-1719)
Friendship improves hapiness and reduces misery, by doubting our joys and dividing our grief.

Self discipline is that which, next to virtue, truly and essentially raises one man above another.

Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joys, and dividing our grief.

Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn.

If men would consider not so much wherein they differ, as wherein they agree, there would be far less of uncharitableness and angry feeling.

If you wish to succeed in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.

There are many shining qualities on the mind of man; but none so useful as discretion. It is this which gives a value to all the rest, and sets them at work in their proper places, and turns them to the advantage of their possessor. Without it, learning is pedantry; wit, impertinence; virtue itself looks like weakness; and the best parts only qualify a man to be more sprightly in errors, and active to his own prejudice. Though a man has all other perfections and wants discretion, he will be of no great consequence in the world; but if he has this single talent in perfection, and but a common share of others, he may do what he pleases in his station of life.

If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother and hope your guardian genius.

Education is a companion which no misfortune can depress, no crime can destroy, no enemy can alienate,no despotism can enslave. At home, a friend, abroad, an introduction, in solitude a solace and in society an ornament.It chastens vice, it guides virtue, it gives at once grace and government to genius. Without it, what is man? A splendid slave, a reasoning savage.

An ostentatious man will rather relate a blunder or an absurdity he has committed, than be debarred from talking of his own dear person.

A misery is not to be measured from the nature of the evil, but from the temper of the sufferer.
Joseph Addison - The Spectator, July 12, 1711
Exercise ferments the humors, casts them into their proper channels, throws off redundancies, and helps nature in those secret distributions, without which the body cannot subsist in its vigor, nor the soul act with cheerfulness.

A good conscience is to the soul what health is to the body; it preserves constant ease and serenity within us; and more than countervails all the calamities and afflictions which can befall us from without.

The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love and something to hope for.

He who would pass his declining years with honor and comfort, should, when young, consider that he may one day become old, and remember when he is old, that he has once been young.

What an absurd thing it is to pass over all the valuable parts of a man, and fix our attention on his infirmities.

To be exempt from the passions with which others are tormented, is the only pleasing solitude.
Joseph Addison - Cato
Sweet are the slumbers of the virtuous man.

The friendships of the world are oft confederacies in vice, or leagues of pleasures.
Joseph Addison - The Spectator, September 26, 1712
Man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter.

- Joseph Addison

The object of government in peace and in war is not the glory of rulers or of races, but the happiness of the common man.

- Lord William Beveridge

There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.
Graham Greene - The Ministry of Fear
It is impossible to go through life without trust: That is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself.
Graham Greene - Heart of the Matter (1948)
Despair is the price one pays for setting oneself an impossible aim.
Graham Greene - The Human Factor (1978)
Our worst enemies here are not the ignorant and simple, however cruel; our worst enemies are the intelligent and corrupt.
Graham Greene - A Burnt-Out Case
People who like quotations love meaningless generalizations.

Unhappiness in a child accumulates because he sees no end to the dark tunnel. The thirteen weeks of a term might just as well be thirteen years.
Graham Greene - The Power and the Glory
There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.

- Graham Greene

Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed.

Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed.

For what I have received, my the Lord make me truly thankful. And more truly for what I have not received.

- Storm Jameson

Men are the only animals that devote themselves, day in and day out, to making one another unhappy. It is an art like any other. Its virtuosi are called altruists.

And what is a good citizen? Simply one who never says, does or thinks anything that is unusual. Schools are maintained in order to bring this uniformity up to the highest possible point. A school is a hopper into which children are heaved while they are still young and tender; therein they are pressed into certain standard shapes and covered from head to heels with official rubber-stamps.

College football would be more interesting if the faculty played instead of the students - there would be a great increase in broken arms, legs and necks.

Alimony: the ransom the happy pay to the devil.
H. L. Mencken - A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)
Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking.
H. L. Mencken - Prejudices: Second Series, 1920
There is always a well-known solution to every human problem--neat, plausible, and wrong.

Archbishop: a Christian ecclesiastic of a rank superior to that attained by Christ.

Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.

For centuries, theologians have been explaining the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing.

It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics or chemistry.

Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.

If I ever marry, it will be on a sudden impulse - as a man shoots himself.

War will never cease until babies begin to come into the world with larger cerebums and smaller adrenal glands.

We are here and it is now. Further than that all human knowledge is moonshine.

Never let your inferiors do you a favor - it will be extremely costly.

It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.

Happiness is the china shop; love is the bull.

Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends

Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.

A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.

The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.

Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

...no man of genuinely superior intelligence has ever been an actor. Even supposing a young man of appreciable mental powers to be lured upon the stage, as philosophers are occasionally lured into bordellos, his mind would be inevitably and almost immediately destroyed by the gaudy nonsense issuing from his mouth every night.

A poet more than thirty years old is simply an overgrown child.

All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.

In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.

Creator: a comedian whose audience is afraid to laugh.

An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.

Immorality: the morality of those who are having a better time.

Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking.
H. L. Mencken - on Shakespeare
After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known quotations.

The best years are the forties; after fifty a man begins to deteriorate, but in the forties he is at the maximum of his villainy.

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.

The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.

Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood.

Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.

Platitude: an idea (a) that is admitted to be true by everyone, and (b) that is not true.

Opera in English is, in the main, just about as sensible as baseball in Italian.

It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.

For it is mutual trust, even more than mutual interest that holds human associations together. Our friends seldom profit us but they make us feel safe... Marriage is a scheme to accomplish exactly that same end.

A home is not a mere transient shelter: its essence lies in the personalities of the people who live in it.

It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull.

God is the immemorial refuge of the incompetent, thehelpless, the miserable. They find not only sanctuary in His arms, but also a kind of superiority, soothing to their macerated egos; He will set them above their betters.

Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.

Wife: one who is sorry she did it, but would undoubtedly do it again.

Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.

Misogynist: A man who hates women as much as women hate one another.

Congress consists of one third, more or less, scoundrels; two thirds, more or less, idiots; and three thirds, more or less, poltroons.

In this world of sin and sorrow, there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.

Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.

I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.

Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends.

To die for an idea; it is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it would be if men died for ideas that were true!

Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.

Sunday: A day given over by Americans to wishing they were dead and in heaven, and that their neighbors were dead and in hell.

A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents.

Thanksgiving Day is a day devoted by persons with inflammatory rheumatism to thanking a loving Father that it is not hydrophobia.

An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.

A poet more than thirty years old is simply an overgrown child.

A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.

Love: The delusion that one woman differs from another.

The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal.

The cynics are right nine times out of ten.

Criticism is prejudice made plausible.

The chief value of money lies in the fact that one lives in a world in which it is overestimated.

The chief value of money lies in the fact that one lives in a world in which it is overestimated.

Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages.

Man is never honestly the fatalist, nor even the stoic. He fights his fate, often desperately. He is forever entering bold exceptions to the rulings of the bench of gods. This fighting, no doubt, makes for human progress, for it favors the strong and the brave. It also makes for beauty, for lesser men try to escape from a hopeless and intolerable world by creating a more lovely one of their own.

Men have a much better time of it than women; for one thing, they marry later; for another thing they die earlier.

Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking.

The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore.

It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man.

No normal man ever fell in love after thirty when the kidneys begin to disintegrate.

Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood.

Adultery is the application of democracy to love.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

The first kiss is stolen by the man; the last is begged by the woman.

We are here and it is now. Further than that all human knowledge is moonshine.

New York: A third-rate Babylon.

All [zoos] actually offer to the public in return for the taxes spent upon them is a form of idle and witless amusement, compared to which a visit to a penitentiary, or even to a State legislature in session, is informing, stimulating and ennobling.

Husbands never become good; they merely become proficient.

Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed, and are right.

Imagine the Creator as a low comedian, and at once the world becomes explicable.

The only really happy folk are married women and single men.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.

It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though she is still forbidden to resort to physics or chemistry.

The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear - fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants beyond everything else is safety.

Platitude: an idea (a) that is admitted to be true by everyone, and (b) that is not true.

A home is not a mere transient shelter: its essence lies in the personalities of the people who live in it.

Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.

Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing.

All successful newspapers are ceaselessly querulous and bellicose. They never defend anyone or anything if they can help it; if the job is forced on them, they tackle it by denouncing someone or something else.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.

He marries best who puts it off until it is too late.

Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who would want to live in an institution.

It is impossible to imagine Goethe or Beethoven being good at billiards or golf.

The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office.

The chief contribution of Protestantism to human thought is its massive proof that God is a bore.

Henry James would have been vastly improved as a novelist by a few whiffs of the Chicago stockyard.

The most common of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.

The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.

I detest converts almost as much as I do missionaries.

Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another

Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages.

The world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error is identical with the discovery of truth--that the error and truth are simply opposite. They are nothing of the sort. What the world turns to, when it is cured on one error, is usually simply another error, and maybe one worse than the first one.

The cosmos is a gigantic flywheel making 10,000 revolutions per minute. Man is a sick fly taking a dizzy ride on it.

Democracy: The worship of jackals by jackasses.

Philosophy consists very largely of one philosopher arguing that all others are jackasses. He usually proves it, and I should add that he also usually proves that he is one himself.

The world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error is identical with the discovery of truth--that the error and truth are simply opposite. They are nothing of the sort. What the world turns to, when it is cured on one error, is usually simply another error, and maybe one worse than the first one.

Wife: a former sweetheart.

The worshiper is the father of the gods.

If I had my way, any man guilty of golf would be ineligible for any office of trust in the United States.

When women kiss, it always reminds me of prizefighters shaking hands.

Man is a natural polygamist: he always has one woman leading him by the nose, and another hanging on to his coattails.

Self-respect: the secure feeling that no one, as yet, is suspicious.

Lawer: one who protects us against robbery by taking away the temptation.

There comes a time when a man must spit on his hands, hoist the black flag and begin slitting throats.

Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.

All [zoos] actually offer to the public in return for the taxes spent upon them is a form of idle and witless amusement, compared to which a visit to a penitentiary, or even to a State legislature in session, is informing, stimulating and ennobling.

It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.
H. L. Mencken - A Mencken Chrestomathy
There is always an easy solution to every human problem -- neat, plausible, and wrong.

Men are the only animals that devote themselves, day in and day out, to making one another unhappy. It is an art like any other. Its virtuosi are called altruists.

Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays out twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages.

The chief value of money lies in the fact that one lives in a world in which it is overestimated.

The most common of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind.

It is inaccurate to say I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.

To be in love is merely to be in a state of perceptual anesthesia.

It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.

A man always remembers his first love with special tenderness, but after that he begins to bunch them.

Democracy is the art of running the circus from the monkey cage.

Man is never honestly the fatalist, nor even the stoic. He fights his fate, often desperately. He is forever entering bold exceptions to the rulings of the bench of gods. This fighting, no doubt, makes for human progress, for it favors the strong and the brave. It also makes for beauty, for lesser men try to escape from a hopeless and intolerable world by creating a more lovely one of their own.

The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animals.

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

For it is mutual trust, even more than mutual interest that holds human associations together. Our friends seldom profit us but they make us feel safe... Marriage is a scheme to accomplish exactly that same end.

Jury: a group of twelve men who, having lied to the judge about their hearing, health and business engagements, have failed to fool him.

Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.

Judge: a law student who marks his own papers.

A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.

Every man is thoroughly happy twice in his life: just after he has met his first love, and just after he has left his last one.

Historian: an unsuccessful novelist.

In the United States, doing good has come to be, like patriotism, a favorite device of persons with something to sell.

- H. L. Mencken

The strongest is never strong enough to be always the master, unless he transforms strength into right, and obedience into duty.
Jean Jacques Rousseau - Emile, 1762
The happiest is the person who suffers the least pain; the most miserable who enjoys the least pleasure.
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Your first appearance, he said to me, is the gauge by which you will be measured; try to manage that you may go beyond yourself in after times, but beware of ever doing less.
Jean Jacques Rousseau - The Social Contract
Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains.
Jean Jacques Rousseau
He who is slowest in making a promise is most faithful in its performance.
Jean Jacques Rousseau
God makes all things good; man meddles with them and they become evil.
Jean Jacques Rousseau
As soon as any man says of the affairs of the State "What does it matter to me?" the State may be given up for lost.
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Happiness: a good bank account, a good cook and a good digestion.

- Jean Jacques Rousseau - The Social Contract, 1762

No man is happy without a delusion of some kind. Delusions are as necessary to our happiness as realities.

- Christian Nestell Bovee

With affection beaming out of one eye, and calculation shining out of the other.

A man who could build a church, as one may say, by squinting at a sheet of paper.

Minds, like bodies, will often fall into a pimpled, ill-conditioned state from mere excess of comfort.

Accidents will occur in the best regulated families.
Charles Dickens - David Copperfield, 1849
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery.

No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.

Reflect on your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.
Charles Dickens - A Tale Of Two Cities
A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it!
Charles Dickens - Great Expectations
We need never be ashamed of our tears.
Charles Dickens - Great expectations
Spring is the time of the year, when it is summer in the sun and winter in the shade.
Charles Dickens - A Tale of Two Cities
It is a far, far better thing that I do now, then I have ever done before... it is a far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known before.
Charles Dickens - Great Expectations
So, throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise.
Charles Dickens - The Old Curiosity Shop
I love these little people; and it is not a slight thing when they, who are so fresh from God, love us.
Charles Dickens - A Tale Of Two Cities
It is a far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.
Charles Dickens - A Tale of Two Cities
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all doing direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
Charles Dickens - Bleak House
It is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor relations.
Charles Dickens - A Tale of Two Cities
It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.
Charles Dickens - Great Expectations
Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.

Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tries, and a touch that never hurts.

I do not know the American gentleman, god forgive me for putting two such words together.

Train up a fig tree in the way it should go, and when you are old sit under the shade of it.

- Charles Dickens

In rivers and bad governments, the lightest things swim at the top.

A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats.

A penny saved is a penny earned.

A democracy is two wolves and a small lamb voting on what to have for dinner. Freedom under a constitutional republic is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.

He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money.

Educate your children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies subject to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish misery from their future and crimes from society.

Beware of the young doctor and the old barber.

He is a fool that cannot conceal his wisdom.

Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody.

Dost thou love life? Than do not squander time, for it is the stuff life is made of.

Pride breakfasted with plenty, dined with poverty, and supped with infamy.

Drive thy business or it will drive thee.

Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.

All human situations have their inconveniences. We feel those of the present but neither see nor feel those of the future; and hence we often make troublesome changes without amendment, and frequently for the worse.

He that is good at making excuses is seldom good at anything else.

Beware of the young doctor and the old barber.

Be civil to all; sociable to many; familiar with few; friend to one; enemy to none.

So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.

It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man.

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.

Critics are our friends, they tell us our faults.

Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.

When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic. Sell not liberty to purchase power.

Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.
Benjamin Franklin - In response to the situation of the colonists
Passion governs, and she never governs wisely.

We must indeed all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall hang separately.

He that lives upon hope will die fasting.
Benjamin Franklin - Letter to Jean Baptiste Le Roy (1789)
But in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.

He that falls in love with himself will have no rivals.

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

At 20 years of age the will reigns, at 30 the wit, at 40 the judgment.

He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.

Lost time is never found again.

Distrust and caution are the parents of security.

To follow by faith alone is to follow blindly.

I believe I shall,in some shape or other,always exist; and, with all the inconveniences human life is liable to, I shall not object to a new edition of mine, hoping, however, that the errata of the last may be corrected.

If you would be loved, love and be lovable.

A good conscience is a continual Christmas.

A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats.

It is easier to prevent bad habits than to break them.

An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.

If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are rotten,
either write things worth reading or do things worth the writing.

He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money.

God heals, and the doctor takes the fees.

If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well as getting.

To the generous mind the heaviest debt is that of gratitude, when it is not in our power to repay it.

Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.
Benjamin Franklin - Card
Tell me....And I Forget,
Teach me.....And I Learn,
Involve Me.....And I Remember.

Employ thy time well, if thou meanest to get leisure.
Benjamin Franklin - ?
To be proud of virtue is to poison oneself with the antidote.

They that will not be counseled, cannot be helped. If you do not hear reason she will rap you on the knuckles.

There is no kind of dishonesty into which otherwise good people more easily and frequently fall than that of defrauding the government.

Who is rich? He who is content. Who is that? Nobody.

Well done is better than well said.

If you would persuade, you must appeal to interest rather than intellect.

We must hang together, gentlemen...else, we shall most assuredly hang separately.

Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.

You may delay, but time will not.

Sloth makes all things difficult, but industry, all things easy. He that rises late must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his business at night, while laziness travels so slowly that poverty soon overtakes him.

The first mistake in public business is the going into it.

An investment in knowledge still yields the best returns.

A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over.

Rules too soft are seldomly followed; rules too harsh are seldomly executed.

The absent are never without fault, nor the present without excuse.

Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is.

All cats are gray in the dark.

He that would live in peace and at ease, must not speak all he knows nor judge all he sees.

God heals, and the doctor takes the fee.

Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of its filling a vacuum, it makes one. If it satisfies one want, it doubles and trebles that want another way. That was a true proverb of the wise man, rely upon it; "Better is little with the fear of the Lord, than great treasure, and trouble therewith."

He who multiplies riches multiplies cares.

Be civil to all; sociable to many; familiar with few; friend to one; enemy to none.

Experience is a dear teacher, but fools will learn at no other.

Search others for their virtues, thyself for thy vices.

If you wouldst live long, live well, for folly and wickedness shorten life.

Glass, china and reputation are easily cracked, and never well mended.

Laws too gentle are seldom obeyed; too severe, seldom executed.

Think what you do when you run into debt; you give another power over your liberty.

If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, either write things worth reading, or do things worth writing.

Whoever feels pain in hearing a good character of his neighbor, will feel a pleasure in the reverse. And those who despair to rise in distinction by their virtues, are happy if others can be depressed to a level of themselves.

He that has done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged.

Genius without education is like silver in the mine.

He that can have patience can have what he will.

The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.

Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today.

He is ill clothed that is bare of virtue.

I cannot conceive otherwise than that He, the Infinite Father, expects or requires no worship or praise from us, but that He is even infinitely above it.

Three people can keep a secret so long as two of them are dead.

Write injuries in dust, benefits in marble.
Benjamin Franklin - 1759
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!

I am in the prime of senility.

All would live long, but none would be old.

By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.

Where sense is wanting, everything is wanting,

Early morning hath gold in its mouth.

Our critics are our friends; they show us our faults.

Five thousand balloons, capable of raising two men each, could not cost more than five ships of the line; and where is the prince who can afford so to cover his country with troops for its defense as that 10,000 men descending from the clouds might not in many places do an infinite deal of mischief before a force could be brought together to repel them?

Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.

He that blows the coals in quarrels that he has nothing to do with, has no right to complain if the sparks fly in his face
Benjamin Franklin - Poor Richard?s Almanac (1758)
Creditors have better memories than debtors.

Energy and persistence conquer all things.

Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.

To lengthen thy Life, lessen thy meals

Necessity never made a good bargain.

Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.

Employ thy time well, if thou meanest to get leisure.

Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.

Read much, but not many books.

For the want of a nail, the shoe was lose; for the want of a shoe the horse was lose; and for the want of a horse the rider was lost, being overtaken and slain by the enemy, all for the want of care about a horseshoe nail.

The strictest law sometimes becomes the severest injustice.
Benjamin Franklin - letter to David Hartley, December 4, 1789
God grant that not only the love of liberty but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man may pervade all the nations of the earth, so that a philosopher may set his foot anywhere on its surface and say: "This is my country."
Benjamin Franklin - Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

A penny saved is a penny earned.

The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.

Genius without education is like silver in the mine.

You may delay, but time will not.

- Benjamin Franklin

If a man who cannot count finds a four-leaf clover, is he entitled to happiness?
Stanislaw Lec
Many a zero thinks it is the ellipse on which the Earth travels.
Stanislaw Lec
He who limps still walks.

- Stanislaw Lec - "Unkempt Thoughts"

Happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of traveling.

Giving is a necessity sometimes... more urgent, indeed, than having.

Happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of traveling.

- Margaret Lee Runbeck

I wish you all the good and charm that life can offer. Think of me kindly, and rest assured that no one would more rejoice to hear of your happiness.

Music--the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge, which comprehends mankind, but which mankind cannot comprehend.

Never forget the days I spent with you. Continue to be my friend, as you will always find me yours.

Music, verily, is the mediator between intellectual and sensuous life... the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend.

We mortals with immortal minds are only born for sufferings and joys, and one could almost say that the most excellent receive joy through sufferings.

Music is a higher revelation than philosophy.

Recommend to your children virtue; that alone can make them happy, not gold.

I have never thought of writing for reputation and honor. What I have in my heart must come out; that is the reason why I compose.

I wish you music to help with the burdens of life ,and to help you release your happiness to others.

- Ludwig van Beethoven

A great secret of success is to go through life as a man who never gets used up.

Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.

Truth has not special time of its own. Its hour is now -- always and indeed then most truly when it seems unsuitable to actual circumstances.

Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.

Grow into your ideals so that life cannot rob you of them.

The spirit of the age is filled with the disdain for thinking.

A man does not have to be an angel in order to be saint.

Reverence for life brings us into a spiritual relation with the world which is independent of all knowledge of the universe.

Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.

Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace.

Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust and hostility to evaporate.

Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile.

Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now -- always.

the tragedy of life is not that we die, but is rather, what dies inside a man while he lives.

Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.

Therefore search and see if there is not some place where you may invest your humanity.

An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while a pessimist sees only the red stoplight. . . The truly wise person is colorblind.

There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.

Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.

- Albert Schweitzer

The only devils in this world are those running around in our own hearts, and that is where all our battles should be fought.

Live simply that others may simply live.
Mahatma Gandhi - "Non-Violence in Peace and War"
There is no path to peace. Peace is the path.

An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.
Mahatma Gandhi - 1922 Circuit House speech (court) charged with "attempting to disaffect towrds his majestys government"
Affection cannot be manufactored or regulated by law. If one has no affection for a person or a system, one should be free to give the fullest expression to his disaffection, so long as he does not contemplate, promote, or incite to violence.

The good man is the friend of all living things.

The future depends on what we do in the present.

Hate the sin, love the sinner.

The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.

You must be the change you want to see in the world.
Mahatma Gandhi - _Gandhi, An Autobiography_, page 446
Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest.

It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.

In matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place.

I want freedom for the full expression on my personality.

Honest differences are often a healthy sign of progress.

In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth.

When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it ? always.

There is more to life than increasing its speed.

There are seven sins in the world: Wealth without work, Pleasure without conscience, Knowledge without character, Commerce without morality, Science without humanity, Worship without sacrifice and politics without principle.

We must become the change we want to see.

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.

Your beliefs become your thoughts. Your thoughts become your words. Your words become your actions. Your actions become your habits. Your habits become your values. Your values become your destiny.
Mahatma Gandhi - when asked what he thought of Western civilization
I think it would be a good idea.

Honest differences are often a healthy sign of progress.

It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.

In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in an clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth.

Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.
Mahatma Gandhi - when asked what he thought of Western civilization
I think it would be a good idea.

To conceal ignorance is to increase it. An honest confession of it, however, gives ground for the hope that it will diminish some day or the other.

I am prepared to die, but there is no cause for which I am prepared to kill.
Mahatma Gandhi - "Non-Violence in Peace and War"
What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?

There is more to life than increasing its speed

The future depends on what we do in the present.

I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any.
Mahatma Gandhi - 1869 - 1948
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.

I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers.

Indolence is a delightful but distressing state; we must be doing something to be happy.

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.

As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, keep it.

You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

It is the quality of our work which will please God and not the quantity.

A man is but the product of his thoughts. What he thinks, he becomes.
Mahatma Gandhi - (attributed)
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.

Where there is love there is life.

I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers.

Adaptability is not imitation. It means power of resistance and assimilation.

The outward freedom that we shall attain will only be in exact proportion to the inward freedom to which we may have grown at a given moment. And if this is a correct view of freedom, our chief energy must be concentrated on achieving reform from within.

A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.

One needs to be slow to form convictions, but once formed they must be defended against the heaviest odds.

Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well.

The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within.

- Mahatma Gandhi

When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.

I take my wife everywhere, but she keeps finding her way back.

I told the doctor I broke my leg in two places. He told me to quit going to those places.

I once wanted to become an atheist, but I gave up - they have no holidays.

What?s the use of happiness? It can?t buy you money.

- Henny Youngman

When you have read the Bible, you will know it is the word of God, because you will have found it the key to your own heart, your own happiness, and your own duty.

There is no higher religion than human service. To work for the common good is the greatest creed.

I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow.

A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday, does not know what it is today, nor what it is trying to do. We are trying to do a futile thing if we do not know where we came from or what we have been about.

The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it.

If a dog will not come to you after he has looked you in face, you should go home and examine your consicence.

I used to be a lawyer, but now I am a reformed character.
Woodrow Wilson - April 2, 1917
The world must be made safe for democracy.
Woodrow Wilson - Speech in Philadelphia, May 10, 1915
There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight; there is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right.

You are not here merely to make a living. You are here to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, and with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world. You impoverish yourself if you forget this errand.

I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow.

No man can sit down and withhold his hands from the warfare against wrong and get peace from his acquiescence.

A conservative is a man who sits and thinks, mostly sits.

America lives in the heart of every man everywhere who wishes to find a region where he will be free to work out his destiny as he chooses.

Just what is it that America stands for? If she stands for one thing more than another it is for the sovereignty of self-governing people.

I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow.
Woodrow Wilson - _Congressional Government_, p. 109
No one who has read official documents needs to be told how easy it is to conceal the essential truth under the apparently candid and all- disclosing phrases of a voluminous and particularizing report....

The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it.

...it is as hard to do your duty when men are sneering at you as when they are shooting at you.
Woodrow Wilson - Speech to Congress, Apr. 2, 1917
The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty.
Woodrow Wilson - Speech in New York, Apr. 20, 1915
No nation is fit to sit in judgement upon any other nation.

You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.

When men take up arms to set other men free, there is something sacred and holy in the warfare.

One cool judgment is worth a thousand hasty councils. The thing is to supply light and not heat

Here is a great body of our Jewish citizens from whom have sprung men of genius in every walk of our varied life; men who have conceived of its ideals with singular clearness; and led enterprises with sprit & sagacity... They are not Jews in America, they are American citizens.

- Woodrow Wilson

Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or ill, it teaches the whole people by its example.

America has believed that in differentiation, not in uniformity, lies the path of progress. It acted on this belief; it has advanced human happiness, and it has prospered.

In the frank expression of conflicting opinions lies the greatest promise of wisdom in governmental action.

Nearly all legislation involves a weighing of public needs as against private desires; and likewise a weighing of relative social values.

- Louis D. Brandeis

The friendships of the world are oft confederacies in vice, or leagues of pleasures.

If men would consider not so much wherein they differ, as wherein they agree, there would be far less of uncharitableness and angry feeling.
Joseph Addison - Women and Liberty
Arguments out of a pretty mouth are unanswerable.

A misery is not to be measured from the nature of the evil, but from the temper of the sufferer.

He who would pass his declining years with honor and comfort, should, when young, consider that he may one day become old, and remember when he is old, that he has once been young.
Joseph Addison - The Spectator, July 12, 1711
Exercise ferments the humors, casts them into their proper channels, throws off redundancies, and helps nature in those secret distributions, without which the body cannot subsist in its vigor, nor the soul act with cheerfulness.
Joseph Addison - The Spectator, September 26, 1712
Man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter.

Education is a companion which no misfortune can depress, no crime can destroy, no enemy can alienate,no despotism can enslave. At home, a friend, abroad, an introduction, in solitude a solace and in society an ornament.It chastens vice, it guides virtue, it gives at once grace and government to genius. Without it, what is man? A splendid slave, a reasoning savage.

What an absurd thing it is to pass over all the valuable parts of a man, and fix our attention on his infirmities.

Books are the legacies that a great genius leaves to mankind, which are delivered down from generation to generation as presents to the posterity of those who are yet unborn.

If you wish to succeed in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.

An ostentatious man will rather relate a blunder or an absurdity he has committed, than be debarred from talking of his own dear person.

I think I may define taste to be that faculty of the soul which discerns the beauties of an author with pleasure, and the imperfections with dislike.

If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother and hope your guardian genius.

The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love and something to hope for.

To be exempt from the passions with which others are tormented, is the only pleasing solitude.

There are many shining qualities on the mind of man; but none so useful as discretion. It is this which gives a value to all the rest, and sets them at work in their proper places, and turns them to the advantage of their possessor. Without it, learning is pedantry; wit, impertinence; virtue itself looks like weakness; and the best parts only qualify a man to be more sprightly in errors, and active to his own prejudice. Though a man has all other perfections and wants discretion, he will be of no great consequence in the world; but if he has this single talent in perfection, and but a common share of others, he may do what he pleases in his station of life.
Joseph Addison - Cato
Sweet are the slumbers of the virtuous man.

It is folly for an eminent person to think of escaping censure, and a weakness to be affected by it. All the illustrious persons of antiquity, and indeed of every age, have passed through this fiery persecution. There is no defense against reproach but obscurity; it is a kind of concomitant to greatness, as satires and invectives were an essential part of a Roman triumph.

A good conscience is to the soul what health is to the body; it preserves constant ease and serenity within us; and more than countervails all the calamities and afflictions which can befall us from without.
Joseph Addison - (1672-1719)
Friendship improves hapiness and reduces misery, by doubting our joys and dividing our grief.

Friendship improves happiness, and abates misery, by doubling our joys, and dividing our grief.

From social intercourse are derived some of the highest enjoyments of life; where there is a free interchange of sentiments the mind acquires new ideas, and by frequent exercise of its powers, the understanding gains fresh vigor.

Laughter, while it lasts, slackens and unbraces the mind, weakens the faculties and causes a kind of remissness and dissolution in all the powers of the soul; and thus it may be looked on as weakness in the composition of human nature. But if we consider the frequent reliefs we receive from it and how often it breaks the gloom which is apt to depress the mind and damp our spirits, with transient, unexpected gleams of joy, one would take care not to grow too wise for so great a pleasure of life.

Laughter, while it lasts, slackens and unbraces the mind, weakens the faculties, and causes a kind of remissness and dissolution in all the powers of the soul.

Self discipline is that which, next to virtue, truly and essentially raises one man above another.

Ridicule is generally made use of to laugh men out of virtue and good sense, by attacking everything praiseworthy in human life.

- Joseph Addison

A tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use.

Great minds have purposes, others have wishes. Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune; but great minds rise above them.

A tart temper never mellows with age; and a sharp tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use.

Great minds have purposes, others have wishes.

A kind heart is a fountain of gladness, making everything in its vicinity freshen into smiles.
Washington Irving - American writer and poet
Happiness is reflective, like the light of heaven.

There is a healthful hardiness about real dignity that never dreads contact and communion with others, however humble.

- Washington Irving

Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government...

- Thomas Jefferson (The Declaration of Independence)

A husband is always a sensible man; he never thinks of marrying.
Alexandre Dumas - Translation from "The Count of Monte Cristo"
Until divinity decides to reveal the future to human kind, the sum of all human wisdom is contained in these two words: Wait and Hope.
Alexandre Dumas - fils
If God were suddenly condemned to live the life which He has inflicted upon men, He would kill Himself.

It is only rarely that one can see in a little boy the promise of a man, but one can almost always see in a little girl the threat of a woman.

All generalizations are dangerous, even this one.

Jealousy is the art of injuring ourselves more than others.
Alexandre Dumas - The Count of Monte Cristo
There is neither happiness nor unhappiness in this world; there is only the comparison of one state with another. Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss. It is necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good life is to live.

Rogues are preferable to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.

- Alexandre Dumas

Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.
Anthelme Brillat-Savarin - Physiologie du Gout, 1825
The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star.

- Anthelme Brillat-Savarin - The Physiology of Taste, 1825

One ought to seek out virtue for its own sake, without being influenced by fear or hope, or by any external influence. Moreover, that in that does happiness consist.
Diogenes Laertius
The foundation of every state is the education of its youth.

- Diogenes Laertius - Zeno

One of the most sublime experiences we can ever have is to wake up feeling healthy after we have been sick.

Caring about others, running the risk of feeling, and leaving an impact on people, brings happiness.

I am convinced that it is not the fear of death, of our lives ending that haunts our sleep so much as the fear ... that as far as the world is concerned, we might as well never have lived.

Everything that God created is potentially holy, and our task as humans is to find that holiness in seemingly unholy situations. When we can do this, we will have learned to nurture our souls.

I would rather think of life as a good book. The further you get into it, the more it begins to come together and make sense.

We are here to change the world with small acts of thoughtfulness done daily rather than with one great breakthrough.

- Rabbi Harold Kushner

Within every adversity is an equal or greater opportunity.

Any ideas, plan, or purpose may be placed in the mind through repetition of thought.
Napoleon Hill - Think and Grow Rich
No one is ready for a thing until he believes he can acquire it.

Create a definite plan for carrying out your desire and begin at once, whether you ready or not, to put this plan into action.

If your imagination leads you to understand how quickly people grant your requests when those requests appeal to their self-interest, you can have practically anything you go after.

First comes thought; then organization of that thought, into ideas and plans; then transformation of those plans into reality. The beginning, as you will observe, is in your imagination.

Success in highest and noblest form calls for peace of mind and enjoyment and happiness which comes only to the man who has found the work he likes best.

When defeat comes, accept it as a signal that your plans are not sound, rebuild those plans, and set sail once more toward your coveted goal.

- Napoleon Hill

That action is best which procures the greatest happiness.

- Francis Hutcheson

Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look there.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus - Meditations
How much time he gains who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks, but only at what he does himself, to make it just and holy.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus - Meditations
Think not disdainfully of death, but look on it with favor; for even death is one of the things that Nature wills.

How much time he saves who does not look to see what his neighbor says or does or thinks.

Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus - "Meditations", book 9.
A candour affected is a dagger concealed.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus - Meditations
The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus - "Meditations", book 9.
A man does not sin by commission only, but often by ommission.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus - Meditations
Whatever is in any way beautiful hath its source of beauty in itself, and is complete in itself; praise forms no part of it. So it is none the worse nor the better for being praised.

Remember this-that there is a proper dignity and proportion to be observed in the performance of every act of life.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus - Meditations
By a tranquil mind I mean nothing else than a mind well ordered.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus - "Meditations", book 6.
To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus - "Meditations", book 2.
A little flesh, a little breath, and a Reason to rule all - that is myself.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus - Meditations
Nothing happens to anybody which he is not fitted by nature to bear.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus - Meditations
Nothing happens to any thing which that thing is not made by nature to bear.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus - Meditations
You will find rest from vain fancies if you perform every act in life as though it were your last.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus - Meditations
Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.

If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your own estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.

Waste no more time talking about great souls and how they should be. Become one yourself!

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts, therefore guard accordingly; and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue, and reasonable nature.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus - Meditations
Very little is needed to make a happy life.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus - "Meditations", book 5.
Where life is possible at all, a right life is possible; life in a palace is possible; therefore even in a palace a right life is possible.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus - "Meditations", book 6.
To stand up -- or be setup?

It is the act of a madman to pursue impossibilities.

The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.

How ridiculous and unrealistic is the man who is astonished at anything that happens in life.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus - Meditations, 200 A.D.
Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus - Meditations
Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.

- Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything.

Whatever you are from nature, keep to it; never desert your own line of talent. Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed; be anything else, and you will be ten thousands times worse than nothing.

Whatever you are by nature, keep to it; never desert your line of talent. Be what nature intended you for and you will succeed.
Sydney Smith - referring to Macaulay
He had occasional flashes of silence, that made his conversation perfectly delightful.

Never try to reason the prejudice out of a man. It was not reasoned into him, and cannot be reasoned out.

Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything.

You must not think me necessarily foolish because I am facetious, nor will I consider you necessarily wise because you are grave.

I have no relish for the country; it is a kind of healthy grave.

Errors to be dangerous must have a great deal of truth mingled with them. It is only from this alliance that they can ever obtain an extensive circulation.

It is always right that a man should be able to render a reason for the faith that is within him.
Sydney Smith - referring to Macaulay
He had occasional flashes of silence, that made his conversation perfectly delightful.

There is one piece of advice, in a life of study, which I think no one will object to; and that is, every now and then to be completely idle - to do nothing at all.

To do anything in this world worth doing, we must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in, and scramble through as well as we can.

Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness of existence.

What would the world do without tea? - how did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.

Live always in the best company when you read.

- Sydney Smith

A decline in courage may be the most striking feature that an outside observer notices in the West today. The Western world has lost its civic courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, in each government, in each political party, and, of course, in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling and intellectual elites...
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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.

- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - Commencement Address at Harvard University, June 8, 1978.

To know when to be generous and when to be firm -- this is wisdom.

A legal or religious ceremony by which two persons of the opposite sex solemnly agree to harass and spy on each other... until death do them join.

The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.

God will not look you over for medals, degrees or diplomas, but for scars.

An ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness.

Gossip is only the lack of a worthy memory.

If you suffer, thank God! -- it is a sure sign that you are alive.

One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.

Never explain--your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.

In these days, a man who says a thing cannot be done is quite apt to be interrupted by some idiot doing it.

One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man.

The secret of success is this: there is no secret of success.

Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.

Life is just one damned thing after another.

The woman who cannot tell a lie in defense of her husband is unworthy of the name of wife.

The greatest mistake a man can make is to be afraid of making one.

Live truth instead of professing it.

Get happiness out of your work or you may never know what happiness is.

Enthusiasm is the great hill-climber.

A friend is one who knows you and loves you just the same.

To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing and be nothing.

A friend is someone who knows all about you and loves you just the same.

A pessimist is a man who has been compelled to live with an optimist.

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 continously without resentment.

Folks who never do any more than they are paid for, never get paid more than they do.

Death: To stop sinning suddenly.

A committee is a thing which takes a week to do what one good man can do in an hour.

How many a man has thrown up his hands at a time when a little more effort, a little more patience would have achieved success?

Life in abundance comes only through great love.

So long as governments set the example of killing their enemies, private citizens will occasionally kill their.s

To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.

Men are punished by their sins, not for them.

The recipe for perpetual ignorance is: be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge.

The love we give away is the only love we keep.

To avoid criticism do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.

Editor: a person employed on a newspaper whose business it is to seperate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed.

Men are rich only as they give. He who gives great service gets great rewards.

Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.

Editor: a person employed by a newspaper, whose business it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed.

- Elbert Hubbard

If you can attain repose and calm, believe that you have seized happiness.

- Julie-Jeanne-Eleonore de Lespinasse - O Magazine, October 2002

Many search for happiness as we look for a hat we wear on our heads.

- Nikolaus Lenus

A nation that draws too broad a difference between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards, and its fighting done by fools.

The secret of Happiness is Freedom, and the secret of Freedom, Courage.

The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it.
Thucydides - Peloponnesian War
We secure our friends not by accepting favors but by doing them.

The sufferings that fate inflicts on us should be borne with patience, what enemies inflict with manly courage.

- Thucydides

Tis a good thing to laugh at any rate, and if a straw can tickle a man, it is an instrument of happiness.

- Chamfort

Knowledge is power.
Sir Francis Bacon
There is no great concurrence between learning and wisdom
Sir Francis Bacon
A prudent question is one half of wisdom.
Sir Francis Bacon
By far the best proof is experience.
Sir Francis Bacon
He of whom many are afraid ought to fear many.
Sir Francis Bacon
Discretion in speech is more than eloquence.
Sir Francis Bacon
Read not to contradict and confute, not to believe and take for granted, not to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.
Sir Francis Bacon - Meditationes Sacr?. De H?resibus. (1597)
Knowledge is power.
(Ipsa Scientia Potestas Est)
Sir Francis Bacon
A sudden bold and unexpected question doth many times surprise a man and lay him open.
Sir Francis Bacon - Essays: Of Building, 1623
Houses are built to live in, not to look on; therefore, let use be preferred before uniformity, except where both may be had.
Sir Francis Bacon
Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.
Sir Francis Bacon - "Of Beauty"
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.
Sir Francis Bacon
Death is a friend of ours; and he that is not ready to entertain him is not at home.
Sir Francis Bacon
The job of the artist is to deepen the mystery.
Sir Francis Bacon
The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding.
Sir Francis Bacon
Praise from the common people is generally false, and rather follows the vain that the virtuous.
Sir Francis Bacon
Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man.
Sir Francis Bacon
Certainly virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant when they are incensed, or crushed: for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.
Sir Francis Bacon
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention.
Sir Francis Bacon
Money is like muck, not good except it be spread.
Sir Francis Bacon
In taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy; but in passing it over, he is superior.
Sir Francis Bacon
I have taken all knowledge to by my province.
Sir Francis Bacon
Books must follow sciences, and not sciences books.
Sir Francis Bacon
God has placed no limits to the exercise of the intellect he has given us, on this side of the grave.
Sir Francis Bacon - Of Seditions and Troubles
Dolendi modus, timendi non item.
(To suffering there is a limit; to fearing, none.)
Sir Francis Bacon - Of Empire
For there is no question but a just fear of an imminent danger, though there be no blow given, is a lawful cause of war.
Sir Francis Bacon
They are ill discoverers that think there is no land, when they can see nothing but sea.
Sir Francis Bacon
A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.
Sir Francis Bacon
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.
Sir Francis Bacon
If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.
Sir Francis Bacon - Of Adversity
Certainly virtue is like precious odours, most fragrant when they are incensed or crushed: for prosperity doth best discover vice; but adversity doth best discover virtue.
Sir Francis Bacon - O Magazine, April 2003
Read not to contradict and confute?nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider.
Sir Francis Bacon - The Advancement of Learning, 1605
Man seeketh in society comfort, use and protection.
Sir Francis Bacon
He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.
Sir Francis Bacon
A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.
Sir Francis Bacon - Of Goodness, and Goodness of Nature (1625)
In charity there is no excess.
Sir Francis Bacon - "Of Death"
Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased by tales, so is the other.
Sir Francis Bacon
The worst solitude is to be destitute of sincere friendship.
Sir Francis Bacon
Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.
Sir Francis Bacon
Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.
Sir Francis Bacon
Seek ye first the good things of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied or its loss will not be felt.
Sir Francis Bacon
There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.
Sir Francis Bacon
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion.
Sir Francis Bacon
Whoever is out of patience is out of possession of his soul. Men must not turn into bees, and kill themselves in stinging others.
Sir Francis Bacon
Choose the life that is most useful, and habit will make it the most agreeable.
Sir Francis Bacon
Natural abilities are like natural plants; they need pruning by study.
Sir Francis Bacon
Silence is the virtue of fools.

- Sir Francis Bacon - Religious Meditations, Of Heresies, 1597

A well cultivated mind is made up of all the minds of preceding ages; it is only the one single mind educated by all previous time.

A true philosopher is like an elephant; he never puts the second foot down until the first one is solidly in place.

A great obstacle to happiness is the expectation of too great a happiness.

- Fontenelle

There are few nudities so objectionable as the naked truth.

It is in his pleasure that a man really lives; it is from his leisure that he constructs the true fabric of self.

It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.

Humor distorts nothing, and only false gods are laughed off their pedestals.

It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.
Agnes Repplier - Americans and Others, 1912
We cannot really love anybody with whom we never laugh.

The tourist may complain of other tourists, but he would be lost without them.

- Agnes Repplier

Forgiveness is the key to happiness.

- A Course In Miracles

A poet who reads his verse in public may have other nasty habits.
Robert Heinlein
Anyone who clings to the historically untrue - and thoroughly immoral - doctrine that violence never settles anything I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler would referee. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forgot this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and there freedoms.
Robert Heinlein - Excerpt from the notebooks of Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love"
People who go broke in a big way never miss any meals. It is the poor jerk who is shy a half slug who must tighten his belt.
Robert Heinlein - Time Enough For Love
That old saw about the early bird just proves that the worm should have stayed in bed.
Robert Heinlein
In the absence of clearly-defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it.
Robert Heinlein - Stranger in a Srange Land
Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.... Jealousy is a disease, love is a healthy condition. The immature mind often mistakes one for the other, or assumes that the greater the love the greater the jealousy.
Robert Heinlein
Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.
Robert Heinlein - The Notebooks of Lazurus Long
A generation which ignores history has no past and no future.
Robert Heinlein - Lazarus Long: Time Enough For Love
A motion to adjourn is always in order.
Robert Heinlein - "Job", 1984
The supreme irony of life is that hardly anyone gets out of it alive.
Robert Heinlein - The voice of Lazarus Long
Specialization is for insects.
Robert Heinlein
To be matter of fact about the world is to blunder into fantasy -- and dull fantasy at that, as the real world is strange and wonderful.
Robert Heinlein - Time Enough for Love (1972)
History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it.

- Robert Heinlein - Time Enough for Love, 1978

When you relinquish the desire to control your future, you can have more happiness.

- Nicole Kidman - in The Scotsman

Retirement at sixty-five is ridiculous. When I was sixty-five I still had pimples.

Too bad the only people who know how to run the country are busy driving cabs and cutting hair.

First you forget names, then you forget faces. Next you forget to pull your zipper up and finally, you forget to pull it down.

Too bad the only people who know how to run the country are busy driving cabs and cutting hair.

I can remember when the air was clean and sex was dirty.

The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning anf a good ending; and have the two as close together as possible.

Too bad all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxi cabs and cutting hair.

Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.

I can remember when the air was clean and sex was dirty.

- George Burns

Early morning cheerfulness can be extremely obnoxious.

One of the indictments of civilizations is that happiness and intelligence are so rarely found in the same person.

The petty economies of the rich are just as amazing as the silly extravagances of the poor.

Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.

Not a tenth of us who are in business are doing as well as we could if we merely followed the principles that were known to our grandfathers.

Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go

Early morning cheerfulness can be extremely obnoxious.

Setting a good example for children takes all the fun out of middle age.

One of the indictments of civilizations is that happiness and intelligence are so rarely found in the same person.

- William Feather

Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude.

Everything is something I decide to do, and there is nothing I have to do.

We have got to have a dream if we are going to make a dream come true.

- Denis Waitley

Depend not on another, but lean instead on thyself...True happiness is born of self-reliance.

- The laws of Manu

Life is all one piece. Men err when they think they can be inhuman exploiters in their business life, and loving husbands and fathers at home. For achievement without love is a cold and tight-lipped murderer of human happiness everywhere.

- Smiley Blanton

Supreme happiness will be the greatest cause of misery, and the perfection of wisdom the occassion of folly.
Leonardo DaVinci - (maybe)
Art is never finished, only abandoned.
Leonardo DaVinci - Notebooks (c. 1500)
Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve. He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind.

- Leonardo DaVinci - The notebooks of Leonardo DaVinci by Macurdy

Nothing is harder to direct than a man in prosperity; nothing more easily managed that one is adversity.
Plutarch - Lives
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.

Do not speak of your happiness to one less fortunate than yourself.

The giving of riches and honors to a wicked man is like giving strong wine to him that hath a fever.
Plutarch - Morals
When the candles are out all women are fair.

In words are seen the state of mind and character and disposition of the speaker.

Know how to listen, and you will profit even from those who talk badly.

Do not speak of your happiness to one less fortunate than yourself.

No beast is more savage than man when possessed with power answerable to his rage.

Prosperity is no just scale; adversity is the only balance to weigh friends.

The whole life of man is but a point of time; let us enjoy it.
Plutarch - Morals
For to err in opinion, though it be not the part of wise men, is at least human.

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.
Plutarch - Morals
An old doting fool, with one foot already in the grave.
Plutarch - Morals
The very spring and root of honesty and virtue lie in good education.

To find fault is easy; to do better may be difficult.

To find a fault is easy; to do better may be difficult.

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.

- Plutarch

I am more and more convinced that our happiness or unhappiness depends far more on the way we meet the events of life, than on the nature of those events themselves.

How a person masters his fate is more important than what his fate is.

- Wilhelm von Humboldt

We are taught to be ashamed of confusion, anger, fear and sadness, and to me they are of equal value as happiness excitement and inspiration.

I see my body as an instrument, rather than an ornament.

- Alanis Morissette

I define comfort as self-acceptance. When we finally learn that self-care begins and ends with ourselves, we no longer demand sustenance and happiness from others.

- Jennifer Louden

The worst prison would be a closed heart.

We are drowning in information and starved for knowledge.

Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy.

Eat a live toad the first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.

Success always occurs in private and failure in full public view.

Life is like a piano... what you get out of it depends on how you play it.
Unknown - Polish Slogan
Never lose hope.

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

Women remember the first kiss, men remember the last.

Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing.

The human brain is like a railroad freight car -- guaranteed to have a certain capacity but often running empty.

I always knew i would look back on my tears and laugh but i never tought i would look back on the laughter and cry

Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye.

Words lead to deeds.... They prepare the soul, make it ready, and move it to tenderness.
Unknown - Latin Legal Phrase
He is not deemed to give consent who is under a mistake.

Sometimes the most urgent and vital thing you can do is take a complete rest.

May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows your dead

Never deprive someone of hope -- it may be all they have.

After all is said and done, a lot more will be said than done.

May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
the rains fall soft upon your fields and,
until we meet again may god hold you in the palm of his hand

In a few minutes a computer can make a mistake so great that it would have taken many men many months to equal it.

Psychiatry is the care of the id by the odd.

The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.

It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are.
Unknown - Legal Maxim
An act against my will is not my act.

A lifetime is more than sufficiently long for people to get what there is of it wrong.

Dedication is not what others expect of you, it is what you can give to others.

He who ceases to learn cannot adequately teach.
Unknown - Buckaroo Banzai, from the film
And remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

Life has no rehearsals, only performances.

Blessed are we who can laugh at ourselves for we shall never cease to be amused.

Discretion is being able to raise your eyebrow instead of your voice.

The human race is faced with a cruel choice: work or daytime television.

What I said never changed anyone. What they understood did.

What man does not understand, he fears; and what he fears, he tends to destroy.

If debugging is the art of removing bugs, then programming must be the art of inserting them.

A friend is one to whom you can pour out the contents of your heart, chaff and grain alike. Knowing that the gentlest of hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping and with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.

There are people who make things happen,
those who watch what happens,
and those who wonder what happened.

An Irishman is the only man in the world who will step over the bodies of a dozen naked women to get to a bottle of stout.

It is with a word as with an arrow - once let it loose and it does not return.

The human race is faced with a cruel choice: work or daytime television.

Any new venture goes through the following stages: enthusiasm, complication, disillusionment, search for the guilty, punishment of the innocent, and decoration of those who did nothing.

Do not regret growing older. It is a privilege denied to many.

Usability is like oxygen -- you never notice it until it is missing...

Not one shred of evidence supports the notion that life is serious.

If you listened hard enough the first time, you might have heard what I meant to say.

Programming today is a race between software engineers stirring to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the universe is winning.

My Karma ran over your dogma.

Whoever does not love his work cannot hope that it will please others.

A wise man can see more from the bottom of a well than a fool can from a mountain top.

If you make the world a little better, then you have accomplished a great deal.

If it is to be, it is up to me.

Every oak tree started out as a couple of nuts who decided to stand their ground.

To err is human, to blame the next guy even more so.

Man is a gregarious creature, more so in mind than in body. He may like to go alone for a walk but he hates to stand alone in his opinion.
Unknown - Popular Mechanics, March 1949
Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vaccuum tubes and perhaps weigh 1.5 tons.

Use what talents you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang the best.

All power corrupts, but we need the electricity.

A healthy family is sacred territory.

Politicians are like diapers. They both need changing regularly and for the same reason.

In every fat book there is a thin book trying to get out.

If we deny love that is given to us, if we refuse to give love because we fear pain or loss, then our lives will be empty, our loss greater.

The essence of intelligence is skill in extracting meaning from everyday experience.

Courage atrophies from lack of use.

In the sixties, the world was normal and people took acid to make it weird. Nowadays the world is weird and people take prozac to make it normal.
Unknown - US Navy Wisdom
Good seamanship is recovering from an incident at sea. Great seamanship is avoiding an incident at sea.

Never make anything simple and efficient when a way can be found to make it complex and wonderful.

What most people need to learn in life is how to love people and use things instead of using people and loving things.

Remember, people will judge you by your actions, not your intentions. You may have a heart of gold -- but so does a hard-boiled egg.
Unknown - The Bhagavad Gita
For the uncontrolled there is no wisdom. For the uncontrolled there is no concentration, and for him without concentration, there is no peace. And for the unpeaceful how can there ever be happiness?

Love is not blind, it sees more not less; But because it sees more it chooses to see less.

He who hesitates is not only lost, but miles from the next exit.

Lie: A very poor substitute for the truth, but the only one discovered to date.

Confidence in nonsense is a requirement for the creative process.

Use the talents you possess -- for the woods would be a very silent place if no birds sang except for the best.

Opportunity may knock only once, but temptation leans on the doorbell.

Teach children to be polite and courteous in the home, and, when he grows up, he will never be able to edge his car onto a freeway.
Unknown - Tuskegee Airman motto during World War II
We do not hate those we fight; we do not love those we defend.

"Reality" is the only word in the English language that should always be used in quotes.
Unknown - Suggested book title
J.F.K.--The Man and the Airport

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt.

Practice Random Acts of Kindness and Senseless Beauty.

Immortality lies not in the things you leave behind, but in the people your life has touched.

Many an opportunity is lost because a man is out looking for four-leaf clovers.

A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something.

Artificial Intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.

A library is an arsenal of liberty.

Education is what you get from reading the fine print. Experience is what you get from not reading it.
Unknown - Army Magazine of Preventive Maintenance
A slipping gear in your M203 grenade launcher can cause it to fire when you least expect it. This could make you very unpopular with what is left of your unit.

Take only pictures, steal only time, leave only footprints.

If you begin the day with love in your heart, peace in your nerves, and truth in your mind, you not only benefit by their presence but also bring them to others, to your family and friends, and to all those whose destiny draws across your path that day.

On Thanksgiving Day all over America, families sit down to dinner at the same moment - halftime.

Most people rust out due to lack of challenge. Few people rust out due to overuse.

Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some abuse the privilege.

True friendship is seen through the heart not through the eyes.

The greatest oak was once a little nut who held its ground....

DISCLAIMER: A society where such disclaimers are needed is saddening.

Every big problem was at one time a wee disturbance.

Life is like a beautiful melody, only the lyrics are messed up.
Unknown - UNESCO Constitution
Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defence of peace must be constructed.
Unknown - The Ultimate Law
All general statements are false.

Between the wish and the thing life lies waiting.

He who thinks by the inch and talks by the yard deserves to be kicked by the foot.

If we deny love that is given to us, if we refuse to give love because we fear pain or loss, then our lives will be empty, our loss greater.

Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterward.

After all is said and done, a lot more will have been said than done.

Fools rush in where fools have been before.

Outside show is a poor substitute for inner worth.

The more you run over a dead cat, the flatter it gets.

Those who stare at the past have their backs turned to the future.

Not all those who wonder are lost.
Unknown - Epitaph on headstone of actor John Wayne (author unknown)
Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight, very clean. When it arrives it is perfect. It puts itself in our hands. It hopes we learned something from yesterday.

The one whose judgment counts most in your life is the one staring back in the glass.

Fashion is something that goes in one year and out the other.

Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.

The wages of sin are unreported.

It is difficult for sorrow to intrude on a busy life.

A chinese philosopher once had a dream that he was a butterfly. From that day on, he was never quite certain that he was not a butterfly, dreaming that he was a man.
Unknown - epitaph for a loved one
Love is my Sword,
Goodness my Armor,
And Humor my Shield.

If you laid all of the lawyers in the world, end to end, on the equator ---- It would be a good idea to just leave them there.

Everything you do or say is public relations.

Feelings are real and legitimate; children behave and misbehave for a reason, even if adults cannot figure it out.

Perhaps one day this too will be pleasant to remember.

Socrates seems to be the philosophical napkin with which the ensuing cultural thinkers of history wipe their mouths of pedantic ooze.

Thousands of geniuses live and die undiscovered -- either by themselves or by others.

The really happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery when on a detour.

Mahatma Gandi was what wives wish their husbands were: thin, tan and moral.

An effective way to deal with predators is to taste terrible.

The words you speak today should be soft and tender. . . for tomorrow you may have to eat them.

If you fear nothing, you love nothing. If you love nothing, what joy can there be in life?

Blessed is the person who is too busy to worry in the daytime and too sleepy to worry at night.

That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly.

Beware of the half truth. You may have gotten hold of the wrong half.

Bad habits are like a comfortable bed, easy to get into, but hard to get out of.

All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors.

Fishing gives you a sense of where you fit in the sceme of things - Your place in the universe...I, mean, here I am, one small guy with a fishing pole on this vast beach and out there in the blue expanse of ocean are these hundreds of millions of fish...laughing at me.

This life is a test. It is only a test. Had this been an actual life, you would have received further instructions as to what to do and where to go.
Unknown - Often attributed to Abraham Lincoln
I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. . . . Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.

The whole world steps aside for the man who knows where he is going.

Nobody trips over mountains. It is the small pebble that causes you to stumble. Pass all the pebbles in your path and you will find you have crossed the mountain.

A friend is someone who will help you move. A real friend is someone who will help you move a body.

A stitch in time would have confused Einstein.

The only difference between genius and stupidity is that genius is limited.

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know no way of judging the future but by the past.

It is twice as hard to crush a half-truth as a whole lie.

The atom, being for all practical purposes the stable unit of the physical plane, is a constantly changing vortex of reactions.

How to win a case in court: If the law is on your side, pound on the law; if the facts are on your side, pound on the facts; if neither is on your side, pound on the table.
Unknown - Sign on a restaurant tip jar
If you fear change, leave it here.

Advertising may be described as the science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it.

Failure to prepare is preparing to fail.

A diplomat is a man who says you have an open mind, instead of telling you that you have a hole in the head.

A wise man can see more from the bottom of a well than a fool can from a mountain top .

Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a function.

The only real failure in life is the failure to try.

Accident, n.: A condition in which presence of mind is good, but absence of body is better.

A novel is a piece of prose of a certain length with something wrong with it.

Adolescence is the stage between infancy and adultery.

All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors.

If a pessimist is always right, is he a realist?

Use soft words and hard arguments.

An Irishman is the only man in the world who will step over the bodies of a dozen naked women to get to a bottle of stout.

Ideals are like stars. You will not succeed in touching them with your hands. But, like the seafaring man on the desert of waters, you choose them as your guides and following them you will reach your destiny.

A life spent making mistakes is not only most honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.

Any sufficiently advanced bureaucracy is indistinguishable from molasses.

The wages of sin are unreported.

There is only one success- to be able to spend your life in your own way.
Unknown - quoted by Jim Horning
Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.

The heart is wiser than the intellect.

A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation.

Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.

- Unknown

Tourist, Rincewind decided, meant "idiot".
Terry Pratchett - Jingo
It could not be happening because this sort of thing did not happen. Any contradictory evidence could be safely ignored.
Terry Pratchett - Equal Rites
For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks.
Terry Pratchett - Hogfather
An education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on.
Terry Pratchett - Feet of Clay
Stupid men are often capable of things the clever would not dare to contemplate...
Terry Pratchett - Guards! Guards!
A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read.
Terry Pratchett - Small Gods
No. Men should die for lies. But the truth is too precious to die for.
Terry Pratchett - "Small Gods" (1992)
Gravity is a habit that is hard to shake off.
Terry Pratchett - Sourcery
"I meant," said Ipslore bitterly, "what is there in this world that truly makes living worthwhile?"
Death thought about it.
"Cats," he said eventually. "Cats are nice."
Terry Pratchett - Guards! Guards!
A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read.
Terry Pratchett - The Fifth Elephant
A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.
Terry Pratchett - A Discworld Novel
The truth may be out there, but the lies are inside your head.
Terry Pratchett - Small Gods
He says gods like to see an atheist around. Gives them something to aim at.
Terry Pratchett - Monstrous Regiment
[The pamphlet] was very patriotic. That is, it talked about killing foreigners.
Terry Pratchett
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.
Terry Pratchett - Eric
The consensus seemed to be that if really large numbers of men were sent to storm the mountain, then enough might survive the rocks to take the citadel. This is essentially the basis of all military thinking.
Terry Pratchett - Hogfather
Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.
Terry Pratchett - Small Gods
When the least they could do to you was everything, then the most they could do to you suddenly held no terror.
Terry Pratchett - Jingo
One of the universal rules of happiness is: always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual.
Terry Pratchett - Pyramids
What our ancestors would really be thinking, if they were alive today, is: "Why is it so dark in here?"
Terry Pratchett - Equal Rites
For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks.
Terry Pratchett - Wyrd Sisters
The duke had a mind that ticked like a clock and, like a clock, it regularly went cuckoo.
Terry Pratchett - Men at Arms
Sham Harga had run a succesful eatery for many years by always smiling, never extending credit, and realizing that most of his customers wanted meals properly balanced between the four food groups: sugar, starch, grease and burnt crunchy bits.
Terry Pratchett - Moving Pictures (regarding popcorn)
If you put butter and salt on it, it tastes like salty butter.
Terry Pratchett - The Fifth Elephant
A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.
Terry Pratchett - Moving Pictures
Of course, it is very important to be sober when you take an exam. Many worthwhile careers in the street- cleansing, fruit-picking and subway-guitar-playing industries have been founded on a lack of understanding of this simple fact.
Terry Pratchett
Sometimes glass glitters more than diamonds because it has more to prove.

- Terry Pratchett - The Colour of Magic

Chastity is a monkish and evangelical superstition, a greater foe to natural temperance even than unintellectual sensuality; it strikes at the root of all domestic happiness, and consigns more than half of the human race to misery.
Shelley - incomplete, poets
Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.

- Shelley

A pessimist is a person who has to listen to too many optimists.

Honesty is a good thing, but it is not profitable to its possessor unless it is kept under control.

The chief obstacle to the progress of the human race is the human race.

Happiness is the interval between periods of unhappiness.

Honesty is a good thing, but it is not profitable to its possessor unless it is kept under control.

Fishing is a delusion entirely surrounded by liars in old clothes.

The chief obstacle to the progress of the human race is the human race.

Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.

An optimist is a man who has never had much experience.

Pity the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Pity the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.

If a child shows himself to be incorrigible, he should be decently and quietly beheaded at the age of twelve, lest he grow to maturity marry, and perpetuate his kind.

- Don Marquis

Being reproached for giving to an unworthy person, Aristotle said, "I did not give it to the man, but to humanity."

He that embarks on the voyage of life will always wish to advance rather by the impulse of the wind than the strokes of the oar; and many foulder in their passage; while they lie waiting for the gale.

The habit of looking on the best side of every event is worth more than a thousand pounds a years.

The real satisfaction which praise can afford, is when what is repeated aloud agrees with the whispers of conscience, by showing us that we have not endeavored to deserve well in vain.

Pride is seldom delicate; it will please itself with very mean advantages.

Judgment is forced upon us by experience.

Knowledge always desires increase; it is like fire, which must first be kindled by some external agent, but which will afterward propagate it.

Poetry cannot be translated; and, therefore, it is the poets that preserve the languages; for we would not be at the trouble to learn a language if we could have all that is written in it just as well in a translation. But as the beauties of poetry cannot be preserved in any language except that in which it was originally written, we learn the language.

The love of retirement has in all ages adhered closely to those minds which have been most enlarged by knowledge, or elevated by genius. Those who enjoyed everything generally supposed to confer happiness have been forced to seek it is the shades of privacy.

Confidence is a plant of slow growth; especially in an aged bosom.

Ignorance, when voluntary, is criminal, and a man may be properly charged with that evil which he neglected or refused to learn how to prevent.

It is the great privilege of poverty to be happy and yet unenvied, to be healthy with physic, secure without a guard, and to obtain from the bounty of nature what the great and wealthy are compelled to procure by the help of art.

The supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things--the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit.

Where there is no hope, there can be no endeavor.

One of the amusements of idleness is reading without the fatigue of attention, and the world, therefore, swarms with writers whose wish is not to be studied but to be read.

- Johnson

Analysis kills spontaneity.

Woman is the salvation or the destruction of the family. She carries its destiny in the folds of her mantle.

An error is the more dangerous the more truth it contains.

Work while you have the light. You are responsible for the talent that has been entrusted to you.

Charm is the quality in others that makes us more satisfied with ourselves.

The man who insists on seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides.

Learn to limit yourself, to content yourself with some definite thing, and some definite work; dare to be what you are, and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not and to believe in your own individuality.

All appears to change when we change.

Hope is only the love of life.

...happiness gives us the energy which is the basis of health.

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.

Liberty, equality - bad principles! The only true principle for humanity is justice; and justice to the feeble is protection and kindness.

To live we must conquer incessantly, we must have the courage to be happy.

Truth is the secret of eloquence and of virtue, the basis of moral authority; it is the highest summit of art and life.

The test of every religious, political, or educational system is the man that it forms.

You desire to know the art of living, my friend? It is contained in one phrase: make use of suffering.

- Henri-Fr?d?ric Amiel

Guilt is a rope that wears thin.
Ayn Rand - From the article "Art and Sense of Life" in The Romantic Manifesto
An artist does not fake reality--he *stylizes* it.
Ayn Rand - Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal p. 42
If men want to oppose war, it is *statism* that they must oppose.

Thanksgiving is a typically American holiday...The lavish meal is a symbol of the fact that abundant consumption is the result and reward of production.
Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged
Rationality is the recognition of the fact that nothing can alter the truth and nothing can take precedence over that act of perceiving it.

I can accept anthing, except what seems to be the easiest for most people: the half-way, the almost, the just-about, the in-between.
Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged, 1957
James, you ought to discover some day that words have an exact meaning.
Ayn Rand - Anthem
The secrets of this earth are not for all men to see, but only for those who seek them.

Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the man who disagrees. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator is the man who goes against the current. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone.

There is a level of cowardice lower than that of the conformist: the fashionable non-conformist.
Ayn Rand - Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 1966
The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles.
Ayn Rand - The Romantic Manifesto
Art is the indespensible medium for the communication of a moral idea.

Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to become the means by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of other men. Blood, whips and guns--or dollars. Take your choice--there is no other.
Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged
Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgment and nothing can help you escape it.
Ayn Rand - The Virtue of Selfishness, 1964
The Argument from Intimidation is a confession of intellectual impotence.

He had a big head and a face so ugly it became almost fascinating.

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

Doctors are not servants of their patients, they are traders like everyone else in a free society and they should bear that title proudly considering the crucial importance of the services they offer.
Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged
Love is our response to our highest values. Love is self-enjoyment. The noblest love is born out of admiration of another?s values.
Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged
Happiness is possible only to a rational man, the man who desires nothing but rational goals, seeks nothing but rational values and finds his joy in nothing buy rational actions.
Ayn Rand - Anthem, 1946
I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction.
Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged
He was guilty of nothing, except that he earned his own fortune and never forgot that it was his.
Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged
Honesty is the recognition of the fact that the unreal is unreal and can have no value, that neither love nor fame nor cash is a value if obtained by fraud.
Ayn Rand - The Romantic Manifesto p. 74 (pb 93)
A good novel is an indivisible sum; every scene, sequence and passage of a good novel has to involve, contribute to and advance all three of its major attributes: theme, plot, characterization.
Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged
Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplacable spark. In the hopeless swamps of the not quite, the not yet, and the not at all, do not let the hero in your soul perish and leave only frustration for the life you deserved, but never have been able to reach. The world you desire can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.
Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged
Pride is the recognition of the fact that you are your own highest value and, like all of man?s values, it has to be earned.
Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged
Integrity is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake your consciousness, just as honesty is the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake existence.
Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged, 1957
The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it.
Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged, 1957
It is not advisable, James, to venture unsolicited opinions. You should spare yourself the embarrassing discovery of their exact value to your listener.

Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.

- Ayn Rand

Has not Nature proved, in giving us the strength necessary to submit them to our desires, that we have the right to do so?
Marquis de Sade - Justine
Will it not be felt that Virtue, however beautiful, becomes the worst of all attitudes when it is found too feeble to contend with Vice...
Marquis de Sade
Social order at the expense of liberty is hardly a bargain.
Marquis de Sade
You say that my way of thinking cannot be tolerated? What of it? The man who alters his way of thinking to suit others is a fool. My way of thinking is the result of my reflections. It is part of my inner being, the way I am made. I do not contradict them, and would not even if I wished to. For my system, which you disapprove of, is also my greatest comfort in life, the source of all my happiness --- it means more to me than my life itself.
Marquis de Sade
To judge from the notions expounded by theologians, one must conclude that God created most men simply with a view to crowding hell.

- Marquis de Sade - Aline et Valcour

Glory built on selfish principles is shame and guilt.

The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.

Words learned by rote a parrot may rehearse; but talking is not always to converse, not more distinct from harmony divine, the constant creaking of a country sign.

- William Cowper

To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level.
Bertrand Russell
The place of the father in the modern suburban family is a very small one, particularly if he plays golf.
Bertrand Russell
There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.
Bertrand Russell
Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.
Bertrand Russell
Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education.
Bertrand Russell
Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.
Bertrand Russell - Sceptical Essays (1928), "Dreams and Facts"
Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day.
Bertrand Russell
Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.
Bertrand Russell - Marriage and Morals (1929) ch. 5
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.
Bertrand Russell
Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.
Bertrand Russell
There are two motives for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.
Bertrand Russell
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
Bertrand Russell - Conquest of Happiness (1930) ch. 1
Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact.
Bertrand Russell
To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level.
Bertrand Russell
Order, unity and continuity are human inventions just as truly as catalogues and encyclopedias.
Bertrand Russell
Whereas in art nothing worth doing can be done without genius, in science even a very moderate capacity can contribute to a supreme achievement.
Bertrand Russell
This is one of those views which are so absolutely absurd that only very learned men could possibly adopt them.
Bertrand Russell
The wise man thinks about his troubles only when there is some purpose in doing so; at other times he thinks about others things.
Bertrand Russell
Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country.
Bertrand Russell
The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists - that is why they invented hell.
Bertrand Russell
The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation.
Bertrand Russell
It is because modern education is so seldom inspired by a great hope that it so seldom achieves great results. The wish to preserve the past rather that the hope of creating the future dominates the minds of those who control the teaching of the young.
Bertrand Russell
If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence.
Bertrand Russell
The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others.
Bertrand Russell
What the world needs is not dogma but an attitude of scientific inquiry combined with a belief that the torture of millions is not desirable, whether inflicted by Stalin or by a Deity imagined in the likeness of the believer.
Bertrand Russell
Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.
Bertrand Russell
Obscenity is what happens to shock some elderly and ignorant magistrate.
Bertrand Russell - The Philosophy of Logical Atomism
The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.
Bertrand Russell - "Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic?", 1947
When one admits that nothing is certain one must, I think, also admit that some things are much more nearly certain than others.
Bertrand Russell
If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have paradise in a few years.
Bertrand Russell
Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country.
Bertrand Russell
All exact science is dominated by the idea of approximation.
Bertrand Russell
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.
Bertrand Russell
This is patently absurd; but whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities.
Bertrand Russell
All movements go too far.
Bertrand Russell
Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise.
Bertrand Russell
Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.
Bertrand Russell - The Philosophy of Logical Atomism
The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.
Bertrand Russell
We know very little, and yet it is astonishing that we know so much, and still more astonishing that so little knowledge can give us so much power.
Bertrand Russell
In all things it is a good idea to hang a question mark now and then on the things we have taken for granted.
Bertrand Russell
If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have paradise in a few years.
Bertrand Russell
So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.
Bertrand Russell - from the essay "The Science to Save Us From Science"
But all who are not lunitics are agreed about certain things: That it is better to be alive than dead, better to be adequately fed than starved, better to be free than to be a slave. Many people desire these things only for themselves and their friends; they are quite content that their enemies should suffer. These people can be refuted by science: Mankind has become so much one family that we cannot insure our own prosperity except by insuring that of everyone else. If you wish to be happy yourself, you must resign yourself to seeing others also happy.
Bertrand Russell
Even in civilized mankind faint traces of monogamous instincts can be perceived.
Bertrand Russell
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
Bertrand Russell
I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.
Bertrand Russell
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
Bertrand Russell
So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.
Bertrand Russell
I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.
Bertrand Russell
Too little liberty brings stagnation and too much brings chaos.
Bertrand Russell
So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.
Bertrand Russell
The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as in poetry.
Bertrand Russell - Autobiography
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.
Bertrand Russell - Unpopular Essays (1950), "Outline of Intellectual Rubbish"
Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.
Bertrand Russell
The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.
Bertrand Russell
The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.
Bertrand Russell
The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.
Bertrand Russell
The main things which seem to me important on their own account, and not merely as means to other things, are knowledge, art, instinctive happiness, and relations of friendship or affection.
Bertrand Russell - Sceptical Essays (1928), "On the Value of Scepticism"
It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatsoever for supposing it is true.
Bertrand Russell - Conquest of Happiness (1930) ch. 12
Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.
Bertrand Russell - Conquest of Happiness (1930) ch. 9
One should as a rule respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny, and is likely to interfere with happiness in all kinds of ways.
Bertrand Russell - Mysticism and Logic (1917) ch. 4
Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.
Bertrand Russell
Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so.
Bertrand Russell
Change is scientific, progress is ethical; change is indubitable, whereas progress is a matter of controversy.
Bertrand Russell
Few people can be happy unless they hate some other person, nation, or creed.
Bertrand Russell - Sceptical Essays (1928), "Eastern and Western Ideals of Happiness"
We have, in fact, two kinds of morality side by side: one which we preach but do not practice, and another which we practice but seldom preach.
Bertrand Russell
It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.
Bertrand Russell
Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.
Bertrand Russell - Playboy Interview - March 1963
The human race may well become extinct before the end of the century.
Bertrand Russell
Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education.
Bertrand Russell
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.
Bertrand Russell
Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.
Bertrand Russell
Mathematics, rightly viewed, posses not only truth, but supreme beauty - a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture.
Bertrand Russell
Most people would sooner die than think; in fact they do so.
Bertrand Russell - Marriage and Morals (1929) ch. 19
To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.
Bertrand Russell
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 that hostile.
Bertrand Russell
Government can easily exist without laws, but law cannot exist without government.
Bertrand Russell
We know too much and feel too little. At least, we feel too little of those creative emotions from which a good life springs.
Bertrand Russell
All movements go too far.
Bertrand Russell - "Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic?", 1947
When one admits that nothing is certain one must, I think, also admit that some things are much more nearly certain than others. It is much more nearly certain that we are assembled here tonight than it is that this or that political party is in the right. Certainly there are degrees of certainty, and one should be very careful to emphasize that fact, because otherwise one is landed in an utter skepticism, and complete skepticism would, of course, be totally barren and completely useless.
Bertrand Russell
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.
Bertrand Russell - "Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic?", 1947
Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.
Bertrand Russell
Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do.
Bertrand Russell
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.
Bertrand Russell - Conquest of Happiness (1930) ch. 10
A sense of duty is useful in work, but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not be endured with patient resignation.
Bertrand Russell
Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
Bertrand Russell
There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action.
Bertrand Russell - "The Philosophy of Logical Atomism"
The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.
Bertrand Russell - The Conquest of Happiness
The man who suffers from a sense of sin is suffering from a particular kind of self-love. In all this vast universe the thing that appears to him of most importance is that he himself should be virtuous. It is a grave defect in certain forms of traditional religion that they have encouraged this particular kind of self-absorption.
Bertrand Russell
To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.
Bertrand Russell
Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man.
Bertrand Russell
Sin is geographical.
Bertrand Russell
Every living thing is a sort of imperialist, seeking to transform as much as possible of its environment into itself.
Bertrand Russell
In the part of this universe that we know there is great injustice, and often the good suffer, and often the wicked prosper, and one hardly knows which of those is the more annoying.
Bertrand Russell - "Why I am Not a Christian"
I should wish to see a world in which education aimed at mental freedom rather than imprisoning the minds of the young in a rigid armor of dogma calculated to protect them though life against the shafts of impartial evidence.
Bertrand Russell - Unpopular Essays (1950), "Outline of Intellectual Rubbish"
Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.
Bertrand Russell
Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure.
Bertrand Russell
Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.
Bertrand Russell
One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.

- Bertrand Russell - Conquest of Happiness (1930) ch. 14

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.
John Stuart Mill - On Liberty, 1859
He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation. He who chooses his plan for himself, employs all his faculties. He must use observation to see, reasoning and judgment to foresee, activity to gather materials for decision, discrimination to decide, and when he has decided, firmness and self-control to hold to his deliberate decision.

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
John Stuart Mill - On Liberty
The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant.

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.

Indeed the dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution, is one of those pleasant falsehoods which men repeat after one another till they pass into common places, but which all experience refutes.

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.

Ask yourself whether you are happy and you cease to be so.
John Stuart Mill - On Liberty, 1859
The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental or spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.
John Stuart Mill - On Liberty
Everyone who receives the protection of society owes a return for the benefit.

If mankind minus one were of one opinion, then mankind is no more justified in silencing the one than the one - if he had the power - would be justified in silencing mankind.
John Stuart Mill - On Liberty
Over one mind and over ones body the individual is sovereign.

One person with a belief is equal to a force of 99 who have only interests.

Those only are happy who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness: on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end. Aiming at something else, they find happiness by the way.
John Stuart Mill - "On Liberty", 1859
The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.
John Stuart Mill - On Liberty, 1859
No one can be a great thinker who does not recognize that as a thinker it is his first duty to follow his intellect to whatever conclusions it may lead. Truth gains more even by the errors of one who, with due study, and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think.

- John Stuart Mill

If you talk to God, you are praying; if God talks to you, you have schizophrenia.
Thomas Szasz - The Second Sin (1973) "Emotions"
Happiness is an imaginary condition, formerly attributed by the living to the dead, now usually attributed by adults to children, and by children to adults.

The stupid neither forgive or forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.
Thomas Szasz - "The Second Sin"
When a person can no longer laugh at himself, it is time for others to laugh at him.

Happiness is an imaginary condition, formerly attributed by the living to the dead, now usually attributed by adults to children, and by children to adults.

If you talk to God, you are praying. If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia.
Thomas Szasz - The Second Sin (1973) "Childhood"
A child becomes an adult when he realizes that he has a right not only to be right but also to be wrong.
Thomas Szasz - The Second Sin (1973) "Science and Scientism"
Formerly, when religion was strong and science weak, men mistook magic for medicine; now, when science is strong and religion weak, men mistake medicine for magic.

A child becomes an adult when he realizes that he has a right not only to be right but also to be wrong.
Thomas Szasz - The Second Sin (1973) "Personal Conduct"
The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.

- Thomas Szasz

A pleasure is not full grown until it is remembered.

The trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed.

Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.

I believe in God like I believe in the sun, not because I can see it, but because of it all things are seen.

No one ever told me that grief felt so much like fear.

To love at all is to be vulnerable.

Do not let us mistake necessary evils for good.

God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.

No one ever told me grief felt so much like fear.

I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of "Admin." The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern.

Five senses; an incurably abstract intellect; a haphazardly selective memory; a set of preconceptions and assumptions so numerous that I can never examine more than minority of them - never become conscious of them all. How much of total reality can such an apparatus let through?
C. S. Lewis - The Case for Christianity
Badness is only spoiled goodness.

I have found a desire within myself that no experience in this world can satisfy; the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.
C. S. Lewis - The Abolition of Man
It still remains true that no justification of virtue will enable a man to be virtuous.
C. S. Lewis - The Poison of Subjectivism (from Christian Reflections; p. 108)
The very idea of freedom presupposes some objective moral law which overarches rulers and ruled alike.
C. S. Lewis - A preface to "Paradise Lost"
Every poem can be considered in two ways--as what the poet has to say, and as a thing which he makes.
C. S. Lewis - The Four Loves
Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives.

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: What! You too? I thought I was the only one.
C. S. Lewis - The Abolition of Man
Telling us to obey instinct is like telling us to obey "people." People say different things: so do instincts. Our instincts are at war.... Each instinct, if you listen to it, will claim to be gratified at the expense of the rest....

We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.

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 safe 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.

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... it has no survival value; rather is one of those things that give value to survival.

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art...It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.
C. S. Lewis - The Case for Christianity
This year, or this month, or, more likely, this very day, we have failed to practise ourselves the kind of behaviour we expect from other people.

No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good.
C. S. Lewis - First things First
Pride is a spiritual Cancer: It eats up the very possibilty of love, or contentment, or even common sense.

- C. S. Lewis

What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.
Aristotle - Politics
Man is by nature a political animal.
Aristotle
A flatterer is a friend who is your inferior, or pretends to be so.
Aristotle - Politics
They should rule who are able to rule best.
Aristotle
Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them.
Aristotle
Wit is educated insolence.
Aristotle - Nichomachean Ethics
For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.
Aristotle - Nichomachean Ethics
Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.
Aristotle
The gods too are fond of a joke
Aristotle
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
Aristotle - Physics
Time crumbles things; everything grows old under the power of Time and is forgotten through the lapse of Time.
Aristotle
The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the best of circumstances.
Aristotle - Rhetoric
Evil draws men together.
Aristotle
Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.
Aristotle
It is well to be up before daybreak, for such habits contribute to health, wealth, and wisdom.
Aristotle - Nichomachean Ethics
Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.
Aristotle - Nichomachean Ethics
Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.

Liars when they speak the truth are not believed.
Aristotle
All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.
Aristotle - Nichomachean Ethics
To be conscious that we are perceiving or thinking is to be conscious of our own existence.
Aristotle
Character is that which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses or avoids
Aristotle - quoted in http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Pythagoras.html
The Pythagorean ... having been brought up in the study of mathematics, thought that things are numbers ... and that the whole cosmos is a scale and a number.
Aristotle
A friend is a second self.
Aristotle
To perceive is to suffer.
Aristotle
Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
Aristotle
Education is the best provision for the journey to old age.
Aristotle - Nichomachean Ethics
We make war that we may live in peace.
Aristotle - Rhetoric
A whole is that which has beginning, middle and end.
Aristotle
Man perfected by society is the best of all animals; he is the most terrible of all when he lives without law, and without justice.
Aristotle
Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.
Aristotle
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
Aristotle - Rhetoric
It is simplicity that makes the uneducated more effective than the educated when addressing popular audiences.
Aristotle
Happiness is a state of activity.
Aristotle - Rhetoric
The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons.
Aristotle - Metaphysics
All men by nature desire knowledge.
Aristotle - Nichomachean Ethics
It is possible to fail in many ways...while to succeed is possible only in one way.
Aristotle - Nichomachean Ethics
To enjoy the things we ought and to hate the things we ought has the greatest bearing on excellence of character.
Aristotle
Happiness depends upon ourselves.
Aristotle - Nichomachean Ethics
With regard to excellence, it is not enough to know, but we must try to have and use it.
Aristotle
It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims.
Aristotle
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
Aristotle - Metaphysica
The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
Aristotle
To love someone is to identify with them.
Aristotle
Wit is educated insolence.
Aristotle
It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims.
Aristotle - Politics
Again, men in general desire the good, and not merely what their fathers had.
Aristotle - Rhetoric
A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility.
Aristotle
it is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

Hope is a waking dream.
Aristotle - Politics (quoting a proverb)
Well begun is half done.
Aristotle - Eudemian Ethics
Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.
Aristotle
It is the mark of an educated mind to rest satisfied with the degree of precision which the nature of the subject admits and not to seek exactness where only an approximation is possible.
Aristotle
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
Aristotle
Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms.
Aristotle
Those who educate children well are more to be honored than parents, for these only gave life, those the art of living well.
Aristotle - Parts of Animals
In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.
Aristotle - Politics
If liberty and equality, as is thought by some are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost.
Aristotle
Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.
Aristotle - Nicomachen Ethics (4th c. BC)
In the arena of human life the honors and rewards fall to those who show their good qualities in action.
Aristotle
There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.
Aristotle
He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.
Aristotle - unknown
A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.
Aristotle
Wit is educated insolence.
Aristotle - Nichomachean Ethics
One swallow does not make a summer.

I have gained this by philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.
Aristotle
Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the consciousness that we deserve them.
Aristotle
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
Aristotle - Nichomachean Ethics
For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.
Aristotle
Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own.
Aristotle
The only stable state is the one in which all men are equal before the law.
Aristotle
Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope.
Aristotle
To Thales the primary question was not what do we know, but how do we know it.
Aristotle - Politics
The best political community is formed by citizens of the middle class.
Aristotle - Politics
Law is order, and good law is good order.
Aristotle - Politics
A state is not a mere society, having a common place, established for the prevention of mutual crime and for the sake of exchange...Political society exists for the sake of noble actions, and not of mere companionship.
Aristotle - Politics
He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.
Aristotle
In the arena of human life the honours and rewards fall to those who show their good qualities.
Aristotle
We are what we repeatedly do.
Aristotle
To give a satisfactory decision as to the truth it is necessary to be rather an arbitrator than a party to the dispute.
Aristotle
Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.
Aristotle - Politics
Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.
Aristotle
No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.
Aristotle
Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting a particular way...you become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.
Aristotle - Politics
It is the nature of desire not to be satisfied, and most men live only for the gratification of it.
Aristotle
All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reason, passion, and desire.
Aristotle
The least deviation from truth will be multiplied later.
Aristotle
The gods too are fond of a joke.
Aristotle
It is in justice that the ordering of society is centered.
Aristotle - Nichomachean Ethics
We must as second best...take the least of the evils.
Aristotle - Politics
The basis of a democratic state is liberty.
Aristotle
All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.
Aristotle
Nature does nothing uselessly.
Aristotle
Humor is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humor; for a subject which will not bear raillery is suspicious, and a jest which will not bear serious examination is false wit.
Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics, bk. 10, ch. 7, sct. 1177b
We make war that we may live in peace.
Aristotle
Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.
Aristotle
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
Aristotle
All virtue is summed up in dealing justly.
Aristotle
Law is mind without reason.
Aristotle
Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.
Aristotle
Humor is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humor; for a subject which will not bear raillery is suspicious, and a jest which will not bear serious examination is false wit.
Aristotle - Politics
Nature does nothing uselessly.
Aristotle
Education is the best provision for old age.
Aristotle
The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.
Aristotle - In Stobaeus, Florilegium
I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who overcomes his enemies.

Education is the best provision for old age.
Aristotle
He who cannot be a good follower cannot be a good leader.

- Aristotle - from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers

Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.

All that we are is the result of what we have thought. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him.

Work out your own salvation. Do not depend on others.
Buddha - The Dharmapada
We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.

Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.
Buddha - Last words before his death
All created things are impermanent. Strive on with diligence.

He is able who thinks he is able.

Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.

Therefore, be ye lamps unto yourselves, be a refuge to yourselves. Hold fast to Truth as a lamp; hold fast to the truth as a refuge. Look not for a refuge in anyone beside yourselves. And those, who shall be a lamp unto themselves, shall betake themselves to no external refuge, but holding fast to the Truth as their lamp, and holding fast to the Truth as their refuge, they shall reach the topmost height.

To be idle is a short road to death and to be diligent is a way of life; foolish people are idle, wise people are diligent.

There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.

The tongue like a sharp knife... Kills without drawing blood.

The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, nor to worry about the future, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly.

As the flectcher whittles and makes straight his arrows, so the master directs his straying thoughts.
Buddha - The Dhammapada
Hatred does not cease in this world by hating, but by not hating; this is an eternal truth.

Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.

All that we are is the result of what we have thought.

To keep the body in good health is a duty otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.

Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.

Just as a candle cannot burn without fire, men cannot live without a spiritual life.

Just as treasures are uncovered from the earth, so virtue appears from good deeds, and wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind. To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of virtue.

A family is a place where minds come in contact with one another. If these minds love one another the home will be as beautiful as a flower garden. But if these minds get out of harmony with one another it is like a storm that plays havoc with the garden.
Buddha - The Dharmapada
Do not speak harshly to any one; those who are spoken to will answer thee in the same way. Angry speech is painful: blows for blows will touch thee.

If you knew what I know about the power of giving, you would not let a single meal pass without sharing it in some way.

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.

- Buddha

Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards.

The author of the Iliad is either Homer or, if not Homer, somebody else of the same name.
Aldous Huxley - Vendeta for the Western World, 1945
Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities.

Consistency is contrary to nature, contrary to life. The only completely consistent people are dead.

To us, the moment 8:17 A.M. means something - something very important, if it happens to be the starting time of our daily train. To our ancestors, such an odd eccentric instant was without significance - did not even exist. In inventing the locomotive, Watt and Stevenson were part inventors of time.

The only completely consistent people are the dead.

Experience teaches only the teachable.
Aldous Huxley - "Music at Night", 1931
After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.

From their experience or from the recorded experience of others (history), men learn only what their passions and their metaphysical prejudices allow them to learn.
Aldous Huxley - "Texts and Pretexts", 1932
Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.
Aldous Huxley - unknown
Words form the thread on which we string our experiences.

There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that is your own self. So you have to begin there, not outside, not on other people. That comes afterwards, when you have worked on your own corner.
Aldous Huxley - Eyeless in Gaza (1936)
Death ? It?s the only thing we haven?t succeeded in completely vulgarizing.

That all men are equal is a proposition which, at ordinary times, no sane individual has ever given his assent.

Chastity: the most unnatural of the sexual perversions.

Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad.
Aldous Huxley - "Themes and Variations", 1950
Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.

The silent bear no witness against themselves.

Experience is not what happens to you. It is what you do with what happens to you

A country which proposes to make use of modern war as an instrument of policy must possess a highly centralized, all-powerful executive, hence the absurdity of talking about the defense of democracy by force of arms. A democracy which makes or effectively prepares for modern scientific war must necessarily cease to be democratic.

I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.

An intellectual is a person who has discovered something more interesting than sex.

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored

Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.

At least two-thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity: idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religous or political ideas.
Aldous Huxley - "Proper Studies", 1927
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.

To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs.

All that happens means something; nothing you do is ever insignificant.

Folly is often more cruel in the consequences than malice can be in the intent.

If the Prince of Peace should come to earth, one of the first things he would do would be to put psychiatrists in their place.

- Aldous Huxley

Wisdom is better than wit, and in the long run will certainly have the laugh on her side.
Jane Austen
What dreadful weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance.
Jane Austen
Where so many hours have been spent in convincing myself that I am right, is there not some reason to fear I may be wrong?
Jane Austen - Emma
Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way.
Jane Austen
Why not seize the pleasure at once, how often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparations.
Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice
For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?
Jane Austen - Mansfield Park
There will be little rubs and disappointments everywhere, and we are all apt to expect too much; but then, if one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns to another; if the first calculation is wrong, we make a second better: we find comfort somewhere.
Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
Jane Austen - Mansfield Park
Life is just a quick succession of busy nothings.
Jane Austen - Mansfield Park
I pay very little regard...to what any young person says on the subject of marriage. If they profess a disinclination for it, I only set it down that they have not yet seen the right person.
Jane Austen
I do not want people to be agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them.
Jane Austen - Northanger Abbey
"Only a novel"... in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour are conveyed to the world in the best chosen language.
Jane Austen
To sit in the shade on a fine day, and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment.
Jane Austen
I do not want people to be agreeable, as it saves me the trouble of liking them.
Jane Austen - Mansfield Park
Everybody likes to go their own way--to choose their own time and manner of devotion.
Jane Austen - Northanger Abbey
But when a young lady is to be a heroine, the perverseness of forty surrounding families cannot prevent her. Something must and will happen to throw a hero in her way.
Jane Austen - Mansfield Park
In all the important preparations of the mind she was complete: being prepared for matrimony by an hatred of home, restraint, and tranquillity; by the misery of disappointed affection, and contempt of the man she was to marry.
Jane Austen - Emma
I always deserve the best treatment because I never put up with any other.
Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice
Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.
Jane Austen
One cannot be always laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty.
Jane Austen - Mansfield Park
Nothing ever fatigues me, but doing what I do not like.
Jane Austen - Mansfield Park
A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.
Jane Austen - Mansfield Park
Oh! do not attack me with your watch. A watch is always too fast or too slow. I cannot be dictated to by a watch.
Jane Austen - Mansfield Park
Nothing amuses me more than the easy manner with which everybody settles the abundance of those who have a great deal less than themselves.
Jane Austen - Northanger Abbey
Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.
Jane Austen
We met Dr. Hall in such deep mourning that either his mother, his wife, or himself must be dead.
Jane Austen
For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn?
Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a large fortune must be in want of a wife.
Jane Austen - Emma
Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a little mistaken.
Jane Austen - Emma
Oh! dear; I was so miserable! I am sure I must have been as white as my gown.
Jane Austen - Mansfield Park
It will, I believe, be everywhere found, that as the clergy are, or are not what they ought to be, so are the rest of the nation.
Jane Austen
I do not want people to be agreeable, as it saves me that trouble of liking them.
Jane Austen - Northanger Abbey
The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.
Jane Austen
Where so many hours have been spent in convincing myself that I am right, is there not some reason to fear I may be wrong?
Jane Austen
What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps me in a continual state of inelegance.
Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice (opening lines)
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of ths surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.
Jane Austen - Mansfield Park
If any one faculty of our nature may be called more wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory. There seems something more speakingly incomprehensible in the powers, the failures, the inequalities of memory, than in any other of our intelligences. The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obedient; at others, so bewildered and so weak; and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond control! We are, to be sure, a miracle every way; but our powers of recollecting and of forgetting do seem peculiarly past finding out.
Jane Austen - Mansfield Park
Where any one body of educated men, of whatever denomination, are condemned indiscriminately, there must be a deficiency of information, or...of something else.
Jane Austen - The Watsons
A woman should never be trusted with money.
Jane Austen
One half of the world can not understand the pleasures of the other.
Jane Austen - Northanger Abbey, 1818
In every power, of which taste is the foundation, excellence is pretty fairly divided between the sexes.
Jane Austen - Emma
How much I love every thing that is decided and open!
Jane Austen - Emma
One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.
Jane Austen - Mansfield Park
We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.
Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
Jane Austen - Letter to Cassandra, 25 November 1798
An artist cannot do anything slovenly.
Jane Austen - Mansfield Park
A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.
Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice
You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.
Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice
You have delighted us long enough.
Jane Austen
It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage.
Jane Austen - Sense and Sensibility
At my time of life opinions are tolerably fixed. It is not likely that I should now see or hear anything to change them.
Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice
We all know him to be a proud, unpleasant sort of a man; but this would be nothing if you really liked him.
Jane Austen - Emma
Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting situations, that a young person, who either marries or dies, is sure of being kindly spoken of.

- Jane Austen - from a letter to her niece, November 18, 1814

Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied.

There is an alchemy in sorrow. It can be transmuted into wisdom, which, if it does not bring joy, can yet bring happiness.
Pearl Buck - quoted in O Magazine, May 2003
Some are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same.

Teaching is as sacred as priesthood. If one has not the concern for humanity, the love of living creatures, the vision of the priest and artist, he must not teach.

Order is the shape upon which beauty depends.

Truth is always exciting. Speak it, then, Life is dull without it.

At my age the bones are water in the morning until food is given them.

There are many ways of breaking a heart. Stories were full of hearts broken by love, but what really broke a heart was taking away its dream - whatever that dream might be.

A good marriage is one which allows for change and growth in the individuals and in the way they express their love.
Pearl Buck - The Joy of Children, 1964
The secret of joy in work is contained in one word - excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.

- Pearl Buck

Is it the Fourth?

If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.

Say nothing of my religion. It is known to God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life: if it has been honest and dutiful to society the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one.

Do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it.

Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far.

That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.

There is nothing more unequal, than the equal treatment of unequal people.

Democracy is 51% of the people taking away the rights of the other 49%.

Enlighten the people, generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like spirits at the dawn of day.
Thomas Jefferson - to Archibald Stuart, 1791
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive.
Thomas Jefferson - 1801
My only fear is that I may live too long. This would be a subject of dread to me.

I cannot live without books.

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.

Our friendships are precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life;and thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater part is sunshine.
Thomas Jefferson - Letter to Nathaniel Macon, January 12, 1819
Advertisements... contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.

Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.

I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.

Determine never to be idle...It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.

Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.

Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.
Thomas Jefferson - Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781-82
The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
Thomas Jefferson - First Inaugural Address
Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the governing of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

The tree of Liberty needs to be watered from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.

Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

Never fear the want of business. A man who qualifies himself well for his calling, never fails of employment.

I live for books.

The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.

Do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it.

The happiest moments of my life have a been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.

I believe that justice is instinct and innate, the moral sense is as much a part of our constitution as the threat of feeling, seeing and hearing.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

I cannot live without books.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

Question with boldness even the existance of a god; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.
Thomas Jefferson - Writings
When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, a hundred.

We confide in our strength, without boasting of it; we respect that of others, without fearing it.

Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.

The sovereign invigorator of the body is exercise, and of all the exercises walking is the best.

Be polite to all, but intimate with few.

My views and feelings (are) in favor of the abolition of war--and I hope it is practicable, by improving the mind and morals of society, to lessen the disposition to war; but of its abolition I despair.
Thomas Jefferson - (Notes on Virginia, 1782)
Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong.
Thomas Jefferson - letter to Elbridge Gerry, 1799
I am for freedom of religion, & against all maneuvres to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another.
Thomas Jefferson - Resolutions, 1803
Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched.
Thomas Jefferson - letter to George Washington, September 9, 1792
No government ought to be without censors & where the press is free, no one ever will.

No nation was ever drunk when wine was cheap.

We in America do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
Thomas Jefferson - letter to John Melish, January 13, 1813
An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.

The Price Of Freedom Is Eternal Vigilance.

I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another.
Thomas Jefferson - Notes on the State of Virginia - denouncing the evils of slavery
Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever.

Never trouble another for what you can do for yourself.
Thomas Jefferson - letter to Samuel Kercheval, July 12, 1816
We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.
Thomas Jefferson - letter to Count Diodati, 1807
I have the consolation of having added nothing to my private fortune during my public service, and of retiring with hands clean as they are empty.

In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
Thomas Jefferson - letter to his cousin John Garland Jefferson, June 11, 1790
Health is worth more than learning.

When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property

Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.

Never spend your money before you have it.

We never regret having eaten too little.

I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom.
Thomas Jefferson - Letter to James Madison, 1787
A little rebellion now and then...is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.

I cannot live without books.

Delay is preferable to error.
Thomas Jefferson - Notes on Virginia
It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.

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.
Thomas Jefferson - letter to James Lewis, Jr., May 9, 1798
If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.
Thomas Jefferson - Notes on the State of Virginia
Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.

- Thomas Jefferson

Authenticity matters little, though--our willingness to accept legends depends far more upon their expression of concepts we want to believe than upon their plausibility.
David P. Mikkelson - Snopes.com, 04-10-04
The power of illustrative anecdotes often lies not in how well they present reality, but in how well they reflect the core beliefs of their audience.
David P. Mikkelson - snopes.com, September 8, 2003
Perhaps better we not obscure the idea that happiness and misery, kindness and greed, and good works and bad deeds are within the capacities of us all, not merely a select few.

- David P. Mikkelson - snopes.com, February 25, 2000

Men of the noblest dispositions think themselves happiest when others share their happiness with them.

- Barry Duncan

Patriotism is a pernicious, psychopathic form of idiocy.

We should have had socialism already, but for the socialists.

Nothing is worth doing unless the consequences may be serious.

Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.

We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.
George Bernard Shaw - "Ceasar and Cleopatra"
Pardon him, Theodotus: he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.

What is virtue but the trades unionism of the married.

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must man be of learning from experience.

Do not do unto others as you would they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.
George Bernard Shaw - Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists"
He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches.

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.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
George Bernard Shaw - The Apple Cart (1930)
I never resist temptation because I have found that things that are bad for me do not tempt me.

I make a fortune from criticizing the policy of the government, and then hand it over to the government in taxes to keep it going.

The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is.

It is most unwise for people in love to marry.
George Bernard Shaw - Man and Superman (1903) act 1
There is no love sincerer than the love of food.

Hell is full of musical amateurs.

Self-sacrifice enables us to sacrifice other people without blushing.

Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman. Believing what he read made him mad.

The golden rule is that there are no golden rules.

The golden rule is that there are no golden rules.
George Bernard Shaw - Major Barbara (1907) act 3
He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.

I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.

Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.

Criminals do not die by the hands of the law. They die by the hands of other men.

An institution which is populare because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity.

Do you know what a pessimist is? A person who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself and hates them for it.

All censorships exist to prevent any one from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently the first condition of progress is the removal of censorships.

A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth.

All great truths begin as blasphemies.

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.

The world is populated in the main by people who should not exist.
George Bernard Shaw - "Man and Superman" (1903), act I
The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is.

All great truths begin as blasphemies.

All professions are conspiracies against the laity.
George Bernard Shaw - Major Barbara (1907) act 2
Alcohol is a very necessary article... It makes life bearable to millions of people who could not endure their existence if they were quite sober. It enables Parliament to do things at eleven at night that no sane person would do at eleven in the morning.

Martyrdom is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability.

It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.
George Bernard Shaw - Man and Superman (1903) act 3
Hell is full of musical amateurs: music is the brandy of the damned.

Fashions are the only induced epidemics, proving that epidemics can be induced by tradesmen.
George Bernard Shaw - when asked on his deathbed, ?What would you do if you could live your life over again?
I?d like to be the person I could have been but never was.

The 100% American is 99% an idiot.

I can forgive Alfred Nobel for having invented dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize.

Home life as we understand it is no more natural to us than a cage is natural to a cockatoo.

No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means.

A pessimist thinks everybody is as nasty as himself, and hates them for it.
George Bernard Shaw - An Unsocial Socialist (1887) ch. 5
"Do you know what a pessimist is?" "A man who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself, and hates them for it."

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.

What we call education and culture is for the most part nothing but the substitution of reading for experience, of literature for life, of the obsolete fictitious for the contemporary real.

It is most unwise for people in love to marry
George Bernard Shaw - Candida (1898) act 1
Do you think that the things people make fools of themselves about are any less real and true than the things they behave sensibly about? They are more true: they are the only things that are true.

Life does not cease to be funny when people die; any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
George Bernard Shaw - Man and Superman, 1903
A learned man is an idler who kills time with study. Beware of his false knowledge: it is more dangerous than ignorance.

The perfect love affair is one which is conducted entirely by post.

Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.

Americans adore me and will go on adoring me until I say something nice about them.
George Bernard Shaw - Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists"
Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

When a thing is funny, search it for a hidden truth.

Christianity might be a good thing if anyone ever tried it.

A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it; it would be hell on earth.

We have not lost faith, but we have transferred it from God to the medical profession.

Democracy: The substitution of election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.

What God hath joined together no man shall put asunder: God will take care of that.
George Bernard Shaw - Shewing-Up of Blanco Posnet (1911) "Limits to Toleration"
Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than saying a drunken man is happier than a sober man.

England and America are two countries separated by a common language.

When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.

Take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then say it with the utmost levity.

Life is a disease; and the only diference between one another is the stage of the disease at which he lives.
George Bernard Shaw - Caesar and Cleopatra (1901) act 4
He who has never hoped can never despair.

He who can, does. He who cannot teaches.
George Bernard Shaw - Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists"
Beware of the man whose God is in the skies.

We must make the world honest before we can honestly say to our children that honesty is the best policy.

Alcohol is the anesthesia by which we endure the operation of life.

All great truths begin as blasphemies.

Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.

You are going to let the fear of poverty govern your life and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live.
George Bernard Shaw - Annajanska (1919)
All great truths begin as blasphemies.

It took me twenty years of studied self-restraint, aided by the natural decay of my faculties, to make myself dull enough to be accepted as a serious person by the British public.

There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to it.

Lack of money is the root of all evil.

I showed my appreciation of my native land in the usual Irish way by getting out of it as soon as I possibly could.

Virtue is insufficient temptation.

There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to it.

The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it.

Martyrdom is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability.

Reviewing has one advantage over suicide: in suicide you take it out on yourself; in reviewing you take it out on other people.

Gambling promises the poor what property performs for the rich--something for nothing.

Crude classifications and false generalizations are the curse of organized life.

Marriage is popular because it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.
George Bernard Shaw - Man and Superman (1903), Maxims for Revolutionists
Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.

The love of money is the root of all virtue.

Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.

Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.

The fickleness of the women whom I love is only equalled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me.

All my life, affection has been showered upon me, and every forward step I have made has been taken in spite of it.

Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.

If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.
George Bernard Shaw - Pygmalion (1916) preface
The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it.

Life is not meant to be easy, my child; but take courage -- it can be delightful.

To be clever enough to get a great deal of money, one must be stupid enough to want it.
George Bernard Shaw - Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists"
Every man over forty is a scoundrel.

The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech.

It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.

My main reason for adopting literature as a profession was that, as the author is never seen by his clients, he need not dress respectably.

We should all be obliged to appear before a board every five years and justify our existence...on pain of liquidation.

When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.

Common sense is instinct. Enough of it is genius.

My way of joking is to tell the truth. It is the funniest joke in the world.
George Bernard Shaw - "St. Joan"
The Churches must learn humility as well as teach it.
George Bernard Shaw - Major Barbara (1907) act 2
I am a Millionaire. That is my religion.
George Bernard Shaw - Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists"
Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.

Beware of the man whose God is in the skies.
George Bernard Shaw - Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists"
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.
George Bernard Shaw - Caesar and Cleopatra (1901)
When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.

Nothing ever is done in this world until men are prepared to kill one another if it is not done.
George Bernard Shaw - Man and Superman (1903) act 3
An Englishman thinks he is moral when he is only uncomfortable.

While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?
George Bernard Shaw - Man and Superman, Epistle Dedicatory
This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.
George Bernard Shaw - "Metamagical Themas" by Douglas Hofstadter
You see things, and you say "Why?" But I dream things that never were, and say "Why not?

If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.
George Bernard Shaw - Man and Superman
Audacious ribald: your laughter will finish in hideous boredom before morning.

All professions are conspiracies against the laity.

Nobel prize money is a lifebelt thrown to a swimmer who has already reached the shore in safety.

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.

I can forgive Alfred Nobel for having invented dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize.

Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else.
George Bernard Shaw - "Man and Superman" (1903), act I
A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth.

When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when a tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.

Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough.

He who has never hoped can never despair.
George Bernard Shaw - Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists"
The golden rule is that there are no golden rules.

In order to fully realize how bad a popular play can be, it is necessary to see it twice.

A life spent in making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent in doing nothing.

Success covers a multitude of blunders.
George Bernard Shaw - Back to Methuselah (1921) pt. 5
Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.

Americans adore me and will go on adoring me until I say something nice about them.

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.

Martyrdom is the only way a person can become famous without ability.
George Bernard Shaw - "Answers to Nine Questions"
My method is to take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then to say it with the utmost levity.

The longer I live the more I see that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains I have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time.

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.

A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic.

Patriotism is a pernicious, psychopathic form of idiocy.

Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.

Baseball has the great advantage over cricket of being sooner ended.

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.

I am a gentleman: I live by robbing the poor.
George Bernard Shaw - Pygmalion (1916) preface
It is impossible for an Englishman to open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him.

We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.

The chief objection of playing wind instruments is that it prolongs the life of the player.

A dramatic critic is a man who leaves no turn unstoned.

Let a short Act of Parliament be passed, placing all street musicians outside the protection of the law, so that any citizen may assail them with stones, sticks, knives, pistols, or bombs without incurring any penalties.

Life would be tolerable but for its amusements.

What is the matter with the poor is poverty; what is the matter with the rich is uselessness.
George Bernard Shaw - The Philanderer (1898) act 2
The fickleness of the women I love is only equalled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me.

Silence is the most perfect expression of scorn.

Make money and the whole nation will conspire to call you a gentleman.

The fickleness of the women I love is only equalled by the infernal constancy of the women who love me.

Few people think more than two or three times a year. I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.
George Bernard Shaw - Candida (1898) act 1
We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.

If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion.

Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
George Bernard Shaw - Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists"
Youth, which is forgiven everything, forgives itself nothing: age, which forgives itself everything, is forgiven nothing.

The perfect love affair is one which is conducted entirely by post.
George Bernard Shaw - Plays Pleasant and Unpleasant (1898)
There is only one religion, though there are a hundred versions of it.

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.

Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.

Virtue is insufficient temptation.
George Bernard Shaw - Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists"
Take care to get what you like or you will be forced to like what you get.

If more than ten percent of the population likes a painting it should be burned, for it must be bad.

If the lesser mind could measure the greater as a footrule can measure a pyramid, there would be finality in universal suffrage. As it is, the political problem remains unsolved.

Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.

England and America are two countries seperated by the same language.

A man ought to be able to be fond of his wife without making a fool of himself about her.

Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree does.

The trouble with her is that she lacks the power of conversation but not the power of speech.

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact than a drunken man is happier than a sober one.
George Bernard Shaw - Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists"
It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.

Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree does.

This is the true joy in life -- being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one...

Chess is a foolish expedient for making idle people believe they are doing something very clever when they are only wasting their time.

- George Bernard Shaw

THE DISAPPOINTED MAN SPEAKS.--I sought great human beings, I never found anything but the APES of their ideal.
Friedrich Nietzsche
A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Experience, as a desire for experience, does not come off. We must not study ourselves while having an experience.
Friedrich Nietzsche - The AntiChrist
The "highest" states of mind held up before mankind by christianity as of supreme value, are actually forms of convulsive epilepsy.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Who is better, they who promote truth over happiness, or happiness over truth?
Friedrich Nietzsche - Human, All Too Human
People who comprehend a thing to its very depths rarely stay faithful to it forever. For they have brought its depths into the light of day: and in the depths there is always much that is unpleasant to see.
Friedrich Nietzsche - The Gay Science, section 108
God is dead.
Friedrich Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil
In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Wisdom sets bounds even to knowledge.
Friedrich Nietzsche
What else is love but understanding and rejoicing in the fact that another person lives, acts, and experiences otherwise than we do??
Friedrich Nietzsche
Faith: not *wanting* to know what is true.
Friedrich Nietzsche
The visionary lies to himself, the liar only to others.
Friedrich Nietzsche - The Gay Science, section 41
A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions--as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all.
Friedrich Nietzsche
That which is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.
Friedrich Nietzsche
It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them!
Friedrich Nietzsche
At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid.
Friedrich Nietzsche - So spake Zarathoustra
It is time, it is high time... Yes, but to do what?
Friedrich Nietzsche
One should never know too precisely whom one has married.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual.
Friedrich Nietzsche - The Gay Science, section 191
The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments.
Friedrich Nietzsche - Thus Spake Zarathustra
That everybody is allowed to learn to read spoileth in the long run not only writing but thinking.
Friedrich Nietzsche
At the bottom every man knows well enough that he is a unique human being, only once on this earth; and by no extraordinary chance will such a marvelously picturesque piece of diversity in unity as he is, ever be put together a second time.
Friedrich Nietzsche - The Dawn, Sec. 297
The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.
Friedrich Nietzsche
One must have a good memory to be able to keep the promises one makes.
Friedrich Nietzsche
He who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself; and if you gaze too long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze into you.
Friedrich Nietzsche - from the book Lies my Teacher Told Me. By James W. Loewen (1995)
Memory says, I did that. Pride replies, I could not have done that. Eventually memory yields.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Jesus died too soon. If he had lived to my age he would have repudiated his doctrine.
Friedrich Nietzsche - Der Fall Wagner, Section 5
Only sick music makes money today.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.
Friedrich Nietzsche - "The Will to Power"
The world itself is the will to power - and nothing else! And you yourself are the will to power - and nothing else!
Friedrich Nietzsche
Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Only sick music makes money today.
Friedrich Nietzsche
He who despises himself esteems himself as a self-despiser.
Friedrich Nietzsche
A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Convictions are the more dangerous enemy of truth than lies.
Friedrich Nietzsche
How people keep correcting us when we are young! There is always some bad habit or other they tell us we ought to get over. Yet most bad habits are tools to help us through life.
Friedrich Nietzsche - Thus Spoke Zarathustra
In a friend one should have ones best enemy. You should be closest to him with your heart when you resist him.
Friedrich Nietzsche - Also Sprach Zarathustra, Chapter 29
But thus do I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!
Friedrich Nietzsche
"Every man has his price." This is not true. But for every man there exists a bait which he cannot resist swallowing. To win over certain people to something, it is only necessary to give it a gloss of love of humanity, nobility, gentleness, self-sacrifice - and there is nothing you cannot get them to swallow. To their souls, these are the icing, the tidbit; other kinds of souls have others.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Faith: not *wanting* to know what is true.
Friedrich Nietzsche
One often contradicts an opinion when what is uncongenial is really the tone in which it was conveyed.
Friedrich Nietzsche - The Gay Science, section 130
The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad.
Friedrich Nietzsche - Thus Spoke Zarathustra
It is nobler to declare oneself wrong than to insist on being right - especially when one is right.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Undeserved praise causes more pangs of conscience later than undeserved blame, but probably only for this reason, that our power of judgment are more completely exposed by being over praised than by being unjustly underestimated.
Friedrich Nietzsche
In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point.
Friedrich Nietzsche
The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad.
Friedrich Nietzsche - Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Life without music would be a mistake.
Friedrich Nietzsche
In heaven all the interesting people are missing.
Friedrich Nietzsche
The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Every extension of knowledge arises from making the conscious the unconscious.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs; he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.
Friedrich Nietzsche - The Antichrist, section 2
What is good? All that heightens the feeling of power in man, the will to power, power itself. What is bad? All that is born of weakness. What is happiness? The feeling that power is growing, that resistance is overcome.
Friedrich Nietzsche - The Antichrist, section 16
In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point.
Friedrich Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil aphorism 78
Whoever despises himself still respects himself as one who despises.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Although the most acute judges of the witches and even the witches themselves, were convinced of the guilt of witchery, the guilt nevertheless was non-existent. It is thus with all guilt.
Friedrich Nietzsche
The higher a man gets, the smaller he seems to those who cannot fly.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Without music, life would be a mistake.
Friedrich Nietzsche
It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them!
Friedrich Nietzsche
How good bad music and bad reasons sound when one marches against an enemy!
Friedrich Nietzsche
I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.
Friedrich Nietzsche
In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point.
Friedrich Nietzsche
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
Friedrich Nietzsche - "On Reading and Writing"
There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.
Friedrich Nietzsche
How good bad music and bad reasons sound when we march against an enemy.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Blessed are the forgetful, for they get the best even of their blunders.
Friedrich Nietzsche
When one has much to put into them, a day has a hundred pockets.
Friedrich Nietzsche - Twilight of the Idols, What I owe to the Ancients
Plato is boring.
Friedrich Nietzsche
All credibility, all good conscience, all evidence of truth come only from the senses.
Friedrich Nietzsche
I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.
Friedrich Nietzsche - Twilight of the Idols---"Maxims and Arrows"
I mistrust all systemizers and avoid them. The will to a system is a lack of integrity.
Friedrich Nietzsche
On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow.
Friedrich Nietzsche - The Gay Science, section 381
I would not know what the spirit of a philosopher might wish more to be than a good dancer.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Morality is the greatest of all tools for leading mankind by the nose.
Friedrich Nietzsche - The Gay Science, section 283
For believe me: the secret for harvesting from existence the greatest fruitfulness and greatest enjoyment is - to live dangerously.
Friedrich Nietzsche - "Human, All Too Human" page 87, #120.
If the belief [in Christianity] did not make us happy, it would not be believed: how little it must then be worth!
Friedrich Nietzsche - The Antichrist
Some men are born posthumously.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Believe me! The secret of reaping the greatest fruitfulness and the greatest enjoyment from life is to live dangerously!
Friedrich Nietzsche
The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Man is more ape than many of the apes.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself.
Friedrich Nietzsche - The World to Power, section 1064
This world is the will to power - and nothing besides!
Friedrich Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 146
He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
Friedrich Nietzsche
In heaven all the interesting people are missing.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Hope in reality is the worst of all evils, because it prolongs the torments of man.
Friedrich Nietzsche
People who have given us their complete confidence believe that they have a right to ours. The inference is false, a gift confers no rights.
Friedrich Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil
Digressions, objections, delight in mockery, carefree mistrust are signs of health; everything unconditional belongs in pathology.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of the truth than lies.
Friedrich Nietzsche
The Christian resolution to find the world ugly and bad has made the world ugly and bad.
Friedrich Nietzsche - Ecce Homo, Foreword
The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.
Friedrich Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil
What a time experiences as evil, is usually an untimely echo of what was formerly experienced as good--the atavism of a more ancient ideal.
Friedrich Nietzsche
There are no facts, only interpretations.
Friedrich Nietzsche
A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows us that faith proves nothing.
Friedrich Nietzsche - Aphorisms in Beyond Good and Evil
Disgust with dirt can be so great that it prevents us from cleaning ourselves - from "justifying" ourselves.
Friedrich Nietzsche - The Gay Science, section 116
Morality is herd instinct in the individual.
Friedrich Nietzsche - Thus Spoke Zarathustra
One must still have chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star.
Friedrich Nietzsche
For a significant man
woman, the one thought he values greatly, to the laughter and scorn of insignificant men, is a key to hidden treasure chambers; for those others, it is nothing but a piece of old iron.
Friedrich Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 153
What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.
Friedrich Nietzsche - The Gay Science, section 166
We are always in our own company.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Thinking evil is making evil.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Maturity consists in having rediscovered the seriousness one had as a child at play.
Friedrich Nietzsche
He who despises himself nevertheless esteems himself as a self-despiser.
Friedrich Nietzsche
All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.

- Friedrich Nietzsche - Twilight of the Idols-- "Maxims and Arrows"

When I was young, I used to think that wealth and power would bring me happiness... I was right.

- Gahan Wilson

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it but as I drink, I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is.
Henry David Thoreau
I have lived some thirty years on this planet and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors.
Henry David Thoreau - Civil Disobience
The only obligation which I have a right to assume, is to do at any time what I think right.
Henry David Thoreau - WALDEN: Or, Life in the Woods
Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!
Henry David Thoreau
In what concerns you much, do not think that you have companions: know that you are alone in the world.
Henry David Thoreau
Not till we are lost, in other words, not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize the infinite extent of our relations.
Henry David Thoreau
How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.
Henry David Thoreau
However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are the richest.
Henry David Thoreau
A man cannot be said to succeed in this life who does not satisfy one friend.
Henry David Thoreau - Jan. 3, 1861
Thank God men cannot as yet fly and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.
Henry David Thoreau - "An Essay on Civil Disobedience," 1849.
Voting for the right is doing nothing for it.
Henry David Thoreau - Walden: Economy, 1854
Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed in them.
Henry David Thoreau
If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
Henry David Thoreau
If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he imaged, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours.
Henry David Thoreau
As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.
Henry David Thoreau
That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.
Henry David Thoreau
I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestioned ability of a man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.
Henry David Thoreau
Good poetry seems too simple and natural a thing that when we meet it we wonder that all men are not always poets. Poetry is nothing but healthy speech.
Henry David Thoreau
As if there were safety in stupidity alone.
Henry David Thoreau
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 he hears, how ever measured or far away.

Petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of reality.
Henry David Thoreau
I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.
Henry David Thoreau - "Walden," the Conclusion
Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. I sat at a table where were rich food and wine in abundance, and obsequious attendance, but sincerity and truth were not; and I went away hungry from the inhospitable board.
Henry David Thoreau
[Water is] the only drink for a wise man.
Henry David Thoreau
Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink, I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish fill the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars. I cannot count one. I know not the first letter of the alphabet. I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born.
Henry David Thoreau
As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.
Henry David Thoreau
Thank God men cannot as yet fly and lay waste the sky as well as the earth!
Henry David Thoreau
Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
Henry David Thoreau - Wednesday, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
Ignorance and bungling with love are better than wisdom and skill without.
Henry David Thoreau - Journal, July 25, 1839
There is no remedy for love but to love more.
Henry David Thoreau
Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each.
Henry David Thoreau - Walden; Where I Lived, And What I Lived For
I do not propose to write an ode to dejection, but to brag as lustily as chanticleer in the morning, standing on his roost, if only to wake his neighbours up.
Henry David Thoreau
However mean your life is, meet it and live it: do not shun it and call it hard names. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Things do not change, we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see that you do want society.
Henry David Thoreau
I stand in awe of my body.
Henry David Thoreau
We are armed with language adequate to describe each leaf of the filed, but not to describe human character.
Henry David Thoreau
Men have become the tools of their tools.
Henry David Thoreau
Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.
Henry David Thoreau
Most people dread finding out when they come to die that they have never really lived.
Henry David Thoreau - Walden, Conclusion, 1854
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.
Henry David Thoreau
Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.
Henry David Thoreau
To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, not even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust.
Henry David Thoreau - Walden, 1854
I say beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.
Henry David Thoreau
Men have become the tools of their tools
Henry David Thoreau
I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
Henry David Thoreau
Any fool can make a rule,
and any fool will mind it.
Henry David Thoreau
All perception of truth is the detection of an analogy.
Henry David Thoreau
There is no remedy for love but to love more.
Henry David Thoreau
I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance that I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.
Henry David Thoreau
Heroes are often the most ordinary of men.

I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, cattle, barns, and farming tools, for these are more easily acquired than gotten rid of. Better if they had been born in the open pasture and suckled by a wolf, that they might have seen with clearer eyes what field they were called to labour in.
Henry David Thoreau
A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.
Henry David Thoreau
If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
Henry David Thoreau - ?
Many go fishing without knowing it is fish they are after.
Henry David Thoreau
If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see.
Henry David Thoreau - Walden (1970)
Things do not change; we change.
Henry David Thoreau
Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.
Henry David Thoreau
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.

Time is but a stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it, but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains.
Henry David Thoreau - Vol. 2, p.318 Houghton Mifflin
Do what nobody else can do for you. Omit to do anything else.
Henry David Thoreau - Walden, 1854
It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes.
Henry David Thoreau
The way by which you may get money almost without exception leads downward.
Henry David Thoreau - "Walden"
Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? 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.
Henry David Thoreau
To regret deeply is to live afresh.
Henry David Thoreau - Walden: Higher Laws, 1854
Goodness is the only investment that never fails.
Henry David Thoreau - Simplify Simplify
Say what you have to say, not what you ought. any truth is better than make-Believe!
Henry David Thoreau - Walden (1854)
The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.
Henry David Thoreau
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.
Henry David Thoreau
Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.
Henry David Thoreau - "Walden", 1854
Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.
Henry David Thoreau
One may discover a new side to his most intimate friend when for the first time he hears him speak in public. He will be stranger to him as he is more familiar to the audience. The longest intimacy could not foretell how he would behave then
Henry David Thoreau - "Where I Live"
It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.
Henry David Thoreau
My friend is one... who take me for what I am.
Henry David Thoreau
Most men would feel insulted if it were proposed to employ them in throwing stones over a wall, and then in throwing them back, merely that they might earn their wages. But many are no more worthily employed now.
Henry David Thoreau - simplify Simplify
Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
Henry David Thoreau - Walden: Reading, 1854
How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.
Henry David Thoreau - "Walden", 1854
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
Henry David Thoreau
In the long run you only hit what you aim at. Therefore, though you should fail immediately, you had better aim at something high.
Henry David Thoreau
Men are born to succeed, not fail.
Henry David Thoreau
It takes two to speak the truth--one to speak and the other to hear.
Henry David Thoreau
What men call good fellowship is commonly but the virtue of pigs in a litter which lie close together to keep each other warm.
Henry David Thoreau
Water is the only drink for a wise man.
Henry David Thoreau
The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way.
Henry David Thoreau - Walden, Chapter 1: Economy
The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.
Henry David Thoreau
All good things are wild, and free.
Henry David Thoreau
How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.
Henry David Thoreau
Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.
Henry David Thoreau
If the day and the night are such that you greet them with with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, more elastic, more starry, more immortal--that is your success.
Henry David Thoreau - Journal, January 21, 1838
Man is the artificer of his own happiness.
Henry David Thoreau
A simple and independent mind does not toil at the bidding of any prince.
Henry David Thoreau
Cultivate the habit of early rising. It is unwise to keep the head long on a level with the feet.
Henry David Thoreau
How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.
Henry David Thoreau
Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.
Henry David Thoreau
Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business.
Henry David Thoreau - Simplify simplify
Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.
Henry David Thoreau
Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.
Henry David Thoreau
We must have infinite faith in each other. If we have not, we must never let it leak out that we have not.
Henry David Thoreau
Must be out-of-doors enough to get experience of wholesome reality, as a ballast to thought and sentiment. Health requires this relaxation, this aimless life
Henry David Thoreau
Be not simply good - be good for something.
Henry David Thoreau
It is never too late to give up your prejudices.
Henry David Thoreau - "Walden", pp. 323- 324
I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. 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.
Henry David Thoreau
Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.
Henry David Thoreau
In the long run, you hit only what you aim at: Therefore aim high.
Henry David Thoreau
I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestioned ability of a man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.
Henry David Thoreau - Walking (1862)
In wildness is the preservation of the world.
Henry David Thoreau - Simplify Simplify
How sweet it would be to treat men and things, for an hour, for just what they are!
Henry David Thoreau - in Walden, "Economy"
What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.
Henry David Thoreau
In dreams we see ourselves naked and acting our real characters, even more clearly than we see others awake.

Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.
Henry David Thoreau
As for the pyramids, there is nothing to wonder at in them so much as the fact that so many men could be found degraded enough to spend their lives constructing a tomb for some ambitious booby, whom it would have been wiser and manlier to have drowned in the Nile, and then given his body to the dogs.
Henry David Thoreau
Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.
Henry David Thoreau - "Resistance to Civil Government"
I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion.
Henry David Thoreau
What people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can.
Henry David Thoreau
Do not lose hold of your dreams or aspirations. For if you do, you may still exist but you have ceased to live.
Henry David Thoreau
I have learned this at least by my experiment: if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
Henry David Thoreau - "Resistance to Civil Government"
I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad.
Henry David Thoreau
Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.
Henry David Thoreau
In wilderness is the preservation of the world.
Henry David Thoreau - O Magazine, May 2004
Every man is the builder of a temple called his body.
Henry David Thoreau
The cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.
Henry David Thoreau
We falsely attribute to men a determined character - putting together all their yesterdays - and averaging them - we presume we know them. Pity the man who has character to support - it is worse than a large family - he is the silent poor indeed.
Henry David Thoreau
Our truest life is when we are in our dreams awake.
Henry David Thoreau
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is in prison.
Henry David Thoreau
It is characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.
Henry David Thoreau - Walden (1854)
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
Henry David Thoreau - Walden, Economy.
I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well.
Henry David Thoreau
In solitude especialy do we begin to appreciate the advantage of living with someone who can think.
Henry David Thoreau - book
The hero is commonly the simplest and obscurest of men.
Henry David Thoreau
Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.
Henry David Thoreau
What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.
Henry David Thoreau
Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.
Henry David Thoreau
We do not learn by inference and deduction and the application of mathematics to philosophy, but by direct intercourse and sympathy.
Henry David Thoreau
It is pleasant to have been to a place the way a river went.
Henry David Thoreau
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 faraway.
Henry David Thoreau
I derive no pleasure from talking with a young woman simply because she has regular features.

- Henry David Thoreau - Walden

One of the most obvious facts about grownups to a child is that they have forgotten what it is like to be a child.

But be, as you have been, my happiness...

- Randall Jarrell

Character is the indelible mark that determines the only true value of all people and all their work

Unless you are prepared yourself to profit by your chance, the opportunity will only make you ridiculous. A great occasion is valuable to you in proportion as you have educated yourself to make use of it.

If you do not feel yourself growing in your work and your life broadening and deepening, if your task is not a perpetual tonic to you, you have not found your place.

There are powers inside of you, if you could discover and use, would make of you everything you ever dreamed or imagined you could become.

We lift ourselves by our thought, we climb upon our vision of ourselves. If you want to enlarge your life, you must first enlarge your thought of it and of yourself. Hold the ideal of yourself as you long to be, always, everywhere - your ideal of what you long to attain - the ideal of health, efficiency, success.

Every experience in life, everything with which we have come in contact in life, is a chisel which has been cutting away at our life statue, molding, modifying, shaping it. We are part of all we have met. Everything we have seen, heard, felt, or thought has had its hand in molding us, shaping us

Most of our obstacles would melt away if, instead of cowering before them, we should make up our minds to walk boldly through them.

It is the youth who sees a great opportunity hidden in just these simple services, who sees a very uncommon situation, a humble position, who gets on in the world.

When a man feels throbbing within him the power to do what he undertakes as well as it can possibly be done, and all of his faculties say "amen" to what he is doing, and give their unqualified approval to his efforts, - this is happiness, this is success.

We advance on our journey only when we face our goal, when we are confident and believe we are going to win out.

Many a man has finally succeeded only because he has failed after repeated efforts. If he had never met defeat he would never have known any great victory.

If you do not feel yourself growing in your work and your life broadening and deepening, if your task is not a perpetual tonic to you, you have not found your place.

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.

The Creator has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.

It is like the seed put in the soil - the more one sows, the greater the harvest.

- Orison Swett Marden

The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeois.
Gustave Flaubert - Charles Bovary
For none of us can ever express the exact measure of his needs or his thoughts or his sorrows; and human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars.
Gustave Flaubert - Madame Bovary
The human language is like a cracked kettle on which we beat out a tune for a dancing bear, when we hope with our music to move the stars.

To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.
Gustave Flaubert - "Madame Bovary"
Human speech is a cracked cauldron on which we knock out tunes for dancing bears, when we wish to conjure pity from the stars.

A thing derided is a thing dead; a laughing man is stronger than a suffering man.
Gustave Flaubert - "Madame Bovary", ch. 12
...exaggerated turns of speech conceal mediocre affections: as if the fulness of the soul might not sometimes overflow in the emptiest of metaphors, since no one, ever, can give the exact measurements of his needs, nor of his conceptions, nor of his sufferings, and the human word is like a cracked cauldron upon which we beat out melodies fit for making bears dance when we are trying to move the stars to pity.

Our ignorance of history makes us libel our own times. People have always been like this.

A child of my own! Oh, no, no, no! Let my flesh perish with me, and let me not transmit to anyone the boredom and ignominiousness of life.
Gustave Flaubert - 1,911 Best Things Anybody Ever Said
That man has missed something who has never left a brothel at sunrise feeling like throwing himself into the river out of pure disgust.

The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeois.

To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.

Be regular and orderly in your life, that you may be violent and original in your work.

The one way of tolerating existence is to lose oneself in literature as in a perpetual orgy.

Perfection is the enemy of the good.

- Gustave Flaubert

To err is human; to forgive, divine.

Be thou the first true merit to befriend, his praise is lost who stays till all commend.
Alexander Pope - (1712?)
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

Some people will never learn anything, for this reason, because they understand everything too soon.

An honest man is the noblest work of God.
Alexander Pope - Essay on Man
Envy will merit, as its shade, pursue,
But, like the shadow, proves the substance true.
Alexander Pope - "Ode to Solitude"
Thus let me live, unseen, unknown; thus unlamented let me die; steal from the world, and not a stone tell where I lie.
Alexander Pope - An Essay on Criticism
To err is human, to forgive divine.

He who tells a lie is not sensible of how great a task he undertakes; for he must be forced to invent twenty more to maintain that one.

Amusement is the happiness of those who cannot think.
Alexander Pope - An Essay on Criticism
To err is human, to forgive divine.
Alexander Pope - An Essay on Criticism, 1711
Be not the first by whom the new are tried,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

What will a child learn sooner than a song?
Alexander Pope - Letter to Gay, October 6, 1727
Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.

A family is but too often a commonwealth of malignants.

Fools admire, but men of sense approve.

Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.

One who is too wise an observer of the business of others, like one who is too curious in observing the labor of bees, will often be stung for his curiosity.

Honor and shame from no condition rise.
Act well your part: there all the honor lies.
Alexander Pope - Essay on Criticism
Ten censure wrong, for one that writes amiss.

It is with our judgments as with our watches; no two go just alike, yet each believes his own.
Alexander Pope - An essay on Criticism
A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again.

Lulled in the countless chambers of the brain, our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain; awake but one, and in, what myriads rise!

Amusement is the happiness of those who cannot think.

There is a certain majesty in simplicity which is far above all the quaintness of wit.

A man should never be ashamed to own he has been wrong, which is but saying, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.

And all who told it added something new, And all who heard it made enlargements too.

The general cry is against ingratitude, but the complaint is misplaced, it should be against vanity; none but direct villains are capable of willful ingratitude; but almost everybody is capable of thinking he hath done more that another deserves, while the other thinks he hath received less than he deserves.

- Alexander Pope

Real, constructive mental power lies in the creative thought that shapes your destiny, and your hour-by-hour mental conduct produces power for change in your life. Develop a train of thought on which to ride. The nobility of your life as well as your happiness depends upon the direction in which that train of thought is going.
Laurence J. Peter - The Peter Principle (1969), chapter 1
Competence, like truth, beauty and contact lenses, is in the eye of the beholder.

The man who says he is willing to meet you halfway is usually a poor judge of distance.

Equal opportunity means everyone will have a fair chance at being incompetent.

Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it.

Democracy is a process by which the people are free to choose the man who will get the blame.

If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what is the significance of a clean desk?

Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status.

The incompetent with nothing to do can still make a mess of it.

Cleaning anything involves making something else dirty, but anything can get dirty without something else getting clean.
Laurence J. Peter - "The Peter Principle"
Everyone rises to their level of incompetence.

Democracy is a process by which the people are free to choose the man who will get the blame.

A bore is a fellow talking who can change the subject back to his topic of conversation faster than you can change it back to yours.

Against logic there is no armor like ignorance.

Bureaucracy defends the status quo long past the time when the quo has lost its status.

Education is a method whereby one acquires a higher grade of prejudices.

Every man serves a useful purpose: A miser, for example, makes a wonderful ancestor.

Education is a method whereby one acquires a higher grade of prejudices.

An intelligence test sometimes shows a man how smart he would have been not to have taken it.
Laurence J. Peter - paraphrasing Sir Walter Scott
Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to believe.

- Laurence J. Peter

The happiest people are those who think the most interesting thoughts. Those who decide to use leisure as a means of mental development, who love good music, good books, good pictures, good company, good conversation, are the happiest people in the world. And they are not only happy in themselves, they are the cause of happiness in others.

If happiness truly consisted of physical ease and freedom from care, then the happiest individual would not be either a man or a woman; it would be, I think, an American cow.

Whenever it is in any way possible, every boy and girl should choose as his life work some occupation which he should like to do anyhow, even if he did not need the money.

- William Lyon Phelps

Character is power; it makes friends, draws patronage and support and opens the way to wealth, honor and happiness.

- John Howe

The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.

Neither man or nation can exist without a sublime idea.

If you want to be respected by others the great thing is to respect yourself. Only by that, only by self-respect will you compel others to respect you.

There is nothing easier than lopping off heads and nothing harder than developing ideas.
Fyodor Dostoevsky - "The Brothers Karamazov"
Man is tormented by no greater anxiety than to find someone quickly to whom he can hand over that great gift of freedom with which the ill-fated creature is born.

By interpreting freedom as the propagation and immediate gratification of needs, people distort their own nature, for they engender in themselves a multitude of pointless and foolish desires, habits, and incongruous stratagems. Their lives are motivated only by mutual envy, sensuality, and ostentation.

Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it.

- Fyodor Dostoevsky

In the republic of mediocrity genius is dangerous.

The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.

Courage without conscience is a wild beast.

Happiness is not a reward - it is a consequence.
Suffering is not a punishment - it is a result.

The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.

In nature there are neither rewards nor punishment - there are consequences.

- Robert G. Ingersoll

I am more and more convinced that our happiness depends more on how we meet the events in our lives, than on those events themselves.

- Alexander Humboldt

Science has sometimes been said to be opposed to faith, and inconsistent with it. But all science, in fact, rests on a basis of faith, for it assumes the permanence and uniformity of natural laws - a thing which can never be demonstrated

Thoughts lead on to purposes; purposes go forth in action; actions form habits; habits decide character; and character fixes our destiny.

Whoever in prayer can say, "Our Father," acknowledges and should feel the brotherhood of the whole race of mankind.

Sin with the multitude, and your responsibility and guilt are as great and as truly personal, as if you alone had done the wrong.

Sinful and forbidden pleasures are like poisoned bread; they may satisfy appetite for the moment, but there is death in them at the end.

The slanderer and the assassin differ only in the weapon they use; with the one it is the dagger, with the other the tongue. The former is worse that the latter, for the last only kills the body, while the other murders the reputation.

Most of our censure of others is only oblique praise of self, uttered to show the wisdom and superiority of the speaker. It has all the insidiousness of self-praise, and all the ill-desert of falsehood.

Happiness is like manna; it is to be gathered in grains, and enjoyed every day. It will not keep; it cannot be accumulated; nor have we got to go out of ourselves or into remote places to gather it, since it has rained down from a Heaven, at our very door.

Anxiety is the rust of life, destroying its brightness and weakening its power. A childlike and abiding trust in Providence is its best preventive and remedy.

- Tyron Edwards

Happiness is in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.

Those who enjoy such freedoms as we enjoy, forget in time that men died to earn them.

- Franklin Roosevelt

The world is moved not only by the mighty shoves of the heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt within the heart.

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.

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt within the heart.

Keep your eyes to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadows.

Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourses of my book friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness.

I long to accomplish a great and noble task; but it is my chief duty and joy to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble.

One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.

People do not like to think. If one thinks, one must reach conclusions. Conclusions are not always pleasant.

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 been opened for us.

The world is full of suffering but it is also full of people overcoming it.

I am not afraid of storms for I am learning how to sail my ship.

When we do the best that we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.

When one door of happiness closes, another one opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened to us.

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.

Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.

We would never learn to be patient if there were only joy in the world.

Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousand of miles and all the years you have lived.

Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light.

Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.

Face your deficiencies and acknowledge them; but do not let them master you. Let them teach you patience, sweetness, insight.

There is no king who has not had a slave among his ancestors, and no slave who has not had a king among his.

I do not want the peace which passeth understanding, I want the understanding which bringeth peace.

Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I am in, therein to be content.
Helen Keller - My Religion, 1927
Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all - the apathy of human beings.

No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars or sailed an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.

Knowledge is love and light and vision.
Helen Keller - "The World at Her Fingertips" by Joan Dash
Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light.

Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything good in the world.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible.

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.
Helen Keller - The Open Door (1957)
Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature.... Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.
Helen Keller - Quote of the day book
When one door of happiness closes another opens; but we often look so long at the closed one that we do not see the one which has opened for us.

We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world.

Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of overcoming it.

When one door of happiness closes, another one opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.

No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.

Tyranny cannot defeat the power of ideas.

Is there anything worse than being blind? Yes, a man with sight and no vision.

Not the senses I have but what I do with them is my kingdom.

Science may have found a cure for most evils, but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all--the apathy of human beings.

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow.

Many persons have the wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.

Character can not be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

People do not like to think. If one thinks, one must reach conclusions. Conclusions are not always pleasant.

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow.

When all you can feel are the shadows, turn your face towards the sun.

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 been opened for us.

The best and most beautiful things cannot be seen or even heard, they must be felt with the heart.

Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.

I look upon the whole world as my fatherland, and every war has to me the horror of a family fued.

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security 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 exposure.

Keep your face to the sun and you will never see the shadows.
Helen Keller - The Open Door (1957)
Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature.... Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.

No pessimest ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an unchartered land or opened a new heaven to the human spirit.

- Helen Keller

Happiness is a warm puppy.

- Charles M. Schultz - Linus in "Peanuts"

What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expected generally happens.

Individuals may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.
Benjamin Disraeli - Speech, Edinburgh (1867)
Change is inevitable. In a progressive country change is constant.

The best way to become acquainted with a subject is to write a book about it.

A precedent embalms a principle.

Seeing much, suffering much, and studying much, are the three pillars of learning.

The difference of race is one of the reasons why I fear war may always exist; because race implies difference, difference implies superiority, and superiority leads to predominance.

No government can be long secure without formidable opposition.

When men are pure, laws are useless; when men are corrupt, laws are broken.

The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by quotation.

Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.

It is knowledge that influences and equalizes the social condition of man; that gives to all, however different their political position, passions which are in common, and enjoyments which are universal.

I feel a very unusual sensation - if it is not indigestion, I think it must be gratitude.
Benjamin Disraeli - Speech in the House of Commons, Mar. 3, 1845
A conservative government is an organized hypocrisy.

It is easier to be critical than correct.

Bore: one who has the power of speech but not the capacity for conversation.

When we would prepare the mind by a forcible appeal, an opening quotation is a symphony preluding on the chords those tones we are about to harmonize.

The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can ever end.

I repeat...that all power is a trust; that we are accountable for its exercise; that from the people, and for the people all springs, and all must exist.

Great services are not canceled by one act or by one single error.

Ignorance never settles a question.

Nurture your mind with great thoughts; to believe in the heroic makes heroes.

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

A man can know nothing of mankind without knowing something of himself. Self-knowledge is the property of that man whose passions have their full play, but who ponders over their results.
Benjamin Disraeli - speech, January 24, 1860
How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.

Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to forgo an advantage.

My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me.

We make our fortunes and call them fate.
Benjamin Disraeli - campaign speech at High Wycombe, England, November 27, 1832
I am a Conservative to preserve all that is good in our constitution, a Radical to remove all that is bad. I seek to preserve property and to respect order, and I equally decry the appeal to the passions of the many or the prejudices of the few.

The secret of success is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.

Grief is the agony of an instant, the indulgence of grief the blunder of a life.

Talk to a man about himself and he will listen for hours.

The secret of success is constancy to purpose.

Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for truth.

The most dangerous strategy is to jump a chasm in two leaps.

Great services are not canceled by one act or by one single error.

Man is not the creature of circumstances, circumstances are the creatures of men. We are free agents, and man is more powerful than matter.

The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but to reveal to him his own.

Cleanliness and order are not matters of instinct; they are matters of education, and like most great things, you must cultivate a taste for them.

The hare-brained chatter of irresponsible frivolity.
Benjamin Disraeli - Sybil, 1845
To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge.

As a general rule the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information.

When we would prepare the mind by a forcible appeal, and opening quotation is a symphony precluding on the chords those tones we are about to harmonize.

Nurture your mind with great thoughts for you will never go any higher than what you think.

When men are pure, laws are useless; when men are corrupt, laws are broken.

The fool wonders, the wise man asks.

My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me.
Benjamin Disraeli - Speech at the House of Commons, January 24, 1860
How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct.

The secret of success is constancy of purpose.

Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to forego an advantage.

- Benjamin Disraeli

We hate the very idea that our own ideas may be mistaken, so we cling dogmatically to our conjectures.

Philosophers should consider the fact that the greatest happiness principle can easily be made an excuse for a benevolent dictatorship. We should replace it by a more modest and more realistic principle - the principle that the fight against avoidable misery should be a recognized aim of public policy, while the increase of happiness should be left, in the main, to private initiative.

There is no history of mankind, there are only many histories of all kinds of aspects of human life. And one of these is the history of political power. This is elevated into the history of the world.

- Karl Popper

Happiness is different from pleasure. Happiness has something to do with struggling and enduring and accomplishing.

Happiness is different from pleasure. Happiness has something to do with struggling and enduring and accomplishing.

- George Sheehan

Those who can laugh without cause have either found the true meaning of happiness or have gone stark raving mad.

- Norm Papernick

We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

- US Declaration of Independence

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Alfred Lord Tennyson
The greater man the greater courtesy.
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Cast all your cares on God; that anchor holds.
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Hope smiles on the threshold of the year to come, whispering that it will be happier.
Alfred Lord Tennyson
For I dipped into the future, as far as human eye could see, saw a vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be.
Alfred Lord Tennyson
The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.
Alfred Lord Tennyson
I am a part of all I have seen.
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.

- Alfred Lord Tennyson - Ulysses (poem)

It is pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness; poverty and wealth have both failed.

The fellow that agrees with everything you say is either a fool or he is getting ready to skin you.

A good listener is usually thinking about something else.

Classical music is the kind we keep thinking will turn into a tune.

One of the simple but genuine pleasures in life is getting up in the morning and hurrying to a mousetrap you set the night before.

Now and then an innocent man is sent to the legislature.

The only way to entertain some folks is to listen to them.

A woman will buy anything she thinks the store is losing money on.

Boys will be boys, and so will a lot of middle-aged men.

Classical music is the kind we keep thinking will turn into a tune.

Of all the unbearable nuisances, the ignoramus that has travelled is the worst.

Now and then an innocent man is sent to the legislature.

The safest way to double your money is to fold it over and put it in your pocket.

The fellow that agrees with everything you say is either a fool or he is getting ready to skin you.

A good listener is usually thinking about something else.

- Kin Hubbard

Happiness is something that you are and it comes from the way you think.

- Wayne Dyer

Charm is a way of getting the answer yes without asking a clear question.

If, after all, men cannot always make history have meaning, they can always act so that their own lives have one.

Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.

Do not wait for the last judgment. It takes place every day.

The aim of art, the aim of a life can only be to increase the sum of freedom and responsibility to be found in every man and in the world. It cannot, under any circumstances, be to reduce or suppress that freedom, even temporarily. No great work has ever been based on hatred and contempt. On the contrary, there is not a single true work of art that has not in the end added to the inner freedom of each person who has known and loved it.

You cannot acquire experience by making experiments. You cannot create experience. You must undergo it.

Too many have dispensed with generosity in order to practice charity.
Albert Camus - Resistance, Rebellion and Death (1960)
A free press can of course be good or bad, but, most certainly, without freedom it will never be anything but bad. . . . Freedom is nothing else but a chance to bet better, whereas enslavement is a certainty of the worse.

Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better.

In the vast reaches of the dry, cold night, thousands of stars were constantly appearing, and their sparkling icicles, loosened at once, began to slip gradually toward the horizon.

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.

There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.

But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads.

Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.

He who despairs over an event is a coward, but he who holds hope for the human condition is a fool.

When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on the faces surrounding him. In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.
Albert Camus - La Chute (The Fall),1956
You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question.

Charm is a way of getting the answer yes without asking a clear question.

In the midst of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.
Albert Camus - The Fall
There are always reasons for murdering a man. But there is no justification for his existence.

It is a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think they can be happy without money.

By definition, a government has no conscience. Sometimes it has a policy, but nothing more.

Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.
Albert Camus - The Stranger
I have never been able, really, to regret anything in all my life. I have always been far much too absorbed in the present moment or the immediate future to think back.

Too many have dispensed with generosity in order to practice charity.

A slave begins by demanding justice and ends by wanting to wear a crown.

If there is a sin against life, it consist perhaps not so much in despairing of life as hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life. Albert Camus

In the depth of winter, I learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.
Albert Camus - The Rebel (1951)
He who despairs over an event is a coward, but he who holds hope for the human condition is a fool.

We rarely confide in those who are better than we are.

Live to the point of tears.

I shall tell you a great secret, my friend. Do not wait for the last judgment, it takes place every day.

Everyone would like to behave like a pagan, with everyone else behaving like a Christian.

Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better.

Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is.

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

For there is no greater pain, than to remember in present grief, past happinesses.

- Dante - The Divine Comedy

No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true.

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.

Life is made up of marble and mud.

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.

A bodily disease which we look upon as whole and entire within itself, may, after all, be but a symptom of some ailment in the spiritual part.

Words -- so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.

The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease. The happy man inevitably confines himself within ancient limits.

- Nathaniel Hawthorne

The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.
Albert Einstein
The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with the joy of living are goodness, beauty, and truth. To make a goal of comfort or happiness has never appealed to me; a system of ethics built on this basis would be sufficient only for a herd of cattle.
Albert Einstein - The World As I See It (autobio, 1934)
The pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, an almost fanatical love of justice, and the desire for personal independence - these are the features of Jewish tradition that make me thank my stars that I belong to it.
Albert Einstein
God reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists.
Albert Einstein
The tragedy of life is what dies in the hearts and souls of people while they live.
Albert Einstein
The individual must not merely wait and criticize, he must defend the cause the best he can. The fate of the world will be such as the world deserves.
Albert Einstein
Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this counrty is closely related with this.
Albert Einstein
Computers are incredibly fast, accurate, and stupid. Human beings are incredibly slow, inaccurate, and brilliant. Together they are powerful beyond imagination.
Albert Einstein
The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge.
Albert Einstein - Out of My Later Years
The point is to develop the childlike inclination for play and the childlike desire for recognition and to guide the child over to important fields for society. Such a school demands from the teacher that he be a kind of artist in his province.
Albert Einstein
Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.
Albert Einstein - when asked to describe radio
You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.
Albert Einstein
One should guard against preaching to young people success in the customary form as the main aim in life. The most important motive for work in school and in life is pleasure in work, pleasure in its result, and the knowledge of the value of the result to the community.
Albert Einstein
Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves.
Albert Einstein
Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!
Albert Einstein
I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.
Albert Einstein
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
Albert Einstein
The aim (of education) must be the training of independently acting and thinking individuals who, however, can see in the service to the community their highest life achievement.
Albert Einstein
As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.
Albert Einstein - quoted in Scientific American, September 2004, page 69
No one but a theorist believes his theory; everyone puts faith in a laboratory result but the experimenter himself.
Albert Einstein
The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books - a mysterious order which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects.
Albert Einstein
Every kind of peaceful cooperation among men is primarily based on mutual trust and only secondarily on institutions such as courts of justice and police.
Albert Einstein
Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most People are even incapable of forming such opinions.
Albert Einstein
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.
Albert Einstein
I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.
Albert Einstein
The grand aim of all science is to cover the greatest number of empirical facts by logical deduction from the smallest number of hypotheses or axioms.
Albert Einstein
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
Albert Einstein
To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself.
Albert Einstein - Telegram, 24 May 1946
The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and we thus drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.
Albert Einstein
Truth is what stands the test of experience.
Albert Einstein
All of us who are concerned for peace and triumph of reason and justice must be keenly aware how small an influence reason and honest good will exert upon events in the political field.
Albert Einstein - quoted in New York Times, March 13, 1940
Great spirits have always encountered opposition from mediocre minds. The mediocre mind is incapable of understanding the man who refuses to bow blindly to conventional prejudices and chooses instead to express his opinions courageously and honestly.
Albert Einstein
My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.
Albert Einstein - on atomic energy, Jan. 22, 1947
We believe that an informed citizenry will act for life and not for death.
Albert Einstein
"My life is a simple thing that would interest no one. It is a known fact that I was born and that is all that is necessary.
Albert Einstein
We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.
Albert Einstein
No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.
Albert Einstein - "Science, Philosophy and Religion: a Symposium", 1941
Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.
Albert Einstein - (attributed)
Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.
Albert Einstein
To my mind, to kill in war is not a whit better than to commit ordinary murder.
Albert Einstein
Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish.
Albert Einstein
After a certain high level of technical skill is achieved, science and art tend to coalesce in esthetics, plasticity, and form. The greatest sceintists are always artists as well.
Albert Einstein
Theories should be as simple as possible, but not simpler.
Albert Einstein
Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized.
Albert Einstein
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
Albert Einstein
"Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Albert Einstein
Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.
Albert Einstein
So long as there are men there will be wars.
Albert Einstein
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
Albert Einstein
No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.
Albert Einstein
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex ... it takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction.
Albert Einstein
Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value.
Albert Einstein
The important thing is not to stop questioning.
Albert Einstein
Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.
Albert Einstein - (attributed)
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not one bit simpler.
Albert Einstein
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.
Albert Einstein
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
It is the source of all art and science.
Albert Einstein - 1929
Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves.
Albert Einstein
As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.
Albert Einstein
My sense of God is my sense of wonder about the Universe.
Albert Einstein
When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent for abstract, positive thinking.
Albert Einstein
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.
Albert Einstein
To my mind to kill in war is not a whit better than to commit ordinary murder.
Albert Einstein
Ethical axioms are found and tested not very differently from the axioms of science. Truth is what stands the test of experience.
Albert Einstein
Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools.
Albert Einstein - (attributed)
You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.
Albert Einstein - (attributed)
The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.
Albert Einstein
Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.
Albert Einstein
Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Albert Einstein
To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself.
Albert Einstein
The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. The trite subjects of human efforts, possessions, outward success, luxury have always seemed to me contemptible.
Albert Einstein
Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love.
Albert Einstein
It is characteristic of the military mentality that nonhuman factors (atom bombs, strategic bases, weapons of all sorts, the possession of raw materials, etc) are held essential, while the human being, his desires, and thoughts - in short, the psychological factors - are considered as unimportant and secondary...The individual is degraded...to "human materiel".
Albert Einstein
The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.
Albert Einstein
I have deep faith that the principle of the universe will be beautiful and simple.
Albert Einstein
Never regard study as a duty, but as the enviable opportunity to learn to know the liberating influence of beauty in the realm of the spirit for your own personal joy and to the profit of the community to which your later work belongs.
Albert Einstein
Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.
Albert Einstein
Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value.
Albert Einstein
If my theory of relativity proves to be correct, Germany will claim me a German, and France will claim me a citizen of the world. However, if it proves wrong, France will say I?m a German, and Germany will say that I?m a jew.
Albert Einstein
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
Albert Einstein - On Education
One should guard against preaching to young people success in the customary form as the main aim in life. The most important motive for work in school and in life is pleasure in work, pleasure in its result, and the knowledge of the value of the result to the community.
Albert Einstein
It is the theory that decides what we can observe.
Albert Einstein
When all think alike, no one thinks very much.
Albert Einstein
The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.
Albert Einstein
It is in fact nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curious of inquiry. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty.
Albert Einstein - Observer, Jan. 15, 1950
If A is success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.
Albert Einstein
The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.
Albert Einstein
Concern for man himself and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavor. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.
Albert Einstein
Laws alone can not secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population.
Albert Einstein
Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.
Albert Einstein - "Autobiographical Notes"
It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry.
Albert Einstein
Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.
Albert Einstein
If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.
Albert Einstein
The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.
Albert Einstein
Each of us visits this Earth involuntarily, and without an invitation. For me, it is enough to wonder at the secrets.
Albert Einstein
Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Albert Einstein
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
Albert Einstein
We still do not know one-thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us.
Albert Einstein
My religion consists of a humble admiration of the unlimitable superior who reveals Himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God
Albert Einstein
The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.
Albert Einstein
Imagination is more important than knowledge...
Albert Einstein
It is mathematics that offers the exact natural sciences a certain measure of security which, without mathematics, they could not attain.
Albert Einstein
I never think of the future - it comes soon enough.
Albert Einstein
Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves.
Albert Einstein
Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics and our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever.
Albert Einstein
So long as there are men there will be wars.
Albert Einstein
There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is.
Albert Einstein
He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.
Albert Einstein
True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist
Albert Einstein - speech
Never underestimate your own ignorance.
Albert Einstein
I never came upon any of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking.
Albert Einstein
There are two ways of resisting war: the legal way and the revolutionary way. The legal way involves the offer of alternatinve service not as a privilege for a few but as a right for all. The revolutionary view involves an uncompromising resistance, with a view to breaking the power of militarism in time of peace or the resources of the state in time of war.
Albert Einstein
If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?
Albert Einstein - (attributed)
Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
Albert Einstein
The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is at all comprehensible.
Albert Einstein
The important thing is not to stop questioning.
Albert Einstein
It is only to the individual that a soul is given.
Albert Einstein
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.
Albert Einstein
I believe that whoever tries to think things through honestly will soon recognize how unworthy and even fatal is the traditional bias against Negroes. What can the man of good will do to combat this deeply rooted prejudice? He must have the courage to set an example by words and deed, and must watch lest his children become influenced by racial bias.
Albert Einstein
My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.
Albert Einstein
"My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.
Albert Einstein
People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.
Albert Einstein - In a letter to Max Born, 1926
At any rate, I am convinced that He [God] does not play dice.
Albert Einstein
We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.
Albert Einstein
Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.
Albert Einstein - Letter, 24 March 1954. Quoted in "Albert Einstein: The Human Side," edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman
It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.
Albert Einstein
We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.
Albert Einstein - 1879-1955
Nothing in the world makes people so afraid as the influence of independent-minded people.
Albert Einstein
Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.
Albert Einstein
Teaching should be such that what is offered is perceived as a valuable gift and not as a hard duty.
Albert Einstein
"I want to know Gods thoughts.... all the rest are just details
Albert Einstein
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.
Albert Einstein
He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.
Albert Einstein
God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically.
Albert Einstein
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
Albert Einstein
As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.
Albert Einstein
He who cherishes the values of culture cannot fail to be a pacifist.
Albert Einstein
Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.
Albert Einstein
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
Albert Einstein - when asked to describe radio
You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.
Albert Einstein - The World as I See It.
When you look at yourself from a universal standpoint, something inside always reminds or informs you that there are bigger and better things to worry about.
Albert Einstein
The value of a man resides in what he gives and not in what he is capable of receiving.
Albert Einstein
If I had only known, I would have been a locksmith.
Albert Einstein
Imagination is more important than knowledge...
Albert Einstein
The conscientious objector is a revoultionary. On deciding to disobey the law he sacrifices his personal interests to the most important cause of working for the betterment of society.
Albert Einstein
A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe, a part 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 kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.
Albert Einstein - Dilip Kumar Roy, (famous Indian classical singer), had cited the above quotation of Einstein in one of his let
Let us not forget that knowledge and skills alone cannot lead humanity to a happy and dignified life. ... I claim credit for nothing. Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insects as well as for the stars, Human beings, vegetables or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.
Albert Einstein
Wisdom is not a product of schooling, but of the life- long attempt to acquire it.
Albert Einstein
He who joyfully marches to music rank and file, has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would surely suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action. It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.
Albert Einstein
Only a life lived for others is a life worth while.
Albert Einstein - Sc
I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.
Albert Einstein - (attributed)
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein - (attributed)
The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.

- Albert Einstein - Physics and Reality [1936]

The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.
Ernest Hemingway
Never confuse movement with action.
Ernest Hemingway
[What is the definition of guts?] Grace under pressure.
Ernest Hemingway - in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech
For a true writer each book should be a new beginning where he tries again for something that is beyond attainment. He should always try for something that has never been done or that others have tried and failed. Then sometimes, with great luck, he will succeed.
Ernest Hemingway
If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.
Ernest Hemingway
Courage is grace under pressure.
Ernest Hemingway
But did thee feel the earth move?
Ernest Hemingway
America is the land of wide lawns and narrow minds.
Ernest Hemingway - "The Old Man and the Sea"
Humility is not disgraceful, and carries no loss of true pride.
Ernest Hemingway
When you have a child, the world has a hostage.
Ernest Hemingway
In order to write about life, first you must live it!
Ernest Hemingway
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.
Ernest Hemingway - The Old Man and the Sea
Let him think I am more man that I am and I will be so.
Ernest Hemingway
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Once we have a war there is only one thing to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war.
Ernest Hemingway
Grace under Pressure.
Ernest Hemingway
Never mistake motion for action.
Ernest Hemingway
But in modern war you will die like a dog for no good reason.
Ernest Hemingway
Live life to the fullest.
Ernest Hemingway
When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.

- Ernest Hemingway - A Farewell to Arms, 1929

It is only when the rich are sick that they fully feel the impotence of wealth.

There is this difference between happiness and wisdom, that he that thinks himself the happiest man, really is so; but he who thinks himself the wisest, is generally the greatest fool.

Men of strong minds and who think for themselves, should not be discouraged on finding occasionally that some of their best ideas have been anticipated by former writers; they will neither anathematize others nor despair themselves. They will rather go on discovering things before discovered, until they are rewarded with a land hitherto unknown, an empire indisputably their own, both right of conquest and of discovery.

To know the pains of power, we must go to those who have it; to know its pleasures, we must go to those who are seeking it. The pains of power are real; its pleasures imaginary.

Love is an alliance of friendship and animalism; if the former predominates it is passion exalted and refined; if the latter, gross and sensual.

The slightest sorrow for sin is sufficient if it produce amendment, and the greatest insufficient if it do not.

The reason why great men meet with so little pity or attachment in adversity, would seem to be this: the friends of a great man were made by his fortune, his enemies by himself, and revenge is a much more punctual paymaster than gratitude.

Falsehood is never so successful as when she baits her hook with truth, and no opinions so fatally mislead us, as those that are not wholly wrong; as no watches so effectually deceive the wearer as those that are sometimes right.

There is this paradox in pride - it makes some men ridiculous, but prevents others from becoming so.

Nothing more completely baffles one who is full of trick and duplicity than straigthforward and simple integrity in another. A knave would rather quarrel with a brother knave than with a fool, but he would rather avoid a quarrel with one honest man than with both. He can combat a fool by management and address, and he can conquer a knave by temptations. But the honest man is neither to be bamboozled nor bribed.

To know a man, observe how he wins his object, rather than how he loses it; for when we fail, our pride supports; when we succeed; it betrays us.

He that thinks himself the wisest is generally the least so.

There is a diabolical trio existing in the natural man, implacable, inextinguishable, co-operative and consentaneous, pride, envy, and hate; pride that makes us fancy we deserve all the goods that others possess; envy that some should be admired while we are overlooked; and hate, because all that is bestowed on others, diminishes the sum we think due to ourselves.

No company is preferable to bad, because we are more apt to catch the vices of others than their virtues, as disease is far more contagious than health.

Two things, well considered, would prevent many quarrels; first to have it well ascertained whether we are not disputing about terms rather than things; and secondly, to examine whether that on which we differ in worth contending about.

We ought not be over anxious to encourage innovation, in case of doubtful improvement, for an old system must ever have two advantages over a new one; it is established and it is understood.

Anguish of mind has driven thousands to suicide; anguish of body, none. This proves that the health of the mind is of far more consequence to our happiness, than the health of the body, although both are deserving of much more attention than either of them receive.

It is with disease of the mind, as with those of the body; we are half dead before we understand our disorder, and half cured when we do.

True friendship is like sound health, the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.

Doubt is the vestibule which all must pass before they can enter the temple of wisdom. When we are in doubt and puzzle out the truth by our own exertions, we have gained something that will stay by us and will serve us again. But if to avoid the trouble of the search we avail ourselves of the superior information of a friend, such knowledge will not remain with us; we have not bought, but borrowed it.

He that will believe only what he can fully comprehend must have a long head or a very short creed.

How small a portion of our life it is that we really enjoy! In youth we are looking forward to things that are to come; in old age we are looking backward to things that are gone past; in manhood, although we appear indeed to be more occupied in things that are present, yet even that is too often absorbed in vague determinations to be vastly happy on some future day when we have time.

- C. C. Colton

In the long run you only hit what you aim at. Therefore, though you should fail immediately, you had better aim at something high.

If the day and the night are such that you greet them with with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, more elastic, more starry, more immortal--that is your success.
Henry David Thoreau - Walden, 1854
It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes.

We falsely attribute to men a determined character - putting together all their yesterdays - and averaging them - we presume we know them. Pity the man who has character to support - it is worse than a large family - he is the silent poor indeed.

All good things are wild, and free.

Men are born to succeed, not fail.

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.

Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is in prison.
Henry David Thoreau - Walden
Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it but as I drink, I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is.

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.
Henry David Thoreau - Walden; Where I Lived, And What I Lived For
I do not propose to write an ode to dejection, but to brag as lustily as chanticleer in the morning, standing on his roost, if only to wake his neighbours up.

Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.
Henry David Thoreau - Walking (1862)
In wildness is the preservation of the world.

We do not learn by inference and deduction and the application of mathematics to philosophy, but by direct intercourse and sympathy.

Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each.
Henry David Thoreau - "Walden", 1854
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

There is no remedy for love but to love more.

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 he hears, how ever measured or far away.
Henry David Thoreau - Walden, Economy.
I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well.

A simple and independent mind does not toil at the bidding of any prince.
Henry David Thoreau - "Where I Live"
It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.

We are armed with language adequate to describe each leaf of the filed, but not to describe human character.

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.
Henry David Thoreau - "Walden," the Conclusion
Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. I sat at a table where were rich food and wine in abundance, and obsequious attendance, but sincerity and truth were not; and I went away hungry from the inhospitable board.
Henry David Thoreau - Walden: Economy, 1854
Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed in them.

Our truest life is when we are in our dreams awake.
Henry David Thoreau - O Magazine, May 2004
Every man is the builder of a temple called his body.

However mean your life is, meet it and live it: do not shun it and call it hard names. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Things do not change, we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see that you do want society.

If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see.
Henry David Thoreau - Walden (1854)
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
Henry David Thoreau - Walden (1970)
Things do not change; we change.
Henry David Thoreau - Walden: Higher Laws, 1854
Goodness is the only investment that never fails.
Henry David Thoreau - "Walden"
Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? 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.

As if there were safety in stupidity alone.

Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.

Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. I think that there is nothing, not even crime, more opposed to poetry, to philosophy, ay, to life itself than this incessant business.
Henry David Thoreau - Simplify Simplify
Say what you have to say, not what you ought. any truth is better than make-Believe!

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestioned ability of a man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

A man cannot be said to succeed in this life who does not satisfy one friend.

Good poetry seems too simple and natural a thing that when we meet it we wonder that all men are not always poets. Poetry is nothing but healthy speech.
Henry David Thoreau - Simplify simplify
Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.

In the long run, you hit only what you aim at: Therefore aim high.
Henry David Thoreau - Walden
I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, cattle, barns, and farming tools, for these are more easily acquired than gotten rid of. Better if they had been born in the open pasture and suckled by a wolf, that they might have seen with clearer eyes what field they were called to labour in.

Cultivate the habit of early rising. It is unwise to keep the head long on a level with the feet.

It is characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.
Henry David Thoreau - WALDEN: Or, Life in the Woods
Our life is frittered away by detail. An honest man has hardly need to count more than his ten fingers, or in extreme cases he may add his ten toes, and lump the rest. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!
Henry David Thoreau - Walden, Chapter 1: Economy
The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.

As for the pyramids, there is nothing to wonder at in them so much as the fact that so many men could be found degraded enough to spend their lives constructing a tomb for some ambitious booby, whom it would have been wiser and manlier to have drowned in the Nile, and then given his body to the dogs.

Do not lose hold of your dreams or aspirations. For if you do, you may still exist but you have ceased to live.

I have lived some thirty years on this planet and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors.

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 faraway.

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he imaged, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours.
Henry David Thoreau - ?
Many go fishing without knowing it is fish they are after.

It takes two to speak the truth--one to speak and the other to hear.

Any fool can make a rule,
and any fool will mind it.

Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.

Men have become the tools of their tools.

What people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can.
Henry David Thoreau - Walden
Petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of reality.
Henry David Thoreau - "Walden", 1854
Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new.

Heroes are often the most ordinary of men.

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink, I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish fill the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars. I cannot count one. I know not the first letter of the alphabet. I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born.

The way by which you may get money almost without exception leads downward.

I stand in awe of my body.

Men have become the tools of their tools

Must be out-of-doors enough to get experience of wholesome reality, as a ballast to thought and sentiment. Health requires this relaxation, this aimless life

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.

Most people dread finding out when they come to die that they have never really lived.

As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.

What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.

Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.
Henry David Thoreau - in Walden, "Economy"
What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.

All perception of truth is the detection of an analogy.

Not till we are lost, in other words, not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize the infinite extent of our relations.
Henry David Thoreau - Civil Disobience
The only obligation which I have a right to assume, is to do at any time what I think right.

However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are the richest.

The cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.

It is pleasant to have been to a place the way a river went.

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.

I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance that I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.

In solitude especialy do we begin to appreciate the advantage of living with someone who can think.
Henry David Thoreau - Walden
Time is but a stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it, but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains.

My friend is one... who take me for what I am.

The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way.
Henry David Thoreau - book
The hero is commonly the simplest and obscurest of men.

In what concerns you much, do not think that you have companions: know that you are alone in the world.

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.

Water is the only drink for a wise man.

How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.
Henry David Thoreau - Walden, 1854
I say beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.
Henry David Thoreau - Walden (1854)
The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.
Henry David Thoreau - Vol. 2, p.318 Houghton Mifflin
Do what nobody else can do for you. Omit to do anything else.

In wilderness is the preservation of the world.
Henry David Thoreau - Walden, Conclusion, 1854
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.
Henry David Thoreau - "Walden", pp. 323- 324
I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. 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.
Henry David Thoreau - simplify Simplify
Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
Henry David Thoreau - Walden
Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.

Be not simply good - be good for something.
Henry David Thoreau - Jan. 3, 1861
Thank God men cannot as yet fly and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.

I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

Thank God men cannot as yet fly and lay waste the sky as well as the earth!

To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, not even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust.

One may discover a new side to his most intimate friend when for the first time he hears him speak in public. He will be stranger to him as he is more familiar to the audience. The longest intimacy could not foretell how he would behave then
Henry David Thoreau - "An Essay on Civil Disobedience," 1849.
Voting for the right is doing nothing for it.

Most men would feel insulted if it were proposed to employ them in throwing stones over a wall, and then in throwing them back, merely that they might earn their wages. But many are no more worthily employed now.

Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.
Henry David Thoreau - Simplify Simplify
How sweet it would be to treat men and things, for an hour, for just what they are!

Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.

What men call good fellowship is commonly but the virtue of pigs in a litter which lie close together to keep each other warm.

[Water is] the only drink for a wise man.

We must have infinite faith in each other. If we have not, we must never let it leak out that we have not.

I have learned this at least by my experiment: if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

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.

I derive no pleasure from talking with a young woman simply because she has regular features.
Henry David Thoreau - Wednesday, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
Ignorance and bungling with love are better than wisdom and skill without.
Henry David Thoreau - "Resistance to Civil Government"
I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion.
Henry David Thoreau - Journal, January 21, 1838
Man is the artificer of his own happiness.

It is never too late to give up your prejudices.

To regret deeply is to live afresh.
Henry David Thoreau - Walden: Reading, 1854
How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.
Henry David Thoreau - Journal, July 25, 1839
There is no remedy for love but to love more.

In dreams we see ourselves naked and acting our real characters, even more clearly than we see others awake.

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.

That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.
Henry David Thoreau - "Resistance to Civil Government"
I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad.

Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.

Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.

I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestioned ability of a man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.

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.

How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.

As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.

- Henry David Thoreau

One must fight for a life of action, not reaction.

Good judgment comes from experience, and often experience comes from bad judgment.
Rita Mae Brown - Venus Envy
The reward for conformity was that everyone liked you except yourself.

One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.

Lead me not into temptation; I can find the way myself.

I finally figured out the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it.

Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts. And never hope more than you work.

If the world were a logical place, men would ride side saddle.

If the world were a logical place, men would ride sidesaddle.

One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.

Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts.

Lead me not into temptation; I can find the way myself.
Rita Mae Brown - Starting From Scratch, 1988
Language exerts hidden power, like a moon on the tides.

- Rita Mae Brown

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

We find no real satisfaction or happiness in life without obstacles to conquer and goals to achieve.
Maxwell Maltz
You can always find the sun within yourself if you will only search.

- Maxwell Maltz - Communication Bulletin for Managers & Supervisors, June 2004

Happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment.

Before you contradict an old man, my fair friend, you should endeavor to understand him.

A child only educated at school is an uneducated child.
George Santayana - The Life of Reason, Volume 1, 1905
Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In the first stage of life the mind is frivolous and easily distracted, it misses progress by failing in consecutiveness and persistence. This is the condition of children and barbarians, in which instinct has learned nothing from experience.

Society is like the air; necessary to breathe, but insufficient to live on.
George Santayana - Little Essays (1920) "Ideal Immortality"
The truth is cruel, but it can be loved, and it makes free those who have loved it.

Those who speak most of progress measure it by quantity and not by quality.
George Santayana - Soliloquies in England, 1922, "War Shrines"
There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

The world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever; but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these, the spirit blooms timidly, and struggles to the light amid the thorns.

There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval

A man is morally free when, in full possession of his living humanity, he judges the world, and judges other men, with uncompromising sincerity.
George Santayana - Life of Reason (1905) vol. 1, ch. 10
Happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment.
George Santayana - "The German Mind: A Philosophical Diagnosis"
Our character...is an omen of our destiny, and the more integrity we have and keep, the simpler and nobler that destiny is likely to be.

Advertising is the modern substitute for argument; its function is to make the worse appear the better.
George Santayana - Life of Reason (1905) vol. 4, ch. 4
Music is essentially useless, as life is: but both have an ideal extension which lends utility to its conditions.

Sanity is a madness put to good use.
George Santayana - Dialogues in Limbo (1925) ch. 3
The young man who has not wept is a savage,
and the old man who will not laugh is a fool.
George Santayana - The Life of Reason, Volume 1, 1905
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Before he sets out, the traveler must possess fixed interests and facilities to be served by travel.

America is the greatest of opportunities and the worst of influences.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Science is nothing but developed perception, interpreted intent, common sense rounded out and minutely articulated.

There is no cure for birth and death save to enjoy the interval.

Each religion, by the help of more or less myth which it takes more or less seriously, proposes some method of fortifying the human soul and enabline it to make its peace with its destiny.
George Santayana - Life of Reason (1905) vol. 4, ch. 8
Nothing is really so poor and melancholy as art that is interested in itself and not in its subject.
George Santayana - Winds of Doctrine (1913) ch. 2
For an idea ever to be fashionable is ominous, since it must afterwards be always old-fashioned.

Whoever it was who searched the heavens with a telescope and found no God would not have found the human mind if he had searched the brain with a microscope.

Matters of religion should never be matters of controversy. We neither argue with a lover about his taste, not condemn him, if we are just, for knowing so human a passion.
George Santayana - The Life of Reason, Volume 1, 1905
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

It takes a wonderful brain and exquisite senses to produce a few stupid ideas.
George Santayana - Life of Reason (1905) vol. 1, Introduction
Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim.

To knock a thing down, especially if it is cocked at an arrogant angle, is a deep delight of the blood.

Friends need not agree in everything or go always together, or have no comparable other friendships of the same intimacy. On the contrary, in friendship union is more about ideal things: and in that sense it is more ideal and less subject to trouble than marriage is.

The need of exercise is a modern superstition, invented by people who ate too much and had nothing to think about.

That life is worth living is the most necessary of assumptions, and, were it not assumed, the most impossible of conclusions.
George Santayana - Winds of Doctrine (1913) ch. 4
Intolerance itself is a form of egoism, and to condemn egoism intolerantly is to share it.

Beauty as we feel it is something indescribable; what it is or what it means can never be said.

Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer: there is nobility in preserving it coolly and proudly through long youth, until at last, in the ripeness of instinct and discretion, it can be safely exchanged for fidelity and happiness.

The lover knows much more about absolute good and universal beauty than any logician or theologian, unless the latter, too, be lovers in disguise.

The wisest mind has something yet to learn.

Skepticism, like chastity, should not be relinquished too readily.
George Santayana - Vol. 53 / No. 18 MMWR page 391
The wisest mind has something yet to learn.

Sanity is a madness put to good use.

America is a young country with an old mentality.

The body is an instrument, the mind its function, the witness and reward of its operation.
George Santayana - Life of Reason (1905) vol. 4, ch. 4
Music is essentially useless, as life is.

Advertising is the modern substitute for argument; its function is to make the worse appear the better.

Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim.
George Santayana - Life of Reason (1905) vol. 4, ch. 3
An artist is a dreamer consenting to dream of the actual world.

Music is essentially useless, as life is.

- George Santayana

Happiness lies, first of all, in health.

- George William Curtis