Some of my favorite Quotes

Updated July 4, 2012

For a great slide presentation of quotes, try this link.

I've been collecting quotes for about 20 years. Why, one might ask. There's a lot of wisdom and knowledge and experience available to us in the words spoken by those who proceeded us on this walk of life, and by our contemporaries. Why not record that collected wisdom, review it once in a while, and do ones best to apply it to their own life. Placing these quotes here is my way of sharing that wisdom with you.

Putting these quotes into categories is no easy task. If you have suggestions for category changes, please email me. Thanks!

Categories: Actors, Advice, Aging, Appreciation, Attitude, Authors, Beauty, Books & Reading, Buddha, Caring, Challenges, Charity, Communication, Community, Compassion, Conscience, Courage, Courtesy, Leonardo DaVinci, Dalai Lama, Death, Deepak Chopra, Determination, Discipline, Discretion, Walt Disney, Bob Dylan, Education, Albert Einstein, Enthusiasm, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Encouragement, Ethics, Example, Excellance, Faithfulness, Faults, Forgiveness, Ben Franklin, Friendship, Robert Frost, Gandhi, Gender and Family Life, Generosity, Khalil Gibran, Goals, Goodness, Happiness, Harmony, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Honesty, Hope, Humility, Humor, Imagination, Individuality, Inspiration, Insults, Integrity, Steve Jobs, Joy, Helen Keller, Kindness, Martin Luther King, Knowledge, Laughter, Leadership, John Lennon, Life In General, Life's Purpose, Abraham Lincoln, Listening, Love, Manners, Miscellaneous, Mistakes, Mother Teresa, Motivation, John Muir, Nature & The Environment, Opportunity, Optimism, Parenting, Patience and Perseverence, Peace, Perspective, Poets, Politics, Priorities, Proverbs, Ayn Rand, Religion & Spirituality, Responsibility, Theodore Roosevelt, Service, Success, Technology, Thankfulness, Thoughts, Trust, Truth, Mark Twain, Vision, War, Wealth, Willpower, Wisdom, Work, Quotes by Women

Actors

It takes tremendous discipline to control the influence, the power you have over other people's lives. - Clint Eastwood (born 1930); American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician

Are you bored with life? Then throw yourself into some work you believe in with all your heart, live for it, die for it, and you will find happiness that you had thought could never be yours. - Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993); actress, humanitarian

Help publicly. Help privately. Help in your actions by recycling and conserving and protecting, but help also in your attitude. Help make sense where sense has gone missing. Help bring reason and respect to discourse and debate. Help science to solve and faith to soothe. Help law bring justice, until justice in commonplace. Help and you will abolish apathy- the void that is so quickly filled by ignorance and evil. - Tom Hanks (born 1956); actor, producer, writer, director

I think you should take your job seriously, but not yourself- that is the best combination. - Dame Judy Dench (born 1934); Actress

Getting ahead in a difficult profession requires avid faith in yourself. That is why some people with mediocre talent, but with great inner drive, go much further than people with vastly superior talent. - Sophia Loren (born 1934); actress

You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it. - Robin Williams

Overcome the notion that you must be regular. It robs you of the chance to be extraordinary. - Uta Hagen (1919-2004); Actress

I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity. - Gilda Radner, actress and comedian - died of ovarian cancer (1946-1989)

Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won't come in. — Alan Alda, (1936-); actor, director, screenwriter

In the silence of night I have often wished for just a few words of love from one man, rather than the applause of thousands of people. - Judy Garland, actress and singer (1922-1969)

Laugh at yourself, but don't ever aim your doubt at yourself. Be bold. When you embark for strange places, don't leave any of yourself safely on shore. Have the nerve to go into unexplored territory. - Alan Alda (b.1936); actor, screenwriter, director

Insanity doesn't run in my family. It gallops. - Cary Grant

If you haven’t any charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble. - Bob Hope

Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure. — Oprah Winfrey, (1954-); television host, actress, philanthopist

When you are kind to someone in trouble, you hope they'll remember and be kind to someone else. And it'll become like a wildfire. — Whoopi Goldberg, (1955-); actress, radio host, author, comedian

The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want. — Ben Stein, (1944-); actor, writer, political commentator

Advice

Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn’t. - Erica Jong

Aging

In youth we learn, in age we understand. - Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream. - C.S. Lewis

Some people try to turn back their odometers. Not me, I want people to know “why” I look this way. I’ve traveled a long way and some of the roads weren’t paved. - Will Rogers (1879-1935); actor, comic, columnist

It is not how old you are, but how you are old. - Jules Renard, writer (1864-1910)

In youth we feel richer for every new illusion; in maturer years, for every one we lose. - Madame Anne Sophie Swetchine, mystic (1782-1857)

If you rest, you rust. -- Helen Hayes

A man is not old until his regrets take the place of dreams. --John Barrymore

I am not young enough to know everything. -- Oscar Wilde

Gather ye rose-buds while ye may, old Time is still a-flying: And this same flower that smiles today, tomorrow will be dying. -- Robert Herrick

I think age is a very high price to pay for maturity. -- Tom Stoppard

Middle age is when you're sitting at home on Saturday night and the telephone rings and you hope it isn't for you. --Ogden Nash

The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom. -- H. L. Mencken

Appreciation

Appreciation...acknowledges the presence of good wherever you shine the light of your thankful thoughts. - Alan Cohen; author

Appreciation can make a day, even change a life. Your willingness to put it into words is all that is necessary. - Margaret Cousins; author

Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well. - Voltaire (1694-1778), writer, satirist, author, humanist

Attitude

Things turn out best for those who make the best of the way things turn out. - Jack Buck

Every strike brings me closer to the next home run. - Babe Ruth

What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail? - Unknown

It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it. - Lena Horne (1917-2010); Singer, actress, civil rights activist

A physician is not angry at the intemperance of a mad patient; nor does he take it ill to be railed at by a man in a fever. Just so should a wise man treat all mankind, as a physician does his patient; and looking upon them only as sick and extravagant. - Lucius Annaeus Seneca, philosopher (BCE 3-65 CE)

We must always have old memories and young hopes. - Arsène Houssaye (1815-1896); writer, novelist, poet

We tell ourselves stories in order to live. - Joan Didion, author

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually who are you not to be? You are a child of the universe. You were born to manifest the glory of the universe that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. - Marianne Williamson (born 1952); author, lecturer

Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you'll start having positive results. - Willie Nelson (born 1933); singer, songwriter, poet

The art of being yourself at your best is the art of unfolding your personality into the person you want to be...Be gentle with yourself, learn to love yourself, to forgive yourself, for only as we have the right attitude toward ourselves can we have the right attitude toward others. — Wilferd A. Peterson, (1900-1995); author

Once we assuage our conscience by calling something a "necessary evil", it begins to look more and more necessary and less and less evil. - Sydney J. Harris, journalist (1917-1986)

Our attitude towards what has happened to us in life is the important thing to recognize. Once hopeless, my life is now hope-full, but it did not happen overnight. The last of human freedoms, to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, is to choose one's own way. - Viktor Frankl (1905-1997); neurologist, psychotherapist

A great attitude does much more than turn on the lights in our worlds; it seems to magically connect us to all sorts of serendipitous opportunities that were somehow absent before the change. - Earl Nightingale (1921-1989), entrepreneur, motivational author

Authors

Always let them think of you as singing and dancing. - Anita Brookner

The human mind is inspired enough when it comes to inventing horrors; it is when it tries to invent a heaven that it shows itself cloddish. - Evelyn Waugh, novelist (1903-1966)

An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it. - James Albert Michener, novelist (1907-1997)

When others asked the truth of me, I was convinced it was not the truth they wanted, but an illusion they could bear to live with. - Anais Nin, writer (1903-1977)

Live today. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Just today. Inhabit your moments. Don't rent them out to tomorrow. — Jerry Spinelli, (1941-); author

A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor. - Victor Hugo, novelist and dramatist (1802-1885)

Writing is a way of talking without being interrupted. - Jules Renard, author (1864-1910)

The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another, and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it. -J.M. Barrie, novelist and playwright (1860-1937)

We all have our own life to pursue, our own kind of dream to be weaving, and we all have the power to make wishes come true, as long as we keep believing. - Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888); novelist

You shall judge of a man by his foes as well as by his friends. - Joseph Conrad, novelist (1857- 1924)

The words of some men are thrown forcibly against you and adhere like burrs. - Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)

Some people become so expert at reading between the lines they don't read the lines. - Margaret Millar, novelist (1915-1994)

Have a heart that never hardens, a temper that never tires, a touch that never hurts. - Charles Dickens (1812-70), novelist

A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow. - Charlotte Brontë

No fathers or mothers think their own children ugly; and this self-deceit is yet stronger with respect to the offspring of the mind. - Miguel de Cervantes, novelist (1547-1616)

Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH', the paint wouldn't even have time to dry. - Terry Pratchett, novelist (b. 1948)

Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake. - Victor Hugo, (1802 1885); poet, novelist, playwright

Every heart that has beat strong and cheerfully has left a hopeful impulse behind it in the world, and bettered the tradition of mankind. — Robert Louis Stevenson, (1850-1894); Essayist, Poet, Novelist

You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what's burning inside you. And we edit to let the fire show through the smoke. - Arthur Plotnik, editor and author (b. 1937)

No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can feel trust and reverence. — George Eliot, (1819-1880); [Mary Ann Evans]; novelist

What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured. — Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., (1922-2007); Writer

I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing. — Agatha Christie, (1890-1976); writer

Beauty

Cheerfulness and contentment are great beautifiers and are famous preservers of youthful looks. - Charles Dickens, novelist (1812-1870)

It has been said that a pretty face is a passport. But it's not, it's a visa, and it runs out fast. - Julie Burchill, writer and journalist (b. 1959)

A thing of beauty is a joy forever: its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness. - John Keats

Beauty without grace, is a hook without a bait. - Ninon de Lenclos

A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely. - Roald Dahl (1916-1990); British novelist

Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams. -Ashley Smith (b. 1978), author, speaker

People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within. - Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (1926-2004); psychiatrist, educator

Books & Reading

To read fast is as bad as to eat in a hurry. - Vilhelm Ekelund, poet (1880-1949)

In my view, nineteen pounds of old books are at least nineteen times as delicious as one pound of fresh caviar. - Anne Fadiman

Reading is sometimes an ingenious device for avoiding thought. - Arthur Helps, writer (1813-1875)

You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me. - C.S. Lewis

A room without books is like a body without a soul. - Marcus Tullius Cicero

Just the knowledge that a good book is awaiting one at the end of a long day makes that day happier. - Kathleen Norris

No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting. - Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

A great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading it. - William Styron, novelist (1925-2006)

The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame. - Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)

These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves. - Gilbert Highet, writer (1906-1978)

Caring

What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other? - George Eliot

The happiest people I have known have been those who gave themselves no concern about their own souls, but did their uttermost to mitigate the miseries of others. — Elizabeth Cady Stanton, (1815-1902); social activist

Too often we under estimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. Leo Buscaglia (1924-1998); author, professor

A smile is the light in your window that tells others that there is a caring, sharing person inside. - Dennis Waitley (born 1933); writer

Each day when I awake I know I have one more day to make a difference in someone's life. — James Mann (b. 1946); writer

To do something, however small, to make others happier and better, is the highest ambition, the most elevating hope, which can inspire a human being. - John Lubbock (1834-1913); biologist, politician

Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth. - Fyodor Dostoevsky, novelist (1821-1881)

Life is not made up of great sacrifices and duties but of little things in which smiles and kindness given habitually are what win and preserve the heart and secure comfort. - Sir Humphry Davy English Chemist and Inventor

Today, give a stranger one of your smiles. It might be the only sunshine he sees all day. — Line from the film "P.S. I Love You"

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not. — Dr. Seuss (1904-1991), Writer, cartoonist

Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. - Elie Wiesel, writer, Nobel laureate (b. 1928)

Buddha

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.

He who loves 50 people has 50 woes; he who loves no one has no woes.

Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.

However many holy words you read, however many you speak, what good will they do you if you do not act on upon them?

In a controversy the instant we feel anger we have already ceased striving for the truth, and have begun striving for ourselves.

It is a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways.

It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.

Challenges

A problem is a chance for you to do your best. - Duke Ellington

Only she who attempts the absurd can achieve the impossible. - Claire Goldberg Moses

You cannot be wimpy out there on the dream-seeking trail. Dare to break through barriers, to find your own path. - Les Brown; Motivational speaker

It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. - Wendell Berry (born 1934); Farmer, writer, academic

All endings are also beginnings. We just don’t know it at the time. - Mitch Albom

When you come to the edge of all the light you have, and must take a step into the darkness of the unknown believe that one of two things will happen. Either there will be something solid for you to stand on or you will be taught how to fly. - Patrick Overton; Author, poet, teacher

Anyone can hide. Facing up to things, working through them, that’s what makes you strong. - Sarah Dessen

When we do face the difficult times, we need to remember that circumstances don’t make a person, they reveal a person. - Emma Jameson

Problems can become opportunities when the right people come together. - Robert Redford (born 1936); Actor, producer, director, environmentalist

Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.— John R. Wooden, (1910-); retired basketball coach, author

It is the nature of the strong heart, that like the palm tree it strives ever upwards when it is most burdened. — Sir Philip Sidney, (1554-1586); poet, soldier

Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and griefs which we endure help us in our marching onward. — Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company

It isn't the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it's the pebble in your shoe. — Muhammad Ali [Cassius Clay], (1942-); Boxer

If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative. — Woody Allen, (1935-); Comedian

In times of great stress or adversity, it’s always best to keep busy, to plow your anger and your energy into something positive. - Lee Iacocca (born 1924); businessman

Affliction, like the iron-smith, shapes as it smites. - Christian Bovee, lawyer and author (1820-1904)

The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers. - M. Scott Peck, (1936-2005); Psychiatrist, Author

What is defeat? Nothing but education; nothing but the first step to something better. - Wendell Phillips, (1811-1884); abolitionist, orator

Trials, temptations, disappointments -- all these are helps instead of hindrances, if one uses them rightly. They not only test the fiber of character but strengthen it...Every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before. - James Buckham, writer, author

Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn. - C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), author, scholar, theologian

Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful. - Joshua J. Marine

The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow brave by reflection. - Thomas Paine (1737-1809), author, revolutionary, pamphleteer

If we study the lives of great men and women carefully and unemotionally we find that, invariably, greatness was developed, tested and revealed through the darker periods of their lives. One of the largest tributaries of the River of Greatness is always the Stream of Adversity. - Cavett Robert (1907-1997); founder of the National Speakers Association

A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles. - Christopher Reeve (1952-2004), actor, producer, director, and writer; best known for his role as Superman.

It doesn't matter who you are, where you come from. The ability to triumph begins with you. Always. - Oprah Winfrey (b. 1954), television host, actress, philanthopist

Do not wait; the time will never be 'just right'. Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along. - Napoleon Hill (1883 -1970); author

Charity

Blessed are those who can give without remembering and take without forgetting. - Elizabeth Bibesco (1897-1945); English writer

No one has ever become poor by giving. - Anne Frank

Charity begins at home but should not end there. - Thomas Fuller

Communication

Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them. - Adlai Stevenson

Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people. - William Butler Yeats, poet, dramatist, essayist, Nobel laureate (1865-1939)

There is no greater mistake than the hasty conclusion that opinions are worthless because they are badly argued. - Thomas Huxley, biologist and writer (1825-1895)

To meet at all, one must open ones eyes to another; and there is no true conversation no matter how many words are spoken, unless the eye, unveiled and listening, opens itself to the other. — Jessamyn West, (1902-1982); writer

There are some who only employ words for the purpose of disguising their thoughts. - Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778)

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart. — Nelson Mandela, (1918-); Former President Of South Africa

Words are loaded pistols. - Jean-Paul Sartre, writer and philosopher (1905-1980)

Many true words are spoken in jest. - Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

Many can argue, not many converse. - A. Bronson Alcott

Go to where the silence is and say something. - Amy Goodman, investigative journalist, columnist and author (b. 1957)

The words of some men are thrown forcibly against you and adhere like burrs. - Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)

Every person in this life has something to teach me -- and as soon as I accept that, I open myself to truly listening. -Catherine Doucette; author

Be a good listener. Your ears will never get you in trouble. - Frank Tyger

Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. The friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward. When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. - Dr. Karl Augustus Menninger (1893-1990); psychiatrist, founder of the Menninger Foundation

The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them. - Ralph Nichols; author

The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said. - Peter F. Drucker (1909-2005), professor, writer, management consultant

Community

At the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed one more test, not winning one more verdict, or not closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a friend, a child, or a parent. — Barbara Bush, (1952-); Wife Of The 41st President Of The United States

As the builders say, the larger stones do not lie well without the lesser. — Plato (428-348); Classical Greek Philosopher, Mathematician

There's no substitute for rolling up your sleeves and working with the people who can make a difference. They get the benefit of your participation and you gain a direct understanding of the real problems and potential solutions, which makes you a more informed giver. - Michael Milken (born 1946); financier and philanthropist

The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning. - Mitch Albom (born 1958); Author, screenwriter, musician

Snowflakes are one of nature's most fragile things, but just look at what they can do when they stick together. - Unknown

You need to be aware of what others are doing, applaud their efforts, acknowledge their successes, and encourage them in their pursuits. When we all help one another, everybody wins. — Jim Stovall; author, speaker

Cooperation is the thorough conviction that nobody can get there unless everybody gets there. — Virginia Burden Tower, author

We could learn a lot from crayons; some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, while others bright, some have weird names, but they all have learned to live together in the same box. - Author Unknown

The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt. - Frederick Buechner (b. 1926), educator, writer, theologian

You can't stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes. - Winnie the Pooh

There are no problems we cannot solve together, and very few that we can solve by ourselves. - Lyndon B. Johnson, (1908-1973), 36th U.S. president

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. - George Bernard Shaw, (1856-1950); playwright, political activist

We can never get a re-creation of community and heal our society without giving our citizens a sense of belonging. — Hunter Campbell "Patch" Adams, (1945-); physician, activist, author

Let us enrich ourselves with our mutual differences. - Paul Valery, poet and philosopher (1871-1945)

There is no such thing as a 'self-made' man. We are made up of thousands of others. Everyone who has ever done a kind deed for us, or spoken one word of encouragement to us, has entered into the make-up of our character and of our thoughts, as well as our success. - George Burton Adams (1851-1925), educator, historian

To say my fate is not tied to your fate is like saying, "Your end of the boat is sinking." - Hugh Downs

Men build too many walls and not enough bridges. - Isaac Newton, philosopher and mathematician (1642-1727)

Compassion

In the face of suffering, one has no right to turn away, not to see. - Elie Wiesel, writer, Nobel laureate (b. 1928)

No one is useless in this world who lightens the burden of it for anyone else. - Charles Dickens, novelist (1812-1870)

Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope... and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. - Robert F. Kennedy, (1925-1968); politician, senator, civil rights activist

Dare to reach out your hand into the darkness, to pull another hand into the light. — Norman B. Rice, (1943-); former mayor of Seattle, Washington

There is no better exercise for your heart than reaching down and helping to lift someone up. - Bernard Meltzer (1916-1998); radio talk-show host

Compassion is the ultimate and most meaningful embodiment of emotional maturity. It is through compassion that a person achieves the highest peak and deepest reach in his or her search for self-fulfillment. - Arthur Jersild; professor of psychology and education

Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else's skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too. - Frederick Buechner (b. 1926), educator, writer, theologian

The value of compassion cannot be over-emphasized. Anyone can criticize. It takes a true believer to be compassionate. No greater burden can be borne by an individual than to know no one cares or understands. - Arthur H. Stainback; author

No one is more cherished in this world than someone who lightens the burden of another. - Author Unknown

If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain. If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain. -Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), poet

Conscience

Conscience is a mother-in-law whose visit never ends. - H. L. Mencken

A man has to live with himself, and he should see to it that he always has good company. - Charles Evans Hughes, jurist (1862-1948)

Courage

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen. - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965); British statesman, prime minister, author, Nobel Prize winner

Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute experience. - Paulo Coelho

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare. - Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)

When we face the worst that can happen in any situation, we grow. When circumstances are at their worst, we can find our best. - Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (1926-2004); psychiatrist

Someday all you’ll have to light the way will be a single ray of hope, and that will be enough. - Kobi Yamada, Author

You must never be fearful about what you are doing when it is right. - Rosa Parks (1913-2005); civil rights activist

A very popular error: having the courage of one's convictions; rather it is a matter of having the courage for an attack on one's convictions. - Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)

If there’s no struggle, there’s no progress. - Rachel Robinson

We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated. - Maya Angelou

In moments of discouragement, defeat, or even despair, there are always certain things to cling to. Little things usually: remembered laughter, the face of a sleeping child, a tree in the wind-in fact, any reminder of something deeply felt or dearly loved. No man is so poor as not to have many of these small candles. When they are lighted, darkness goes away-and a touch of wonder remains. - These Small Candles - tombstone inscription in Britain

Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. - Marie Curie

Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point. - C.S. Lewis

Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation. - Susan B. Anthony, reformer and suffragist (1820-1906)

Behold the turtle. He only makes progress when he sticks his neck out. — James Bryant Conant, (1893-1978); chemist, educational administrator

Most of our obstacles would melt away if, instead of cowering before them, we should make up our minds to walk boldly through them. — Orison Swett Marden, (1850-1924); author, publisher

Courage is like love; it must have hope for nourishment. — Napoleon Bonaparte, (1769-1821); Emporer Of France

I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death. — Thomas Paine, (1737- 1809); Scholar, Intellectual, Writer

Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith. Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887); clergyman, social reformer

When I dare to be powerful - to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid. - Audre Lorde (1934-1992); writer, poet, and activist

Conscience is the root of all true courage; if a man would be brave let him obey his conscience. - James Freeman Clarke (1810-1888); preacher and author

Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow. - Mary Ann Radmacher, author and artist

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear. - James Neil Hollingworth (pseudonym Ambrose Redmoon), (1933-1996); writer, former manager of the folk rock band Quicksilver Messenger Service

As your faith is strengthened you will find that there is no longer the need to have a sense of control, that things will flow as they will, and that you will flow with them, to your great delight and benefit. - Emmanuel Teney, Professor of Psychiatry

Never talk defeat. Use words like hope, belief, faith, victory. — Norman Vincent Peale, (1898-1993); author, preacher

To dream anything that you want to dream. That's the beauty of the human mind. To do anything that you want to do. That is the strength of the human will. To trust yourself to test your limits. That is the courage to succeed. - Bernard Edmonds

Success is falling nine times, and getting up ten. - Jon Bon Jovi

Even the worst haircut eventually grows out. - Lisa Kogan in O magazine

Most of us, swimming against the tides of trouble the world knows nothing about, need only a bit of praise or encouragement - and we will make the goal. - Jerome P. Fleishman

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, "I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along." You must do the thing you think you cannot do. - Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962)

Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. - Anais Nin

Courage is the art of being the only one who knows you're scared to death. - Harold Wilson

People with courage and character always seem sinister to the rest. - Hermann Hesse

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. - Thomas Edison

Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt. - Shakespeare

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Courtesy

Be pretty if you can, be witty if you must, but be gracious if it kills you. - Elsie de Wolfe

Leonardo DaVinci, painter, engineer, musician, and scientist (1452-1519)

The vine that has grown old on an old tree falls with the ruin of that tree and through that bad companionship must perish with it. - Leonardo da Vinci, painter, engineer, musician, and scientist (1452-1519)

Men of lofty genius when they are doing the least work are most active.

Dalai Lama, — Tenzin Gyatso, (1935-); The 14th Dalai Lama

We must have a pure, honest, and warm-hearted motivation, and on top of that, determination, optimism, hope, and the ability not to be discouraged. The whole of humanity depends on this motivation. - The 14th Dalai Lama (born 1935)

When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace.

Today, more than ever before, life must be characterized by a sense of Universal responsibility, not only nation to nation and human to human, but also human to other forms of life.

Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.

Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.

Sometimes one creates a dynamic impression by saying something, and sometimes one creates as significant an impression by remaining silent.

The roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation for goodness.

Today, more than ever before, life must be characterized by a sense of Universal responsibility, not only nation to nation and human to human, but also human to other forms of life.

We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.

Death

Do not fear death so much, but rather the inadequate life. - Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956); Poet, playwright, theater director

Deepak Chopra

Every time you are tempted to react in the same old way, ask if you want to be a prisoner of the past or a pioneer of the future.

Being shown a gesture of love is like being offered a portion of God.

A verse from the Veda says, 'What you see, you become.' In other words, just the experience of perceiving the world makes you what you are. This is a quite literal statement. - Deepak Chopra

Mixing patriotism with religion has always been lethal, yet all too common. -- Deepak Chopra Loving someone else is the same as loving God. One person is a wave; God is the whole ocean. - from Kama Sutra, by Deepak Chopra

Loving someone else is the same as loving God. One person is a wave; God is the whole ocean. - from Kama Sutra, by Deepak Chopra

Being shown a gesture of love is like being offered a portion of God. - Deepak Chopra

Determination

At first glance it may appear too hard. Look again. Always look again. - Mary Anne Rodmacher

If I had to select one quality, one personal characteristic that I regard as being most highly correlated with success, whatever the field, I would pick the trait of persistence. Determination. The will to endure to the end, to get knocked down seventy times and get up off the floor saying, 'Here comes number seventy-one'! - Richard DeVos (born 1926); American businessman

No man knows what he can do till he tries. - Publilius Syrus

Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved. - William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925); American politician

Endure, and save yourself for happier times. - Virgil

When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this: you haven’t. - Thomas Edison (1847-1931); inventor, businessman

The mind determines what’s possible. The heart surpasses it. - Pilar Coolinta

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead

What I’ve experienced is that I can’t know the future. I can’t know if anything that I do will change what happens tomorrow. I can’t know with certainty, but what I do know is if I do nothing, nothing will change. — James Orbinski, (1960-); Former President Of Doctors Without Borders

The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire. — Field Marshal Ferdinand Foch

One person with passion is better than forty people merely interested. — E. M. Forster

Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it. — Oprah Winfrey, (1954-); Television Host, Actress, Philanthopist

I know you've heard it a thousand times before. But it's true—hard work pays off. If you want to be good, you have to practice, practice, practice. If you don't love something, then don't do it. — Ray Bradbury (born 1920); author

Desire is the key to motivation, but it's determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal - a commitment to excellence - that will enable you to attain the success you seek. - Mario Andretti (born 1940),Italian-American world champion racing driver

Discipline

Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. - Seneca (4-65); Roman statesman, philosopher

Among men, it seems, historically at any rate, that processes of co-ordination and disintegration follow each other with great regularity, and the index of the co-ordination is the measure of the disintegration which follows. There is no mob like a group of well-drilled soldiers when they have thrown off their discipline. And there is no lostness like that which comes to a man when a perfect and certain pattern has dissolved about him. There is no hater like one who has greatly loved. - John Steinbeck, novelist, Nobel laureate (1902-1968)

Discretion

There are things to confess that enrich the world, and things that need not be said. - Joni Mitchell

Walt Disney

All the adversity I've had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me... You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.

Crowded classrooms and half-day sessions are a tragic waste of our greatest national resource - the minds of our children.

Our heritage and ideals, our code and standards - the things we live by and teach our children - are preserved or diminished by how freely we exchange ideas and feelings.

The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.

There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate's loot on Treasure Island.

We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.

When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionable.

When you're curious, you find lots of interesting things to do.

Bob Dylan - musician

A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with his freedom. - Bob Dylan

People seldom do what they believe in. They do what is convenient, then repent. - Bob Dylan

Take care of all your memories. For you cannot relive them. - Bob Dylan

There is nothing so stable as change. - Bob Dylan

Education

Most people are mirrors, reflecting the moods and emotions of the times; few are windows, bringing light to bear on the dark corners where troubles fester. The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows. - Sydney J. Harris, journalist and author (1917-1986)

You are educated. Your certification is in your degree. You may think of it as the ticket to the good life. Let me ask you to think of an alternative. Think of it as your ticket to change the world. - Tom Brokaw (born 1940); American television journalist and author

Draw strength from the knowledge that education will break the backs of poverty, disenfranchisement, and violence; that war is never inevitable but only a terrible failure of the imagination; and that love is stronger than hatred. - Wally Lamb (born 1950); author

Chance favors the prepared mind. - Louis Pasteur

Learning is like rowing upstream; not to advance is to drop back. - Chinese proverb

Learning is not child's plan; we cannot learn without pain. - Aristotle

Education is leading human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them. - John Ruskin

Learning is a companion on a journey to a strange country... a strength inexhaustible. - Hitopadesa

More is experienced in one day in the life of a learned man than in the whole lifetime of an ignorant man. - Seneca quoting Posidonius

A university is a place where those who hate ignorance may strive to know, where those who perceive truth may strive to make others see. - John Masefield

A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed towared the hope of greening the landscape of idea. - John Ciardi

Education is a companion which no misfortune can depress, no crime can destroy, no enemy can alienate, no despotism can enslave... without it, what is man? A splendid slave, a reasoning savage. - Joseph Addison

If a little knowledge is dangerous, where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger? - T.H. Huxley

Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. - H. G. Wells

Education is the methodical creation of the habit of thinking. - Ernest Dimnet

Educaton is nothing more than the polishing of each single link in the great chain that binds humanity together and gives it unity. - Johann H. Pestalozzi

A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring. - Alexander Pope

Learning is something that preserves the errors of the past as well as its wisdom. - Alfred North Whitehead.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. - Thomas Jefferson.

An educated man is one who can entertain a new idea, entertain another person and entertain himself. - Sydney Wood

The man who is too old to learn was probably always too old to learn. - Haskins

I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education. - Wilson Mizner

Learning is by nature curiostiy... prying into everything, reluctant to leave anything, material or immaterial unexplained. - Philo

True teachers are those who use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross; then, having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create their own. - Nikos Kazantzakis, poet and novelist (1883-1957)

It has always seemed strange to me that in our endless discussions about education so little stress is laid on the pleasure of becoming an educated person, the enormous interest it adds to life. To be able to be caught up into the world of thought -- that is to be educated. - Edith Hamilton, educator and writer (1867-1963)

You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives. - Clay P. Bedford

A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary. - Thomas Carruthers

They know enough who know how to learn. - Henry Adams

Just think of the tragedy of teaching children not to doubt. - Clarence Darrow, lawyer and author (1857-1938)

Only the educated are free. - Epictetus, philosopher (c. 60-120)

We are not what we know but what we are willing to learn. - Mary Catherine Bateson, writer, cultural anthropologist

Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can - there will always come a time when you will be grateful you did. - Sarah Caldwell, (1924 - 2006); opera conductor, impresario, stage director of opera

Get over the idea that only children should spend their time in study. Be a student so long as you still have something to learn, and this will mean all your life. — Henry L. Doherty, (1870-1939); businessman

Albert Einstein (1879-1955); theoretical physicist, philosopher, Nobel Prize winner

Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.

In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.

Our task must be to widen our circle of compassion, to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty.

It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.

I speak to everyone in the same way, whether he is the garbage man or the president of the university.

Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create.

I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace.

You can move through life seeing nothing as a miracle, or seeing everything as a miracle.

It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace.

The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.

If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed.

Enthusiasm

Fires can't be made with dead embers, nor can enthusiasm be stirred by spiritless men. Enthusiasm in our daily work lightens effort and turns even labor into pleasant tasks. - James Baldwin (1924-1987); author

I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. He taught me that if you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it at full speed ahead. Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it and above all become passionate about it. Lukewarm is no good. Hot is no good either. White hot and passionate is the only thing to be. - Roald Dahl (1916-1990); British novelist

Ralph Waldo Emerson - (1803-1882); Philosopher, Poet, Author, Essayist

Every artist was first an amateur.

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not.

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 coarse, 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.

In a library we are surrounded by many hundreds of dear friends imprisoned by an enchanter in paper and leathern boxes.

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.

The only way to have a friend is to be one. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thought is the blossom; language the bud; action the fruit behind it.

What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear you speak.

The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.

For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

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

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

The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.

It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion, it is easy in solitude to live after your own; but the great man is he who, in the midst of the world, keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

Self-trust is the first secret of success, the belief that if you are here the authorities of the universe put you here, and for cause, or with some task strictly appointed you in your constitution, and so long as you work at that you are well and successful.

Don't waste life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour's duties will be the best preparation for the hours and ages that will follow it.

When I go into the garden with a spade, and dig a bed, I feel such an exhilaration and health that I discover that I have been defrauding myself all this time in letting others do for me what I should have done with my own hands.

I see that sensible men and conscientious men all over the world were of one religion, -- the religion of well-doing and daring, men of sturdy truth, men of integrity and feeling for others.

Encouragement

Flatter me, and I may not believe you. Criticize me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I will not forget you. - William Arthur Ward, college administrator, writer (1921-1994)

A word of encouragement during a failure is worth more than an hour of praise after success. - Unknown

Encouragement is the oxygen of the soul. — George M. Adams, (1837-1920); US Representative from Kentucky

Ethics

How far should one accept the rules of the society in which one lives? To put it another way: at what point does conformity become corruption? Only by answering such questions does the conscience truly define itself. - Kenneth Tynan, critic and writer (1927-1980)

If the world ever advances beyond what it is today, it must be led by men who express their real opinions. - Robert G. Ingersoll, lawyer and orator (1833-1899)

Count no day lost in which you waited your turn, took only your share and sought advantage over no one. - Robert Brault

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 (1889-1970), pastor, speaker, author

I learned that it is the weak who are cruel, and that gentleness is to be expected only from the strong. - Leo Rosten

You can wash the outside of the cup all you want. If the inside is still unclean, you're going to have the same problems. - SENATOR TOM COBURN, Republican of Oklahoma, March 29, 2006, who said new lobbying rules passed by the Senate were too weak.

Show me the man you honor, and I will know what kind of man you are. - Thomas Carlyle

People of mediocre ability sometimes achieve outstanding success because they don't know when to quit. - George Herbert Allen

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

If a person is obviously mentally disabled, such as having Down's syndrome or Alzheimer's, decent people respond with sympathy and understanding; and so why, if people merely have low IQs, are they treated with ridicule and contempt? - Geoff Kuenning

The one who says it cannot be done must not interrupt the one who is doing it. - unknown

Example

Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing. - Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965); Philosopher, Physician, Nobel Peace Prize Winner

You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips. - Oliver Goldsmith, writer and physician (1730-1774)

Excellance

Excellence is never an accident; it is the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction, skillful execution and the vision to see obstacles as opportunities. - Anonymous

Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way. - Booker T. Washington, (1856-1915); educator, orator, author

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 (384-322); philosopher

Faithfulness

Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith. - Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887); clergyman, social reformer

Whatever necessity lays upon thee, endure; whatever she commands, do. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832); philosopher, scientist, author

Whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do it well; whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself completely; in great aims and in small I have always thoroughly been in earnest. - Charles Dickens, (1812 - 1870); novelist

We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have. — Fredrick Koeing

It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe. - Thomas Paine, philosopher and writer (1737-1809)

Faults

Thank everyone who calls out your faults, your anger, your impatience, your egotism; do this consciously, voluntarily. - Jean Toomer, poet and novelist (1894-1967)

Silence is the severest criticism. - Charles Buxton, brewer, philanthropist, writer and politician (1823-1871)

True remorse is never just a regret over consequences; it is a regret over motive. - Mignon McLaughlin, journalist and author (1913-1983)

Within sorrow is grace. When we come close to those things that break us down, we touch those things that also break us open. And in that breaking open, we uncover our true nature. - Wayne Muller; author, therapist, minister

Almost all our faults are more pardonable than the methods we resort to to hide them. - Francois de La Rochefoucauld, writer (1613-1680)

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is the act of admitting we are like other people. - Christina Baldwin

Forgive all who have offended you, not for them, but for yourself. - Harriet Nelson

Those who cannot forgive others break the bridge over which they themselves must pass. - Confucius, philosopher and teacher (c. 551-478 BCE)

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. - Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)

You don't have to accept the invitation to get angry. Instead, practice forgiveness, empathy and encouragement. — Dan Fallon

Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future. — Paul Boese, (1668-1738); physician, botanist

Forgiveness is a funny thing, it warms the hearts and cools the sting. - Peter Allen

Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself. - Suzanne Somers

Forgiveness is a virtue of the brave. - Indira Gandhi

Forgiveness is the economy of the heart... forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits. - Hannah More

Forgiveness is the final form of love. - Reinhold Niebuhr

It's said in Hollywood that you should always forgive your enemies - because you never know when you'll have to work with them. - Lana Turner

Life is an adventure in forgiveness. - Norman Cousins

One forgives to the degree that one loves. - Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past. - Lily Tomlin

Forgiveness means letting go of the past. - Gerald Jampolsky

When you forgive, you in no way change the past - but you sure do change the future. - Bernard Meltzer

Without forgiveness, there's no future. - Desmond Tutu

He that cannot forgive others breaks the bridge over which he must pass himself; for every man has need to be forgiven. - Thomas Fuller

Ben Franklin - (1706-1790); philosopher, printer, writer, inventor, scientist, politician

Motivation is when your dreams put on work clothes.

Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.

Tis easier to prevent bad habits than to break them.

Happiness depends more on the inward disposition of mind rather than on outward circumstances.

Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man.

If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins. — Benjamin Franklin

The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all men, charity.

Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.

There are two ways of being happy: We may either diminish our wants or augment our means - either will do - the result in the same; and it is for each man to decide for himself, and do that which happens to be the easiest. If you are idle or sick or poor, however hard it may be to diminish your wants, it will be harder to augment your means. If you are active and prosperous or young and in good health, it may be easier for you to augment your means than to diminish your wants. But if you are wise, you will do both at the same time, young or old, rich or poor, sick or well; and if you are very wise you will do both in such a way as to augment the general happiness of society. - Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)

Friendship

Treat your friends as you do your pictures, and place them in their best light. - Jennie Jerome Churchill

The only way to have a friend is to be one. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

The friend in my adversity I shall always cherish most. I can better trust those who helped to relieve the gloom of my dark hours than those who are so ready to enjoy with me the sunshine of my prosperity. - Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885); 18th President of the United States

If I had a flower for every time I thought of you…I could walk through my garden forever. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

When being together is more important than what you do, you are with a friend. - Connie McMartin

The more I traveled the more I realized that fear makes strangers of people who should be friends. - Shirley MacLaine

The friend who holds your hand and says the wrong thing is made of dearer stuff than the one who stays away. - Barbara Kingsolver (born 1955); author, poet, essayist

Friends are helpful not only because they will listen to us, but because they will laugh at us; Through them we learn a little objectivity, a little modesty, a little courtesy; We learn the rules of life and become better players of the game. - Will Durant

True friendship is a plant of slow growth. - George Washington

Friendship is the greatest of worldly goods. Certainly to me it is the chief happiness of life. If I had to give a piece of advice to a young man about a place to live, I think I should say, 'Sacrifice almost everything to live where you can be near your friends.' I know I am very fortunate in that respect. - C.S. Lewis, (1898 1963); writer, theologian, scholar

A good friend is a connection to life, a tie to the past, a road to the future, the key to sanity in a totally insane world. - Lois Wyse, (1926-2007); advertising executive, author

I believe that friends are quiet angels who sit on our shoulders and lift our wings when we forget how to fly. - Unknown

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 (1903-1977); author, diarist

At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us. - Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965); theologian, philosopher, physician

You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing...By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that. -Charlotte, "Charlotte's Web" - E. B. White (1899-1985); author

Robert Frost (1874-1963); poet

A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman’s birthday but never remembers her age.

In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on. A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain.

A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes.

A person will sometimes devote all his life to the development of one part of his body - the wishbone.

And were an epitaph to be my story I'd have a short one ready for my own. I would have written of me on my stone: I had a lover's quarrel with the world.

Don't ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.

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

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

Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.

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

I'm not confused. I'm just well mixed.

No memory of having starred atones for later disregard, or keeps the end from being hard.

The best way out is always through.

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

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.

You don't have to deserve your mother's love. You have to deserve your father's.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948) Indian political and spiritual leader

It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.

You must be the change you wish to see in the world.

Our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world as being able to remake ourselves.

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.

Think of the poorest person you have ever seen and ask if your next act will be of any use to him.

In matters of conscience the law of majority has no place.

One cannot do right in one department of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in any other department. Life is one indivisible whole. - Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)

I want to realize brotherhood or identity not merely with the beings called human, but I want to realize identity with all life, even with such things as crawl upon earth.

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

All humanity is one undivided and indivisible family, and each one of us is responsible for the misdeeds of all the others. I cannot detach myself from the wickedest soul.

Morality is contraband in war.

Poverty is the worst form of violence.

I am an uncompromising opponent of violent methods even to serve the noblest of causes.

What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another.

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

Be the change you wish to see in the world.

Gender and Family Life

The soul is healed by being with children. -- Fyodor Dostoyevsky, novelist (1821-1881)

In the early years, you fight because you don't understand each other. In later years, you fight because you do. -- Joan Didion in O

If high heels were so wonderful, men would still be wearing them. - Sue Grafton

I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and a career. - Gloria Steinem

Behind every working woman is an enormous pile of unwashed laundry. -- Barbara Dale

He that has no fools, knaves nor beggars in his family was begot by a flash of lightning. -- Thomas Fuller

Like all the best families, we have our share of eccentricities, of impetuous and wayward youngsters and of family disagreements. -- Queen Elizabeth II

Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry. -- Gloria Steinem

There are 3 ways to get something done. Do it yourself, hire someone, or forbid your kids to do it. -- unknown

Generosity

Happiness is not so much in having as sharing. We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give. - Norman MacEwan (1881-1953); Senior Commander, Royal Air Force

To know the value of generosity, it is necessary to have suffered from the cold indifference of others. - Eugene Cloutier

In giving you are throwing a bridge across the chasm of your solitude. - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, (1900-1944); aviator, writer

Getting what you want is not nearly as important as giving what you have. - Tom Krause (born 1934); motivational speaker, teacher, and coach

Great opportunities to help others seldom come, but small ones come daily. - Ivy Baker Priest (1905-1975); politician

Khalil Gibran - (1883-1931); Artist, Poet, And Writer

Hate is a dead thing. Who of you would be a tomb?

Let reason, not impulse, be your guide.

I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.

Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.

Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair but manifestations of strength and resolutions.

Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.

The lust for comfort murders the passions of the soul. - Khalil Gibran, mystic, poet, and artist (1883-1931)

Goals

Success is not just the crowning moment, the spiking of the ball in the end zone or the raising of the flag on the summit. It is the whole process of reaching for a goal and, sometimes, it begins with failure. - Erik Weihenmayer (born 1968); blind climber, motivational speaker, author

Goodness

Only the good doubt their own goodness, which is what makes them good in the first place. The bad know they are good, but the good know nothing. They spend their lives forgiving others, but they can't forgive themselves. - Paul Auster, novelist and poet (b. 1947)

Acknowledging a person for the good that they do is good, but not as good as committing to do that same good yourself. - Melanie E. Burgos

Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good. - Minor Myers Jr. (1942-2003); Author, Scholar, Composer

How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world. — William Shakespeare Shakespeare, (1564-1616); quote from Merchant of Venice

Do your little bit of good where you are; its those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world. - Archbishop Desmond Tutu (born 1931); Nobel Peace Prize Winner

Happiness

Happiness is always a by-product. You don't make yourself happy by chasing happiness. You make yourself happy by being a good person. - Unknown

Don't mistake pleasure for happiness. They're a different breed of dog. - Josh Billings, columnist and humorist (1818-1885)

The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence, but in the mastery, of his passions. - Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (1809-1892); poet laureate

It is not in the pursuit of happiness that we find fulfillment, it is in the happiness of pursuit. - Denis Waitley

Whoever is happy will make others happy, too. - Anne Frank

Work and live to serve others, leave the world a little better than you found it and garner for yourself as much peace of mind as you can. This is happiness. - David Sarnoff (1891-1971); Founder of NBC

Be true to yourselves; cherish whatever talent you possess, and in using it faithfully for the good of others you will most assuredly find happiness for yourself, and make of life no failure, but a beautiful success. - Louisa May Alcott 1832 - 1888; "Happy Women," The New York Ledger (April 11, 1868)

Happiness is not in our circumstances, but in ourselves. It is not something we see, like a rainbow, or feel, like the heat of the fire. Happiness is something we are. - John B. Sheerin

For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy. - Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918); poet, playwright, art critic

Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you. - Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864); writer

There is no effect more disproportionate to its cause than the happiness bestowed by a small compliment. - Robert Brault - poet

There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will. — Epictetus, (55-135); philosopher

Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others, and in their pleasure takes joy, even as though 'twere his own. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, (1749-1832); philosopher, scientist, author

I've learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances. — Martha Washington, (1731-1802); First Lady of the United States

Harmony

All people smile in the same language. - Anonymous

They are happy men whose natures sort with their vocations. - Francis Bacon, essayist, philosopher, and statesman (1561-1626)

Our Similarities bring us to a common ground; Our Differences allow us to be fascinated by each other. - Tom Robbins, (b. 1936); novelist, short story writer, essayist

Oliver Wendell Holmes - poet, novelist, essayist, and physician (1809-1894)

A moment's insight is sometimes worth a life's experience.

We are all tattooed in our cradles with the beliefs of our tribe; the record may seem superficial, but it is indelible. You cannot educate a man wholly out of the superstitious fears which were implanted in his imagination, no matter how utterly his reason may reject them.

Laughter and tears are meant to turn the wheels of the same machinery of sensibility; one is wind-power, and the other water-power.

Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.

Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society. - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., US Supreme Court Justice (1841-1935)

It is the province of knowledge to speak and the privilege of wisdom to listen. - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Supreme Court Justice (1841-1935)

Every calling is great when greatly pursued. - Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. US Supreme Court Justice (1841-1935)

Honesty

The only way you can truly control how you are seen is being honest all the time. - Tom Hanks (born 1956); actor, producer, writer, director

I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Don't trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance, any day in the week, if there is anything to be got by it. - Charles Dickens, novelist (1812-1870)

This above all: to thine own self be true, / And it must follow, as the night the day, / Thou canst not then be false to any man. - William Shakespeare, poet and dramatist (1564-1616)

Our greatest pretenses are built up not to hide the evil and the ugly in us, but our emptiness. The hardest thing to hide is something that is not there. - Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)

A person is not given integrity. It results from the relentless pursuit of honesty at all times. - Unknown

Hope

Hope is a waking dream. - Aristotle

As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the one thing left to us in a bad time. - E. B. White (1899-1985); Author

My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world. - Jack Layton (1950-2011); Canadian politician

We must have a pure, honest, and warm-hearted motivation, and on top of that, determination, optimism, hope, and the ability not to be discouraged. The whole of humanity depends on this motivation. - The 14th Dalai Lama (born 1935)

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope. - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Humility

Pride slays thanksgiving, but a humble mind is the soil out of which thanks naturally grow. A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves. - Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887); clergyman, social reformer

Life is a long lesson in humility. - James M. Barrie, novelist, short-story writer, and playwright (1860-1937)

Don't worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition. - Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865); 16th U.S. President

Humility does not mean thinking less of yourself than of other people, nor does it mean having a low opinion of your own gifts. It means freedom from thinking about yourself at all. — William Temple, (1881-1944); priest in the Church of England

Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket, and do not pull it out and strike it merely to show you have one. If you are asked what o'clock it is, tell it, but do not proclaim it hourly and unasked, like the watchman. - Lord Chesterfield, statesman and writer (1694-1773)

Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility. - St. Augustine (354-430)

Do all the good you can, and make as little fuss about it as possible. - Charles Dickens (1812- 1870); novelist

Humor

At least one way of measuring the freedom of any society is the amount of comedy that is permitted, and clearly a healthy society permits more satirical comment than a repressive, so that if comedy is to function in some way as a safety release then it must obviously deal with these taboo areas. This is part of the responsibility we accord our licensed jesters, that nothing be excused the searching light of comedy. If anything can survive the probe of humour it is clearly of value, and conversely all groups who claim immunity from laughter are claiming special privileges which should not be granted. - Eric Idle, comedian, actor, and author (b. 1943)

My wife and I were happy for 20 years. Then we met. - Rodney Dangerfield, comedian (1921-2004)

Reality is the leading cause of stress among those in touch with it. - Lily Tomlin

You can observe a lot just by watching. - Yogi Berra

Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you're alive, it isn't. - Richard Bach, writer (b. 1936)

Remarriage: A triumph of hope over experience. - Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)

A sense of humor... is needed armor. Joy in one's heart and some laughter on one's lips is a sign that the person down deep has a pretty good grasp of life. Hugh Sidey, (1927-2005); American journalist

My guess is that there aren't a hundred top-flight professional comedians, male and female, in the whole world. They are a much rarer and far more valuable commodity than all the gold and precious stones in the world. But because we are laughed at, I don't think people understand how essential we are to their sanity. If it weren't for the brief respite we give the world with our foolishness, the world would see mass suicide in numbers that compare favorably with the death rate of lemmings. - Groucho Marx

The reason some people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory. - Paul Fix

Having children is like living in a frat house - nobody sleeps, everything's broken, and there's a lot of throwing up. - Ray Romano on Everybody Loves Raymond.

Self delusion is pulling in your stomach when you step on the scale. - Paul Sweeney

It's just like magic. When you live by yourself, all of your annoying habits are gone. - Merrill Markoe

A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the first word you thought of. - Burt Bacharach

Life asks us to make measurable progress in reasonable time. That's why they make those fourth-grade chairs so small - so you won't fit in them at age 25. - Jim Rohn

How can a society that exists on instant mashed potatoes, packaged cake mixes, frozen dinners, and instant cameras teach patience to its young? -Paul Sweeney

The word "myopic" reminds me of a neologism that my sister, Abby, a shameless punster, assigns to people who tend to think only of themselves as the center of the universe. She says they're wearing "myfocals".

Eating a rice cake is like chewing on a foam coffee cup - only less filling. - Dave Barry

I kissed my first girl and smoked my first cigarette on the same day. I haven't had time for tobacco since. - Arturo Toscanini

Heredity is what sets the parents of a teenager wondering about each other. - Laurence J. Peter

Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering - and it's all over much too soon. - Woody Allen

I've developed a new philosophy... I only dread one day at a time. - Charlie Brown, in Charles Schultz's cartoon "Peanuts"

All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed. - Sean O'Casey

I must say that I find television very educational. The minute somebody turns it on, I go to the library and read a book. - Groucho Marx

God must love the rich or he wouldn't have divided so much among so few of them. - H. L. Mencken

I love mankind. It's the people I can't stand. - Charles Schultz

Love quickens all senses except the common. - Sunshine Magazine

Nothing in fine print is ever good news. - Andy Rooney

New York is real. The rest is done with mirrors. - unknown

Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours. - Yogi Berra

I believe I found the missing link between animal and civilized man. It is us. - Konrad Lorenz, ethologist, Nobel laureate (1903-1989)

I am thankful for laughter, except when milk comes out my nose. - Woody Allen

Imagination

The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were. - John F. Kennedy (1917-1963); 35th US President

A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something. - Frank Capra

The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself. - Alan Alda, (b.1936); actor, screenwriter, director

The world is but a canvas to the imagination. — Henry David Thoreau, (1817-1862); philosopher, writer, naturalist

Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create. - Albert Einstein, (1875-1955), theoretical physicist, philosopher

Individuality

We lose ourselves in the things we love. We find ourselves there, too. - Kristin Martz

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, day and night, to make you everybody but yourself—means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight—and never stop fighting. - e. e. cummings (1894-1962); poet, playwright, painter, essayist

Be yourself. Who else is better qualified? - Frank J. Giblin II

Learn to limit yourself; to content yourself with 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. - Henri-Frederic Amiel (1821-1881); philosopher, poet, critic

Looking back you realize that a very special person passed briefly through your life- and it was you. It is not too late to find that person again. - Robert Brault

Inspiration

There are stars whose radiance is visible on Earth though they have long been extinct. There are people whose brilliance continues to light the world though they are no longer among the living. These lights are particularly bright when the night is dark. They light the way for humankind. - Hannah Senesh, poet, playwright, and paratrooper (1921-1944)

Glorious Insults

A member of Parliament to Disraeli: Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease. That depends, Sir, said Disraeli, whether I embrace your policies or your mistress.

He had delusions of adequacy. - Walter Kerr

He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire. - Winston Churchill

Lady to Winston Churchill, If I were your wife, I would give you poison. To which Churchill responded, Madam, if I were your husband, I would take it!

I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure. - Clarence Darrow

He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary. - William Faulkner about Ernest Hemingway.

Thank you for sending me a copy of your book I'll waste no time reading it. - Moses Hadas

I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it. - Mark Twain

He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends. - Oscar Wilde

I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play bring a friend....if you have one. George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second.... if there is one. Winston Churchill, in response.

I feel so miserable without you it's almost like having you here. - Stephen Bishop

He is a self-made man and worships his creator. - John Bright

I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial. - Irvin S. Cobb

He is not only dull himself he is the cause of dullness in others. - Samuel Johnson

He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up. - Paul Keating

In order to avoid being called a flirt she always yielded easily. - Charles, Count Talleyrand

He loves nature in spite of what it did to him. - Forrest Tucker

Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it? - Mark Twain

His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork. - Mae West

Some cause happiness wherever they go others, whenever they go. - Oscar Wilde

He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts...for support rather than illumination. - Andrew Lang

He has Van Gogh's ear for music. - Billy Wilder

I've had a perfectly wonderful evening...but this wasn't it. - Groucho Marx

Integrity

I have gained this by philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law. - Aristotle, philosopher (384-322 BCE)

Hypocrisy is the homage which vice pays to virtue. - Francois, duc de La Rochefoucauld, moralist (1613-1680)

Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right thing because it is right. These are the magic keys to living your life with integrity. - W. Clement Stone (1902-2002); author, businessman

Integrity is not a conditional word. It doesn't blow in the wind or change with the weather. It is your inner image of yourself, and if you look in there and see a man who won't cheat, then you know he never will. — John D. MacDonald (1916-1986); author

Better keep yourself clean and bright. You are the window through which you must see the world. — George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) playwright, political activist

Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But, conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right. - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Every job is a self portrait of the person who does it. Autograph your work with excellence. — Unknown

Don't worry so much about your self- esteem. Worry more about your character. Integrity is its own reward.” — Laura Schlessinger (b.1947); radio host, author

Perfect valor is to behave, without witnesses, as one would act were all the world watching. - Francois, duc de La Rochefoucauld, moralist (1613-1680)

It is a trick among the dishonest to offer sacrifices that are not needed, or not possible, to avoid making those that are required. - Ivan Goncharov, novelist (1812-1891)

Steve Jobs (1955-2011); Co-founder Apple Inc.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else's life. Don’t be trapped by dogma- which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.

We're here to put a dent in the universe.

Joy

A joy that's shared is a joy made double. - John Ray

Whatever I am offered in devotion with a pure heart - a leaf, a flower, fruit, or water - I accept with joy. - Bhagavad Gita (also more simply known as Gita, is a sacred Hindu scripture, though its philosophies and insights are intended to reach beyond the scope of religion and to humanity as a whole.)

Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy. - Joseph Campbell, (1904-1987); Author, Editor, Philosopher

If you were all alone in the universe with no one to talk to, no one with which to share the beauty of the stars, to laugh with, to touch, what would be your purpose in life? It is other life, it is love, which gives your life meaning. This is harmony. We must discover the joy of each other, the joy of challenge, the joy of growth. - Mitsugi Saotome, (1937-); Aikido instructor, author

One of the sanest, surest, and most generous joys of life comes from being happy over the good fortune of others. - Archibald Rutledge (1883-1973); poet

Your vocation in life is where your greatest joy meets the world's greatest need. - Frederick Buechner (b. 1926), educator, writer, theologian

Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give. - Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962); U.S. First Lady, diplomat, human rights activist

The Wisdom of Helen Keller (1880-1968), author, lecturer, activist

Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.

Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow.

The highest result of education is tolerance. - Helen Keller, author and lecturer (1880-1968)

To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

The best and most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen or even heard, but must be felt with the heart.

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.

The test of a democracy is not the magnificence of buildings or the speed of automobiles or the efficiency of air transportation, but rather the care given to the welfare of all the people.

I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.

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.

To be blind, but worse is to have eyes and not see.

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.

Happiness cannot come from without. It must come from within.

The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.

Be happy. Talk happiness. Happiness calls out responsive gladness in others. There is enough sadness in the world without yours.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved.

We would 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 the overcoming of it.

Face your deficiencies and acknowledge them; but do not let them master you. Let them teach you patience, sweetness, insight... When we do the best we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.

Kindness

Shall we make a new rule of life from tonight: always try to be a little kinder than is necessary? - J.M. Barrie

Carry out a random act of kindness, with no expectation of reward, safe in the knowledge that one day someone might do the same for you. - Diana Spencer (1961-1997); Princess of Wales

So many gods, so many creeds, So many paths that wind and wind, While just the art of being kind is all the sad world needs. - Ella Wheeler Wilcox, poet (1850-1919)

Ask yourself: Have you been kind today? Make kindness your modus operandi and change your world. - Annie Lennox (born 1954); Scottish singer-songwriter, political activist and philanthropist

Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate. - Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965);Philosopher, Physician, Nobel Peace Prize Winner

Those who make compassion an essential part of their lives find the joy of life. Kindness deepens the spirit and produces rewards that cannot be completely explained in words. It is an experience more powerful than words. To become acquainted with kindness one must be prepared to learn new things and feel new feelings. Kindness is more than a philosophy of the mind. It is a philosophy of the spirit. - Robert J. Furey, author

Love and kindness are never wasted. They always make a difference. - Helen James

Be kind to unkind people - they need it the most. - Anonymous

Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness. Know how to give without hesitation, how to lose without regret, how to acquire without meanness. - George Sand [pen name of Amantine Aurore Lucile Dupin], novelist (1804-1876)

How lovely to think that no one need wait a moment. We can start now, start slowly, changing the world. How lovely that everyone, great and small, can make a contribution toward introducing justice straightaway. And you can always, always give something, even if it is only kindness! - Anne Frank (1929-1945); diarist

A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love. - Saint Basil (329-379); bishop of Cesarea

Treat everyone with politeness, even those who are rude to you - not because they are nice, but because you are. - Unknown

Remember there's no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end. — Scott Adams, (1957-); creator of Dilbert Comic Strip

Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark journey with us. Oh be swift to love, make haste to be kind. — Henri-Frederic Amiel, (1821-1881); philosopher, poet, critic

When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people. - Abraham Joshua Heschel, theology professor (1907-1972)

It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one's life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than "try to be a little kinder." - Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)

He who sees a need and waits to be asked for help is as unkind as if he had refused it. - Dante Alighieri, poet (1265-1321)

A kind heart is a fountain of gladness, making everything in its vicinity freshen into smiles. - Washington Irving (1783-1859); author, historian

Kind hearts are the gardens, Kind thoughts are the roots, Kind words are the flowers, Kind deeds are the fruits, Take care of your garden And keep out the weeds, Fill it with sunshine, Kind words, and Kind deeds. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow quotes (1807-1882); poet

I appreciate people who are civil, whether they mean it or not. I think: Be civil. Do not cherish your opinion over my feelings. There's a vanity to candor that isn't really worth it. Be kind. - Richard Greenberg, (1958-); playwright

Let me not hurt, by any selfish deed Or thoughtless word, the heart of foe or friend; Nor would I pass, unseeing, worthy need, Or sin by silence when I should defend... 'The world is better that I lived today.' - Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850 - 1919); author and poet

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), American civil rights leader

Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.

One who condones evils is just as guilty as the one who perpetrates it.

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. - Martin Luther King, Jr., civil-rights leader (1929-1968)

Everybody can be great...because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. you only need a heart full of grace. a soul generated by love.

Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But, conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right.

Never, never be afraid to do what's right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society's punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.

Let no man pull you low enough to hate him.

Knowledge

Seek not to follow in the footsteps of men of old; seek what they sought. - Matsuo Basho, poet (1644-1694)

The greatest obstacle to discovering the shape of the earth, the continents, and the oceans was not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge. - Daniel J. Boorstin, historian, professor, attorney, and writer (1914-2004)

Life is better because you know more, not just because you have more. - Anonymous

Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write. - John Adams, (1735-1826); 2nd U.S. President

Laughter

The most thoroughly wasted of all days is that on which one has not laughed. - Nicolas Chamfort (1741-1794); French writer

Laughter is the fireworks of the soul. - Josh Billings

I have seen what a laugh can do. It can transform almost unbearable tears into something bearable, even hopeful. — Bob Hope, (1903-2003); Comedian, Actor

Everybody laughs the same in every language because laughter is a universal connection. - Yakov Smirnoff (born 1951); comedian, painter, teacher

I've always thought that a big laugh is a really loud noise from the soul saying, 'Ain't that the truth. - Quincy Jones, (1933-); music conductor, record producer, trumpeter

Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face. - Victor Hugo (1802-1885); poet, novelist, playwright

Laughter is the shortest distance between two people. - Victor Borge (1909-2000); comedian, pianist

You can turn painful situations around through laughter. If you can find humor in anything, even poverty, you can survive it. - Bill Cosby (b. 1937); actor, comedian, television producer

Leadership

Your spark can become a flame and change everything. - E.D. Nixon (1899-1987); American civil rights leader

A Lincolnesque leader is confident enough to be humble -- to not feel the need to bluster or dominate, but to be sufficiently sure of one's own judgment and self-worth to really listen and not be threatened by contrary advice. Evan Thomas and Richard Wolffe; Lincoln's Obama; Newsweek (New York); Nov 24, 2008

When one man, for whatever reason, has the opportunity to lead an extraordinary life, he has no right to keep it to himself. - Jacques Cousteau (1910-1997); marine biologist, diver, explorer

A good leader inspires others with confidence in him; a great leader inspires them with confidence in themselves. - unknown

Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others. - Jonathan Swift, (1667-1745); author

Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing. - Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965); Recipient of the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize

Example has more followers than reason. We unconsciously imitate what pleases us, and insensibly approximate to the characters we most admire. In this way, a generous habit of thought and of action carries with it an incalculable influence. - Christian Nestell Bovee (1820-1904); author, lawyer

The hero is one who kindles a great light in the world, who sets up blazing torches in the dark streets of life for men to see by. The saint is the man who walks through the dark paths of the world, himself a light. - Felix Adler (1851-1933); intellectual, founder of the Society for Ethical Culture

There is no teaching to compare with example. - Sir Robert Baden-Powell (1857-1941); founder of the Boy Scouts

A good leader can't get too far ahead of his followers. -Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd US President (1882-1945)

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. - General George S. Patton, (1885-1945); American General in World War II

If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. -- These timeless words of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, the French author and aviator, sum up what it means to lead.

People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them Benjamin Franklin said it first. - David H. Comins

Sometimes the path you're on is not as important as the direction you're heading. - Kevin Smith

Don't wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great. Weak men wait for opportunities; strong men make them. - Orison Swett Marden (1850-1924), author, publisher

It is only as we develop others that we permanently succeed. - Harvey S. Firestone (1868-1938); founder of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company

It is one thing to show a man that he is in error, and another to put him in possession of the truth. - John Locke, philosopher (1632-1704)

Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world. - Harriet Tubman (1820-1913); American escaped slave, abolitionist, humanitarian

Power is only important as an instrument for service to the powerless. - Lech Walesa, human rights activist, Polish president, Nobel laureate (b. 1943)

John Lennon

A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.

If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace.

If someone thinks that love and peace is a cliche that must have been left behind in the Sixties, that's his problem. Love and peace are eternal.

Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.

Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted.

When you're drowning, you don't say 'I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,' you just scream.

You're just left with yourself all the time, whatever you do anyway. You've got to get down to your own God in your own temple. It's all down to you, mate.

Life in General

Have respect for yourself, and patience and compassion. With these, you can handle anything. - Jack Kornfield

You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by. Yes, but some of them are golden only because we let them slip by. - James M. Barrie, novelist and playwright (1860-1937)

The art of life is to know how to enjoy a little and to endure much. - William Hazlitt, essayist (1778-1830)

You've got to have something to eat and a little love in your life before you can hold still for any damn body's sermon on how to behave. - Billie Holiday, jazz singer and songwriter (1915-1959)

We are usually convinced more easily by reasons we have found ourselves than by those which have occurred to others. - Blaise Pascal, philosopher and mathematician (1623-1662)

I have never been a millionaire. But I have enjoyed a great meal, a crackling fire, a glorious sunset, a walk with a friend, a hug from a child, a cup of soup, a kiss behind the ear. There are plenty of life’s tiny delights for all of us. - Jack Anthony

It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to do. Wasting time is merely an occupation then, and a most exhausting one. Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen. - Jerome K. Jerome, humorist and playwright (1859-1927)

To a child's ear "Mother" is magic in any language. - Arlene Benedict

Sometimes I wish I were a little kid again; skinned knees are easier to fix than broken hearts. - Anonymous

Perhaps our eyes need to be washed by our tears once in a while, so that we can see Life with a clearer view again. —Alex Tan

Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards. — Vernon Sanders Law, (1930-); Major League Baseball pitcher

For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. — Alfred D. Souza, (-2004); writer, philosopher

Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves? — Friedrich Nietzsche

With every experience, you alone are painting your own canvas, thought by thought, choice by choice. — Oprah Winfrey, (1954-); Television Host, Actress, Philanthopist

How easy to be amiable in the midst of happiness and success. - Madame Anne Sophie Swetchine, mystic (1782-1857)

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered. - Nelson Mandela, activist, South African president, Nobel laureate (b. 1918)

The test of a man or woman’s breeding is how they behave in a quarrel. - George Bernard Shaw

Though familiarity may not breed contempt, it takes off the edge of admiration. - William Hazlitt, essayist (1778-1830)

There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self. - Aldous Huxley (1894-1963); writer

All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on. - Henry Ellis

You miss 100% of the shots you never take. - Wayne Gretzky (b. 1961), retired professional ice hockey player

Never confuse movement with action. - Ernest Hemingway

Things equal out pretty well. Our dreams seldom come true, but then neither do our nightmares. - Charles Kennedy

A wise old owl sat in a tree. The more he saw, the less he said. The less he said, the more he heard. Why can't we be like that wise old bird. - unknown.

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

Flattery won't hurt you if you don't swallow it. - Kin Hubbard, humorist (1868-1930)

When I hear somebody sigh, "Life is hard," I am always tempted to ask, "Compared to what?" - Sydney Harris

Sainthood emerges when you can listen to someone's tale of woe and not respond with a description of your own. - Andrew V. Mason, MD

Life's Purpose

The greatest use of a life is to spend it for something that will outlast it. - William James

Most people are like you and me, or the people across the street or around the world from you and me. Just like you and me, their hearts tell them that somewhere, somehow, they can make a positive difference in the world. - William Baker

We are here to add what we can to, not get what we can from, life. - Sir William Osler (1849-1919); Canadian physician, founding professor at Johns Hopkins Hospital

I think the purpose of life is to be useful, responsible, honorable, compassionate. It is, above all, to matter: to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all. - Leo Rosten (1908-1997); Writer, teacher

I will not die an unlived life. I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire. I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise. I choose to risk my significance; to live so that which came to me as a seed goes to the next as a blossom and that which came to me as a blossom, goes on as fruit. - Dawna Markova, Ph.D; Writer, speaker

The purpose of life is a life of purpose. - Robert Byrne (born 1928); American chess player

What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others. - unknown

Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. - George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)

I could not, at any age, be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived. Curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life. - Eleanor Roosevelt, (1884-1962); First Lady, diplomat, activist

The length of our life is less important than its depth. - Mary David Fisher

My hope still is to leave the world a bit better than when I got here. - Jim Henson (1936-1990); American puppeteer

Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the U.S. (1809-1865)

I will prepare and some day my chance will come.

Be sure to put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.

I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I might have.

It will not do to investigate the subject of religion too closely, as it is apt to lead to infidelity.

I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.

Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

I happen temporarily to occupy this big White House. I am living witness that any one of your children may look to come here as my father's child has.

Listening

We have two ears and only one tongue in order that we may hear more and speak less. - Diogenes Laertius; biographer of the Greek philosophers

Men shout to avoid listening to one another. - Miguel de Unamuno, writer and philosopher (1864-1936)

Listen with an open heart and an open mind to those who love you the most. You may hear a grain of truth that will later become the foundation of your entire belief system. - Callie Khouri (born 1957); Screenwriter; Academy Award winner

When we talk about understanding, surely it takes place only when the mind listens completely -- the mind being your heart, your nerves, your ears- when you give your whole attention to it. — Jiddu Krishnamurti, (1895-1986); writer, speaker

The greatest gift you can give another is the purity of your attention. — Richard Moss, author

I remind myself every morning: Nothing I say this day will teach me anything. So if I'm going to learn, I must do it by listening. —Larry King (b. 1933), American television and radio host

We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit. - E. E. Cummings (1894-1962); poet, essayist, painter, playwright

Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you'd have preferred to talk. - Doug Larson; cartoonist

A good listener helps us overhear ourselves. - Yahia Lababidi, author (b. 1973)

Real listening is a willingness to let the other person change you. -- Alan Alda

Love

Love doesn’t make the world go ’round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile. - F.P. Jones

If you want to be loved, be lovable. - Ovid

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance. - Oscar Wilde (1854-1900); novelist, playwright

We cannot really love anybody with whom we never laugh. - Agnes Repplier

Never let a problem to be solved become more important than the person to be loved. - Barbara Johnson (1947-2009); American literary critic and translator

Where there is great love, there are always miracles. - Willa Cather

It is not beauty that endears, it’s love that makes us see beauty. - Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910); Russian author

Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own. - Robert A. Heinlein

To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides. - David Viscott (1938-1996); American psychiatrist, author, businessman, and media personality

In the end the love you take is equal to the love you make. - John Lennon and Paul McCartney

There are never enough "I love you's." - Lenny Bruce

The supreme happiness in life is the conviction that we are loved. - Victor Hugo

What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what gets you out of bed in the mornings, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything. - Pedro Arrupe (1907-1991)

The intellect is always fooled by the heart. - La Rochefoucauld

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage. - Laozi

Love much. Earth has enough of bitter in it. -Ella Wheeler Wilcox

What's the earth wWith all its art, verse, music, worth - compared with love,found, gained, and kept? - Robert Browning

We can only learn to love by loving. - Iris Murdoch

Love is everything it's cracked up to be... It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. - Erica Jong

In true love it is the soul that envelops the body. - Friedrich Nietzsche

'Till I loved I never lived—Enough. - Emily Dickinson

The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved. - Victor Hugo

We are told that people stay in love because of chemistry, or because they remain intrigued with each other, because of many kindnesses, because of luck. But part of it has got to be forgiveness and gratefulness. - Ellen Goodman

If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. - Maya Angelou

What greater thing is there for human souls than to feel that they are joined for life - to be with each other in silent unspeakable memories. - George Eliot, (1819-1880); [Mary Ann Evans]; novelist

Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination, full of hope. — Maya Angelou, (1928-); Poet, Dancer, Producer, Playwright, Director

When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace. — The 14th Dalai Lama, (1935-)

What is uttered from the heart alone, Will win the hearts of others to your own. -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832); philosopher, scientist, author

Love is the most dunderheaded of all the passions; it never will listen to reason. The very rudiments of logic are unknown to it. 'Love has no wherefore,' says one of the Latin poets. - Edward Bulwer-Lytton; Kenelm Chillingly; 1873

We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person. - William Somerset Maugham, writer (1874-1965)

There are four questions of value in life... What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for, and what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same. Only love. [from Don Juan DeMarco (1994)] - Johnny Depp (born 1963); actor

To be rich in admiration and free from envy, to rejoice greatly in the good of others, to love with such generosity of heart that your love is still a dear possession in absence or unkindness - these are the gifts which money cannot buy. - Robert Louis Stevenson, (1850-1894); poet, essayist, author

Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love. - Hamilton Wright Mabie (1846-1916); essayist, editor

Being shown a gesture of love is like being offered a portion of God. - Deepak Chopra

Love is friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weaknesses. — Ann Landers, (1918-2002); advice columnist

Love is always bestowed as a gift - freely, willingly, and without expectation. We don’t love to be loved; we love to love. - Leo F. Buscaglia, (1924-1998); professor, author

When the Power of Love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace. - Jimi Hendrix

Want to improve your relationships? See love as a verb rather than as a feeling. - Stephen R. Covey

Respect is love in plain clothes. — Frankie Byrnes; former radio host in Ireland

We need not think alike to love alike. — Francis David (1510-1579), clergyman

What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.

The brain may take advice, but not the heart, and love having no geography, knows no boundaries: weight and sink it deep, no matter, it will rise and find the surface. - Truman Capote (1924-1984) novelist, playwright, story writer

Frequently people think compassion and love are merely sentimental. No! They are very demanding. If you are going to be compassionate, be prepared for action. - Desmond Tutu

If you wish to be loved, show more of your faults than your virtues. - Edward Bulwer-Lytton, author (1803-1873)

Manners

I seek constantly to improve my manners and graces, for they are the sugar to which all are attracted. - Og Mandino (1923-1996); Essayist, Psychologist

Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter which fork you use. - Emily Post (1872-1960); American author on etiquette

Miscellaneous

Our lives are like islands in the sea, or like trees in the forest. The maple and the pine may whisper to each other with their leaves ... But the trees also commingle their roots in the darkness underground, and the islands also hang together through the ocean's bottom. - William James, psychologist and philosopher (1842-1910)

We live in deeds, not years, in thougths, not breath; In feelings, not in figures on a dial. - Philip James Bailey

A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep. - Saul Bellow, writer, Nobel laureate (1915-2005)

Travel is ninety per cent anticipation and ten per cent recollection. - Edward Streeter

The idea of strictly minding my own business is moldy rubbish. Who could be so selfish? - Myrtie Lillian Barker

The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives. - Albert Schweitzer, philosopher, physician, and musician (1875-1965)

It is the certainty that they possess the truth that makes men cruel. - Anatole France, novelist, essayist, Nobel laureate (1844-1924)

Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? - T.S. Eliot, poet (1888-1965)

There is nothing more agreeable in life than to make peace with the Establishment - and nothing more corrupting. - A.J.P. Taylor, historian (1906-1990)

What a pitiable thing it is that our civilization can do no better for us than to make us slaves to indoor life, so that we have to go and take artificial exercise in order to preserve our health. - George Wharton James, journalist, author, and speaker (1858-1923)

Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity. - Christopher Morley, writer (1890-1957)

If one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others. - Anne Morrow Lindbergh

We can choose to be affected by the world or we can choose to affect the world. - Heidi Wills; author

No one imagines that symphony is supposed to improve as it goes along, or that the whole object of playing is to reach the finale. The point of music is discovered in every moment of playing and listening to it. It is the same, I feel, with the greater part of our lives, and if we are unduly absorbed in improving them we may forget altogether to live them. - Alan Watts, philosopher, writer, and speaker (1915-1973)

An unhurried sense of time is in itself a form of wealth. - Bonnie Friedman

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 (1817-1862); naturalist, author, philosopher

Sometimes a man wants to be stupid if it lets him do a thing his cleverness forbids. - John Steinbeck, novelist, Nobel laureate (1902-1968)

There is nothing like desire for preventing the things one says from bearing any resemblance to what one has in one's mind. - Marcel Proust, novelist (1871-1922)

If you want trust, trust others. If you want respect, respect others. If you want help, help others. If you want love and peace in your life, give them away. If you want great friends, be one. That’s how it works. - Dan Zadra, Businessman, inspirational writer

In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it. The last is much the worst. - Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)

The feeling of being hurried is not usually the result of living a full life and having no time. It is on the contrary born of a vague fear that we are wasting our life. When we do not do the one thing we ought to do, we have no time for anything else -- we are the busiest people in the world. - Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)

We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future. - Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945); 32nd U.S. President

Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all. - Harriet Van Horne

The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances; if there is any reaction, both are transformed. - Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961); founder of analytical psychology

Real strength is not just a condition of one's muscle, but a tenderness in one's spirit. - McCallister Dodds

Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies. - Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)

We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a troubled dream; it may be so the moment after death. - Nathaniel Hawthorne, writer (1804-1864)

It is an amazing thing, the difference to one’s powers of concentration a pair of comfortable shoes can make. - Laurie R. King

Mistakes

Constant effort and frequent mistakes are the stepping stones of genius. - Elbert Hubbard

Mistakes are the portals of discovery. - James Joyce (1882 - 1941) Irish novelist and poet

After all these years, I am still involved in the process of self-discovery. It's better to explore life and make mistakes than to play it safe. Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life. — Sophia Loren, (b. 1934); actress

The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything. - E. J. Phelps

Remember, there are no mistakes, only lessons. Love yourself, trust your choices, and everything is possible.” — Cherie Carter-Scott;

Mother Teresa

I prefer you to make mistakes in kindness than work miracles in unkindness. - Mother Teresa

The greatest good is what we do for one another.

Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.

If you judge people you have no time to love them.

Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.

Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.

Everytime you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.

I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor?

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.

If we want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.

If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one.

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

Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.

Motivation

If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. - Antoine de Sainte-Exupery (1900-1944); (1900-1944); aviator, writer

John Muir, Naturalist and explorer (1838-1914)

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.

Nature is ever at work building and pulling down, creating and destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing, allowing no rest but in rhythmical motion, chasing everything in endless song out of one beautiful form into another.

In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks. - John Muir

A few minutes ago every tree was excited, bowing to the roaring storm, waving, swirling, tossing their branches in glorious enthusiasm like worship. But though to the outer ear these trees are now silent, their songs never cease. Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings, while incense is ever flowing from the balsam bells and leaves. No wonder the hills and groves were God's first temples, and the more they are cut down and hewn into cathedrals and churches, the farther off and dimmer seems the Lord himself. - John Muir, naturalist, explorer, and writer (1838-1914)

Nature & The Environment

Today we are faced with a challenge that calls for a shift in our thinking, so that humanity stops threatening its life-support system. We are called to assist the Earth to heal her wounds and in the process heal our own - indeed to embrace the whole of creation in all its diversity, beauty and wonder. Recognizing that sustainable development, democracy and peace are indivisible is an idea whose time has come. - Wangari Maathai (1940-2011); Founder of the Green Belt Movement; first African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

But when it comes to throwing rubbish 'away', there is no 'away'. We think it disappears into thin air. But it doesn't. It sticks around, for thousands of years. - Jacques le Trash (from http://wearewhatwedo.org/jacquesletrash/)

We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Nature's inexhaustible sources of energy -- sun, wind and tide. ... I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that. - Thomas Edison, inventor (1847-1931)

Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life. - Rachel Carson

How would you describe the difference between modern war and modern industry -- between, say, bombing and strip mining, or between chemical warfare and chemical manufacturing? The difference seems to be only that in war the victimization of humans is directly intentional and in industry it is "accepted" as a "trade-off". - Wendell Berry, farmer, author (b.1934)

Catch-and-release, that's like running down pedestrians in your car and then, when they get up and limp away, saying -- Off you go! That's fine. I just wanted to see if I could hit you. - Ellen DeGeneres, comedian, television host, and actress (b. 1958)

Earth is here so kind, that just tickle her with a hoe and she laughs with a harvest. -Douglas William Jerrold, playwright and humorist (1803-1857)

Animals have these advantages over man: they never hear the clock strike, they die without any idea of death, they have no theologians to instruct them, their last moments are not disturbed by unwelcome and unpleasant ceremonies, their funerals cost them nothing, and no one starts lawsuits over their wills. - Voltaire, philosopher and writer (1694-1778)

Wild animals never kill for sport. Man is the only one to whom the torture and death of his fellow creatures is amusing in itself. - James Anthony Froude, author and editor (1818-1894)

The idea of wilderness needs no defense. It only needs more defenders. – Edward Abbey, American author

Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect. — Chief Seattle, (1780-1866); Leader of the Suquamish and Duwamish Native American tribes

Animals give me more pleasure through the viewfinder of a camera than they ever did in the crosshairs of a gunsight. And after I've finished "shooting", my unharmed victims are still around for others to enjoy. - Jimmy Stewart, actor (1908-1997)

We think caged birds sing, when indeed they cry. - John Webster, playwright (c. 1580-1634)

The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men. - Leonardo da Vinci, painter, engineer, musician, and scientist (1452-1519)

We have to save the earth. Frankly, the earth doesn't need to be saved. Nature doesn't give a hoot if human beings are here or not. The planet has survived cataclysmic and catastrophic changes for millions upon millions of years. Over that time, it is widely believed, 99 percent of all species have come and gone while the planet has remained. Saving the environment is really about saving our environment - making it safe for ourselves, our children, and the world as we know it. If more people saw the issue as one of saving themselves, we would probably see increased motivation and commitment to actually do so. - Robert M. Lilienfeld, management consultant and author (b. 1953) and William L. Rathje, archaeologist and author (b. 1945)

Humans think they are smarter than dolphins because we build cars and buildings and start wars etc., and all that dolphins do is swim in the water, eat fish and play around. Dolphins believe that they are smarter for exactly the same reasons. - Douglas Adams, writer, dramatist, and musician (1952-2001)

Choose only one master -- Nature. - Rembrandt, painter and etcher (1606-1669)

As long as there are slaughterhouses there will be battlefields. - Leo Tolstoy, author (1828-1910)

There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew. - Marshall McLuhan, educator and philosopher (1911-1980)

Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it. - Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)

In an earlier stage of our development most human groups held to a tribal ethic. Members of the tribe were protected, but people of other tribes could be robbed or killed as one pleased. Gradually the circle of protection expanded, but as recently as 150 years ago we did not include blacks. So African human beings could be captured, shipped to America, and sold. In Australia white settlers regarded Aborigines as a pest and hunted them down, much as kangaroos are hunted down today. Just as we have progressed beyond the blatantly racist ethic of the era of slavery and colonialism, so we must now progress beyond the speciesist ethic of the era of factory farming, of the use of animals as mere research tools, of whaling, seal hunting, kangaroo slaughter, and the destruction of wilderness. We must take the final step in expanding the circle of ethics. - Peter Singer, philosopher, professor of bioethics (b. 1946)

The animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren; they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth. - Henry Beston, naturalist and author (1888-1968)

When we have exposed the specious reasoning of the hunters' apologists and stripped their sport of its counterfeit legitimacy, the naked brutality of hunting defines itself: killing for the fun of it. - Steve Ruggeri, former hunter and activist (1949-1998)

Opportunity

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. - Thomas Edison (1847-1931); inventor, businessman

We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day. - Edith Lovejoy Pierce, English poet

Our lives are defined by opportunities, even the ones we miss. - F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940); American author

A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds. - Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626); English statesman, scientist, author

Opportunities are like sunrises. If you wait too long, you miss them. - William A. Ward

Optimism

When nothing is sure, everything is possible. - Margaret Drabble

Never underestimate the power of dreams and the influence of the human spirit. We are all the same in this notion. The potential for greatness lives within each of us. - Wilma Rudolph (1940-1994); Athlete;Olympic Gold Medalist

Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door. - Emily Dickinson (1830-1886); poet

Every morning is a fresh beginning. Every day is the world made new. Today is a new day. Today is my world made new. I have lived all my life up to this moment, to come to this day. This moment...this day...is as good as any moment in all eternity. I shall make of this day...each moment of this day...a heaven on earth. This is my day of opportunity. - Dan Custer

There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning. — Louis L'Amour, (1908-1988); Author

One of the things I learned the hard way was that it doesn't pay to get discouraged. Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself. - Unknown

Hope is that thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops... at all. - Emily Dickinson (1830-1886); poet

The moment when you first wake up in the morning is the most wonderful of the twenty-four hours. No matter how weary or dreary you may feel, you possess the certainty that, during the day that lies before you, absolutely anything may happen. And the fact that it practically always doesn't, matters not a jot. The possibility is always there. - Monica Baldwin, (1893 – 1975); author

Where hope grows, miracles blossom. - Elna Rae

Never talk defeat. Use words like hope, belief, faith, victory. - Norman Vincent Peale, (1898-1993); author, preacher

It always seems impossible until its done. - Nelson Mandela, (1918-); former President of South Africa

When you do nothing, you feel overwhelmed and powerless. But when you get involved, you feel the sense of hope and accomplishment that comes from knowing you are working to make things better. - Pauline R. Kezer

Dig within. Within is the wellspring of Good; and it is always ready to bubble up, if you just dig. - Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, (121-180); Roman Emperor

It's a whole lot more satisfying to reach for the stars, even if you end up landing only on the moon. - Kermit the Frog

The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof. - Barbara Kingsolver (b. 1955); author, writer

Some people grumble because roses have thorns; I am thankful that the thorns have roses. - Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (1808-1890);critic, journalist, and novelist

The average pencil is seven inches long, with just a half-inch eraser, in case you thought optimism was dead. - Robert Brault

Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do. - Pope John XXIII (1881-1963), 261st Pope of the Roman Catholic Church

No person ever ended his eyesight by looking on the bright side. - Zig Ziglar (b. 1926), author, motivational speaker

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined. - Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862); philosopher, writer, naturalist

To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe. - Anatole France (1844-1924), critic, writer

Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up. - Anne Lamott (b. 1954), author, political activist

When the world says, 'Give up,' hope whispers, 'Try it one more time.' - Author Unknown

One of the things I learned the hard way was that it doesn't pay to get discouraged. Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself. - Lucille Ball (1911-1989); actress, producer

Parenting

The words a father speaks to his children in the privacy of the home are not overheard at the time, but, as in whispering galleries, they will be clearly heard at the end and by posterity. - Jean Paul Richter, writer (1763-1825)

Oh, to be only half as wonderful as my child thought I was when he was small, and only half as stupid as my teenager now thinks I am. - Rebecca Richards

Did you ever meet a mother who’s complained that her child phoned her too often? Me neither. - Maureen Lipman

A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie. - Tenneva Jordan

A mother is not a person to lean on but a person to make leaning unnecessary. - Dorothy C. Fisher

Some are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same. - Pearl S. Buck

Patience and Perseverance

The greatest oak was once a little nut that held its ground. - Unknown

This I do know beyond any reasonable doubt. Regardless of what you are doing, if you pump long enough, hard enough and enthusiastically enough, sooner or later the effort will bring forth the reward. - Zig Ziglar (born 1926); motivational author, speaker

Rivers know this: There is no hurry. We shall get there. - A. A. Milne (1882-1956); English author, best known for his books about Winnie-the-Pooh

Patience will achieve more than force. - Edmund Burke (1729-1797); statesman, author, philosopher

What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step. - C. S. Lewis

If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative. - Woody Allen (born 1935); Comedian

When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stone-cutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it would split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before together. - Jacob A. Riis, journalist and social reformer (1849-1914)

Keep on beginning and failing. Each time you fail, start all over again, and you will grow stronger until you have accomplished a purpose ... not the one you began with perhaps, but one you'll be glad to remember. - Anne Sullivan Macy (1866-1936); teacher

Patience is bitter, but the fruit is sweet. - Lida Clarkson

When obstacles arise, you change your direction to reach your goal, you do not change your decision to get there. — Zig Ziglar, (1926-); motivational author, speaker

Who will tell whether one happy moment of love or the joy of breathing or walking on a bright morning and smelling the fresh air, is not worth all the suffering and effort which life implies. - Erich Seligmann Fromm, (1900-1980); social psychologist

When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn. - Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1886); author

He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying. - Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900); scholar, writer, philosopher

In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins- not through strength but by perseverance. - H. Jackson Brown, Jr. writer

When I was young, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. So I did ten times more work. - George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) playwright, political activist

Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragement, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak. - Thomas Carlyle, (1795-1881), historian, essayist, satirist

All human wisdom is summed up in two words; wait and hope. — Alexandre Dumas, (1802-1870); Writer

If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance. - Samuel Johnson (1709-1784); author, poet, essayist

There is no chance, no destiny, no fate, that can circumvent or hinder or control the firm resolve of a determined soul. - Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850-1919); poet, writer

Never give in! Never give in! Never, never, never, never - in nothing great or small, large or petty. Never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. - Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965), British statesman, prime minister, author, Nobel Prize winner

The weakest living creature, by concentrating his powers on a single object, can accomplish something. The strongest, by dispensing his over many, may fail to accomplish anything. The drop, by continually falling, bores its passage through the hardest rock. The hasty torrent rushes over it with hideous uproar, and leaves no trace behind. - Thomas Carlyle, essayist and historian (1795-1881)

Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained. - Marie Curie (1867-1934), chemist, physicist, Nobel Prize winner

If you're trying to achieve, there will be road blocks. I've had them; everybody has had them. But obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it. - Michael Jordan (b. 1963), retired professional basketball player, businessman

Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours. - Ayn Rand (1905-1982); novelist, screenwriter, playwright

Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in. - Bill Bradley (b. 1943); American hall of fame basketball player, Rhodes scholar,former U.S. Senator from New Jersey

Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections but instantly set about remedying them - every day begin the task anew. - Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622), Roman Catholic saint

Peace

Peace is always beautiful. - Walt Whitman (1819-1892); poet, humanist

Co-existence / or no existence. - Piet Hein, poet and scientist (1905-1996)

Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will be in our troubled world. - Etty Hillesum (1914-1943); Dutch writer, Holocaust sufferer

If civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships - the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together, in the same world at peace. - Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945); 32nd U.S. President

We plant seeds that will flower as results in our lives, so best to remove the weeds of anger, avarice, envy and doubt, that peace and abundance may manifest for all. — Dorothy Day (1897- 1980); journalist, social activist

Peace is not something you wish for; It's something you make, Something you do, Something you are, And something you give away. - Robert Fulghum (b.1937); author, pastor

I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. - Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)

Peace does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble, or hard work. Peace means to be in the midst of all those things and still be calm in your heart. - Author Unknown

Perspective

Most people see what they want to, or at least what they expect to. - Martha Grimes

The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper. - W.B. Yeats

A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life. - Muhammad Ali [Cassius Clay] (born 1942); boxer

Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed. - Herman Melville, novelist and poet (1819-1891)

When one has been threatened with a great injustice, one accepts a smaller as a favor. - Jane Welsh Carlyle, letter writer (1801-1866)

When it rains, most birds head for shelter; the Eagle is the only bird that, in order to avoid the rain, starts flying above the cloud. - Unknown

Life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think. - Jean de la Bruyere, essayist and moralist (1645-1696)

For every beauty there is an eye somewhere to see it. For every truth there is an ear somewhere to hear it. For every love there is a heart somewhere to receive it. - Ivan Panin (1855-1942)

I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him. - Galileo Galilei, physicist and astronomer (1564-1642)

To do the opposite of something is also a form of imitation. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, scientist and philosopher (1742-1799)

Every man possesses three characters: that which he exhibits, that which he really has, and that which he believes he has. - Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr, novelist and journalist (1808-1890)

We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are. - Anaïs Nin

In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted. - Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate (1872-1970)

The real voyage of discovery lies not in seeking new lands, but in seeing with new eyes. - Marcel Proust (1871-1922); novelist

Don’t waste your time hating failure. Failure is a greater teacher than success. - Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Every age is fed on illusions, lest men should renounce life early and the human race come to an end. -Joseph Conrad, novelist (1857-1924)

Poets

Misunderstandings and neglect occasion more mischief in the world than even malice and wickedness. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832)

Remorse is a violent dyspepsia of the mind. - Ogden Nash, poet (1902-1971)

Some tortures are physical / And some are mental, / But the one that is both / Is dental. - Ogden Nash, poet (1902-1971)

Errors like straws upon the surface flow: / Who would search for pearls must dive below. - John Dryden, poet and dramatist (1631-1700)

There is a destiny that makes us brothers, No one goes his way alone; All that we send into the lives of others, Comes back into our own. — Edwin Markham, (1852-1940); poet

Now is the time to understand / That all your ideas of right and wrong / Were just a child's training wheels / To be laid aside / When you finally live / With veracity / And love. - Hafez, poet (1315-1390)

The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful. - E.E. Cummings, poet (1894-1962)

We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet (1807-1882)

It ought to be plain / how little you gain / by getting excited / and vexed. / You'll always be late / for the previous train, / and always in time / for the next. - Piet Hein, poet and scientist (1905-1996)

Solitude has but one disadvantage; it is apt to give one too high an opinion of one's self. In the world we are sure to be often reminded of every known or supposed defect we may have. - Lord Byron, poet (1788-1824)

Men have slow reflexes. In general it takes several generations later for them to understand. - Stanislaw J. Lec, poet and aphorist (1909-1966)

The noble art of losing face / may one day save the human race / and turn into eternal merit / what weaker minds would call disgrace. - Piet Hein, poet and scientist (1905-1996)

Many demolitions are actually renovations. - Jalaluddin Rumi, poet and mystic (1207-1273)

Politics

Whenever a man has cast a longing eye on offices, a rottenness begins in his conduct. - Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author (1743-1826)

There comes a point when a man must refuse to answer to his leader if he is also to answer to his own conscience. -Hartley Shawcross, barrister, politician, and prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes tribunal (1902-2003)

We have, I fear, confused power with greatness. - Stewart I. Udall, politician (1920-2010)

Avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments, which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty. - George Washington, 1st US president, general (1732-1799)

We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people. - John F. Kennedy, 35th US president (1917-1963)

I realize that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone. - Edith Cavell, nurse and humanitarian (1865-1915)

Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock. - Ben Hecht, screenwriter, playwright, novelist, director, and producer (1894-1964)

Power is only important as an instrument for service to the powerless. - Lech Walesa, human rights activist, Polish president, Nobel laureate (b. 1943)

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it. - George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little. - Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd US President (1882-1945)

Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous. - William Proxmire, US senator, reformer (1915-2005)

Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary. - Reinhold Niebuhr, theologian (1892-1971)

I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts. - Will Rogers

In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other. - Voltaire (1764)

Talk is cheap...except when Congress does it. - Unknown

The government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other. - Ronald Reagan

What this country needs are more unemployed politicians. - Edward Langley, Artist (1928 - 1995)

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have. - Thomas Jefferson

I happen temporarily to occupy this big White House. I am living witness that any one of your children may look to come here as my father's child has. -Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the U.S. (1809-1865)

Patriotism is proud of a country's virtues and eager to correct its deficiencies; it also acknowledges the legitimate patriotism of other countries, with their own specific virtues. The pride of nationalism, however, trumpets its country's virtues and denies its deficiencies, while it is contemptuous toward the virtues of other countries. It wants to be, and proclaims itself to be, "the greatest", but greatness is not required of a country; only goodness is. - Sydney J. Harris, journalist and author (1917-1986)

The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them. - George Orwell, writer (1903-1950)

I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperityis like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle. - Winston Churchill

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul. - George Bernard Shaw

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheepvoting on what to have for dinner. - James Bovard, Civil Libertarian (1994)

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries. - Douglas Casey, Classmate of Bill Clinton at Georgetown University

Giving money and power to governmentis like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. - P.J. O'Rourke, Civil Libertarian

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else. - Frederic Bastiat, Economist (1801-1850)

A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilisation. - Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)

Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian. - Robert Orben, magician and author (b. 1927)

Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched. - Guy de Maupassant, short story writer and novelist (1850-1893)

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. - Voltaire (1694-1778), writer, satirist, author, humanist

It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority. - Benjamin Franklin

The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them. - Patrick Henry, revolutionary (1736-1799)

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use. - Soeren Kierkegaard

History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives. - Abba Eban

Any government large enough to take care of everything, is large enough to take away everything. - Thomas Jefferson

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake. - Napolean Bonaparte

Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad name. - Henry Kissinger

Just because a law cannot fully stop an activity does not prove that such law is ineffective or undesirable. - Eli M. Noam

Priorities

We should cultivate the ability to say no to activities for which we have no time, no talent, and which we have no interest or real concern. If we learn to say no to many things, then we will be able to say yes to the things that matter most. - Roy Blauss

Proverbs

Little drops of water wear down big stones. - Russian Proverb

A mother understands what a child does not say. - Jewish proverb

One kind word can warm three winter months. - Japanese Proverb

Ask the experienced rather than the learned. - Arabic Proverb

Better than a thousand days of diligent study is one day with a great teacher. - Japanese proverb

With true fiends... even water drunk together is sweet enough - Chinese Proverb

Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still. - Chinese proverb

There are good ships and wood ships, ships that sail the sea, but the best ships are friendships, may they always be! - Irish Proverb

What you don’t see with your eyes, don’t invent with your tongue. - Jewish Proverb

Whoever gossips to you will gossip of you. - Spanish Proverb

Believe that you have it, and you have it. - Latin Proverb

A hedge between keeps friendships green. - German Proverb

We have not inherited the world from our forefathers - we have borrowed it from our children. - Kashmiri Proverb

I am because you are. - African Proverb

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in. - Greek proverb

Learning is like rowing upstream; not to advance is to drop back. - Chinese proverb

Not to know is bad; not to wish to know is worse. - African proverb

To every man is given the key to the gates of heaven; the same key opens the gates of hell. - unknown

Fear less, hope more; Eat less, chew more; Whine less, breath more; Talk less, say more; Love more, and all good things will be yours! - Swedish Proverb

Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the year. - Spanish proverb

May love and laughter light your days, and warm your heart and home. May good and faithful friends be yours wherever you may roam. - Irish Proverb

Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will never be shortened. Happiness never ceases by being shared. - Chinese Proverb

Everyone is kneaded out of the same dough but not baked in the same oven. - Yiddish proverb

We have not inherited the earth from our ancestors, we have only borrowed it from our children. - Ancient Proverb

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

After the game, the king and pawn go into the same box. - Italian Proverb

Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand. - Chinese Proverb

Nothing is so burdensome as a secret. - French proverb

When spider webs unite they can tie up a lion. - African Proverb

A beautiful thing is never perfect. - Egyptian proverb

If thine enemy wrong thee, buy each of his children a drum. - Chinese proverb

Friendship doubles our joy and divides our grief. - Swedish Proverb

Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare. - Japanese Proverb

No one's head aches when he is comforting another. - Indian Proverb

Ayn Rand (1905-1982); novelist, screenwriter, playwright

The ladder of success is best climbed by stepping on the rungs of opportunity.

A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.

Force and mind are opposites; morality ends where a gun begins.

Achieving life is not the equivalent of avoiding death. - Ayn Rand

Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver.

Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision.

To achieve, you need thought. You have to know what you are doing and that's real power.

Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours.

Religion & Spirituality

One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion. -Arthur C. Clarke, science fiction writer (1917-2008)

There comes a time in the spiritual journey when you start making choices from a very different place. And if a choice lines up so that it supports truth, health, happiness, wisdom and love, it’s the right choice. - Angeles Arrien (born 1940); Anthropologist

There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. - Edith Wharton (1862-1937); American novelist

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. - Stephen Roberts, database architect (b. 1967)

The death of dogma is the birth of morality. - Immanuel Kant, philosopher (1724-1804)

Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived. - Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)

A man sooner or later discovers that he is the master-gardener of his soul, the director of his life. - James Allen (1864-1912); writer

Plenty of kind, decent, caring people have no religious beliefs, and they act out of the goodness of their hearts. Conversely, plenty of people who profess to be religious, even those who worship regularly, show no particular interest in the world beyond themselves. - John Danforth, priest, ambassador, senator (b. 1936)

What actions are most excellent? To gladden the heart of a human being, to feed the hungry, to help the afflicted, to lighten the sorrow of the sorrowful, and to remove the wrongs of the injured. - Koran

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? - Epicurus, philosopher (c. 341-270 BCE)

We've all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That's who we really are. - J.K. Rowling, author (b. 1965)

Is man one of God's blunders or is God one of man's? - Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)

Life is just a chance to grow a soul. - A. Powell Davies, (1902-1957); minister

Men rarely (if ever) managed to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child. - Robert A. Heinlein, science-fiction author (1907-1988)

Never talk defeat. Use words like hope, belief, faith, victory. - Norman Vincent Peale, (1898-1993); author, preacher

Ah! what a divine religion might be found out if charity were really made the principle of it instead of faith. - Percy Bysshe Shelley, poet (1792-1822)

I'd rather see a sermon than hear one any day; I'd rather one should walk with me than merely tell the way. - Edgar Guest, poet (1881-1959)

I see that sensible men and conscientious men all over the world were of one religion, -- the religion of well-doing and daring, men of sturdy truth, men of integrity and feeling for others. - Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)

The greatest tragedy in mankind's entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion. - Arthur C. Clarke, science fiction writer (1917-2008)

The need for devotion to something outside ourselves is even more profound than the need for companionship. If we are not to go to pieces or wither away, we must have some purpose in life; for no man can live for himself alone. - Ross Parmenter; writer, anthropologist

The doubts of an honest man contain more moral truth than the profession of faith of people under a worldly yoke. - Ximenes Doudan, journalist (1800-1872)

Responsibility

Responsibility educates. - Wendell Phillips

The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses. No one to lean on, rely on, or blame. The gift of life is yours; it is an amazing journey; and you alone are responsible for the quality of it. - Dan Zadra; Businessman, inspirational writer

It is not what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable. - Moliere, actor and playwright (1622-1673)

Whatever I neglect now I shall have to pay for later. - Nelly Ptaschkina

I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty. - John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (1874-1960); philanthropist, businessman

My belief is that personal freedom cannot grow beyond personal responsibility. The more people that learn to be fully accountable for their lives, the more freedom each of us can enjoy and the more fulfilling all of our lives will be. - Reed Konsler

You are the generation about to come into control and must prepare for this responsibility. Do not fill up your leisure with meaningless activity or with causes. Have the courage to stand aside and watch for a little while. It is more important to know where we are going than to get there quickly. Do not mistake activity for achievement. Mabel Newcomer (1892-1983); scholar

Theodore Roosevelt

To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.

Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike.

Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. - Teddy Roosevelt

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. (Abraham Lincoln)

The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything

Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, 'Certainly, I can!' Then get busy and find out how to do it.

It is not the critic who counts, nor the man who points out where the strong man stumbled, or where a doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best, knows the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

Service

I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve. - Albert Schweitzer, philosopher, physician, musician, Nobel laureate (1875-1965)

Service is the rent we pay for being. It is the very purpose of life, and not something you do in your spare time. - Marian Wright Edelman(born 1939); Activist, president and founder of Children's Defense Fund

What we think, or what we know, or what we believe, is in the end, of little consequence. The only thing of consequence is what we do. - John Ruskin, author, art critic, and social reformer (1819-1900)

The world is not interested in what we do for a living. What they are interested in is what we have to offer freely - hope, strength, love and the power to make a difference! — Sasha Azevedo, (1978-); Entertainer

If we do not lay ourselves at the service of mankind, whom should we serve? — John Adams, (1735- 1826); 2nd U.S. President

I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy. - Rabindranath Tagore, philosopher, author, songwriter, painter, educator, composer, Nobel laureate (1861-1941)

All I ask is this: Do something. Try something. Speaking out, showing up, writing a letter, a check, a strongly worded e-mail. Pick a cause -- there are few unworthy ones. And nudge yourself past the brink of tacit support to action. Once a month, once a year, or just once. - Joss Whedon, writer and film director (b. 1964)

Don't wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and more successful. - Mark Victor Hansen, author, speaker

I believe that the rendering of useful service is the common duty of mankind and that only in the purifying fire of sacrifice is the dross of selfishness consumed and the greatness of the human soul set free. - John D. Rockefeller, Jr., (1874-1960); philanthropist, businessman

There is no greater calling than to serve your fellow men. There is no greater contribution than to help the weak. There is no greater satisfaction than to have done it well. - Walter Reuther (1907-1970); former president of the United Automobile Workers

Everybody can be great...because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. you only need a heart full of grace. a soul generated by love. - Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-68), American civil rights leader

My grandfather once told me that there are two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was much less competition. - Indira Gandhi

Success

Aim for success, not perfection. Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life. - Dr. David M. Burns

College is something you complete. Life is something you experience. So don't worry about your grade, or the results or success. Success is defined in myriad ways, and you will find it, and people will no longer be grading you, but it will come from your own internal sense of decency. - Jon Stewart (born 1962); Television host, writer, comedian

The person who makes a success of living is the one who sees his goal steadily and aims for it unswervingly. That is dedication. - Cecil B. DeMille (1881-1959); filmmaker

I know the price of success: dedication, hard work, and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen. - Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1909); architect

If your success is not on your own terms, if it looks good to the world but does not feel good in your heart, it is not success at all. - Anna Quindlen (born 1953); journalist, novelist

The ladder of success is best climbed by stepping on the rungs of opportunity. - Ayn Rand

Striving for success without hard work is like trying to harvest where you haven't planted. - David Bly (born 1952); Politician

Willpower is the key to success. Successful people strive no matter what they feel by applying their will to overcome apathy, doubt or fear. - Dan Millman (born 1946); author, gymnastics world champion

If I had to select one quality, one personal characteristic that I regard as being most highly correlated with success, whatever the field, I would pick the trait of persistence. Determination. The will to endure to the end, to get knocked down seventy times and get up off the floor saying, 'Here comes number seventy-one'! - Richard DeVos (born 1926); American businessman

Technology

Tech still has the shelf life of a banana. It will quickly go brown and mushy. There's an opportunity to keep developing because people will need a new banana. -- Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction. - E. F. Schumacher

Thankfulness

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow. - Melodie Beattie - motivational author

We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have. - Fredrick Koeing

When we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives, but are grateful for the abundance that's present, we experience heaven on earth. - Sarah Breathnack

Appreciation can make a day, even change a life. Your willingness to put it into words is all that is necessary. - Margaret Cousins, author

When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around. - Willie Nelson, (1933-); singer, songwriter, poet

Make it a habit to tell people thank you. To express your appreciation, sincerely and without the expectation of anything in return. Truly appreciate those around you, and you'll soon find many others around you. Truly appreciate life, and you'll find that you have more of it. - Ralph Marston; author and publisher of The Daily Motivator

Thoughts

To know how to say what other people only think is what makes men poets and sages; and to dare to say what others only dare to think, makes men martyrs or reformers, or both. - Elizabeth Rundle Charles, writer (1828-1896)

Thoughts lead on to purposes; purposes go forth in action; actions form habits; habits decide character; and character fixes our destiny. — Tyron Edwards, (1809-1894); theologian

Every thought is a seed. If you plant crab apples, don't count on harvesting Golden Delicious. — Bill Meyer, (1892-1957); baseball manager, coach

The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts. - John Locke, philosopher (1632-1704)

The most miserable pettifogging in the world is that of a man in the court of his own conscience. - Henry Ward Beecher, preacher and writer (1813-1887)

Great thoughts reduced to practice become great acts. - William Hazlitt, essayist (1778-1830)

If you realized how powerful your thoughts are, you would never think a negative thought. — Peace Pilgrim (1908-1981); pacifist, peace-activist

Our heads are round so that thoughts can change direction. - Francis Picabia, painter and poet (1879-1953)

To go against the dominant thinking of your friends, of most of the people you see every day, is perhaps the most difficult act of heroism you can perform. - Theodore H. White

Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. - John F. Kennedy, 35th US president (1917-1963)

There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking. - Alfred Korzybski

Trust

Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement. — Golda Meir (1898-1978); 4th Prime Minister of Israel author, motivational speaker

You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you don't trust enough. — Frank H. Crane (1873-1948); stage and film actor, director

Trust in what you love, continue to do it, and it will take you where you need to go. — Natalie Goldberg; author, motivational speaker

Truth

It is the certainty that they possess the truth that makes men cruel. - Anatole France, novelist, essayist, Nobel laureate (1844-1924)

Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold. - Leo Tolstoy, novelist and philosopher (1828-1910)

Without the freedom to criticize, there is no true praise. - Pierre Beaumarchais, playwright (1732-1799)

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself -- and you are the easiest person to fool. - Richard Feynman

Every story has three sides to it—yours, mine and the facts. - Foster Meharny Russell

The most dangerous of all falsehoods is a slightly distorted truth. - Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, scientist and philosopher (1742-1799)

The liar's punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else. - George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)

Everything you add to the truth subtracts from the truth. - Alexander Solzhenitsyn, novelist, Nobel laureate (1918-2008)

There are many people who reach their conclusions about life like schoolboys; they cheat their master by copying the answer out of a book without having worked out the sum for themselves. - Soren Kierkegaard, philosopher (1813-1855)

We know the truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart. - Blaise Pascal (1623-1662); mathematician, physicist, religious philosopher

The man who fears no truths has nothing to fear from lies. - Thomas Jefferson

I speak the truth not so much as I would, but as much as I dare, and I dare a little more as I grow older. - Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth. - Oscar Wilde, writer (1854-1900)

If any man seeks for greatness, let him forget greatness and ask for truth, and he will find both. - Horace Mann, educational reformer (1796-1859)

We lie the loudest when we lie to ourselves. - ric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)

Mark Twain - [Samuel Clemens] humorist, essayist, novelist (1835-1910)

It is higher and nobler to be kind.

Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.

An uneasy conscience is a hair in the mouth. - from a personal notebook

The institution of royalty in any form is an insult to the human race.

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it -- and stop there -- lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again, and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one any more. -- Mark Twain

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear--not absence of fear.

My kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's country, not to its institutions or its officeholders. -Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)

When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.

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

If you don't read the newspaperyou are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress.... But then I repeat myself.

No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.

The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin.

There is no distinctly Native American criminal class... save Congress.

I believe I have no prejudices whatsoever. All I need to know is that a man is a member of the human race. That's bad enough for me.

The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.

Every one is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody.

Vision

Create the highest, grandest vision possible for your life because you become what you believe. - Oprah Winfrey (born 1954); American television host, publisher

One must care about a world one will not see. - Bertrand Russell (1872-1970); philosopher, mathematician

What I admire in Columbus is not his having discovered a world, but his having gone to search for it on the faith of his own opinion. - Turgot (1727-1781); French economist, statesman

Far away there in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead. — Louisa May Alcott, (1832-1888); Novelist

Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. — Howard Thurman, (1899-1981); Author, Philosopher, Theologian, Educator, Civil Rights Leader

There will always be a frontier where there is an open mind and a willing hand. - Charles F. Kettering (1876-1958); inventor, engineer

Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world. - Joel A. Barker, scholar, speaker

The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps - we must step up the stairs. — Vance Havner (1901-1986); preacher, author

War

Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war. - Otto von Bismarck, statesman (1815-1898)

Draw strength from the knowledge that education will break the backs of poverty, disenfranchisement, and violence; that war is never inevitable but only a terrible failure of the imagination; and that love is stronger than hatred. - Wally Lamb (born 1950); author

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. - Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer (1934-1996)

The nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five. - Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer (1934-1996)

The ultimate sense of security will be when we come to recognize that we are all part of one human race. Our primary allegiance is to the human race and not to one particular color or border. - Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (b. 1942)

The only way human beings can win a war is to prevent it. - George Marshall, US Army Chief, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Nobel laureate (1880-1959)

The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human. - Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)

The World is divided into armed camps ready to commit genocide just because we can't agree on whose fairy tales to believe. - Ed Krebs, photographer (b. 1951)

I'm sure that someday children in schools will study the history of the men who made war as you study an absurdity. They'll be shocked, just as today we're shocked with cannibalism. - Golda Meir, Israeli Prime Minister (1898-1978)

I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity. - Dwight D. Eisenhower, U.S. general and 34th president (1890-1969)

At the bottom of a good deal of the bravery that appears in the world there lurks a miserable cowardice. Men will face powder and steel because they cannot face public opinion. - Edwin Hubbel Chapin, minister and orator (1814-1880)

It is easier to lead men to combat, stirring up their passion, than to restrain them and direct them toward the patient labors of peace. - Andre Gide, author, Nobel laureate (1869-1951)

There will be no Homeland Security until we realize that the entire planet is our homeland. Every sentient being in the world must feel secure. - John Perkins, economist and author (b.1945)

As long as there are slaughterhouses there will be battlefields. - Leo Tolstoy, author (1828-1910)

The least pain in our little finger gives us more concern and uneasiness than the destruction of millions of our fellow-beings. - William Hazlitt, essayist (1778-1830)

The tragedy of modern war is not so much that young men die but that they die fighting each other, instead of their real enemies back home in the capitals. - Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927-1989)

The cardinal doctrine of a fanatic's creed is that his enemies are the enemies of God. - Andrew Dickson White, diplomat, historian, and educator (1832-1918)

Man can be the most affectionate and altruistic of creatures, yet he's potentially more vicious than any other. He is the only one who can be persuaded to hate millions of his own kind whom he has never seen and to kill as many as he can lay his hands on in the name of his tribe or his God. - Benjamin Spock, pediatrician and author (1903-1998)

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. - Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer (1934-1996)

The vanquished know war. They see through the empty jingoism of those who use the abstract words of glory, honor, and patriotism to mask the cries of the wounded, the senseless killing, war profiteering, and chest-pounding grief. - Chris Hedges, journalist, author, and war correspondent (b. 1956) (jingosim - extreme patriotism in the form of aggressive foreign policy

Wealth

There is no wealth but life. - John Ruskin

I've never been poor, only broke. Being poor is a frame of mind. Being broke is only a temporary situation. - Mike Todd (1909-1958); theater and film producer

To be rich in admiration and free from envy, to rejoice greatly in the good of others, to love with such generosity of heart that your love is still a dear possession in absence or unkindness - these are the gifts which money cannot buy. - Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894); essayist, poet, novelist

My riches consist not in the extent of my possessions, but in the fewness of my wants. — Joseph Brotherton (1783-1837); pastor, writer

For money you can have everything it is said. No, that is not true. You can buy food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; soft beds, but not sleep; knowledge but not intelligence; glitter, but not comfort; fun, but not pleasure; acquaintances, but not friendship; servants, but not faithfulness; grey hair, but not honor; quiet days, but not peace. The shell of all things you can get for money. But not the kernel. That cannot be had for money. - Arne Garborg, writer (1851-1924)

In youth we feel richer for every new illusion; in maturer years, for every one we lose. - Madame Anne Sophie Swetchine, mystic (1782-1857)

Oh, how small a portion of earth will hold us when we are dead, who ambitiously seek after the whole world while we are living! - Philip of Macedon, king, father of Alexander the Great (382-336 BCE)

An unhurried sense of time is in itself a form of wealth. - Bonnie Friedman, author (b. 1958)

Will Power

Champions aren't made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them - a desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have the skill, and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill. - Muhammad Ali [Cassius Clay] (b. 1942); athlete, boxer

Wisdom

The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook. - William James (1842-1910); psychologist, philosopher, author

The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining. - John F. Kennedy (1917-1963); 35th US President

Don’t mess with anybody on a Monday. It’s a bad, bad day. - Louise Fitzhugh

We spend money we don’t have, on things we don’t need, to make impressions that don’t last, on people we don’t care about. - Tim Jackson

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook. - William James, psychologist and philosopher (1842-1910)

Admitting error clears the score and proves you wiser than before. - Arthur Guiterman

Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well. - Josh Billings (1818-1885); [Henry Wheeler Shaw] humorist, essayist

Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him. - Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)

If you’re going to play the game properly you’d better know every rule. - Barbara Jordan

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. - Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author (1743-1826)

Habit with him was all the test of truth, / It must be right: I've done it from my youth. - George Crabbe, poet and naturalist (1754-1832)

Every one of us is precious in the cosmic perspective. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another. -Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer (1934-1996)

Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely. — Auguste Rodin, (1840-1917); sculptor

You are only as strong as your purpose, therefore let us choose reasons to act that are big, bold, righteous and eternal. — Barry Munro

If a man does not know what port he is steering for, no wind is favorable to him. — Seneca, (4- 65); philosopher

Our heads are round so that thoughts can change direction. - Francis Picabia, painter and poet (1879-1953)

Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives, and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time. - Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778)

The turning point in the process of growing up is when you discover the core of strength within you that survives all hurt. — Max Lerner, (1902-1992); journalist

Boredom is the feeling that everything is a waste of time; serenity, that nothing is. - Thomas Szasz, author, professor of psychiatry (b. 1920)

Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little. - Edmund Burke, statesman and writer (1729-1797)

One will rarely err if extreme actions be ascribed to vanity, ordinary actions to habit, and mean actions to fear. - Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)

The perfect is the enemy of the good. - Voltaire

Worth begets in base minds, envy; in great souls, emulation. - Henry Fielding, author (1707-1754)

The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live. - Flora Whittemore

Always hold your head up, but be careful to keep your nose at a friendly level. - Max L. Forman

If a man would register all his opinions upon love, politics, religion, learning, etc., beginning from his youth and so go on to old age, what a bundle of inconsistencies and contradictions would appear at last! - Jonathan Swift, satirist (1667-1745)

Evil is like a shadow - it has no real substance of its own, it is simply a lack of light. You cannot cause a shadow to disappear by trying to fight it, stamp on it, by railing against it, or any other form of emotional or physical resistance. In order to cause a shadow to disappear, you must shine light on it. - Shakti Gawain, teacher and author (b. 1948)

You have many choices. You can choose forgiveness over revenge, joy over despair. You can choose action over apathy.... - Stephanie Marston; family therapist, author

When your values are clear to you, making decisions becomes easier. - Roy Disney (b. 1930); former Disney executive, nephew of Walt Disney

A fixed idea is like the iron rod which sculptors put in their statues. It impales and sustains. - Hippolyte Taine, critic and historian (1828-1893)

Believe in your dreams and they may come true; believe in yourself and they will come true. - Author Unknown

Problems arise in that one has to find a balance between what people need from you and what you need for yourself. - Jessye Norman

In one and the same fire, clay grows hard and wax melts. - Francis Bacon, essayist, philosopher, and statesman (1561-1626)

Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible. - Frank Zappa, composer, musician, film director (1940-1993)

Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things. - Robert Brault

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric. - Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate (1872-1970)

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom. - Isaac Asimov, scientist and writer (1920-1992)

He who praises everybody, praises nobody. - Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)

It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument. - William G. McAdoo, lawyer and politician (1863-1941)

There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life, happiness, freedom, and peace of mind, are always attained by giving them to someone else. - Peyton C. March, (1864-1955); General, US Army

Class never runs scared. It is sure-footed and confident, and it can handle whatever comes along. Class has a sense of humor. It knows that a good laugh is the best lubricant for oiling the machinery of human relations. Class never makes excuses. It takes its lumps and learns from mistakes...Class is comfortable in its own skin. It never puts on airs. Class never tries to build itself up by tearing others down. If you have class, you've got it made. - Taken from "Dear Abby"

Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones. - Marcus Aurelius, philosopher and writer (121-180)

Study as if you are going to live forever; live as if you were going to die tomorrow. - Marion Mitchell

It is good a philosopher should remind himself, now and then, that he is a particle pontificating on infinity. - Ariel and Will Durant

Among the things you can give and still keep are your word, a smile, and a grateful heart. - Zig Ziglar, (1926-); motivational author, speaker

Do not condemn the judgment of another because it differs from your own. You may both be wrong. - Dandamis, sage (4c BCE)

I have lived in this world just long enough to look carefully the second time into things that I am most certain of the first time. - Josh Billings, columnist and humorist (1818-1885)

People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. - Maya Angelou

Hot heads and cold hearts never solved anything. - Billy Graham

Therefore hold to the things which are reliable. Look to simplicity; embrace purity; Lessen the self; diminish desire. - Laozi; ancient Chinese philosopher, central figure in Taoism

Tact is the ability to make a person see lightning without letting him feel the bolt. - Orlando A. Battista

The beaten path is the safest, but the traffic's terrible. - Jeff Taylor, founder of monster.com

Flattery is like chewing gum. Enjoy it, but don't swallow it. - Hank Ketcham

You have to remember one thing about the will of the people. It wasn't that long ago that we were swept away by the macarena. - Jon Stewart

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom. - Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826); 3rd US President

Be willing to have it so. Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune. - William James (1842-1910), psychologist, philosopher, author

Your life is an occasion; rise to it. - Mr. Magorium, as played by Dustin Hoffman in "Mr. Magorium"

If your morals make you dreary, depend on it they are wrong. - Robert Louis Stevenson, novelist, essayist, and poet (1850-1894)

The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak. - Hans Hoffman

The stateliest building man can raise is the ivy's food at last. - Charles Dickens, novelist (1812-1870)

Temptation usually comes in through a door that has been deliberately left open. - Arnold Glasow

Not being able to govern events, I govern myself. - Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)

There are two things to aim at in life; first to get what you want, and after that to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second. - Logan Pearsall Smith, essayist (1865-1946)

It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue. - John Adams (1735-1826), 2nd U.S. President

Loyalty means nothing unless it has at its heart the absolute principle of self-sacrifice. - Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924), 28th U.S. President

You can't shake hands with a clenched fist. - Indira Gandhi (1917-1984), former Prime Minister of India

I always prefer to believe the best of everybody-it saves so much trouble. - Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936), poet, author

It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do a little. - Sydney Smith, writer and clergyman (1771-1845)

Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission. - Eleanor Roosevelt

I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso

One sees great things from the valley, only small things from the peak. - G.K. Chesterton

Humans are allergic to change. They love to say, 'We've always done it this way.' I try to fight that. That's why I have a clock on my wall that runs counter-clockwise. - Grace Hopper

All human beings should try to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why. - James Thurber

Never go after a snake unless you're sure you can kill it. - Lyndon Johnson

If you would make a man happy, do not add to his possessions but subtract from the sum of his desires. - Seneca

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction. - E.F. Schumacher

When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us. - Alexander Graham Bell

I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is to try to please everyone. - Bill Cosby

Don't ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up. - G.K. Chesterton

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. - Bertrand Russell Re: Bertrand Russell's, "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts", Dante had something to say on this subject too, although he put his words in the mouth of St. Thomas Aquinas: "E questo ti sia sempre piombo a' piedi, per farti mover lento com'uom lasso e al sì e al no che tu non vedi . . . . . . perch'elli 'ncontra che più volte piega l'oppinion corrente in falsa parte, e poi l'affetto l'intelletto lega.» "And let this always weigh down your feet like lead, to make you move as slowly as a weary man, to refrain from yes or no when you do not see ... because hasty opinion too often points the wrong way and then affection for one's own opinion binds up the intellect." Purgatorio XIII: 112-114, 118-120

For every problem, there is one solution which is simple, neat and wrong. - H. L. Mencken

Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret. - Ambrose Bierce

The best way to be boring is to leave nothing out. -Voltaire

Blessed are they who have nothing to say and who cannot be persuaded to say it. - James Russell Lowell

Argue for your limitations and, sure enough, they're yours. - Richard Bach

Do not condemn the judgement of another because it differs from your own. You may both be wrong. - Dandemis

Always laugh at yourself first - before others do. - Elsa Maxwell

To carry a grudge is like being stung to death by one bee. - William H. Walton

Patience! The windmill never strays in search of the wind. - Andy J. Sklivis

Work

In order that people may be happy in their work, these three things are needed: they must be fit for it; they must not do too much of it; and they must have a sense of success in it. - John Ruskin, author, art critic, and social reformer (1819-1900)

Striving for success without hard work is like trying to harvest where you haven't planted. - David Bly (born 1952); Politician

There are no shortcuts to any place worth going. - Beverly Sills

The dictionary is the only place that success comes before work. Hard work is the price we must pay for success. I think you can accomplish anything if you're willing to pay the price. - Vincent "Vince" Lombardi (1913-1970); athletic coach

The harder you work, the luckier you get. - Gary Player

The highest reward for man's toil is not what he gets for it, but what he becomes by it. - John Ruskin (1819-1900); poet, writer, art critic

Do more than belong: participate. Do more than care: help. Do more than believe: practice. Do more than be fair: be kind. Do more than forgive: forget. Do more than dream: work. — William Arthur Ward, (1921-1994); writer

When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece. - John Ruskin, author, art critic, and social reformer (1819-1900)

Hard work is painful when life is devoid of purpose. But when you live for something greater than yourself and the gratification of your own ego, then hard work becomes a labor of love. - Steve Pavlina (born 1971); motivational speaker and entrepreneur

Quotes by Women

The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself. - Anna Quindlen

A home without a grandmother is like an egg without salt. - Florence King

Inside every older person is a younger person -- wondering what the hell happened. - Cora Harvey Armstrong

The hardest years in life are those between ten and seventy. - Helen Hayes (at 73)

I refuse to think of them as chin hairs. I think of them as stray eyebrows. - Janette Barber

Things are going to get a lot worse before they get worse. - Lily Tomlin

A male gynecologist is like an auto mechanic who never owned a car.   - Carrie Snow

Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and you cry with your girlfriends. - Laurie Kuslansky

My second favorite household chore is ironing. My first being, hitting my head on the top bunk bed until I faint. - Erma Bombeck

Old age ain't no place for sissies. - Bette Davis

A man's got to do what a man's got to do. A woman must do what he can't.   - Rhonda Hansome

The phrase "working mother" is redundant. - Jane Sellman

Every time I close the door on reality, it comes in through the windows.   - Jennifer Unlimited

Whatever women must do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult. - Charlotte Whitton

Thirty-five is when you finally get your head together and your body starts falling apart. - Caryn Leschen

I try to take one day at a time -- but sometimes several days attack me at once. - Jennifer Unlimited

If you can't be a good example -- then you'll just have to be a horrible warning. - Catherine Aird

I'm not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I'm not dumb - and I'm also not blonde. - Dolly Parton

If high heels were so wonderful, men would still be wearing them. - Sue Grafton

I'm not going to vacuum 'til Sears makes one you can ride on. - Roseanne Barr

When women are depressed they either eat or go shopping. Men invade another country. - Elayne Boosler

Behind every successful man is a surprised woman. - Maryon Pearson

In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man.  If you want anything done, ask a woman. - Margaret Thatcher

I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage and a career. - Gloria Steinem

I am a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man, I keep his house. - Zsa Zsa Gabor