Most of these quotes are serious, others are humorous. Some I agree with, some I disagree with.
Eccentricity:
"Let us keep courage and try to be patient and gentle. And not mind being eccentric, and make distinction between good and evil." - Vincent Van Gogh
Education:
"Studies serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability." "To spend too much time in studies is sloth." "Universities incline wits to sophistry and affectation." - Francis Bacon
"A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education." - G.B. Shaw
"I for my part respect academicians, but the respectable ones are more rare than one would believe. One of the reasons that I am out of employment now, that I have been out of employment for years, is simply that I have other ideas than the gentlemen who give the places to men who think as they do." - Vincent Van Gogh
"You may have heard that a dean is to faculty as a hydrant is to a dog." - Alfred Kahn
Professor: one who talks in someone else's sleep
The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in the morning, and does not stop until you get to school.
Effort:
"And do as adversaries do in law, / Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends." - Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew, act 1, scene 2
Egotism:
"What chiefly enrages us against the man who injures or insults us, is the little account which he seems to make of us, the unreasonable preference which he gives to himself above us, and that absurd self-love, by which he seems to imagine, that other people may be sacrificed at any time, to his conveniency or his humour." - Adam Smith
"Egotism is the anesthetic given by a kindly nature to relieve the pain of being a damned fool." - Bellamy Brooks
"No man ever told a woman she talked too much when she was telling him how wonderful he is."
Eloquence:
"That man that hath a tongue, I say is no man, / If with his tongue he cannot win a woman." - Shakespeare, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, act 3, scene 1
Embarrassment:
"Man is the only animal that blushes - or needs to." - Mark Twain
Encouragement:
"We ought to be careful not to do for a fellow what we only intended to help him do." - Frank A. Clark
Enemies:
"If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you." - Proverbs 25:21-22
"He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, / And he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere." - Emerson, Translations from Omar Chiam
"Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate." - Thomas F. Jones, Jr.
Enthusiasm:
"It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way." (Proverbs 19:2)
"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm." (Ralph Waldo Emerson) But the Buddha cautioned, "An excess of zeal leads to self-exaltation, and a lack of zeal leads to indolence: have an evenness of zeal, master your powers in harmony. Let this be your aim."
Anatole France wrote, "I prefer the errors of enthusiasm to the indifference of wisdom." In a similar vein, Nietzsche wrote that "The errors of great men are venerable, for they are more fruitful than the truths of little men."
"To be fruitful, an enthusiasm should be but as a condiment. Pride in our country and race, dedication to justice, freedom, mankind, etc., must never be the main content of our lives, but an accompaniment and an accessory." - Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind
"There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person." - G.K. Chesterton
"No profit grows where is no pleasure taken. In brief, sir, study what you most affect." - Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew, act 1, scene 1
"Apathy can only be overcome by enthusiasm, and enthusiasm can only be aroused by two things: first, an ideal that takes the imagination by storm; second, a definite, intelligible plan for carrying that ideal into practice." - Arnold Toynbee
"Life is too short to be little. Man is never so manly as when he feels deeply, acts boldly, and expresses himself with frankness and with fervour." - Benjamin Disraeli
"Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm; it moves stones, it charms brutes. Enthusiasm is the genius of sincerity, and truth accomplishes no victories without it." - Edward Bulwer-Lytton
"All men dream; but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find it was vanity; but dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible." - Lawrence of Arabia
"Dull repetition is the rust of sacred verses; lack of repair is the rust of houses; want of healthy exercise is the rust of beauty; unwatchfulness is the rust of the watcher." - Dhammapada 241
"It is unfortunate, considering that enthusiasm moves the world, that so few enthusiasts can be trusted to speak the truth." - Arthur Balfour, 1918
Envy:
"A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones." - Proverbs 14:30
"And I saw that all labor and all achievement spring from man's envy of his neighbor. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind." - Ecclesiastes 4:4
"In this world, only misery is safe from envy." - Boccaccio, Decameron, 4.I
"He who discommendeth others obliquely commendeth himself." - Sir Thomas Browne
"To be truly selfish one needs a degree of self-esteem. The self-despisers are less intent on their own increase than on the diminution of others. Where self-esteem is unattainable, envy takes the place of greed." - Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind
"Let him not despise the offerings given to him, and let him not be jealous of others, because the monk who feels envy cannot achieve deep contemplation."- Dhammapada 365
"It is enough if you don't freeze in the cold, and if thirst and hunger don't claw at your insides. If your back isn't broken, if your feet can walk, if both arms can bend, if both eyes can see, and if both ears can hear, then whom should you envy? And why? Our envy of others devours us most of all. Rub your eyes and purify your heart and prize above all else in the world those who love you and who wish you well." - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, "The Gulag Archipelago"
"Envy never makes holiday." - Francis Bacon
Equality:
"In Republican governments, men are all equal; equal they are also in despotic governments: in the former, because they are everything; in the latter, because they are nothing." - Montesquieu, "Spirit Of Laws"
"We clamor for equality chiefly in matters in which we ourselves cannot hope to attain excellence. To discover what a man truly craves but knows he cannot have we must find the field in which he advocates absolute equality." - Eric Hoffer, "The Passionate State of Mind"
"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." - George Orwell, "Animal Farm"
"There is little friendship in the world, and least of all between equals." - Francis Bacon
Errors:
"The errors of great men are venerable, because they are more fruitful than the truths of little men." - Nietzsche, 1867
Ethics:
"Reason & experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle." - George Washington 9/17/1796
Etiquette:
"Etiquette is the ability to yawn with the mouth closed." - French Ambassador Hervé Alphand
A diplomat is someone who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you will look forward to the trip.
Exaggeration:
"The speaking in a perpetual hyperbole is comely in nothing but in love." - Francis Bacon
"It is impossible to think clearly in understatements. Thought is a process of exaggeration. The refusal to exaggerate is not infrequently an alibi for the disinclination to think or praise." - Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind
"The poet knows that he speaks adequately, then, only when he speaks somewhat wildly, or, 'with the flower of the mind'." - Emerson, The Poet
Example:
"Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other." - Edmund Burke
"One day a distinguished nobleman called on Josiah Wedgewood, maker of the famous Wedgewood pottery, and asked to see his factory. Mr. Wedgewood and one of his employees, a boy about 15 years old, accompanied the nobleman through the factory, showing him the processes of making pottery. The nobleman was a man of somewhat reckless life. Before long it appeared that he was an atheist. His conversation was witty and entertaining, but his humor was accompanied by profanity and jests about sacred Bible names and subjects. At first the young fellow was shocked by the nobleman's irreverence, but soon he became fascinated by his jokes and laughed heartily at them. After they had gone through the factory, Mr. Wedgewood dismissed the boy, and selecting a beautiful vase of unique pattern he told his guest how much time and care were required to make it. The nobleman was charmed with its exquisite shape, its rare coloring, its picturesque design, and reached out his hand to take it. Just then Mr. Wedgewood let it fall on the floor, and it broke into a hundred pieces. The nobleman uttered an angry oath. 'I wanted that vase for my collection,' he said. 'No art can restore what you have ruined by your carelessness!' 'My friend,' replied Wedgewood, 'there are other ruined things, more precious than this, which can never be restored. You can never give back to that boy who has just left us the reverence for sacred things which has been his. For years his parents have tried to teach him this. You have undone their labor in less than half an hour.'" - Harry Albus
Excuses:
"There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle anything permanently. We still have to prove our worth anew each day: we have to prove that we are as good today as we were yesterday. But when we have a valid alibi for not achieving anything we are fixed, so to speak, for life." - Eric Hoffer, "The Passionate State of Mind"
"Can once conceive without intercourse, can one get fat without eating?!" - Sumerian proverb
"Nature never makes excellent things for mean or no uses." - John Locke, "Essay on the Human Understanding"
Expectations:
"He who seeks good finds good will, but evil comes to him who searches for it." - Proverbs 11:27
"It is an evil thing to expect too much either from ourselves or from others. Disappointment in ourselves does not moderate our expectations from others; on the contrary, it raises them. It is as if we wished to be disappointed with our fellow men. One does not really love mankind when one expects too much from them." - Eric Hoffer, "The Passionate State of Mind"
"Argue for your limitations and, sure enough, they're yours." - Richard Bach, "Illusions"
Experience:
"Such experiences are too dreadful; the harm, the sorrow, the affliction is too great not to try on either side to become wiser by this dearly bought experience. If we do not learn from this, then from what shall we learn?" - Vincent Van Gogh
"Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want." - Dan Stanford
"Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again." - F.P. Jones
"Now there is in the south of Belgium a district that has a peculiar population of laborers who work in the numerous coal mines. If I could work quietly for about three years in such a district, always learning and observing, then I should not come back from there without having something to say that was really worth hearing." - Vincent Van Gogh
"There is a transparent wall between the generations, an ironic curtain, if you will, a see-through veil allowing almost no passage of experience. At best, some tips." - Joseph Brodsky, commencement address, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1988
Expression:
"An anxious heart weighs a man down, but a kind word cheers him up." - Proverbs 12:25
"Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones." (Proverbs 16:24)
Emerson wrote, "To-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another." Essays: Self-Reliance
Verse 408 of the Dhammapada praises those who speak "words that are peaceful and useful and true."
Failure:
Hegel flunked out of philosophy, and his professor said he would never grasp the subject. Churchill flunked English seven times, and so learned how to write English sentences.
"You're never a loser until you quit trying." - Mike Ditka
"Most of us look at success in the same positive way. It's how we deal with our failures that determines what we get out of life." - Daniel G. Amen, M.D.
Every successful person has had failures, but repeated failure is no guarantee of eventual success.
Faith:
And when He had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, entreating Him, and saying, "Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering great pain." And He said to him, "I will come and heal him." But the centurion answered and said, "Lord, I am not worthy for You to come under my roof, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I, too, am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, 'Go!' and he goes, and to another, 'Come!' and he comes, and to my slave, 'Do this!' and he does it." Now when Jesus heard this, He marveled, and said to those who were following, "Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel. And I say to you, that many shall come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven; but the sons of the kingdom shall be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." And Jesus said to the centurion, "Go your way; let it be done to you as you have believed." And the servant was healed that very hour. - Matthew 8:5-13, New American Standard
And immediately Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side, while He sent the multitudes away. And when He had sent the multitudes away, He went up on a mountain by Himself to pray. And when evening had come, He was alone there. But the boat was now in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, for the wind was contrary. And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went to them, walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, "It is a ghost!" And they cried out for fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, "Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid." And Peter answered Him and said, "Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water." And He said, "Come." And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. Buy when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, "Lord, save me!" And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him, and said to him, "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?" And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. Then those who were in the boat came and worshiped Him, saying, "Truly You are the Son of God." And when they had crossed over, they came to the land of Gennesaret. And when the men of that place recognized Him, they sent out into all that surrounding region, brought to Him all who were sick, and begged Him that they might only touch the hem of His garment. And as many as touched it were made perfectly well. - Matthew 14:22-36. New King James Bible
When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?" They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets." "But what about you?" He asked. "Who do you say I am?" "Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by My Father in heaven. And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." - Matthew 16:13-19, New International Version
"I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." - Matthew 17:20
Again therefore Jesus spoke to them, saying, "I am the light of the world; he who follows Me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life." - John 8:12
To the Jews who had believed Him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." - John 8:31-32
"And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." - Matthew 28:20
The next day John saw Jesus coming toward Him and said, "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" - John 1:29
There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give Me a drink." For His disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. The Samaritan woman therefore said to Him, "How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?" (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered and said to her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give Me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water." She said to Him, "Sir, you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep; where then do You get that living water? You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You, who gave us the well, and drank of it himself, and his sons, and his cattle?" Jesus answered and said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water shall thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life." - John 4:7-14, New American Standard
"Whoever acknowledges Me before men, I will also acknowledge him before My Father in heaven. But whoever disowns Me before men, I will disown him before My Father in heaven." - Matthew 10:32-33
"And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me." - Matthew 10:38
"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." - Hebrews 11:1
"Everything is possible for him who believes." - Mark 9:23
Jesus then told the crowd and the disciples to come closer, and he said: "If any of you want to be my followers, you must forget about yourself. You must take up your cross and follow me. If you want to save your life, you will destroy it. But if you give up your life for me and for the good news, you will save it. What will you gain, if you own the whole world but destroy yourself? What could you give to get back your soul? Don't be ashamed of me and my message among these unfaithful and sinful people! If you are, the Son of Man will be ashamed of you when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels." - Mark 8:34-38, Contemporary English Version
And people were bringing children to him that he might touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this he became indignant and said to them, "Let the children come to me; do not prevent them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Amen, I say to you, whoever does not accept the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it." - Mark 10:13-15, New American Bible
"Faith certainly tells us what the senses do not, but not the contrary of what they see; it is above, not against them." "It is the heart which perceives God and not the reason. That is what faith is: God perceived by the heart, not by the reason." - Blaise Pascal
"Reason is our soul's left hand, Faith her right, By these we reach divinity." - John Donne
"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
"Faith is the highest passion in a human being. Many in every generation may not come that far, but none comes further." - Soren Kierkegaard
"Faith obviously does not mean that we hold this or that to be true. To have faith always means: I decide to do it, I stake my existence on it (e.g. Columbus) Nobody knows what the future will hold and what spiritual forces will govern the world, but our first step is always an act of faith in something and a wish for something." - Werner Heisenberg, "A Scientist's Case for the Classics"
Daniel Webster's wonderful epitaph: "Philosophic argument, especially that drawn from the vastness of the universe, in comparison with the apparent insignificance of this globe, has sometimes shaken my reason for the faith that is in me; but my heart has always assured and reassured me that the gospel of Jesus Christ must be Divine Reality. The Sermon on the Mount cannot be a mere human production. This belief enters into the very depth of my conscience. The whole history of man proves it."
"All believers say in a general way, 'God is Almighty'. Only one in a thousand says, 'God is Almighty in me'." - James McManus
"True faith costs not less than everything. It also gains everything, if the object of faith is faithful." - T.S. Eliot
"Give me the benefit of your convictions, if you have any, but keep your doubts to yourself, for I have enough of my own." - Goethe
"When you have nothing left but God, then for the first time you become aware that God is enough. Faith is at its best when totally unconscious of itself." - James McManus
"Man does not live by bread alone, but by faith, by admiration, by sympathy." - Emerson, "The Sovereignty of Ethics"
"When a mendicant monk, though young, follows with faith the path of Buddha, his light shines bright over the world, like the brightness of a moon free from clouds." - Dhammapada 382
"There is more faith in honest doubt than in most creeds." - Tennyson
"Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson
"Occasion presses, therefore boldly strike. / We've time enough hereafter to be wise." - Queen Mary, act III, scene II ("Faith implies much more of action than it does of reason." - James McManus)
"There are actually few things a person genuinely believes in. If people believed in freedom, there would be more who vote. If they believed they were going to die, they would be preparing for death. If they believed there is a God, they would fear and reverence Him. We believe in a thousand insignificant things, but few important ones. We believe in the brakes of our car, else we would approach every pedestrian crossing the street in trepidation. We trust the strength of the dining room chair, else we would seat ourselves more gingerly. All I am saying is that true belief is not mere mental or even emotional assent to a truth, but a positive and consistently active will to carry out the consequences of the truth in which you believe." - James McManus
"The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith, and the beginning of true faith is the end of anxiety." - George Mueller
"Let us believe our beliefs and doubt our doubts."
Faith is the quality that enables you to eat blackberry jam on a picnic without looking to see whether the seeds move.
False accusations:
"For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon!' The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax-gatherers and sinners!' Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds." - Matthew 11:18-19
Falsehood:
"Falsehood has a perennial spring." - Edmund Burke
Fame:
"Fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swollen, and drowns things weighty and solid." - Francis Bacon
"To be nameless in worthy deeds exceeds an infamous history." - Sir Thomas Browne
"The cult of individuals is always, in my view, unjustified. To be sure, nature distributes her gifts unevenly among her children. But there are plenty of the well-endowed, thank God, and I am firmly convinced that most of them live quiet, unobtrusive lives. It strikes me as unfair, and even in bad taste, to select a few of them for boundless admiration, attributing superhuman powers of mind and character to them." - Albert Einstein, 1921
"Passion for fame; a passion which is the instinct of all great souls." - Edmund Burke
"There's hope a great man's memory may / outlive his life half a year." - Shakespeare, Hamlet, act 3, scene 2
"The nice thing about being a celebrity is that when you bore people, they think it's their fault." - Dr. Henry Kissinger
"Every intense desire is perhaps basically a desire to be different from what we are. Hence probably the imperiousness of the desire for fame, which is a desire for a self utterly unlike the real self." - Eric Hoffer, "The Passionate State of Mind"
"The first time my girlfriend and I were followed by street photographers, she wanted to bash them. But I said no, then you would be the lesbian Sean Penn. Just grin and bear it." - Chastity Bono in The New York Times
Family:
"He that has no fools, knaves nor beggars in his family was begot by a flash of lightning." - Thomas Fuller
Fanaticism:
"Vehemence is the expression of a blind effort to support and uphold something that can never stand on its own - something rootless, incoherent and incomplete." "The uncompromising attitude is more indicative of an inner uncertainty than of deep conviction. The implacable stand is directed more against the doubt within than the assailant without." - Eric Hoffer, "The Passionate State of Mind"
"There is a fundamental difference between the appeal of a mass movement and the appeal of a practical organization. The practical organization offers opportunities for self-advancement, and its appeal is mainly to self-interest. On the other hand, a mass movement, particularly in its active, revivalist phase, appeals not to those intent on bolstering and advancing a cherished self, but to those who crave to be rid of an unwanted self. A mass movement attracts and holds a following not because it can satisfy the desire for self-advancement, but because it can satisfy the passion for self-renunciation. People who see their lives as irremediably spoiled cannot find a worth-while purpose in self-advancement... They look on self-interest as on something tainted and evil; something unclean and unlucky... Their innermost craving is for a new life - a rebirth - or, failing this, a chance to acquire new elements of pride, confidence, hope, a sense of purpose and worth by an identification with a holy cause. An active mass movement offers them opportunities for both." "Faith in a holy cause is to a considerable extent a substitute for the lost faith in ourselves." "The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready is he to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause." "When our individual interests and prospects do not seem worth living for, we are in desperate need of something apart from us to live for. All forms of dedication, devotion, loyalty and self-surrender are in essence a desperate clinging to something which might give worth and meaning to our futile, spoiled lives. Hence the embracing of a substitute will necessarily be passionate and extreme. We can have qualified confidence in ourselves, but the faith we have in our nation, religion, race, or holy cause has to be extravagant and uncompromising. A substitute embraced in moderation cannot supplant and efface the self we want to forget. We cannot be sure that we have something worth living for unless we are ready to die for it. The readiness to die is evidence to ourselves and others that what we had to take as a substitute for an irrevocably missed or spoiled first choice is indeed the best there ever was." - Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer"
"The vigor of a mass movement stems from the propensity of its followers for united action and self-sacrifice." "What ails the frustrated? It is the consciousness of an irremediably blemished self. Their chief desire is to escape that self -- and it is this desire which manifests itself in a propensity for united action and self-sacrifice. The revulsion from an unwanted self, and the impulse to forget it, mask it, slough it off and lose it, produce both a readiness to sacrifice the self and a willingness to dissolve it by losing one's individual distinctness in a compact collective whole." "Such diverse phenomena as a deprecation of the present, a facility for make-believe, a proneness to hate, a readiness to imitate, credulity, a readiness to attempt the impossible, and many others which crowd the minds of the intensely frustrated are... unifying agents and prompters of recklessness." - Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer"
"Fanaticism is redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim." - George Santayana
"A fanatic sacrifices himself and all others including God to reach his goal." - James McManus
"Santa Claus wears a Red Suit, / He must be a communist. / And a beard and long hair, / Must be a pacifist. / What's in that pipe that he's smoking?" - Arlo Guthrie
Fantasies:
"He who works his land will have abundant food, but the one who chases fantasies will have his fill of poverty." - Proverbs 28:19
Fashion:
"Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months." - Oscar Wilde
"Never read any book that is not a year old." - Emerson
Fate:
"Let Hercules himself do what he may, / The cat will mew, and the dog will have his day." - Shakespeare, "Hamlet", act 5, scene 1
"The time is out of joint - O cursed spite, / That ever I was born to set it right!" - Shakespeare, Hamlet, act 1, scene 5
"Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom, but we hope it, we know it." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano, / A stage, where every man must play a part, / And mine a sad one." - Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, act 1, scene 1
"Perhaps the most majestic feature of our whole existence is that while our intelligences are powerful enough to penetrate deeply into the evolution of this quite incredible Universe, we still have not the smallest clue to our own fate." - Sir Fred Hoyle, quoted in Other Worlds by Carl Sagan
Fear:
"And do not fear those who kill the body, but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." - Matthew 10:28
"The concessions of the weak are the concessions of fear." - Edmund Burke
"No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear." - Edmund Burke
"Those who fear what they should not fear, and who do not fear what they should fear, are men of very wrong views and they go the downward path." "He for whom there is neither this nor the further shore, nor both, who, beyond all fear, is free - him I call a Brahmin." - Dhammapada 317, 385
A person's hair cannot turn white overnight because of some terrible tragedy or frightening experience - or for any other reason. - Isaac Asimov's Book of Facts page 278
Feelings:
"The ennobling difference between one man and another is that one feels more than another." - John Ruskin
"The secret of getting along with people is to recognize how they feel, and to let them know you know. When someone is rude or quarrelsome, it's often a way of saying, 'Pay attention to my feelings'." - John Kord Lagemann
Flattery:
"Whoever flatters his neighbor is spreading a net for his feet." - Proverbs 29:5
"He who rebukes a man will in the end gain more favor than he who has a flattering tongue." - Proverbs 28:23
But when I tell him he hates flatterers / He says he does, being then most flattered. - Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act 2, scene 1
Flexibility:
"Nothing in progression can rest on its original plan. We may as well think of rocking a grown man in the cradle of an infant." - Edmund Burke
Si fueris Romae, Romano vivito more; Si fueris alibi, vivito sicut ibi. "If you are at Rome live in the Roman style; if you are elsewhere live as they live elsewhere." - St. Ambrose
Foolishness:
"Better to meet a bear robbed of her cubs than a fool in his folly." - Proverbs 17:12
"To have a fool for a son brings grief; there is no joy for the father of a fool." - Proverbs 17:21
"As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly." - Proverbs 26:11
"Like a lame man's legs that hang limp is a proverb in the mouth of a fool." - Proverbs 26:7
"Lord, what fools these mortals be!" - Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream, act 3, scene 2
"If during the whole of his life a fool lives with a wise man, he never knows the path of wisdom as the spoon never knows the taste of the soup." - Dhammapada 64
"Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed." - Mark Twain
"If 50 million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing." - Anatole France
"Christ especially condemned foolishness, which was any kind of intellectual failing which had a moral root and led to bad conduct (Mark 7). So ignorance is no excuse -- we are expected to know right from wrong." - James McManus
Force:
"An autocratic system of coercion, in my opinion, soon degenerates. For force always attracts men of low morality, and I believe it to be an invariable rule that tyrants of genius are succeeded by scoundrels." - Albert Einstein, from "Living Philosophies", 1931
Foresight:
"Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest." - Proverbs 6:6-8
Forgetfulness:
"And we forget because we must / And not because we will." - Matthew Arnold
"There are times when forgetting can be just as important as remembering - and even more difficult." - Harry and Joan Mier
Forgiveness:
"A man's wisdom gives him patience; it is to his glory to overlook an offense." - Proverbs 19:11
And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, and stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee which had bidden him saw it, he spake within himself, saying, "This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him: for she is a sinner." And Jesus answering said unto him, "Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee." And he saith, "Master, say on." "There was a certain creditor which had two debtors: the one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing to pay, he frankly forgave them both. Tell me therefore, which of them will love him most?" Simon answered and said, "I suppose that he, to whom he forgave most." And he said unto him, "Thou hast rightly judged." And he turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, "Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet. My head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment. Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little." And he said unto her, "Thy sins are forgiven." And they that sat at meat with him began to say within themselves, "Who is this that forgiveth sins also?" And he said to the woman, "Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace." - Luke 7:36-50, King James Version
And when they came to the place which is called The Skull [Latin: Calvary; Hebrew: Golgotha], there they crucified Him, and [along with] the criminals, one on the right and one on the left. And Jesus prayed, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. - Luke 23:33-34, The Amplified Bible
"Cosmus duke of Florence was want to say of perfidious friends: 'That we read that we ought to forgive our enemies; but we do not read that we ought to forgive our friends.'" - Francis Bacon
"You ought certainly to forgive them as a Christian, but never to admit them in your sight, or allow their names to be mentioned in your hearing." - Mr. Collins in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, chapter 57
"It's easier to get forgiveness than permission."
Freedom:
"You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and liberty." - Henrik Ibsen
"Freedom and not servitude is the cure of anarchy; as religion, and not atheism, is the true remedy for superstition." - Edmund Burke
"Freedom aggravates at least as much as it alleviates frustration. Freedom of choice places the whole blame of failure on the shoulders of the individual. And as freedom encourages a multiplicity of attempts, it unavoidably multiplies failure and frustration... Those who see their lives as spoiled and wasted crave equality and fraternity more than they do freedom. If they clamor for freedom, it is but freedom to establish equality and uniformity. The passion for equality is partly a passion for anonymity: to be one thread of the many which make up a tunic; one thread not distinguishable from the others. No one can then point us out, measure us against others and expose our inferiority. They who clamor loudest for freedom are often the ones least likely to be happy in a free society... Actually, their innermost desire is for an end to the 'free for all'. They want to eliminate free competition and the ruthless testing to which the individual is continually subjected in a free society." - Eric Hoffer, The True Believer
"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose." - Kris Kristofferson/Janis Joplin, "Me and Bobby McGee"
Friendship:
"He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm." - Proverbs 13:20
"The worst solitude is to be destitute of sincere friendship." - Francis Bacon
"A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of Nature." - Emerson, Essays vi. Friendship
"And do as adversaries do in law, / Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends." -- Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew, act 1, scene 2
"It (friendship) redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in halves." - Francis Bacon
"We don't have psychoanalysis in Greece, you know. We are a poor people, so we have friends instead." - Melina Mercouri
"Acquaintance: A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. A degree of friendship called slight when its object is poor or obscure, and intimate when he is rich or famous." - Ambrose Bierce
"If on the journey of life a man can find a wise and intelligent friend who is good and self-controlled, let him go with that traveler; and in joy and recollection let them overcome the dangers of the journey. But if on the journey of life a man cannot find a wise and intelligent friend who is good and self-controlled, let him then travel alone, like a king who has left his country, or like a great elephant alone in the forest. For it is better to go alone on the path of life rather than to have a fool for a companion. With few wishes and few cares, and leaving all sins behind, let a man travel alone, like a great elephant alone in the forest. It is sweet to have friends in need; and to share enjoyment is sweet. It is sweet to have done good before death; and to surrender all pain is sweet." - Dhammapada 328-331
"When the righteous man turneth away from his righteousness that he hath committed and doeth that which is neither quite lawful nor quite right, he will generally be found to have gained in amiability what he has lost in holiness." - Samuel Butler
"Do you come to the play without knowing what it is?" "O yes, Sir, yes, very frequently: I have no time to read play-bills; one merely comes to meet one's friends, and show that one's alive." - Fanny Burney
Frivolity:
"Considering how lighthearted we feel when we do not take ourselves seriously, it is surprising how difficult the attainment of this sensible and practical attitude seems to be. It is apparently much easier to be serious than frivolous." - Eric Hoffer, "The Passionate State of Mind"
"Diogenes said of a young man that danced daintily, and was much commended: 'The better, the worse.'" - Francis Bacon
Frugality:
"Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing." - Benjamin Franklin
"Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers." - William Wordsworth
"There must be a reason why some people can afford to live well. They must have worked for it. I only feel angry when I see waste. When I see people throwing away things that we could use." - Mother Teresa
Frustration:
"Our frustration is greater when we have much and want more than when we have nothing and want some. We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing." - Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer"
"It is futile to judge the viability of a new movement by the truth of its doctrine and the feasibility of its promises. What has to be judged is its corporate organization for quick and total absorption of the frustrated... The Bolshevik movement outdistanced all other Marxist movements in the race for power because of its tight collective organization. The National Socialist Movement, too, won out over all the other folkish movements which pullulated in the 1920's, because of Hitler's early recognition that a rising mass movement can never go too far in advocating and promoting collective cohesion. He knew that the chief passion of the frustrated is 'to belong', and that there cannot be too much cementing and binding to satisfy this passion." - Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer"
"The permanent misfits are those who because of a lack of talent or some irreparable defect in body or mind cannot do the one thing for which their whole being craves. No achievement, however spectacular, in other fields can give them a sense of fulfillment. Whatever they undertake becomes a passionate pursuit; but they never arrive, never pause. They demonstrate the fact that we can never have enough of that which we really do not want, and that we run fastest and farthest when we run from ourselves. The permanent misfits can find salvation only in a complete separation from the self; and they usually find it by losing themselves in the compact collectivity of a mass movement. By renouncing individual will, judgment and ambition, and dedicating all their powers to the service of an eternal cause, they are at last lifted off the endless treadmill which can never lead them to fulfillment." - Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer"
the Future:
"The powerful can be as timid as the weak. What seems to count more than possession of instruments of power is faith in the future. Where power is not joined with faith in the future, it is used mainly to ward off the new and preserve the status quo. On the other hand, extravagant hope, even where not backed by actual power, is likely to generate a most reckless daring. For the hopeful can draw strength from the most ridiculous sources of power - a slogan, a word, a button. No faith is potent unless it is also faith in the future; unless it has a millennial component. So, too, an effective doctrine: as well as being a source of power, it must also claim to be a key to the book of the future." "Thus the differences between the conservative and the radical seem to spring mainly from their attitude toward the future. Fear of the future causes us to lean against and cling to the present, while faith in the future renders us receptive to change." - Eric Hoffer, "The True Believer"
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.