Innumerable useful observations and much of the world’s wisdom have been condensed into succinct statements. Some were captured in writing as a person was speaking, others were initially written before readers discovered and began quoting them.
Some are funny. Some are confrontational — either justifiably defensive or justifiably challenging.
Some quotations may serve to dazzle us with the author’s artistry in words as much as they serve to convey profound thoughts. One such quotation, the sort of writing I wish I could emulate, sentence after sentence, is the message from Donald Hall in Quotation Number 214, below. With a little research, though, one discovers why Donald Hall was known for his gift with words.
The quotations which follow, I believe, manage to reinforce the individualism that AJN propounded, to support a suspicion of collectivist double-speak, and to express a straight up, sometimes eloquent Go to hell! to anyone who would use group force to overpower individuals minding their own business.
Not all pretty-sounding pronouncements, repeated as human wisdom, are truly wise or true. And pretty-sounding words sometimes mask an ugly agenda. As I’ve said on another page, I can discern a nugget of truth when I see it and I can recoil reflexively from a pile of rot when I smell it.
William F. Buckley, Jr., once acknowledged that his adversary and friend, John Kenneth Galbraith, experienced occasional lapses into sanity. In the same vein, I’ve noticed that people who espouse odious ideas, who propound predatory political positions, or who have dishonored themselves with disreputable personal histories, have sometimes been given to moments of lucid thought. I don’t mind recognizing their “lapses into sanity” by quoting them.
Sometimes a genuine quotation could be improved with a little rewording, a little correction in grammar, a little adaptation to the times, and of course when it needs to be translated from another language. I resist doing any of that, unless in its original wording it remains useless. A meme, on the other hand, almost always suffers from the transcriber’s lack of language skills. I freely edit memes. (Unfortunately, then, those which are unattributed quotations, which I would have left as-is had I known, may have been modified slightly by my own editing.)
I’m not saying that all of these are wise, accurate, or true. I’m saying only that they are something to think about. As you browse these quotations, take it slowly. They’re in no particular sequence. And they’re numbered, not according to importance but for easy reference.
If you see a misquote or can supply a source where something is “unattributed,” or if you have a favorite quotation that you believe deserves to be added, please let us know.
=David A. Woodbury=
Quotations
1
“Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good.”
Thomas Sowell
2
“I have never understood why it is ‘greed’ to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take someone else’s money.”
Thomas Sowell
3
“How can anyone read history and still trust politicians?”
Thomas Sowell
4
“It is usually futile to try to talk facts and analysis to people who are enjoying a sense of moral superiority in their ignorance.”
Thomas Sowell
5
“The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics.”
Thomas Sowell
6
“To wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime, it was called.”
George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-four
7
“I wonder how many such men in America would know that communism, the New Deal, fascism, nazism, are merely so-many trade-names for collectivist statism, like the trade-names for toothpastes, which are all exactly alike except for the flavouring.”
Albert Jay Nock
8
“I believe the primary role of the State is to teach, train and raise children. Parents have a secondary role.”
Hillary Clinton in It Takes A Village
9
“I believe the primary role of the village is to surround the parents who are teaching, training, and raising children. The State has no role.”
David A. Woodbury
10
“One thing that humbles me deeply is to see that human genius has its limits while human stupidity does not.“
Alexandre Dumas, fils
11
“The well-being of individual persons in any society varies inversely with the money at the disposal of the political class.”
Reverend Edmund A. Opitz
12
“The farmer is the only man in our economy who buys everything at retail, sells everything at wholesale, and pays the freight both ways.”
John F. Kennedy
13
“As a Brit I find the whole notion of ever needing a gun in the first place absolutely abhorrent.”
Paul Fenwick
14
“As an American, I haven’t cared what Brits have said since 1776, when my ancestors’ guns forced your ancestors out.”
Caleb Hull
15
“Do not be dismayed by the brokenness in the world. All things break. And all things can be mended — not with time, as they say, but with intention. So go. Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally. The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.”
L. R. Knost
16
“A lie doesn’t become truth, wrong doesn’t become right, and evil doesn’t become good, just because it’s accepted by a majority.”
Booker T. Washington
17
“America is not a racist country. Anyone claiming otherwise has a vested interest in keeping us divided. The easiest way to maintain power over any group is to keep those within it at war with one another.”
Candace Owens
18
“We now live in a nation where doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, the press destroys information, religion destroys morals, and banks destroy the economy.”
Chris Hedges
19
“A harmless man is not a good man. A good man is a very, very dangerous man who has it under voluntary control.”
Jordan Peterson
20
“God assumed from the beginning that the wise of the world would view Christians as fools… and he has not been disappointed… If I have brought any message today, it is this: Have the courage to have your wisdom regarded as stupidity. Be fools for Christ. And have the courage to suffer the contempt of the sophisticated world.”
Justice Antonin Scalia
21
“No one can read our Constitution without concluding that the people who wrote it wanted their government severely limited; the words ‘no’ and ‘not’ employed in restraint of government power occur 24 times in the first seven articles of the Constitution and 22 more times in the Bill of Rights.”
Reverend Edmund A. Opitz
22
“The thing about my jokes is that they don’t hurt anybody. You can say they’re not funny or they’re terrible or they’re no good or whatever it is, but they don’t do no harm. But with Congress — every time they make a joke it’s a law. And every time they make a law it’s a joke.”
Will Rogers
23
“Don’t argue with people who are committed to misunderstanding you.”
Ayishat A. Akanbi (paraphrased)
24
“We’re sending assault weapons to rebels in Syria to confront a regime that does not represent them…” “There is no reason why any American should own assault weapons.”
Barry Soetoro posing as a duly-elected President
25
“A fact is information minus emotion. An opinion is information plus experience. Ignorance is an opinion lacking information. And stupidity is opinion that ignores a fact.”
@sgrstk (The Captain)
26
“Our world is not divided by race, color, gender, or religion. Our world is divided into wise people and fools. And fools divide themselves by race, color, gender, or religion.”
Nelson Mandela
27
“Just to be clear, I agree that black lives matter. Old lives matter. Young ones, too. Your life matters. My life, too. In fact, an adjective before ‘lives’ doesn’t matter. It really is that simple.”
David A. Woodbury in response to a meme
28
“Since 2001 the United States has spent 32 million dollars per hour on war, not on health care, not on education, not on infrastructure — 32 million dollars per hour to kill people on the other side of the planet, and Americans still believe people hate us for our freedom.”
attributed to George Carlin
29
“What we’re seeing in America today is the consequence of no consequences.”
Randy Sutton, retired lieutenant, Las Vegas Police
30
“The idea that our society is best served when all family members separate in the morning, to do things they generally don’t enjoy, could be the biggest fallacy imprinted upon humanity.”
Jason Christoff
31
“The exercise of freedom invariably results in some choices that are unwise or wrong. But, by living with the consequences of his foolish choices a man learns to choose more wisely next time.”
Reverend Edmund A. Opitz
32
“To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”
Thomas Jefferson
33
“When a man hits a target, they call him a marksman. When I hit it, they call it a trick. Never did like that much.”
Annie Oakley
34
“You can’t be for big government, big taxes, and big bureaucracy and still be for the little guy.”
Ronald W. Reagan
35
“Men who govern will…construe laws and constitutions most favorably for increasing their own powers; all wise and prudent people…have drawn the line, and carefully described the powers parted with and the powers reserved…what rights are established as fundamental, and must not be infringed upon.”
Richard Henry Lee
36
“Think about how stupid the average person is, and realize that half of them are stupider than that!”
George Carlin
37
“For attractive lips, speak words of kindness. For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people. For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry. For poise, walk with the knowledge that you will never walk alone. People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed. revived, reclaimed, and redeemed. Never throw out anyone.”
Audrey Hepburn
38
“If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there’d be a shortage of sand.“
Milton Friedman
39
“They keep talking about drafting a constitution for Iraq. Why don’t we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it’s worked for over 200 years, and hell, we’re not using it any more.”
Jay Leno
40
“Your mobile phone has more computing power than all of NASA in 1969. NASA launched a man to the moon. We launch two-dimensional birds into pigs.”
George Bray commenting on “Angry Birds”
41
“You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.”
James D. Mills
42
“Happiness is the absence of striving for happiness.”
Zhuangzi
43
“Many people, especially ignorant people, want to punish you for speaking the truth, for being correct, for being you. Never apologize for being correct, or for being years ahead of your time. If you’re right and you know it, speak your mind. Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is still the truth.”
Mohandas Mahatma Gandhi
44
Seven dangers to human virtue:
1. Wealth without work
2. Pleasure without conscience
3. Knowledge without character
4. Business without ethics
5. Science without humanity
6. Religion without sacrifice
7. Politics without principle
Gandhi
45
“Some of our politicians promise cradle-to-grave assistance. It’s just making it to the cradle that’s tricky.”
attributed to Dennis Miller
46
“A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.”
George Washington
47
“Too often we underestimate 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.”
attributed to Leo Buscaglia
48
“As babies we are all welfare statists. We want it now, we don’t care who pays for it, and we scream until we get it. But we should leave that behind with the diapers before we reach voting age. If you believe in liberty, you must grow up.”
Lawrence W. Reed
49
“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”
Thomas Jefferson
50
“Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. If it stops, subsidize it.”
Ronald W. Reagan
51
“There are two ways to conquer and enslave a country. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.”
John Adams
52
“Love the sinner, hate the sin? How about: Love the sinner, hate your own sin! I don’t have time to hate your sin. There are too many of you! Hating my sin is a full-time job. How about: You hate your sin, I’ll hate my sin, and let’s just love each other!”
Mark Lowry
53
“Discernment is not knowing the difference between right and wrong. It is knowing the difference between right and almost right.”
attributed to C. H. Spurgeon
54
“To believe that we can and must hide the parts of us that are broken, out of fear that others are incapable of loving the parts of us that we cannot love ourselves, is to believe that sunshine is incapable of entering a broken window and warming an empty room.”
attributed to Sandra Kring
55
“‘Emergencies’ have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have eroded.”
Friedrich Hayek
56
“We learn from history that we do not learn from history.”
Hegel
57
“You don’t eliminate corruption in the political system by making the system bigger.”
Bradley Thomas @EraseState
58
“If raising the minimum wage lifts people out of poverty with no downside, why don’t third world countries just raise their minimum wage to make themselves rich?”
Bradley Thomas @EraseState
59
“You don’t fix bad government with more government. Ever.”
Hannah Cox
60
“Capitalism is relatively new in human history. Prior to capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting, plundering, and enslaving their fellow man. Capitalism made it possible to become wealthy by serving your fellow man.”
Walter E. Williams
61
”No government has made everyone equally happy. Too many governments have made too many people equally miserable. An intrusive political system staffed by ‘uplifters’ and hypocrites conceals tyranny by useless laws and attempts at imposed conformity.”
Justice Louis Brandeis
62
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
H. L. Mencken
63
“If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today.”
Thomas Sowell
64
“The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.”
Milton Friedman
65
“A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.”
Gerald R. Ford
66
“Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.”
P. J. O’Rourke
67
“It was once said that the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.”
Hubert H. Humphrey
68
“They believed they were the best failures who ever failed.”
David A. Woodbury, maybe
69
“I have my table, I have my chair, I have my beer, and I’m big enough to keep them.”
Spec 5 Joe Ross, U.S. Army, Augsburg, Germany – 1972
70
“That history repeats itself is an observation, not a law.”
unattributed
71
“Too many people base where they want to end up on the skills that they have when they start.”
Jim “p4newstreet” at ostpubs.com/deep-knowledge/
72
“All you need in life are ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.”
Mark Twain
73
“The trouble with people is not that they don’t know but that they know so much that ain’t so.”
Josh Billings on fallacies that seem to have their own internal logic
74
“One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture from such a trifling investment of fact.”
Mark Twain
75
“This world is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel.”
Horace Walpole
76
“It’s much easier to make authority your truth than truth your authority.”
Chaplain William Sloane Coffin, Jr.
77
“”Truth always sounds like hate to those who hate truth.””
Ron Cannon
78
“After Beethoven went deaf people told him he would never write another symphony. Did he listen? No! He went ahead and wrote it anyway!”
unattributed, referring to the exquisite, divine Ninth Symphony
79
“An nescis, mi fili, quantilla sapientia mundus regatur?” [Do you not perceive, my son, how ignorantly we are ruled?]
Julius III, Bishop of Rome – A.D. 1550-1555
80
“I don’t ask; I just do. And when I meet my Maker, I’m going to insist upon a full explanation.”
Beth Woodbury upon being asked why she persists in working with handicapped foster children
81
“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”
Winston Churchill
82
“Be the change you want to see in the world.”
attributed to Indira Gandhi among others
83
“The lowest common denominator of the universe is both low and common.”
R. A. Lafferty
84
“To appreciate modern art is like trying to follow the plot in alphabet soup.”
anonymous
85
“If we don’t know, or have a definition of, what a satisfactorily-performing, promotable manager looks like then all variations are valid.”
Craig Stenberg, PhD
86
“There is as much dignity in plowing a field as in writing a sonnet.”
Booker T. Washington
87
“God made man in an image of his own choosing, and man has returned the compliment.”
unattributed, quoted by Guy de Maupassant
88
“Fanaticism – redoubling your effort when you’ve lost sight of the objective.”
George Santayana
89
“Those who agree with us may not be right, but we admire their astuteness.”
Cullen Hightower
90
“Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music.”
Sergei V. Rachmaninoff
91
“It is the greatest of mistakes to do nothing because you can only do a little. Do what you can.”
Sydney Smith
92
“What the world really needs is more love and less paperwork.”
Pearl Bailey
93
“No matter what happens, there’s always somebody who knew it would.”
Lonnie Starr
94
“Springtime is the land awakening. The March winds are the morning yawn.”
Lewis Grizzzard
95
“A loving heart is the truest wisdom.”
Charles Dickens
96
“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and give love in return.”
Eden Ahbez
97
“Man never made any material as resilient as the human spirit.”
Bern Williams
98
“If you’re going to be able to look back on something and laugh about it, you might as well laugh about it now.”
Marie Osmond
99
“Success has a simple formula: Do your best and people may like it.”
Sam Ewing
100
“You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that, my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.”
Dr. Adrian Rogers – 1931
101
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage.”
variously attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler or Alexis de Tocqueville, both living around the time of the American Revolution
102
“When you say there’s too much evil in this world you assume there’s good. When you assume there’s good, you assume there’s such a thing as a moral law on the basis of which to differentiate between good and evil. But if you assume a moral law, you must posit a moral law giver, but that’s who you’re trying to disprove and not prove. Because if there’s no moral law giver, there’s no moral law. If there’s no moral law, there’s no good. If there’s no good, there’s no evil. What is your question?”
Ravi Zacharias
103
“If you are taught bitterness and anger, then you will believe you are a victim. You will feel aggrieved and the twin brother of aggrievement is entitlement. So now you think you are owed something and you don’t have to work for it and now you’re on a really bad road to nowhere because there are people who will play to that sense of victimhood, aggrievement, and entitlement, and you still won’t have a job.”
Condoleezza Rice
104
“Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety. Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in. Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. This new day is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on the yesterdays.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
105
“Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It’s not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It’s not an endlessly expanding list of rights – the “right” to education, the “right” to food and housing. That’s not freedom, that’s dependency. Those aren’t rights, those are the rations of slavery – hay and a barn for human cattle. There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.”
P. J. O’Rourke
106A
“An unconstitutional act is not law; it confers no rights; it imposes no duties, affords no protection; it creates no office; it is in legal contemplation, as inoperative as though it had never been passed.”
Norton v. Shelby County, U.S. Supreme Court 1886
106B
“All laws which are repugnant to the Constitution are null and void.”
Marbury v. Madison, U.S. Supreme Court 1803
107
“No one is bound to obey an unconstitutional law and no courts are bound to enforce it. The general rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having the form and the name of law, is in reality no law, but is wholly void, and ineffective for any purpose, since unconstitutionality dates from the time of its enactment, and not merely from the date of the decision so branding it.”
16th American Jurisprudence 2d, Section 177 late 2nd, section 256
108
“The most beautiful and most profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.”
Albert Einstein
109
“Nothing is so insufferable to man as to be completely at rest, without passions, without business, without diversion, without study. He then feels his nothingness, his forlornness, his insufficiency, his dependence, his weakness, his emptiness. There will immediately arise from the depths of his heart weariness, gloom, sadness, vexation, despair. “
Blaise Pascal
110
“Be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind. Talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person you meet. Make all your friends feel there is something special in them. Look at the sunny side of everything. Think only the best, work only for the best, and expect only the best. Be as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own. Forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future. Give everyone a smile. Spend so much time improving yourself that you have no time left to criticize others. Be too big for worry and too noble for anger.”
Christian D. Larsen in “Creed for Optimists”
111
“The second item in the liberal creed, after self-righteousness, is unaccountability. Liberals have invented whole college majors – psychology, sociology, women’s studies – to prove that nothing is anybody’s fault. No one is fond of taking responsibility for his actions, but consider how much you’d have to hate free will to come up with a political platform that advocates killing unborn babies but not convicted murderers. A callous pragmatist might favor abortion and capital punishment. A devout Christian would sanction neither. But it takes years of therapy to arrive at the liberal view.”
P. J. O’Rourke on late-20th-century liberals
112
“If you want truly to understand something, try to change it.”
Kurt Lewin
113
“It is wise to keep in mind that no success or failure is necessarily final.”
unattributed
114
“You can succeed at almost anything for which you have unlimited enthusiasm.”
Charles M. Schwab
115
“There are two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group; there is less competition there.”
Indira Gandhi
116
“The more original a discovery, the more obvious it seems afterward.”
Arthur Koestler
117
“Obstacles are things a person sees when he takes his eyes off his goal.”
E. Joseph Cossman
118
“If at first you do succeed — try to hide your astonishment.”
unattributed
119
“When patterns are broken, new worlds can emerge.”
Tuli Kupferberg
120
“When you aim for perfection, you discover it’s a moving target.”
George Fisher
121
“Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.”
Montesquieu
122
“We all admire the wisdom of people who come to us for advice.”
Jack Herbert
123
“If you haven’t any charity in your heart, you have the worst kind of heart trouble.”
Bob Hope
124
“Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”
H. L. Mencken
125
“Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.”
unattributed
126
“It’s not that life is too short. It’s just that you’re dead for such a long time.”
Steve Moore
127
“Never say ‘Oops!’ Always say ‘Ah, interesting!’”
Peter Stowell
128
“Always do right. This will gratify some and astonish the rest.”
Mark Twain
129
“Castro asked which of us was an economist. I thought he’d said ‘Communist’ so I immediately said ‘I am.’ ‘OK,’ Castro said, ‘you handle the economy.’”
Che Guevara
130
“A government ought to know how to levy taxes. But if it doesn’t know how to collect them, then a man is a fool to pay them.”
J. P. Morgan in what has been called the indiscretion of a lifetime
131
“Talking to politicians about the economy is like talking to eight-year-olds about sex. They have heard all the words, but they haven’t a clue.”
Michael Aronstein
132
“I will not permit any man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.”
Booker T. Washington
133
“If I don’t ask ‘Why me?’ after my victories, I cannot ask ‘Why me?’ after my setbacks and disasters.”
Arthur Ashe
134
“Forgiving means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable, and hoping mean to hope when things are hopeless.”
G. K. Chesterton
135
“I can complain because rosebushes have thorns or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses. It’s all how you look at it.”
J. Kenfield Morley
136
“Wisdom is knowing what to do next; virtue is doing it.”
David Starr Jordan
137
“Many a man’s tongue broke his nose.”
Seamus McManus
138
“If God is here for us and not elsewhere, then in fact this place is holy and this moment is sacred.”
Isabel Anders
139
“Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside them was superior to circumstance.”
Bruce Barton
140
“No one would remember the good Samaritan if he had only had good intentions.”
Margaret Thatcher
141
“Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”
Winston Churchill
142A
“It’s the start that stops most people.”
Bits & Pieces
142B
“I never knew I could until I was told I couldn’t.”
Bits & Pieces
143
“Not to know is bad. Not to want to know is worse.”
West African proverb
144
“The best way to escape from a problem is to solve it.”
Brendan Francis
145
“Be nice to people on your way up. You might need them on the way down. ”
Jimmy Durante
146
“The best mind-altering drug is truth.”
Lily Tomlin
147
“I don’t care to be involved in the crash landing unless I can be in on the takeoff.”
Harold Stassen
148
“If we settle for good enough – will things ever be good enough?”
Bits & Pieces
149
“One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries.”
A. A. Milne
150
“A single twig breaks, but the bundle of twigs is strong.”
Tecumseh
151
“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is adults who are afraid of the light.”
Plato
152
“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.”
William Arthur Ward
153
“Besides the noble art of getting things done, master the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of nonessentials. ”
Lin Yutang
154
“It’s easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them.”
Alfred Adler
155
“Anyone who loves sausage or respects the law should never watch either being made.”
attributed to Mark Twain
156
“Thunder is good, thunder is impressive, but it is the lightening that does the work.”
Mark Twain
157
“If I had done everything I’m credited with, I’d be speaking to you from a laboratory jar at Harvard University.”
Frank Sinatra
158
“I fear that we have awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve.”
Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto – 7 December 1941
159
“By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day. ”
Robert Frost
160
“When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything begins to look like a nail.”
Abraham Maslow
161
Self-actualization
Esteem
Belonging and Love
Safety
Physical
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
162
“We’re all in this alone.”
Lily Tomlin
163
“It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it.”
Joseph Joubert
164A
“The role of government is not to manage or control the economy … but to remove obstacles standing in the way.”
George W. Bush
164B
“…deliver the mail, defend the shores, and get out of the way.”
Ronald W. Reagan
165
“The whole idea of our government is this: If enough people get together and act in concert, they can take something and not pay for it.”
P. J. O’Rourke
166
“I have said what I have said, not to have the last word about it, but because I cannot remain silent in the face of so great a mystery.”
Saint Augustine? Treatise on Trinity?
167
“To believe in God is impossible; not to believe in him is absurd.”
Voltaire
168
“It were better to have no opinion of God at all than such a one as is unworthy of him; for the one is only belief – the other contempt.”
Plutarch
169
“Fear less, hope more. Eat less, chew more. Whine less, breathe more. Hate less, love more. And all good things are yours.”
Swedish Proverb
170
“A skeptic is a person who, when he sees the handwriting on the wall, claims it is a forgery. ”
Morris Bender
171
“Stubbornness does have its helpful features. You always know what you are going to be thinking tomorrow.
Glen Beaman
172
“I cannot co-exist with someone who is trying to enslave me.”
David A. Woodbury
173
“Art is how we decorate space. Music is how we decorate time.”
unattributed
174
“Life on earth is the cosmic equivalent of what happens when you don’t store things in a cool, dry place.”
unattributed
175
“Your shadow is a confirmation that light has traveled nearly 93 million miles unobstructed, only to be deprived of reaching the earth in the final few feet, thanks to you.”
unattributed
176
“Clapping is just hitting yourself because you like something.”
unattributed
177
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
178
“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”
Henry David Thoreau
179
“How can one be kept safe from the evil and corruption of man by the evil and corruption of men in power?”
Colonel Allen West – 5 January 2016
180
“When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.”
Jimi Hendrix
181
“So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.”
Voltairine de Cleyre
182
“Let not the rifles of good and free men be reforged into plowshares, but may they rest in a place of honor; ready, well oiled and God willing unused. For if the price of peace becomes licking the boots of tyrants, then ‘To Arms!’ I say, and may the fortunes of war smile upon patriots.”
Fortes Fortuna Javat
183
“Political Correctness: A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical liberal minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.”
unattributed
184
“The State cannot get a cent for any man without taking it from some other man, and this latter must be a man who has produced and saved it. This latter is the Forgotten Man.”
William Graham Sumner
185
“De inimico non loquaris sed cogites!” [Don’t wish ill for your enemy; plan it!]
unattributed
186
“If you want to have order in the commonwealth, you first have to have order in the individual soul.”
Russell Kirk
187
“Nonsense remains nonsense, even when spoken by world-famous scientists.”
John Lennox
188
“One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.”
Milton Friedman
189
“Before you judge anyone else, first make sure you’re perfect.”
unattributed
190
“God grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know it’s me. ”
unattributed
191
“Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.”
James Madison
192
“War involves in its progress such a train of unforeseen and unsupposed circumstances that no human wisdom can calculate the end.”
Thomas Paine
193
“A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country.”
James Madison
194
“We’re all ignorant, just about different stuff.”
Will Rogers
195
“Damnant quod non intellegunt. [They condemn what they do not understand.]”
unattributed
196
“A soldier pays for land by the inch with blood that a diplomat will give away by the mile without breaking a sweat.”
unattributed
197
“Some people are like slinkies – not really good for anything but they bring a smile to your face when you push them down the stairs.”
unattributed
198
“Be thankful that we’re not getting all the government we are paying for.”
Will Rogers
199
“The Six Mistakes of Man
1) The delusion that personal gain is made by crushing others.
2) The tendency to worry about things that cannot be changed or corrected.
3) Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it right away.
4) Refusing to set aside trivial preferences.
5) Neglecting development and refinement of the mind, and not acquiring the habit of reading and studying.
6) Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do.”
Cicero
200
“Good intentions will always be pleaded for any assumption of power. The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.”
Daniel Webster
201
“It is never our faith that creates God. Nor is it our doubts that put an end to God’s existence.”
Brother Roger of Taize
202
“For peace of mind, resign as general manager of the Universe.”
Larry Eisenberg
203
“Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.” [If you can read this you have too much education.]
unattributed
204
The Six Phases of a Project
1. enthusiasm
2. disillusionment
3. panic
4. search for the guilty
5. punishment of the innocent
6. praise and honors for the non-participants
unattributed
205
“Savages we call them, because their manners differ from ours, which we think the perfection of civility; they think the same of theirs.”
Ben Franklin
206
“But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants is the liberty of appearing.”
Thomas Paine
207
“Music and rhythm find their way into the secret places of the soul.”
Plato
208
“The first cry of a newborn baby in Chicago or Zamboango, in Amsterdam or Rangoon, has the same pitch and key, each saying, ‘I am! I have come through! I belong! I am a member of the family.’”
Carl Sandburg in “The Family of Man”
209
“Oh, a false clock tries to tick out my time, to disgrace, distract, and bother me. The dirt of gossip blows into my face and the dust of rumors covers me, but if the arrow is straight and the point is slick, it can pierce through dust no matter how thick. So I’ll make my stand and remain as I am and bid farewell and not give a damn.”
Bob Dylan
210
“A friend hears the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails.”
from Pioneer Girls Leaders’ Handbook
211
“The mountains have secrets to tell. We can listen, we will learn them together.”
Tatonka
212
“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.”
Helen Keller
213
“My experience is what I agree to attend to.”
William James in The Principles of Psychology, Vol.1 on the idea that, to control your life control what you pay attention to
214
“I no longer require a wished-for future to cancel the present. I am in daily touch with the past without living there. I suspect that the only present we can really live in — the only enduring present — is one that makes connection: horizontally to other people living elsewhere under other circumstances; vertically down to the dead and up to the unborn, down to history and up with endeavor.”
Donald Hall
215
“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
216
“I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. I love you not only for what you have made of yourself, but for what you are making of me. I love you because you have done more than any creed could have done to make me good, and more than any fate could have done to make me happy. You have done it without a touch, without a word, without a sign. You have done it by being yourself. Perhaps that is what being a friend means, after all.”
author unknown
217
“Then little by little we discover one friend, in the midst of the crowd of friends, who is particularly happy to be with us and to whom, we realize, we have an infinite number of things to say. She is not top of the class, she is not particularly well thought of by others, she does not wear showy clothes…and when we are walking home with her, we realize that her shoes are identical to ours – strong and simple, not showy and flimsy like those of our other friends…”
Natalia Ginzburg in The Little Virtues
218
“Through perseverance many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure. ”
Benjamin Disraeli
219
“Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.”
James Barrie
220
“There’s an important difference between giving up and letting go.”
Jessica Hatchigan
221
“It isn’t death you want to fear, but the life not lived. You don’t need to live forever; you just need to live.”
from the movie “Tuck Everlasting”
222
“Think highly of yourself because the world takes you at your own estimate.”
unattributed
223
“The world steps aside to let any man pass if he knows where he’s going.”
from the movie “Spencer’s Mountain”
224
“Real friendship is shown in times of trouble; prosperity is full of friends.”
Euripides
225
“Real love is helping someone who can’t return the favor.”
unattributed
226
“Some men see things as they are and ask why. I dream of things that never were and say ‘Why not?’”
George Bernard Shaw
227
“Someone’s opinion of you does not have to become your reality.”
Les Brown
228
“Sometimes we must believe before we can see.”
unattributed
229
“Strong-minded, resolutely willed, you can create out of nothing a great business, a huge empire, a new world. Others have and they have no monopoly.”
Claude Bristol in The Magic of Believing
230
“Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others have let go.”
William Feather
231
“Take control of your destiny. Believe in yourself. Ignore those who try to discourage you. Avoid negative sources, people, places, things, and habits. Don’t give up and don’t give in.”
Wanda Carter
232
“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself, and that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.”
Paul Coelho in The Alchemist
233
“The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time.”
A. Lincoln
234
“The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
Nelson Mandela
235
“The highest exercise of charity is charity towards the uncharitable.”
J. S. Buckminster
236
“The most wasted of all days is the one without laughter.”
E. E. Cummings
237
“The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention.”
unattributed
238
“The teacher can be anyone or any thing. It our job to recognize the teacher when the teacher appears in our lives.”
Gayle O.
239
“There are two ways of living your life – One is as though nothing is a miracle and the other is as though everything is a miracle.”
Albert Einstein
240
“There is more in us than we know. If we can be made to see it, perhaps, for the rest of our lives, we will be unwilling to settle for less.”
Kurt Hahn, founder of Outward Bound
241
“There is no exercise better for the heart than reaching down and lifting people up.
John Andrew Holmes
242
“There is no security on this earth; there is only opportunity.”
General Douglas MacArthur
243
“To make the right choices in life, you have to get in touch with your soul. To do this, you need to experience solitude, which most people are afraid of, because in the silence you hear the truth and know the solutions. ”
Deepak Chopra
244
“To the degree we’re not living our dreams, our comfort zone has more control of us than we have over ourselves. ”
Peter McWilliams
245
“Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are.”
Malcolm Forbes
246
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
Mark Twain
247
“Vitality shows not only in the ability to persist, but in the ability to start over.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald
248
“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
249
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
Aristotle
250
“We have a call to do good, as often as we have the power and occasion.”
William Penn
251
“When you get in 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
252
“Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to the end, requires some of the same courage which a soldier needs.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
253
“When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter 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 will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it – but all that had gone before.”
Jacob Rus
254
“Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.”
Henry Ford
255
“While troubles will come, they are always temporary — nothing lasts forever. Thus, there is the famous legend that King Solomon, the wisest man of all times, had a ring inscribed with the words, ‘This too shall pass.’”
Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan
256
“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
257
“You will never find time for anything. You must make it.”
Charles Buxton
258
“Your thoughts determine your actions. Your actions determine your habits. Your habits determine your character. And your character gives birth to your destiny.”
unattributed
259
“I believe in the sun even when it’s not shining. I believe in love even when not feeling it. I believe in God even when he is silent.”
unattributed
260
“You’ve failed many times, although you don’t remember. You fell down the first time you tried to walk. You almost drowned the first time you tried to swim… Don’t worry about failure… Worry about the chances you miss when you don’t even try.”
Sherman Finesilver
261
“I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be ‘happy.’ I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be honorable, to be compassionate. It is, above all, to matter, to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.”
Leo C. Rosten
262
“I will persist until I succeed. Always will I take another step. If that is of no avail I will take another, and yet another. In truth, one step at a time is not too difficult. . . . I know that small attempts, repeated, will complete any undertaking. ”
Og Mandino
263
“I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.”
Bill Cosby
264
“I exist as I am – that is enough.”
Walt Whitman
265
“I was taught that the way of progress is neither swift nor easy.”
Marie Currie
266
“If I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning.”
Gandhi
267
“If I were asked to give what I consider the single most useful bit of advice for all humanity, it would be this: Expect trouble as an inevitable part of life, and when it comes, hold your head high. Look it squarely in the eye, and say, ‘I will be bigger than you. You cannot defeat me.‘”
Ann Landers
268
“If people knew how hard I worked at my art, they would not consider me a genius.”
Michelangelo
269
“If someone betrays you once, it is his fault; if he betrays you twice, it is your fault.”
unattributed
270
“If we all did the things we are capable of, we would astound ourselves.”
Thomas Edison
271
“In the world there is nothing more submissive and weak than water. Yet for attacking that which is hard and strong nothing can surpass it.”
Lao Tzu
272
“It is funny about life: if you refuse to accept anything but the very best you will very often get it. ”
W. Somerset Maugham
273
“It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.”
Seneca
274
“I’ve gone through life believing in the strength and competence of others; never in my own. Now, dazzled, I discover that my capacities are real. It’s like finding a fortune in the lining of an old coat.”
Joan Mills
275
“Keep working your way through the maze. You’ll know what it is when it happens, but you won’t know until then. ‘God grinds the axes he intends to use.’”
Dave Sim
276
“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.”
unattributed
277
“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
Thomas Edison
278
“Many risks fail because they were not taken in time. Too many risks are postponed until unnecessarily elaborate preparations are made. This does not mean that one should say, ‘Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!’ That is foolish and self-destructive… But don’t sit back waiting for the perfect moment. It almost never comes.”
David Viscott in Risking
279
“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
280
“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.”
Melody Beattie
281
“May you live all the days of your life.”
Jonathan Swift
282
“No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn.”
Hal Borland
283
“One kind word can warm three winter months. ”
Japanese proverb
284
“Never think that you’re not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. People will take you very much at your own reckoning.”
Anthony Trollope
285
“No act of kindness, however small, is ever wasted.”
Æsop
286
“Notice the difference between what happens when a man says to himself, ‘I have failed three times,’ and what happens when he says, ‘I’m a failure.’”
S. I. Hayakawa
287
“Once you have found Truth, you are more accountable to the Infinite, the Almighty, and even to yourself, than the man who does wrong out of ignorance.”
unattributed
288
“One is taught by experience to put a premium on those few people who can appreciate you for what you are.”
Gail Godwin
289
“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.”
Robert F. Kennedy
290
“Outside show is a poor substitute for inner worth.”
Æsop
291
“People are like tea bags: They may not realize their strength or weakness until they’re dropped in hot water.”
unattributed
292
“People will forget what you said. People may forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel.”
unattributed
293
“Pessimism is self-fulfilling. The same goes for optimism. You choose.”
unattributed
294
“Prosperity is a way of living and thinking, and not just money or things. Poverty is a way of living and thinking, and not just a lack of money or things.”
Eric Butterworth
295
“A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.”
unattributed
296
“Sometimes I’m too slow to lend a hand, say a kind word, leave a little surprise; and the chance passes me by. I don’t berate myself. Instead I become more watchful for the next opening, and then I act with resolve. When it happens, I can be as surprised and delighted as the person whose day I’ve chosen to brighten.”
David A. Woodbury
297
“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.”
Walt Disney
298
“As long as you’re actively pursuing your dream with a practical plan, you’re still achieving, even if it feels as though you’re going nowhere fast. It’s been my experience that at the very moment I feel like giving up, I’m only one step from a breakthrough. Hang on long enough and circumstances will change, too.”
Sarah Ban Breathnach
299
“A knowledge of the path cannot be substituted for putting one foot in front of the other.”
unattributed
300
“A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.”
Jean de la Fontaine
301
“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity, an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”
Winston Churchill
302
“A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.”
William Shedd
303
“A stumble may prevent a fall.”
English proverb
304
“Ability may get you to the top, but it takes character to keep you there.”
John Wooden
305
“Aim at Heaven and you will get Earth thrown in. Aim at Earth and you get neither.”
C. S. Lewis
306
“All riches have their origin in mind. Wealth is in ideas — not money.”
Robert Collier
307
“Always try to be a little kinder than is necessary. ”
James M. Barrie
308
“An effort made for the happiness of others lifts above ourselves.”
Lydia Maria Child
309
“Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world, for, indeed, that is all who ever have.”
unattributed, posted at a nurses’ station in Eastern Maine Medical Center
310
“’And what is as important as knowledge?’ asked the mind. ‘Caring and seeing with the heart,’ answered the soul.”
unattributed
311
“Anyone who has accustomed himself to regard the life of any living creature as worthless is in danger of arriving also at the idea of worthless human lives.”
Albert Schweitzer
312
“As long as you keep a person down, some part of you has to be down there to hold him down, so it means you cannot soar as you otherwise might.”
Marian Anderson
313
“Be inspired with the belief that life is a great and noble calling; not a mean and groveling thing that we are to shuffle through as we can, but an elevated and lofty destiny.”
William E. Gladstone
314
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.”
unattributed
315
“Become a possibilitarian. No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see the possibilities — always see them, for they’re always there.”
Norman Vincent Peale
316
“Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand — and melting like a snowflake.”
Marie Beyon Ray
317
“Begin somewhere. You cannot build a reputation on what you intend to do.”
Liz Smith
318
“Careers, like rockets, don’t always take off on schedule. The key is to keep working the engines.”
Gary Sinise
319
“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved. ”
Helen Keller
320
“Cherish your visions and your dreams as they are the children of your soul; the blue-prints of your ultimate achievements.”
Napoleon Hill
321
“Choose Life! Only that and always! At whatever risk, to let life leak out, to let it wear away by the mere passage of time, to withhold giving and spending it … is to choose nothing.”
Sister Helen Kelly
322
“Concentrate on where you want to go, not on what you fear. ”
Anthony Robbins
323
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear — not absence of fear. Except a creature be part coward it is not a compliment to say it is brave.”
Mark Twain
324
“Courage is the power to let go of the familiar.”
Raymond Lindquist
325
“Destiny is not a matter of chance; but a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for. It is a thing to be achieved.”
William Jennings Bryant
326
“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant.”
Robert Louis Stevenson
327
“Don’t let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use.”
Earl Nightingale
328
“Don’t take life so seriously. It isn’t permanent.”
unattributed
329
“Duty makes us do things well, but love makes us do them beautifully.”
unattributed
330
“Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.”
Benjamin Franklin
331
“Every achiever I have ever met says, ‘My life turned around when I began to believe in me.‘”
Robert Schuller
332
“Every situation, properly perceived, becomes an opportunity.”
Helen Schucman
333
“Failure is an event, never a person.”
William D. Brown
334
“Faith is to believe what you do not yet see; the reward for this faith is to see what you believe.”
Saint Augustine
335
“Fall seven times; stand up eight. ”
Japanese proverb
336
“Forget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you’re going to do now, and do it.”
William Durant, founder of General Motors
337
“From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life.”
Arthur Ashe
338
“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve imagined.”
Henry David Thoreau
339
“Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.”
Samuel Johnson
340
“Have a heart that never hardens, a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.”
Charles Dickens
341
“Have faith in your dreams and someday, your rainbow will come shining through. No matter how your heart is grieving, if you keep believing, the dream that you wish will come true.”
Cinderella
342
“He is well paid that is well satisfied.”
William Shakespeare
343
“He who endures conquers.”
Italian proverb
344
“He who loses money, loses much; he who loses a friend, loses much more; he who loses faith, loses all.”
unattributed
345
“Here is a test to find out whether your mission in life is complete. If you’re alive, it isn’t.”
Richard Bach in Illusions
346
“Hope is the companion of power, and mother of success; for who so hopes strongly has within him the gift of miracles.”
Samuel Smiles
347
-ISMs
Socialism: You have two cows. Give one cow to your neighbor. Now it is his and you have no more say. You receive no compensation for the cow you are forced to relinquish.
Communism: You have two cows. Give both cows to the government. The government may give you some milk if you don’t piss off some bureaucrat.
Fascism: You have two cows. You give all of the milk to the government and the government sells it.
Nazism: You have two cows. The government shoots you and takes the cows.
Capitalism: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.
from Dear Abby
348
The eight rules that George Washington Carver lived by:
1. Be clean both inside and out.
2. Neither look up to the rich nor down to the poor.
3. Lose, if need be, without squealing.
4. Win without bragging.
5. Always be considerate of women, children, and older people.
6. Be too brave to lie.
7. Be too generous to cheat.
8. Take your share of the world and let others take theirs.
349A
“If we can effectively kill the national pride and patriotism of just one generation, we will have won that country. Therefore, there must be continued propaganda abroad to undermine the loyalty of citizens in general, and teenagers in particular. By making drugs of various kinds readily available, by creating the necessary attitude of chaos, idleness, and worthlessness, and by preparing them psychologically and politically, we can succeed.”
Vladimir Lenin
349B
“You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done”.
Ronald W. Reagan
350
“Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.”
Voltaire
351
“Evil is powerless if the good are unafraid.”
Ronald W. Reagan
352
“Leadership is the ability to hide your panic from others.”
Bits & Pieces
353
“We’ve been conditioned to think that only politicians can solve our problems. But at some point, maybe, we will wake up and recognize that it was politicians who created our problems.”
Dr. Ben Carson
354
“Nationalism does nothing but teach you to hate people you never met and take pride in accomplishments you had no part in.”
Doug Stanhope
355
“Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak. It’s also what it takes to sit down and listen.”
Winston Churchill
356
“If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.”
John Kenneth Galbraith
357
“I’m kind of jealous of the life I’m supposedly leading.”
Zach Braff
358
“Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.”
Thomas Jefferson
359
“Chaos in the midst of chaos isn’t funny, but chaos in the midst of order is.”
Steve Martin
360
“First the doctor told me the good new: I was going to have disease named after me.”
Steve Martin
361
“A politician is a man who will double cross that bridge when he comes to it.
Oscar Levant
362
“Of those who say nothing, few are silent.”
Thomas Neill
363
“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
364
“You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you. ”
Eric Hoffer
365
“We are told that talent creates its own opportunities. But it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.”
Eric Hoffer
366
“It is by its promise of a sense of power that evil often attracts the weak.”
Eric Hoffer
367
“If you are truly serious about preparing your child for the future, don’t teach him to subtract — teach him to deduct.”
Fran Lebowitz
368
“The best of men is he who blushes when you praise him and remains silent when you defame him.”
Kahlil Gibran
369
“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in a time of moral crisis, remain neutral.”
Dante Alighieri
370
“Don’t mistake my silence for neutrality. The laying of traps, attaching of fuses, and writing of rejoinders all have results that you will hear soon enough.”
David A. Woodbury
371
“There’s not the least thing can be said or done, but people will talk and find fault.”
Dante Alighieri
372
“The Soviet Union would remain a one-party nation even if an opposition party were permitted-because everyone would join that party.”
Ronald W. Reagan
373
“We were poor when I was young, but the difference then was the government didn’t come around telling you you were poor.”
Ronald W. Reagan
374
“Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be, and he will become as he can and should be.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe or Jimmy Johnson (you decide)
375
“Use what talent you possess: The woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best.”
Henry Van Dyke
376
“I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe.”
Thomas Jefferson
377
“I’ve learned that I like my teacher because she cries when we sing ‘Silent Night.’”
anonymous child, age 7
378
“In love the paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two.”
Erich Fromm
379
“When you travel the road of life, you know you’re bound to leave some skin on the pavement. ”
Bill Engvall
380
“There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men.”
Edmund Burke
381
“I am here on earth to do good for others. What the others are here for, I don’t know.”
W. H. Auden (paraphrased)
382
“No matter how rich you become, how famous or powerful, when you die the size of your funeral will still pretty much depend on the weather.”
Michael Pritchard
383
“Quit worrying about your health. It’ll go away.”
Robert Orben
384
“The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for 30 years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal was never found.”
Calvin Trillin
385
“Everybody behaves in ways that make sense to them.”
Sue Butts
386
“Cry me a river, build me a bridge, and get over it.”
Meagan Johnson (dot com)
387
“After the piano, my favorite instrument is a rifle.”
Puccini
388
“It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.”
Voltaire
389
“Always, always do the right thing for the right reason at the right time with the right people, and you will have no regrets for the rest of your life.”
the Seven R’s of Allan McDonald, engineer under contract to NASA, who would not approve the 1986 launch of the Challenger space shuttle and was overruled
390
“’Emergencies’ have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded.“
Friedrich August von Hayek
391
“We must face the fact that the preservation of individual freedom is incompatible with a full satisfaction of our views of distributive justice.”
Friedrich August von Hayek
392
“It seems to me that socialists today can preserve their position in academic economics merely by the pretense that the differences are entirely moral questions about which science cannot decide.”
Friedrich August von Hayek
393
“The greatest advances of civilization, whether in architecture or painting, in science and literature, in industry or agriculture, have never come from centralized government.“
Milton Friedman
394
“When government – in pursuit of good intentions – tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the costs come in inefficiency, lack of motivation, and loss of freedom. Government should be a referee, not an active player.”
Milton Friedman
395
“The world is vast, beautiful, and fascinating, even awe-inspiring – but impersonal. It demands nothing of me, and allows me to demand nothing of it”
Herbert A. Simon
396
“Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.“
Milton Friedman
397
“The power to do good is also the power to do harm.”
Milton Friedman
398
“I am favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it’s possible.”
Milton Friedman
399
“Inflation is the one form of taxation that can be imposed without legislation.“
Milton Friedman
400
“Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned.”
Milton Friedman
Want to suggest a quotation?
Albert Jay Nock 