Most of these quotes are serious, others are humorous. Some I agree with, some I disagree with.
Abstinence:
"A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others." - Ambrose Bierce
Accusations:
And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, "He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons." And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, "How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come." - Mark 3:22-26, New Revised Standard
Action:
"Even a child is known by his actions, by whether his conduct is pure and right." - Proverbs 20:11
"All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty." - Proverbs 14:23
"For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit; for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thorns, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good man out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil man out of his evil treasure produces evil; for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. Why do you call me `Lord, Lord,' and not do what I tell you? Every one who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep, and laid the foundation upon rock; and when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house, and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But he who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation; against which the stream broke, and immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great." - Luke 6:46-49, Revised Standard Version
And he was told, "Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, desiring to see you." But he said to them, "My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it." - Luke 8:21
"The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it." - Emerson, Essays : New England Reformers
"We know what a person thinks not when he tells us what he thinks, but by his actions." - Isaac Bashevis Singer
"The world is divided into people who do things and people who get the credit. Try, if you can, to belong to the first group. There's far less competition." - Dwight Morrow
"The superiority of virtues and talents has not, even upon those who acknowledge that superiority, the same effect with the superiority of achievements." - Adam Smith
"When hopes and dreams are loose in the streets, it is well for the timid to lock doors, shutter windows and lie low until the wrath has passed. For there is often a monstrous incongruity between the hopes, however noble and tender, and the action which follows them." - Eric Hoffer, The True Believer
"'Tis well said again, / And 'tis a kind of good deed to say well, / And yet words are no deeds." - Shakespeare, King Henry VIII, act 3, scene 2
"We are always getting ready to live, but never living." - Emerson, Journals
"Stonewall Jackson had an old bridge-builder, Miles. Once the Union troops had retreated and burned a bridge over the Shenandoah. Jackson determined to follow them and summoned Miles 'You must put all your men on that bridge. It must be completed by daybreak. My engineer will furnish you with a plan and you can go right ahead.' Early the next morning Jackson met Miles. 'Did the engineer give you a plan of the bridge?' 'General,' Miles said slowly, 'the bridge is done; I don't know whether the picture is or not.' We need more men like Miles." - from the files of Jim McManus
Admiration:
"Admire as much as you can; most people do not admire enough." - Vincent Van Gogh
"If month after month with a thousand offerings for a hundred years one should sacrifice; and another only for a moment paid reverence to a self-conquering man, this moment would have greater value than a hundred years of offerings." (Dhammapada verse 106)
"The readiness to praise others indicates a desire for excellence and perhaps an ability to realize it." "Those who are ready to praise others usually take praise from others with a grain of salt. On the other hand, those who praise others reluctantly accept praise from others at its face value. Thus the less magnanimous a soul, the more readily does it succumb to flattery." - Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind
"Man does not live by bread alone, but by faith, by admiration, by sympathy." - Emerson, The Sovereignty of Ethics
"When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people." - Abraham Joshua Heschel
Adultery:
"Four things happen to the thoughtless man who takes another man's wife: he lowers himself, his pleasure is restless, he is blamed by others, he goes to hell. Yes. The degradation of the soul, a frightened pleasure, the danger of the law, the path of hell. Considering these four, let not a man go after another man's wife." - Dhammapada 309-310
"Stanley Ketchel (heavyweight boxer) was 24 years old when he was fatally shot in the back by the common-law husband of the lady who was cooking his breakfast." - John "Ring" Lardner in TIME magazine, 6/27/88 p. 67
Adventure:
"Adventure is just a romantic name for trouble." - Louis L'Amour
"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." - Helen Keller
Adversity:
"Yet man is born to trouble, as surely as sparks fly upward." - Job 5:7
"A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity." - Proverbs 17:17
"If you falter in times of trouble, how small is your strength!" - Proverbs 24:10
"It was a high speech of Seneca (after the manner of the Stoics) that, 'the good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished, but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.'" - Francis Bacon
"Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes." "Prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue." "The pencil of the Holy Ghost hath laboured more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon." - Francis Bacon
"For truly in adverse fortune the worst sting of misery is to have been happy." - Boethius
"The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet." - Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well, act 5, scene 3
"One woe doth tread upon another's heel, So fast they follow." - Shakespeare, Hamlet, act 4, scene 7
"What moulting time is for the birds - the time when they change their feathers - so adversity or misfortune is the difficult time for human beings. One can stay in it, in that time of moulting, one can also come out of it renewed, but anyhow it must not be done in public, and it is not at all amusing." - Vincent Van Gogh
"Whoever lives sincerely and encounters much trouble and disappointment, but is not bowed down by them, is worth more than one who has always sailed before the wind and has known only relative prosperity. One must never trust the occasion when one is without difficulties." - Vincent Van Gogh
"The gods are well pleased when they see great men contending with adversity." - Robert Burton
"On the whole, try to respect life not only for its amenities but for its hardships, too. They are a part of the game, and what's good about a hardship is that it is not a deception. Whenever you are in trouble, in some scrape, on the verge of despair or in despair, remember: that's life speaking to you in the only language it knows well." - Joseph Brodsky, commencement address, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1988
Advice:
"The lips of the righteous nourish many, but fools die for lack of judgment." - Proverbs 10:21
"For lack of guidance a nation falls, but many advisers make victory sure." - Proverbs 11:14
"He who rebukes a man will in the end gain more favor than he who has a flattering tongue." - Proverbs 28:23
"He who listens to a life-giving rebuke will be at home among the wise." - Proverbs 15:31
"Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and the pleasantness of one's friend springs from his earnest counsel." - Proverbs 27:9
"Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example." - La Rouchefoucauld
"Look upon the man who tells thee thy faults as if he told thee of a hidden treasure, the wise man who shows thee the dangers of life. Follow that man: he who follows him will see good and not evil. Let him admonish and let him instruct, and let him restrain what is wrong. He will be loved by those who are good and hated by those who are not." - Dhammapada 76-77
"Who cannot give good counsel? / 'tis cheap, it costs them nothing." - Robert Burton
"When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice." - Marquis de la Grange
"Who supplies another with a constructive thought has enriched him forever." - A.A. Montapert
"Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't." - Erica Jong
"The best advice yet given is that you don't have to take it." - Libbie Fudim
"Advice should always be consumed between two thick slices of doubt." - Walt Schmidt
Age:
"Gray hair is a crown of splendor; it is attained by a righteous life." - Proverbs 16:21
"A man is not old and venerable because gray hairs are on his head. If a man is old only in years then he is indeed old in vain. But a man is a venerable 'elder' if he is in truth free from sin, and if in him there is truth and righteousness, non-violence, moderation and self-control." (Dhammapada 260-1)
"Alonso of Aragon was wont to say in commendation of age, that age appears to be best in four things: old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read." - Sir Francis Bacon
"For my own part, I do not find that I grow any older. Being arrived at seventy, and considering that by travelling further in the same road I should probably be led to the grave, I stopped short, turned about, and walked back again; which having done these four years, you may now call me sixty-six. Advise those old friends of ours to follow my example; keep up your spirits, and that will keep up your bodies; you will no more stoop under the weight of age, than if you had swallowed a hand-spike." - Benjamin Franklin, letter to Thomas Bond, 3/16/1780
"It seemed to him he was broken at last. And like a man bound treacherously while he sleeps, he woke up fettered by the long chain of disregarded years. He had to take up at once the burden of all his existence, and found it almost too heavy for his strength." - Joseph Conrad, TNOTN
"I am ashes where once I was fire." - Lord Byron
"The years teach much which the days never know." - Emerson, Essays xiv. Experience
"Grow old along with me! / The best is yet to be, / The last of life, for which the first was made: / Our times are in His hand / Who saith, "A whole I planned, / Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!" - Robert Browning, "Rabbi ben Ezra"
"The arrogance of age must submit to be taught by youth." - Edmund Burke, letter to Fanny Burney
"To me, old age is always 15 years older than I am." - Bernard Baruch, on his 85th birthday
Aggression:
"He who for the sake of happiness hurts others who also want happiness, shall not hereafter find happiness." - Dhammapada 131
Ambition:
"Men in great place are thrice servants: servants of the sovereign or state, servants of fame, and servants of business." "Chiefly the mould of a man's fortune is in his own hands." "All rising to great place is by a winding stair." "The rising unto place is laborious, and by pains men come to greater pains; and it is sometimes base, and by indignities men come to dignities. The standing is slippery, and the regress is either a downfall, or at least an eclipse." "Caesar, when he went first into Gaul, made no scruple to profess 'That he had rather be first in a village than second at Rome'." "He that plots to be the only figure among ciphers, is the decay of the whole age." - Francis Bacon
"Well is it known that ambition can creep as well as soar." "It is a general popular error to imagine the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare." - Edmund Burke
"Hail horrors, hail Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell receive thy new Possessor: one who brings a mind not to be chang'd by Place or Time. The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n. To reign is worth ambition though in Hell: Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav'n." - Milton, Paradise Lost, book 1, lines 250-263
"Argue for your limitations and, sure enough, they're yours." - Richard Bach, "Illusions"
"Hitch your wagon to a star." - Emerson, "Civilization"
America:
"The smile on the faces of the people in photographs is symbolical of one of the greatest assets of the American. He is friendly, self-confident, optimistic - and without envy." "The people of this country must realize that they have a great responsibility in the sphere of international politics. The part of passive spectator is unworthy of this country and is bound in the end to lead to disaster all around." - Albert Einstein, "My First Impression of the U.S.A.", 1921
Anger:
"A fool shows his annoyance at once, but a prudent man overlooks an insult." - Proverbs 12:16
"An angry man stirs up dissension, and a hot-tempered one commits many sins." - Proverbs 29:22
"Do not make friends with a hot-tempered man, do not associate with one easily angered, or you may learn his ways and get yourself ensnared." - Proverbs 22:24-5
"Anger seems to be the only passion (emotion) for which no opposite can be given." - from the files of James McManus
"Not the fastest horse can catch a word spoken in anger." - Chinese saying
"Come not within the measure of my wrath." - Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, act 5, scene 4
"He who can control his rising anger as a coachman controls his carriage at full speed, this man I call a good driver: others merely hold the reins." - Dhammapada 222
For every minute of anger, sixty seconds of happiness are lost.
"The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction." - William Blake, Proverbs of Hell
Anxiety:
"An anxious heart weighs a man down, but a kind word cheers him up." - Proverbs 12:25
"Anxiety is not the same as depression; while anxiety is helplessness, depression is hopelessness. But helplessness unendurably prolonged leads inevitably to hopelessness." - TIME, 3/31/61
"Some of your hurts you have cured, / And the sharpest you still have survived, / But what torments of grief you endured / From evils which never arrived!" - Emerson, Quatrains
Appearances:
"The dev'l hath power / T' assume a pleasing shape." - Shakespeare, Hamlet, act 2, scene 2
"Thus ornament is but the guiled shore / To a most dangerous sea." - Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, act 3, scene 2
"O, what may man within him hide, / Though angel on the outward side!" - Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, act 3, scene 2
"You know that I have often neglected my appearance; this I admit, and I admit that it is shocking. But look you, poverty and want have their share in the cause, and a deep discouragement comes in too for a part, and then it is sometimes a good way to assure oneself the necessary solitude for concentration on some study that preoccupies one." - Vincent Van Gogh
Arrogance:
"Pride only breeds quarrels, but wisdom is found in those who take advice." - Proverbs 13:10
"Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall." - Proverbs 16:18
"Do not exalt yourself in the king's presence, and do not claim a place among great men; it is better for him to say to you, 'Come up here', than for him to humiliate you before a nobleman." - Proverbs 25:6-7
In the course of his teaching he said, "Beware of the scribes, who like to go around in long robes and accept greetings in the marketplaces, seats of honor in synagogues, and places of honor at banquets. They devour the houses of widows and, as a pretext, recite lengthy prayers. They will receive a very severe condemnation." - Mark 12:38-40
To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: "Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men -- robbers, evildoers, adulterers -- or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.' But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, 'God, have mercy on me, a sinner.' I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." - Luke 18:9-14, New International Version
Articulation:
"Now, and in the time to be, I think it will pay for you to zero in on being precise with your language. Try to build and treat your vocabulary the way you are to treat your checking account. Pay every attention to it and try to increase your earnings. For the accumulation of things not spelled out, not properly articulated, may result in neurosis. On a daily basis, a lot is happening to one's psyche; the mode of one's expression, however, often remains the same. Articulation lags behind experience. That doesn't go well with the psyche." - Joseph Brodsky, commencement address, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1988
Atheism:
"There was never miracle wrought by God to convert an atheist, because the light of nature might have led him to confess a God." "I had rather believe all the fables in the legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mind." "They that deny a God destroy man's nobility; for certainly man is of kin to the beasts by his body; and, if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature." - Francis Bacon
Atonement:
"He who overcomes the evil he has done with the good he afterwards does, he sheds a light over the world like that of the moon when free from clouds." - Dhammapada 173
Attachment:
"He who even in this life knows the end of sorrow, who has laid down his burden and is free - him I call a Brahmin." "He who is free from the bondage of men and also from the bondage of the gods: who is free from all things in creation - him I call a Brahmin." - Dhammapada 402, 417
Attentiveness:
"Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." (1 Peter 5:8)
"The man who lives in watchfulness considers it his greatest treasure." - Dhammapada Verse 26
Authority:
"A leading authority is anyone who has guessed right more than once." - Frank A. Clark
Awareness:
"Now is the time for all good men to come to." - Walt Kelly
I would like to give credit to my Uncle James McManus, who first encouraged me to start a filing system which would allow me to keep facts and quotes in good order. Uncle Jim's files gave me my first batch of quotes, and I've used some of them here.