I've collected the following quotes from many sources, and I hope that any misquotations will be forgiven. If you find any errors, or have any quotes (or links!) that you think I might enjoy, please don't hesitate to send them to me. (E-mail)
Other Quotation links:
Sometimes it is a great joy just to listen to someone we love talking.
- Vincent McNabb
We come to love not by finding a perfect person
but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.
- Sam Keen
The only man who is really free is the one
who can turn down an invitation to dinner without giving an excuse.
- Jules Renard
When you part from your friend, you grieve not; For that which you love
most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber
is clearer from the plain.
- Gibran (The Prophet)
The meeting of two personalities is like the meeting of two molecules.
If there is any reaction, both are transformed.
- Jung
No love, no friendship can cross the path of our destiny without leaving some
mark on it forever.
- Francois Mauriac
True friendship is like sound health, the value of it is seldom known
until it is lost.
- Charles Caleb Colten
What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.
- Aristotle, quoted by Diogenes Laertius in Lives of the Philosophers
This communicating of a man's self to his friend works two contrary
effects, for it redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in half.
- Francis Bacon, Essays
A faithful friend is the medicine of life.
- Unknown (Many have reported that this is from the Bible, Ecclesiastes 6:16.
However, that citation is incorrect. I would be grateful to know where
this quote actually comes from.)
When the sun shines on you, you see your friends. Friends are the
thermometers by which one may judge the temperature of our fortunes.
- Marguerite Blessington, Commonplace Book
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, diary entry ( The Diary of Anais Nin )
In prosperity our friends know us; in adversity we know our friends.
- Churton Collins, Aphorisms
Friendship is love with understanding.
- Ancient Proverb
The best mirror is an old friend.
- George Herbert
There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know
till he takes up a pen to write.
- William Makepeace Thackeray, novelist (1811-1863)
The most successful people are those who are wildly enthusiastic about their
work.
- Nick Corcodilos (headhunter)
We must not give only what we have;
we must give what we are.
- Cardinal Mercia
There is no virtue in doing well
that which does not need to be done in the first place.
- Bill Onken
If architects built buildings the way programmers write programs,
the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization.
- Unknown
A coincidence is God being anonymous.
- Unknown
The key is not to prioritize your schedule but to schedule your priorities.
- Stephen Covey
Forget past mistakes. Forget failures.
Forget everything except what you're going to do now and do it.
- William Durant, founder of General Motors
The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present.
The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise to
the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act
anew...and then we shall save our country.
- Abraham Lincoln, in his second annual message to Congress, Dec 1, 1862
It's practically impossible to look at a penguin and feel angry.
- Joe Moore
The only real voyage of discovery consists
not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.
-Marcel Proust
He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.
-Marcus Aurelius
It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.
- Decouvertes
Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.
- Helen Keller
...if you'd asked me in 1980 what the big impact of microprocessors
would be, I probably would have missed the PC. If you asked me in
1990 what was important, I probably would have missed the Internet.
- Gordon Moore (cofounder of Intel) in EE Times, June 4, 2001, page 22
To achieve greatness: Start where you are, use what you have,
do what you can.
- Arthur Ashe
Success is the ability to go from failure to failure
without losing your enthusiasm.
- Winston Churchill
We must not cease from exploration, and the end of all exploring will be to
arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time.
- T.S. Eliot
If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away.
- Henry David Thoreau
Man's mind stretched to a new idea
never goes back to its original dimensions.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
The liar's punishment is not in the least that he is not believed,
but that he cannot believe anyone else.
- George Bernard Shaw
It is with logic that one proves; it is with intuition that one invents.
- Henri Poincare
That which shrinks must first expand.
- Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching
...divide each difficulty at hand into as many pieces as possible
and as could be required to better solve them.
- Rene Descartes, Discourse on the Method
Man lives between the infinitely large and the infinitely small.
- Blaise Pascal, Thoughts
The less I behave like Whistler's mother the night before,
the more I look like her the morning after.
- Tallulah Bankhead
You must be the change you wish to see in the world.
- Gandhi
A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.
- Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching
If we have a correct theory but merely prate about it, pigeonhole it
and do not put it into practice, then that theory, however good,
is of no significance.
- Mao
It's kind of fun to do the impossible.
- Walt Disney
If Microsoft is the answer,
could we please have the problem back?
- Landon Bradshaw
To love, for us men, is to clasp one woman with our arms, feeling that she
lives and breathes just as we do, suffers as we do, thinks with us, loves
with us, and, above all, sins with us.
- Baroness Orczy (1865-1947), Hungarian-born British novelist, playwright,
Sir Percy Blakeney, in I Will Repay, ch. 7 (1906)
To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god.
- Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), Argentinian author,
Other Inquisitions, "The Meeting in a Dream" (1952)
I have one piece of advice for you - not just for success in
this [the publishing] business, but personally. Begin at once - not today, or
tomorrow, or at some remote indefinite date, but right now, at this precise
moment - to choose some subject, some concept, some great idea, or name, or
event in history on which you can eventually make yourself the world's supreme
expert. Start a crash program immediately to qualify yourself for this
self-assignment through reading, research, and reflection ... I do not mean
the sort of expert who avoids all the small errors as he sweeps on to the
grand fallacy. I mean one who has the most knowledge, the deepest insight,
and the most audacious willingness to break new ground.
- Max Schuster (of Simon and Schuster fame)
quoted in "The Independent Scholars Handbook" by Ronald Gross
All men can see the tactics whereby I conquer,
but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.
- Sun Tzu, On the Art of War,
(The oldest military treatise in the world)
Translated from the Chinese,
By Lionel Giles, M.A. (1910),
chapter 6, verse 27
Women and cats will do as they please,
and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea.
- Robert A. Heinlein
Those who will not reason, are bigots,
those who cannot, are fools, and
those who dare not, are slaves.
- George Gordon Noel Byron (1788-1824) [Lord Byron]
Superior minds discuss ideas.
Average minds discuss events.
Small minds discuss people.
- Adm. Hyman Rickover
Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older
you get the more you need the people you knew when you were young.
- From "Everybody's Free to Wear Sunscreen," recorded by Baz Luhrmann
If I were a medical man, I should prescribe a holiday to any patient who
considered his work important.
- Russell, Bertrand (1872-1970)
The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell
If you have knowledge, let others light their candles with it.
- Winston Churchill
What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.
- Ludwig Wittgenstein
No la chifles que es cantada.
(Don't whistle what should be sung.)
- from Folk Wisdom of Mexico, by Jeff M. Sellers
(cited on Charles Poynton's home page)
Be willing to change everything, except your principles.
- Chris Galvin
If the only tool you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail.
- Unknown
Father Order runs at a good pace,
but old Mother Chaos is winning the race.
- Unknown
If you think the Universe is big, you should see the source code...
-Frank & Ernest
A common mistake people make when trying to design something completely
foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
- Douglas Adams
I promise to keep on living as though I expected to live forever.
Nobody grows old merely living a number of years.
People grow older only by deserting their ideals.
Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul.
- Douglas MacArthur
Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice;
it is not a thing to be waiting for, it is a thing to be achieved.
- William Jennings Bryan
Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.
- John F. Kennedy
Take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly, and try another.
But by all means, try something.
-Franklin D. Roosevelt
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.
- Aristotle
Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent.
- Napoleon Bonaparte
He who asks is a fool for five minutes,
but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.
- Chinese Proverb
Success is not final, failure is not fatal:
It is the courage to continue that counts.
- Winston Churchill
Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour.
Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute.
That's relativity.
- Albert Einstein
Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.
- General George S. Patton
The only easy day was yesterday.
- Navy Seals
Carpe Diem (Seize the Day).
- Horace
In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It goes on.
- Robert Frost
I saw the angel in the marble, and carved until I set him free.
- Michelangelo
Come to the edge, he said. We are afraid, they said.
Come to the edge, he said. They came, he pushed, and they flew.
- Unknown
Heaven goes by favor.
If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.
- Mark Twain
All's fair in love and war.
- Francis Edward Smedly
'Tis better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.
- Lord Alfred Tennyson
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 harbour.
Catch the trade winds in your sail. Explore. Dream. Discover.
- Mark Twain
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.
-Shakespeare (Hamlet)
We rest here while we can, but we hear the ocean calling in our dreams,
And we know that by the morning,
the wind will fill our sails to test the seams,
The calm is on the water and part of us would linger by the shore,
For ships are safe in harbor, but that's not what ships are for.
-Michael Lille
Talent often travels under the guise of hard work and determination.
- Mac Proffitt
Dance like no one is watching,
Love like you've never been hurt,
Sing like no one is listening,
Live like it's heaven on earth.
- William Purkey (Thanks to Cindi Lashinsky)
Oh sweet mystery of life, at last I've found thee.
- from the movie "Young Frankenstein"
When sorrows come, they come not in single spies,
but in battalions.
- Shakespeare
Hitch your wagon to a star.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
We learn from history that we learn nothing from history.
- George Bernard Shaw
Only the paranoid survive.
- Andy Grove, Intel
The only pain that can be borne with equanimity is the pain of others.
- Unknown
To err is human, to forgive divine.
- Alexander Pope
What reason weaves, by passion is undone.
- Alexander Pope
It is good to follow one's own bent, so long as it leads upward.
- André Gide
In a land full of blind men, the man with one eye is king.
- Unknown (Loosely translated from the Spanish)
Damaged minds travel in the same ruts.
- artist Art Spiegelman
Happiness is good health and a bad memory.
- Ingrid Bergman
To me old age is always fifteen years older than I am.
- Bernard Baruch, quoted in Newsweek (on his 85th birthday)
Age is strictly a case of mind over matter. If you don't mind,
it doesn't matter.
- Jack Benny, quoted in New York Times
If youth knew; if age could.
- Henri Estienne, Les Premices
Texas is not a state -
it's a state of mind.
- John Steinbeck
Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the
grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor
knowledge nor wisdom.
- Ecclesiastes 9:10
I'm not afraid of dying -- I just don't want to be there when it happens.
- Woody Allen
Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.
- John Lennon's song "Beautiful Boy"
It is not the language but the speaker that we want to understand.
- Upanishads
Suppose they gave a war, and no one came?
- Leslie Parrish-Bach
We must free ourselves of the hope that the sea will ever rest.
We must learn to sail in high winds.
- Hanmer Parsons Grant, an old philosopher, in a story by Leif Smith
Abuse is the very hallmark of liberty.
- Lord Hailsham
Too long a sacrifice
can make a stone of the heart.
O. When may it suffice?
- W. B. Yeats (Easter 1916)
Only the insane have strength enough to survive...
Only the survivors determine what is sane.
- Unknown
The best intelligence test is what we do with our leisure.
- Dr. Laurence J. Peter
To each man is reserved a work which he alone can do.
- Susan Blow
It is said that only a fool learns from his own mistakes, a wise man from the
mistakes of others.
- Unknown
Someone said that inflation is like jumping off the top of the Empire State
Buiding. The sensation is great as long as you keep on going.
- David H. Scott, Sport Aviation, Vol 32(2), page 91
Some people will never learn anything, for this reason, because they understand
everything too soon.
- Alexander Pope
The gods send thread for the web begun.
- from ancient Greece (Thanks to Leif Smith)
Let nothing come between you and the light.
- Henry David Thoreau
... as Geography without History seemeth a carkasse without motion; so History
without Geography wandereth as a Vagrant without a certain habitation.
- John Smith, Generale Historie of Virginia, book V, page V of
The Zondevan, Pictorial Bible Atlas
...humor is an experience of being liberated from our inhibitions.
- The Laugh Makers, page 25, Psychology Today, August 1983
Exploration of the full range of one's own potentialities is not something that
the self-renewing person leaves to the chances of life. It is something that
we must pursue systematically, or at least avidly, to the end of our days. We
must look forward to an endless and unpredictable dialogue between our
potentialities and the claims of life - not only the claims we encounter, but
the claims we invent.
- John Gardner (quoted in "The Independent Scholars Handbook"
by Ronald Gross 1983, page 125-126.)
Be both the gardener and the rose.
- Unknown
If you aren't in over your head, how do you know how tall you are?
- Unknown
You can always draw as well as you know how to.
I flatter myself that I feel more than I express on canvas;
but I know that is not so.
- William Morris Hunt (1824-1879)
The man loves danger and sport.
That is why he loves woman,
the most dangerous of all sports.
- Nietzsche
Any idiot can face a crisis: It is this day-to-day living that wears
you out.
- Anton Chekhov
Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast,
To soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.
- William Congreve. 1670-1729
Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned,
Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.
- William Congreve. 1670-1729
A wise man admits his weaknesses. I'd admit mine if I had any.
- Unknown
The fox has many tricks.
The hedgehog has but one,
But that is the best of all.
- Erasmus
He is no fool
who gives what he cannot keep,
to gain what he can never lose.
- Jim Elliot, Missionary (1927-1956)
(Thanks to "The Campbells" for attribution)
Anyone can be great with money. With money, greatness is not a talent
but an obligation. The trick is to be great without money.
- Unknown
We dance round in a ring and suppose,
but the secret sits in the middle and knows.
- Robert Frost
Live long and prosper.
- Spock
Sex is the most fun you can have without laughing.
- Woody Allen
I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.
- Edgar Allen Poe
If you're on thin ice, you might as well dance.
- ASME Button-of-the-Month 1st Place
Remember: try to laugh at yourself once in a while. Everybody else does.
- Unknown
He who knows the darkness shall learn to live in the light.
- Unknown
The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.
- Albert Einstein
One must think like a hero to behave like a merely decent human being.
- May Sarton
And the fever called 'Living'
Is conquered at last.
- "For Annie," Poe
Les absents ont toujours tort.
(Those not present are always wrong.)
- L'Obstacle Imprevu, Philippe Destouche
Useless laws weaken the necesary laws.
- Montesquieu
If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind
whom should we serve?
- Letter to John Thaxter, Abigail Adams
Talent is a flame. Genius is a fire.
- Bern Williams
Fear is the darkroom where negatives are developed.
- E.L. in The AA Grapevine
Adventure is worthwhile.
- Amelia Earhart
C'est la vie.
- Unknown (French proverb?)
When you aim for perfection, you discover it's a moving target.
- George Fisher
Death is a debt to nature due
Which I have paid
And so must you.
- epitaph
You can't run from trouble, there ain't no place that far.
- Splash Mountain (Disneyland) sign
If the table moves, move with it.
- Sakaue
Cheerio, see you soon.
- epitaph
All for one, and one for all.
- The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas
You, betrayed by time and space,
Seek and find your proper place.
- Her Majesty's Wizard, Christoper Stasheff
Rien n'est parfait.
(Nothing's perfect.)
- Le Petit Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery
He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them
is either extremely wise or extremely foolish;
no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife
in the heart of wonder.
- Tad Williams
Bhojujik mo qunquc.
(If the bears don't get you, it's home.)
- Tad Williams
Ko muhohok na mik aqa nop.
(When it falls on your head, then you are knowing it is a rock.)
- Tad Williams
Mikmok hanno so gijiq.
(If you wish to carry a hungry weasel in your pocket, it is your choice.)
- Tad Williams
Inij koku na siqqa sa min taq.
(When we meet again, that will be a good day.)
- Tad Williams
When your teeth are gone, learn to like mush.
- Tad Williams
A well-aimed spear is worth three.
- Tad Williams
He who has imagination without learning has wings but no feet.
- Unknown
If all of our wishes were gratified, many of our dreams would
be destroyed.
- Unknown
Pray for what you want, but work for what you need.
- Unknown
Let the spirit of adventure set the tone.
- Unknown
To profit from good advice requires more wisdom than to give it.
- Unknown
Good sense is the master of human life.
- Unknown
He who does not say too much has too much to say.
- Unknown
He who denies all, confesses all.
- Unknown
Why Worry?
There are only two things to worry about:
Either you are well or you are sick.
If you are well, there's nothing to worry about.
But if you are sick,
There are only two things to worry about:
Either you get well, or you die.
If you get well, there's nothing to worry about.
But if you die, there are only two things to worry about:
Either you will go to heaven or hell.
If you go to heaven, there's nothing to worry about.
But if you go to hell
You'll be so busy shaking hands with friends
You won't have time to worry.
- Unknown
By trying we can easily learn to endure adversity. Another man's, I mean.
- Mark Twain
O Lord, if there is a Lord, save my soul, if I have a soul.
- Joseph Ernst Renan
One day I sat thinking, almost in despair; a hand fell on my shoulder and a
voice said reassuringly: 'Cheer up, things could get
worse.' So I cheered up and, sure enough, things got worse.
- James Hagerty
Oh! The good times when we were so unhappy.
- Alexandre Dumas
When I hear somebody sigh that, 'Life is hard,' I am always tempted to ask,
'Compared to what?'
- Sydney J. Harris
Square meals often make round people.
- E. Joseph Cossman
Everything is changing. People are taking the comedians seriously and the
politicians as a joke.
- Will Rogers
A skeptic is a person who, when he sees the handwriting on the wall, claims it
is a forgery.
- Morris Bender
Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel across
the country from coast to coast without seeing anything.
- Charles Kuralt
The reward for work well done is the opportunity to do more.
- Jonas Salk, M.D.
The surest way to be late is to have plenty of time.
- Leo Kennedy
The shortest distance between two points is under construction.
- Noelie Alito
Any child can tell you that the sole purpose of a middle name is so he can
tell when he's really in trouble.
- Dennis Frakes
I may not be better than other people, but at least I'm different.
- French philosopher Rousseau
For peace of mind, resign as general manager of the universe.
- Larry Eisenberg
People who snore always fall asleep first.
- Bits & Pieces
A painting in a museum probably hears more foolish remarks than anything
else in the world.
- Edmond and Jules Goncourt
I'm not a kernel hacker, I'm a kernel hacker's mate. And I'm only hacking
kernels, 'Cos the kernel hacker's late.
- Unknown
Two related quotes that are attributed differently:
If it's a good idea . . . go ahead and do it.
It is much easier to apologize than it is to get permission.
- Grace M. Hopper (Thanks to Maura Jekel)
It's always easier to ask forgiveness than permission.
- US Marine Proverb (Thanks to Cindi Lashinsky)
You can always tell who the pioneers are because they have arrows in their
back and are lying face down in the dirt.
- Unknown
Sir Walter, with his 61 years of life, although he never wrote a novel
until he was over 40, had, fortunately for the world, a longer working
career than most of his brethren.
- Arthur Conan Doyle
If you want an open society, you have to put up with the chaos.
- J. Bowyer Bell, Newsweek, 12/26/77
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends
upon his not understanding it.
- Upton Sinclair
Tiresias to Oedipus: How dreadful knowledge of the truth can be when there's
no help in the truth.
- Sophocles
If you will discipline yourself to make your mind self-sufficient you will
thereby be least vulnerable to injury from the outside.
- Critias of Athens (Presocratic, 2)
Alas, I am dying beyond my means.
- Oscar Wilde, as he sipped champagne on his deathbed
The blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold and it's
overturned the order of the soul...
- Leonard Cohen
Simplify, simplify, simplify.
- Henry David Thoreau
If now we pass from such actions as these [inanimate objects] to
those of living things, we notice a striking difference. Romeo wants
Juliet as the [iron] filings want the magnet; and if no obstacles
intervene he moves towards her by as straight a line as they. But
Romeo and Juliet, if a wall be built between them, do not remain
idiotically pressing their faces against its opposite sides like the
magnet and the filings with the card. Romeo soon finds a circuitous
way, by scaling the wall or otherwise, of touching Juliet's lips
directly. With the filings the path is fixed; whether it reaches the
end depends on accidents. With the lover it is the end which is
fixed, the path may be modified indefinitely...
- William James, 1890
Thou didst, in strains of eloquence refin'd,
Inflame the soul, and captivate the mind.
- Phyllis Wheatley, 1770
... she knew in her heart that to be without optimism, that core of
reasonless hope in the spirit rather than the brain, was a fatal flaw,
the seed of death.
- Anne Perry (Callander Square)
Sometimes a man hits upon a place to which he mysteriously feels that he
belongs.
- W. Somerset Maugham
You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the
basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity.
At some time, every creature which lives must do so. It is the
ultimate shadow, the defeat of creation; this is the curse at work,
the curse that feeds all life. Everywhere in the universe.
- Mercer, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" by Philip K. Dick
You know how people are about not taking care of an animal; they
consider it immoral and antiempathic. I mean, technically it's not a
crime like it was right after WWT but the feeling's still there...
- Bill Boarbour, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" by Philip K. Dick
The trouble with being educated is that it takes a long time; it uses
up the better part of your life and when you are finished what you
know is that you would have benefited more by going into banking.
- Philip K. Dick "The Transmigration of Timothy Archer"
Weinberg's First Law:
Progress is made on alternate Fridays.
- Weinberg
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the
arena -- whose face is marred by dust and sweat and
blood... who knows the great enthusiasms, the great
devotions -- and spends himself in a worthy cause --
who at best if he wins knows the thrills of high
achievement -- and 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.
- Theodore Roosevelt,
"Citizenship in a Republic" in
History as Literature, And Other Essays
by Theodore Roosevelt,
Charles Scribners Sons, New York,
1913, page 143 (Thanks to Danny Beetsma for the attribution).
He who attacks must vanquish. He who defends must merely survive.
- Master Kahn (from Kung Fu)
All words are part true and part false.
- Master Kahn (from Kung Fu)
What doesn't kill us makes us stronger.
- Mark Twain (Thanks for attribution to Greg Humenik who writes:
"Hal Holbrook used to use this one in his famous 'Mark Twain tonite'
impersonation. I've read authors who attributed this to Twain also.")
It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak up
and remove all doubt.
- has been attributed to Horace, Mark Twain, Lincoln, and a Chinese proverb.
If you know the correct attribution, please let me know!
(Thanks to Greg Humenik and Bill Miller for attributions.)
Thinkers think and doers do. But until the thinkers do and the doers
think, progress will be just another word in the already overburdened
vocabulary of the talkers who talk.
- Unknown
Whatever you do, make it fun.
- Unknown
If you love something, turn it loose. If it comes back to you, it
is yours. If it doesn't return, then it was never yours in the
first place. (Not the exact quote.)
- from a poem by Robert Louis Stevenson (Thanks to Lee Reynolds)
Don't be just another member of society, be a living example of your dreams and
goals.
- Unknown
Ideas won't keep: Something must be done about them.
- Alfred North Whitehead
My interest is in the future because I am going to spend the rest of my life
there.
- Charles F. Kettering
The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.
- Walter Bagehot
Do not wish to be anything but what you are, and try to be that perfectly.
- Unknown
To dream of the person you would like to be is to waste the person you are.
- Unknown
We must use time as a tool; not as a couch.
- John F. Kennedy
Nature thrives on patience; man on impatience.
- Paul Boese
A good heart is better than all the heads in the world.
- Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Luck is being ready for the chance.
- J. Frank Dobie
The greatest truths are the simplest, and so are the greatest men.
- J.C. and A.W. Hare
Go often to the house of thy friend; for weeds soon choke up
the unused path.
- Unknown
The secret of success in life is for the man to be ready for his opportunity
when it comes.
- Lord Chesterfield
Courage is the art of being the only one who knows you're scared to death.
- Earl Wilson
You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
- Eleanor Roosevelt
How can we expect someone else to keep our secret if we have not been able to
keep it ourselves?
- Francois Duc De La Roche Foucould
Doubt whom you will, but never yourself.
- Christine Bovie
In this world, man must either be anvil or hammer.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
If this were a logical world, men would ride sidesaddle.
- Rita Mae Brown
TV - chewing gum for the eyes.
- Frank Lloyd Wright
It ain't over till it's over.
- Yogi Berra
Life is a journey, not a destination.
- Unknown
How far is far, how high is high? We'll never know until we try.
- From the California Special Olympics Song
If it weren't for the last minute, nothing would get done.
- Unknown
Don't worry about growing older or pleasing others. Please yourself.
- David Brown
Be true to your teeth and they won't be false to you.
- Soupy Sales
You can't wait for the phone to ring. You have to ring them.
- Lord Lew Grade.
Don't let other people tell you what you want.
- Pat Riley
There is no way to know before experiencing.
- Dr. Robert Anthony
The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.
- Dolly Parton
The difference between life and the movies is that a script has to make sense,
and life doesn't.
- Joseph L. Mankiewicz
The one thing that doesn't abide by majority is a person's conscience.
- Harper Lee
Who we are never changes. Who we think we are does.
- Mary's Almanac
You can't expect to hit the jackpot if you don't put a few nickels in the
machine.
- Flip Wilson
A teacher affects eternity; no one can tell where his influence stops.
- Henry Adams
There is nothing wrong with making mistakes. Just don't respond
with errors.
- Anonymous.
Riches enlarge, rather than satisfy appetites.
- Thomas Fuller
It's taken me all my life to understand that it is not necessary to
understand everything.
- Rene Coty
Fashions fade - style is eternal.
- Yves Saint Laurent
The really great man is the man who makes every man feel great.
- G.K. Chesterton
A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave
five minutes longer.
- R.W. Emerson
He that lives upon hope will die fasting.
- Benjamin Franklin
Love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking together in the
same direction.
- Antoine De Saint-Exupery
Procrastination is the thief of time.
- Edward Young
Life is all memory, except for the one present moment that goes by you
so quick you hardly catch it going.
- Tennessee Williams
Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.
- Joseph Addison
Whoever wishes to keep a secret must hide the fact that he possesses one.
- Johann Wolfgang van Goethe
That which thy fathers have bequeathed to thee,
earn it anew if thou wouldst possess it.
- Goethe: Faust
The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.
- Blaise Pascal
She didn't know it couldn't be done, so she went ahead and did it.
- Mary's Almanac
You don't get to choose how you're going to die or when. You can only decide
how you are going to live. Now.
- Joan Baez
Things could be worse. Suppose your errors were counted and published every
day, like those of a baseball player.
- Anonymous
Minds are like parachutes. They only function when open.
- Anonymous
God's plan made a hopeful beginning
But man spoiled his chances by sinning.
We trust that the story
Will end in God's glory
But, at present, the other side's winning.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
Observation always involves theory.
- Edwin Hubble
La théorie des probabilités n'est autre que le sens commun fait calcul.
(Probability theory is nothing but common sense reduced to calculation.)
- Pierre-Simon de Laplace 1819
Verum ipsum factum (Understanding arises through making).
- Giambattista Vico, Italian philosopher (1668-1744)
Occam's Razor: Pluralitas non est ponenda sine necessitas.
(Plurality should not be posited without necessity.)
- William of Ockham (also spelled Occam)
UNIX is a user-friendly operating system.
It just picks its friends more carefully than others.
- David Wolfe
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really
good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they actually change
their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really
do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are
human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I
cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or
religion.
- Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP keynote address
Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything
he learned in school.
- Albert Einstein
The aim of science is not to open a door to endless wisdom,
but to put a limit to endless error.
- Bertolt Brecht in "The Life of Galileo"
Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by hitting back.
- Piet Hein
Brady's First Law of Problem Solving:
When confronted by a difficult problem, you can solve it more
easily by reducing it to the question: How would the Lone
Ranger have handled this?
- Brady
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely
rearranging their prejudices.
- William James
The sciences do not try to explain, they hardly even try to interpret, they
mainly make models. By a model is meant a mathematical construct which, with
the addition of certain verbal interpretations describes observed phenomena.
The justification of such a mathematical construct is solely and precisely that
it is expected to work.
- John von Neumann
... I believe the best test of a model is how well can the modeler answer the
questions 'What do you know now that you did not know before?' and 'How can you
find out if it is true?'
- Prof. Jim Bower, CalTech.
Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion.
- Francis Bacon
The difference between a professional person and a technician is that a
technician knows everthing about his job except its ultimate purpose and his
place in the scheme of things.
- Richard Livingston
Even if I could be Shakespeare, I think I should still choose
to be Faraday.
- Aldous Huxley (1925)
If anybody says he can think about quantum physics without getting giddy, that
only shows he has not understood the first thing about them.
- Niels Bohr
It was absolutely marvelous working for Wolfgang Pauli. You could
ask him anything. There was no worry that he would think
a particular question was stupid, since he thought all questions
were stupid.
- Victor Weisskopf
If I could remember the names of all these particles, I'd be a botanist.
- Enrico Fermi
The energy produced by the breaking down of the atom is a very poor kind of
thing. Anyone who expects a source of power from
the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine.
- Ernest Rutherford, retold in Physics Today
A theory is the more impressive the greater is the simplicity of its premises,
the more different are the kinds of things it relates and the more extended the
range of its applicability.
- Albert Einstein
Politeness is the slow poison of collaboration.
- adapted from Edwin Land
Every revolutionary idea ... seems to evoke three stages of reaction. They may
be summed up by the phrases: (1) It's completely impossible. (2) It's
possible, but it's not worth doing. (3) I said it was a good idea all
along.
- Arthur C. Clarke (quoted p.20 Science Digest, March 1983)
An hour spent in the library is worth a month in the laboratory.
- Unknown
Scientific research consists in seeing what everyone else has seen, but
thinking what no one else has thought.
- Unknown
To see what is general in what is particular and what is permanent in what is
transitory is the aim of scientific thought.
- Whitehead, The world of Mathematics, page 1537
The Theory of Groups is a branch of mathematics in which one does something to
something and then compares the result with the result obtained from doing the
same thing to something else, or something else to the same thing.
- James R. Newman, The world of Mathematics, page 1534
The exact sciences also start from the assumption that in the end it will
always be possible to understand nature, even in every new field of experience,
but that we may make no a priori assumptions about the meaning of the word
"understand".
- Heisenberg, In The Quantum Theory, by David Park, page xvii
Gaze steadfastly at things which, though far away, are yet present to the
mind.
- Parmenides (Presocratic, 3)
Anything that ever was must always have been and will always be.
- Melissus (Presocratic, 1)
What is right may properly be uttered even twice.
- Empedocles (Presocratic, 5)
Appearances are a glimpse of the unseen.
- Anaxagoras (Presocratic, 2)
I would rather discover one cause than possess the kingdom of Persia.
- Democritus (Presocratic, 11)
There are intelligible principles inherent in the matter of every phenomenon;
because matter is essentially the sum of all the seemings that it has for any
and all persons.
- Protagoras (Presocratic, 3)
Being is unrecognizable unless it manages to seem, and seeming is feeble unless
it manages to be.
- Gorgias (Presocratic, 5)
Men who neglect philosophy while busying themselves with ordinary affairs are
like the Suitors [in the Odyssey] who desired Penelope but went to bed with her
maids.
- Gorgias (Presocratic, 11)
The more abstract the truth you want to teach, the more thoroughly you must
seduce the senses to accept it.
- Nietzsche
It is not the truth that a man possesses, or believes that he possesses, but
the earnest effort which he puts forward to reach the truth, which constitutes
the worth of a man. For it is not by the possession, but the search after
truth that he enlarges his power, wherein alone consists his ever-increasing
perfection.
- Gotthold Lessing
I have little patience with scientists who take a board of wood, look for its
thinnest part, and drill a great number of holes where drilling is easy.
- Einstein
What is now proved was once only imagined.
- William Blake
Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believed.
- William Blake
The hidden harmony is better than the obvious.
- Heraclitus (Presocratic, 116)
Good tests kill flawed theories; we remain alive to guess again.
- Karl Popper (Thanks to Leif Smith)
Hamming's Motto: The purpose of computing is insight, not numbers.
- Hamming
For a heart to be perfectly ready it has to be perfectly empty.
In this condition it has attained its maximum capacity.
-Meister Eckhart
I maintain that all sorrow comes from love of those things of which loss
deprives me.
-Meister Eckhart
A life of rest and peace in God is good;
a life of pain lived in patience is still better;
but to have peace in a life of pain is best of all.
-Meister Eckhart
The physical food we take is changed into us,
but the spiritual food we receive changes us into itself.
-Meister Eckhart
Where intuition finds, love follows, and memory and all the soul as well.
-Meister Eckhart
No man was ever lost except for one reason: having once left his ground
he has let himself become too permanently settled abroad.
-Meister Eckhart
There exists only the present instant . . . a Now which always and
without end is itself new. . . . There is no yesterday nor any
tomorrow, but only Now, as it was a thousand years ago and as it
will be a thousand years hence.
- Meister Eckhart
Eckhart saw Hell too. He said: The only thing that burns in Hell is the
part of you that won't let go of life, your memories, your attachments.
They burn them all away. But they're not punishing you, he said. They're
freeing your soul. So, if you're frightened of dying and you're holding
on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your
peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the earth.
- Louie to Jacob, in the movie "Jacob's Ladder"
[Meister Ekhart was a twelfth century German mystic who wrote prolifically about religious issues. I've looked for this particular quote among his writings, but haven't found it yet. If anyone knows where the above quote might have come from, please e-mail me and let me know. Thanks.]
The position of First Lady has no rules, just precedent, so its
evolution has been at a virtual standstill for years. If Martha
Washington didn't do it, then no one is sure it should be done.
- Paula Poundstone
If I were going to convert to any religion I would probably choose
Catholicism because it at least has female saints and the Virgin
Mary.
- Margaret Atwood
I have yet to hear a man ask for advice on how to combine marriage
and a career.
- Gloria Steinem
...The male function is to produce sperm. We now have sperm banks.
- Valerie Solanis
I never married because there was no need. I have three pets at
home which answer the same purpose as a husband. I have a dog
which growls every morning, a parrot which swears all afternoon and
a cat that comes home late at night.
- Marie Corelli
Nagging is the repetition of unpalatable truths.
- Baroness Edith Summerskill
If men can run the world, why can't they stop wearing neckties?
How intelligent is it to start the day by tying a little noose around
your neck?
- Linda Ellerbee
I am a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man I keep his
house.
- Zsa Zsa Gabor
People call me feminist whenever I express sentiments that
differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.
- Rebecca West
Never trust a dog to watch your food.
- Patrick, age 10
When your dad is mad and asks you, 'Do I look stupid?' don't answer.
- Hannah, 9
Never tell your mom her diet's not working.
- Michael, 14
Stay away from prunes.
- Randy, 9
Don't pull dad's finger when he tells you to.
- Emily, 10
When your mom is mad at your dad, don't let her brush your hair.
- Taylia,11
Never allow your three-year old brother in the same room
as your school assignment.
- Traci, 14
Don't sneeze in front of mum when you're eating crackers.
- Mitchell,12
Puppies still have bad breath even after eating a Tic-Tac.
- Andrew, 9
Never hold a dust buster and a cat at the same time.
- Kyoyo, 9
You can't hide a piece of broccoli in a glass of milk.
- Armir, 9
Don't wear polka-dot underwear under white shorts.
- Kellie, 11
If you want a kitten, start out by asking for a horse.
- Naomi, 15
Felt markers are not good to use as lipstick.
- Lauren, 9
Don't pick on your sister when she's holding a baseball bat.
- Joel,10
When you get a bad grade in school, show it to your mom when
she's on the phone.
- Alyesha, 13