-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.
-The power of illustrative anecdotes often lies not … Read the rest
Molière Quotations
-A wise man is superior to any insults which can be put upon him, and the best reply to unseemly behavior is patience and moderation.
-There’s no praise to beat the sort you can put in your pocket.
-The trees … Read the rest
Henry R. Luce Quotations
-Business more than any other occupation is a continual dealing with the future; it is a continual calculation, an instinctive exercise in foresight.
Henry R. Luce… Read the rest
Harry Stack Sullivan
Throughout our lives opportunities for new integrations and adaptations present themselves.
Harry Stack Sullivan… Read the rest
Ali Javan Quotations
I don’t wish to be everything to everyone, but I would like to be something to someone.
Ali Javan… Read the rest
Martha Beck Quotations
-Any transition serious enough to alter your definition of self will require not just small adjustments in your way of living and thinking but a full-on metamorphosis.
Martha Beck… Read the rest
Eric Hoffer Quotations
-The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.
-Action is at bottom a swinging and flailing of the arms to regain one’s balance … Read the rest
William Allen White Quotations
-I am not afraid of tomorrow, for I have seen yesterday and I love today.
William Allen White… Read the rest
Carl Linnaeus Quotations
No science in the world is more elevated, more necessary and more useful than economics.
Carl Linnaeus… Read the rest
Demosthenes Quotations
-Small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises.
-Beware lest in your anxiety to avoid war you obtain a master.
Demosthenes… Read the rest
Robert X. Cringely Quotations
-If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside.
Robert X. Cringely… Read the rest
Peter Drucker Quotations
-The probability that the first choice you make is right for you is roughly one in a million. If you decide that your first choice was the right one, chances are you are just plain lazy.
-Organizations, unless challenged, tend … Read the rest
Pierre Teilhard De Chardin Quotations
-Growing old is like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven’t committed.
-He that will believe only what he can fully comprehend must have a long head or a very short creed.
-In the final analysis, the questions of … Read the rest
Cardinal de Retz Quotations
-A man who doesn’t trust himself can never truly trust anyone else.
Cardinal de Retz… Read the rest
Lisa Williams Quotations
The only way to last a really long time is to build something useful enough that people will want to keep it going after you die, and to cultivate a sense of ownership in other people. In short: make good … Read the rest
James Howard Kunstler
-Anybody who thinks we’re going to be using cars twenty-five years from now the way we’ve been accustomed to using them in the recent past ought to have his head examined. That phase of our national history is over….
-The … Read the rest
Gore Vidal
-I’m a born-again atheist.
-It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
-Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so.
-Style is knowing who you are, what you … Read the rest
Hui-Neng
As one lamp serves to dispel a thousand years of darkness, so one flash of wisdom destroys ten thousand years of ignorance.
Hui-Neng … Read the rest
Gregg Levoy
-When you’re on the right path, the universe winks and nods at you from time to time, to let you know.
-Passion is what we are most deeply curious about, most hungry for, will most hate to lose in life. … Read the rest
Maltese saying
Better one word too few than one too many.
Maltese saying… Read the rest
William Feather Quotations
-The petty economies of the rich are just as amazing as the silly extravagances of the poor.
-One of the indictments of civilizations is that happiness and intelligence are so rarely found in the same person.
-Setting a good example … Read the rest
Susan Partnow Quotations
-It is within the families themselves where peace can begin.
Susan Partnow… Read the rest
Igor Stravinski Quotations
I remember being handed a score composed by Mozart at the age of eleven. What could I say’ I felt like de Kooning, who was asked to comment on a certain abstract painting, and answered in the negative. He was … Read the rest
Lucretius Quotations
Look at a man in the midst of doubt and danger, and you will learn in his hour of adversity what he really is. It is then that true utterances are wrung from the recesses of his breast. The mask … Read the rest
Chris Messina Quotations
Look at what your idea of success would be. The more that you take in external motivators, the more it reduces your ultimate satisfaction because it doesn’t come from inside.
Chris Messina… Read the rest
M. C. Richards Quotations
-Poetry often enters through the window of irrelevance.
M. C. Richards… Read the rest
Mark
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
Mark 8:36… Read the rest
Ralph W. Sockman Quotations
The test of courage comes when we are in the minority. The test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority.
Ralph W. Sockman… Read the rest
William Shakespeare Quotations
-All that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.
Hamlet. Act I. Sc. 2.
-Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.
Measure for Measure, Act I, Sc.5
-The … Read the rest
Stanislaw Lem
Faith is, at one and the same time, absolutely necessary and altogether impossible.
Stanislaw Lem… Read the rest
Lord Acton Quotations
-The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern.
-Learn as much by writing as by reading.
Lord Acton… Read the rest
George Harrison Quotations
I think people who can truly live a life in music are telling the world, “You can have my love, you can have my smiles. Forget the bad parts, you don’t need them. Just take the music, the goodness, because … Read the rest
Charles Mingus Quotations
-Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can play weird–that’s easy. What’s hard is to be as simple as Bach. Making the simple complicated is commonplace–making the complicated simple, awesomely simple–that’s creativity.
Charles Mingus… Read the rest
Friedrich Holderlin Quotations
-What has always made a hell on earth has been that man has tried to make it his heaven.
-Near is and hard to fathom, the God; yet, where there is danger, groweth salvation as well.
-Though he has to … Read the rest
Gerry Spence Quotations
-I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than closed by belief.
-To freely bloom – that is my definition of success.
Gerry Spence… Read the rest
Robert Redford
I think the environment should be put in the category of our national security. Defense of our resources is just as important as defense abroad. Otherwise what is there to defend?
Robert Redford… Read the rest
Michael J. Fox Quotations
One’s dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked, but cannot be taken away unless it is surrendered.
Michael J. Fox… Read the rest
Pierre Wack Quotations
I had the feeling of hunting in a pack of wolves, being the eyes of the pack, and sending signals back to the rest. Now if you see something serious, and the pack doesn’t notice it, you’d better find out … Read the rest
William James Quotations
-Human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.
-The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
-The greatest discovery of my generation is that a … Read the rest
Max Frisch Quotations
-Time does not change us. It just unfolds us.
Max Frisch… Read the rest
Bern Williams Quotations
-September tries its best to have us forget summer.
Bern Williams… Read the rest
Karl Kraus Quotations
War: first, one hopes to win; then one expects the enemy to lose; then, one is satisfied that he too is suffering; in the end, one is surprised that everyone has lost.
Karl Kraus (1874-1936), Austrian satirist … Read the rest
H. P. Lovecraft Quotations
-The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.
H. P. Lovecraft… Read the rest
Tom Nolan Quotations
-In the absences of a decent time machine, fiction remains the most sturdy vehicle for visiting other eras.
Tom Nolan… Read the rest
Thomas Browne Quotations
-Be substantially great in thyself, and more than thou appearest unto others.
-There is surely a piece of divinity in us, something that was before the elements, and owes no homage unto the sun.
-Be charitable before wealth makes thee … Read the rest
Margot Fonteyn Quotations
-If I have learnt anything, it is that life forms no logical patterns. It is haphazard and full of beauties which I try to catch as they fly by, for who knows whether any of them will ever return?
Margot … Read the rest
Wilhelm Busch Quotations
-It is easy to become a father, but very difficult to be a father.
Wilhelm Busch… Read the rest
Chris Patten
In politics, as soon as you take a trick in diamonds, you find that hearts have become trumps.
Chris Patten… Read the rest
Hans Selye
If you do what you like you never really work, your work is your play.
Hans Selye… Read the rest
Jim Horning
Nothing is as simple as we hope it will be.
Jim Horning… Read the rest
John Heider
-When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.
-If you want to be free, learn to live simply. Use what you have and be content where you are.
John Heider… Read the rest
Michael Frayn
You can create a good impression on yourself by being right . . . but for creating a good impression on others there is nothing to beat being totally and catastrophically wrong.”
Michael Frayn … Read the rest
John Updike Quotations
-Dreams come true; without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them.
-A scab
is a beautiful thing—a coin
the body has minted, with an invisible motto:
In God We Trust.
Our body loves us,
and, even while … Read the rest
Madeleine L’Engle Quotations
-When we are writing, or painting, or composing, we are, during the time of creativity, freed from normal restrictions, and are opened to a wider world, where colors are brighter, sounds clearer, and people more wondrously complex than we normally … Read the rest
Michael Crichton
Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.
Michael Crichton… Read the rest
William Ernest Henley Quotations
Invictus
OUT of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under … Read the rest
Olive Schreiner Quotations
-We bear the world and we make it… There was never a great man who had not a great mother – it is hardly an exaggeration.
Olive Schreiner… Read the rest
Malcolm Forbes Quotations
-Keeping score of old scores and scars, getting even and one-upping, always make you less than you are.
-Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.
-If you have a job without aggravation, you don’t have … Read the rest
Albert Camus Quotations
-In the midst of winter I found within me an invincible summer.
-To know oneself, one should assert oneself.
-Any authentic creation is a gift to the future.
-Without work, all life goes rotten. But when work is soulless, life … Read the rest
K. D. Lang
Even in the darkest phase be it thick or thin, always someone marches brave here beneath my skin.
K. D. Lang… Read the rest
Jane Wagner Quotations
-All my life, I always wanted to be somebody. Now I see that I should have been more specific.
-The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool.
Jane Wagner… Read the rest
Warren Bennis Quotations
-Good leaders make people feel that they’re at the very heart of things, not at the periphery. Everyone feels that he or she makes a difference to the success of the organization. When that happens people feel centered and that … Read the rest
Dan Zadra Quotations
-Worry is a misuse of imagination.
Dan Zadra… Read the rest
Philip Gold Quotations
-A doctor saves lives — It’s up to people to create lives that are worth saving.
Philip Gold… Read the rest
Po Bronson
The hardest thing about doing the right thing for yourself is you usually have to do it alone.
Po Bronson… Read the rest
Amber Deckers Quotations
Never let the fear of failure be an excuse for not trying. Society tells us that to fail is the most terrible thing in the world, but I know it isn’t. Failure is part of what makes us human.
Amber … Read the rest
J. B. S. Haldane
Reality is not only stranger than we suppose but stranger than we can suppose.
J. B. S. Haldane… Read the rest
Joseph Conrad Quotations
-Woe to the man whose heart has not learned while young to hope, to love – and to put its trust in life.
-[The artist] speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder, to the sense of mystery surrounding our … Read the rest
Miles Davis Quotations
My future starts when I wake up every morning… Every day I find something creative to do with my life.
Miles Davis… Read the rest
Kurt Vonnegut Quotations
-Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.
-What is flirtatiousness but an argument that life must go on and on and on?
-I still believe that … Read the rest
Wendell Jones
You have freedom of choice, but not freedom from choice.
Wendell Jones… Read the rest
Jerome Blattner
A person who trusts no one can’t be trusted.
Jerome Blattner… Read the rest
Constantine Peter Cavafy Quotations
-You must pray that the way be long, full of adventures and experiences.
Constantine Peter Cavafy… Read the rest
Fred Allen Quotations
-A celebrity is a person who works hard all his life to become well known, then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized.
Fred Allen… Read the rest
Ha Gakure (Hidden Leaves)
-…when your thinking rises above concern for your own welfare, wisdom which is independent of thought appears.
-Get beyond love and grief; exist for the good of man.
-if you are slain in battle, you should be resolved to have … Read the rest
Hugh Prather Quotations
-True humor is fun – it does not put down, kid, or mock. It makes people feel wonderful, not separate, different, and cut off. True humor has beneath it the understanding that we are all in this together.
-Unless I … Read the rest
Joseph Cornell
Let my mind become silent,
And my thoughts come to rest.
I want to be
All that is before me.
In self-forgetfulness,
I become everything.
Joseph Cornell… Read the rest
Gerald Brenan Quotations
When we are happy, we love Nature. When we are dull and depressed, it says nothing to us. Our feeling for it would therefore seem to be a reflection of our moods.
Gerald Brenan… Read the rest
Havelock Ellis Quotations
-The sun, the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago… had they happened to be within the reach of predatory human hands.
-It is only the great men who are truly obscene. If they had not dared to … Read the rest
Thomas Babington Macaulay Quotations
It is possible to be below flattery as well as above it.
Thomas Babington Macaulay… Read the rest
André Gide Quotations
-Look for your own. Do not do what someone else could do as well as you. Do not say, do not write what someone else could say, could write as well as you. Care for nothing in yourself but what … Read the rest
Vincent van Gogh Quotations
-Many people seem to think it foolish, even superstitious, to believe that the world could still change for the better. And it is true that in winter it is sometimes so bitingly cold that one is tempted to say, “What … Read the rest
Lyman Beecher Quotations
No great advance has ever been made in science, politics, or religion, without controversy.
Lyman Beecher… Read the rest
Quentin Crisp Quotations
-Treat all disasters as if they were trivialities but never treat a triviality as if it were a disaster.
Quentin Crisp… Read the rest
Russell Baker Quotations
-People seem to enjoy things more when they know a lot of other people have been left out of the pleasure.
-The only thing I was fit for was to be a writer, and this notion rested solely on my … Read the rest
Edith Sodergran Quotations
The inner fire is the most important thing mankind possesses.… Read the rest
Jim Whitaker Quotations
-You never conquer a mountain. Mountains can’t be conquered; you conquer yourself–your hopes, your fears.
Jim Whitaker… Read the rest
Franz Kafka Quotations
-A book must be an ice-axe to break the seas frozen inside our soul.
-A book should serve as the ax for the frozen sea within us.
-A first sign of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die.… Read the rest
Robin Morgan Quotations
Don’t accept rides from strange men, and remember that all men are strange.
Robin Morgan… Read the rest
Arab Proverbs
-Make your bargain before beginning to plow.
-Examine what is said, not him who speaks.
Arabian Proverbs… Read the rest
John Burroughs Quotations
The lesson which life repeats and constantly enforces is ‘look under foot.’ You are always nearer the divine and the true sources of your power than you think.
John Burroughs… Read the rest
Phil Knight Quotations
-Play by the rules, but be ferocious.
Phil Knight… Read the rest
Walt Disney
It’s kind of fun to do the impossible.
Walt Disney… Read the rest
H. G. Wells Quotations
-New and stirring ideas are belittled, because if they are not belittled, the humiliating question arises: ‘Why then are you not taking part in them?’
-The forceps of our minds are clumsy forceps, and crush the truth a little in … Read the rest
Natalie Goldberg Quotations
-Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency. Nothing is that important.
Natalie Goldberg… Read the rest
Spike Milligan Quotations
-The cliché is the handrail of the crippled mind.
Spike Milligan… Read the rest
Arthur Conan Doyle Quotations
-Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.
-It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
-I never guess. It is a capital … Read the rest
The Upanishads
-You are what your deepest desire is. As you desire, so is your intention. As your intention, so is your will. As is your will so is your deed. As is your deed, so is your destiny.
-The spirit down … Read the rest
Lu Xun Quotations
-Hope cannot be said to exist, nor can it be said not to exist. It is just like roads across the earth. For actually the earth had no roads to begin with, but when many men pass one way, a … Read the rest