Most of these quotes are serious, others are humorous. Some I agree with, some I disagree with.
Sacrifice:
"For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many." - Mark 10:45
Salvation:
"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life." - John 5:24
And in that region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, "Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which will come to all the people; for to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord." - Luke 2:8-11, Revised Standard Version
The seventy returned with joy, saying, "Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!" And he said to them, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you; but rejoice that your names are written in heaven." - Luke 10:17-20, Revised Standard Version
Jesus went on to the city of Jericho and was passing through it. There was a rich man named Zaccheus. He was a leader of those who gathered taxes. Zaccheus wanted to see Jesus but he could not because so many people were there and he was a short man. He ran ahead and got up into a sycamore tree to see Him. Jesus was going by that way. When Jesus came to the place, He looked up and saw Zaccheus. He said, 'Zaccheus, come down at once. I must stay in your house today.' At once he came down and was glad to have Jesus come to his house. When the people saw it, they began to complain among themselves. They said, 'He is going to stay with a man who is known to be a sinner.' Zaccheus stood up and said to the Lord, 'Lord, see! Half of what I own I will give to poor people. And if I have taken money from anyone in a wrong way, I will pay him back four times as much.' Jesus said to him, 'Today, a person has been saved in this house. This man is a Jew also. For the Son of Man came to look for and to save from the punishment of sin those who are lost.' - Luke 19:1-10, New Life Version
Sanctity:
They came to Jerusalem, and on entering the temple area he began to drive out those selling and buying there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who were selling doves. He did not permit anyone to carry anything through the temple area. Then he taught them saying, "Is it not written: 'My house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples'? But you have made it a den of thieves." - Mark 11:15-17, New American Bible
Sarcasm:
"Lady Middleton exerted herself to ask Mr. Palmer if there was any news in the paper. 'No, none at all,' he replied, and read on." - Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility, ch. 19
"Mr. Savill was asked by my lord of Essex his opinion touching poets; who answered my lord; 'He thought them the best writers, next to those that write prose'." - Francis Bacon
"Calvin Coolidge was the greatest man who ever came out of Plymouth Corner, Vermont." - Clarence Darrow
"He is now rising from affluence to poverty." - Mark Twain
"Good Americans, when they die, go to Paris." - Thomas Appleton
"Yeah, I remember when I had my first beer." - Steve Martin, responding to a heckler
"Father, your sermons are like water to a drowning man." "Father, each of your sermons is better than the next." - Churchgoers, quoted by James Montgomery, Episcopal bishop of Chicago
Philadelphia is not dull; it just seems so because it is next to exciting Camden, New Jersey.
George Orwell was an optimist.
"You'll never be the man your mother was!"
Modern man is the missing link between apes and human beings.
"We don't care. We don't have to. We're the Phone Company."
Schadenfreude:
"I am convinced that we have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pains of others." - Edmund Burke
"Do not gloat when your enemy falls; when he stumbles, do not let your heart rejoice, or the Lord will see and disapprove and turn His wrath away from him." - Proverbs 24:17-18
"He who for the sake of happiness hurts others who also want happiness, shall not hereafter find happiness." - Dhammapada 131
Secretiveness:
"Secretiveness can be a source of pride. It is a paradox that secretiveness plays the same role as boasting: both are engaged in the creation of a disguise. Boasting tries to create an imaginary self, while secretiveness gives us the exhilarating feeling of being princes disguised in meekness." - Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind
Security:
"It is true greatness to have in one the frailty of a man, and the security of a God." - Seneca, quoted by Francis Bacon
Self-confidence:
"If you don't accept yourself, how can you possibly believe in another person's acceptance of you?" - Ira Wolfman
The Scottish philosopher and economist Adam Smith felt that we judge our own conduct based either upon how we feel others would have acted in our situation, or how we feel ourselves to be seen by others.
Self-discipline:
"Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control." (Proverbs 25:28)
"A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control." - Proverbs 29:11
"So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled." (1 Thessalonians 5:6)
Verse 248 of the Dhammapada states that "lack of self-control means wrongdoing." "A man should control his words and mind and should not do any harm with his body. If these ways of action are pure he can make progress on the path of the wise." (Verse 281) "If a man should conquer in battle a thousand and a thousand more, and another man should conquer himself, his would be the greater victory, because the greatest of victories is the victory over oneself; and neither the gods in heaven above nor the demons down below can turn into defeat the victory of such a man." (Verses 103-5)
"The highest possible stage in moral culture is when we recognize that we ought to control our thoughts." - Charles Darwin
"Whatever liberates our spirit without giving us self-control is disastrous." - Goethe
"If you would not be known to do anything, never do it." - Emerson, Essays Spiritual Laws
"True civilization lies in the dominance of self and not in the dominance of other men." - Luther Standing Bear, Land of the Spotted Eagle
"My father taught me that only through self-discipline can you achieve freedom. Pour water in a cup and you can drink. Without the cup, the water would splash all over. The cup is discipline." - Ricardo Montalban
Self-doubt:
"The agreement or disagreement both of the sentiments and judgments of other people with our own, is, in all cases, it must be observed, of more or less importance to us, exactly in proportion as we ourselves are more or less uncertain about the propriety of our own sentiments, about the accuracy of our own judgments." - Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, III.2.16
Self-esteem:
"Pride is a sense of worth derived from something that is not organically part of us, while self-esteem derives from the potentialities and achievements of the self." - Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind
Self-help:
Self-defeating thinking patterns: 1) black-or-white thinking; 2) taking things personally; 3) disregarding the positive. "Your thoughts may be holding you back. Talk back to them when they're out of line." - Daniel G. Amen, M.D.
Self-knowledge:
"Know thyself," the Greeks said, for "the unexamined life is not worth living."
"He who knows others is clever; He who knows himself has discernment." - Tao Te Ching
Illi mors gravis incubat / Qui notus nimis omnibus / Ignotus moritur sibi. "On him does death lie heavily who, but too well known to all, dies to himself unknown." - Seneca
Elias Canetti (who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1981) believed that "The self-explorer, whether he wants to or not, becomes the explorer of everything else. He learns to see himself, but suddenly, provided he was honest, all the rest appears, and it is as rich as he was, and, as a final crowning, richer."
Henry David Thoreau exhorts each of us to "be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought. Every man is the lord of a realm beside which the earthly empire of the Czar is but a petty state, a hummock left by the ice."
"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, act 1, scene 3
"To become different from what we are, we must have some awareness of what we are. Whether this being different results in dissimulation or a real change of heart - it cannot be realized without self-awareness. Yet it is remarkable that the very people who are most self-dissatisfied and crave most for a new identity have the least self-awareness. They have turned away from an unwanted self and hence never had a good look at it." - Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind
"Our credulity is greatest concerning the things we know least about. And since we know least about ourselves, we are ready to believe all that is said about us. Hence the mysterious power of both flattery and calumny." "It is thus with most of us: we are what other people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay." "The people we meet are the playwrights and stage managers of our lives: they cast us in a role, and we play it whether we will or not. It is not so much the example of others we imitate as the reflection of ourselves in their eyes and the echo of ourselves in their words." - Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind
"We carry within us the wonders we seek without us; There is all Africa and her prodigies in us." - Sir Thomas Browne
"When I endeavour to examine my own conduct, when I endeavour to pass sentence upon it, and either to approve or condemn it, it is evident that, in all such cases, I divide myself, as it were, into two persons; and that I, the examiner and judge, represent a different character from that other I, the person whose conduct is examined into and judged of." - Adam Smith
We don't know who we are until we see what we can do. - Martha Grimes
Self-realization:
"The real 'haves' are they who can acquire freedom, self-confidence and even riches without depriving others of them. They acquire all of these by developing and applying their potentialities. On the other hand, the real 'have nots' are they who cannot have aught except by depriving others of it." - Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind
Self-respect:
"What so great happiness as to be beloved, and to know that we deserve to be beloved?" "Man naturally desires, not only to be loved, but to be lovely; or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of love He desires, not only praise, but praiseworthiness; or to be that thing which, though it should be praised by nobody, is, however, the natural and proper object of praise." "Misery and wretchedness can never enter the breast in which dwells complete self-satisfaction." - Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments
"A little less hypocrisy and a little more tolerance towards oneself can only have good results in respect for our neighbor; for we are all too prone to transfer to our fellows the injustice and violence we inflict upon our own natures." - Carl Jung
"The remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbor as ourselves: we do unto others as we do unto ourselves. We hate others when we hate ourselves. We are tolerant toward others when we tolerate ourselves. We forgive others when we forgive ourselves. It is not love of self but hatred of self which is at the root of the troubles that afflict our world." - Eric Hoffer
"Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate." - Henry David Thoreau
"Pluck out your self-love as you would pull off a faded lotus in autumn. Strive on the path of peace, the path of Nirvana shown by Buddha." - Dhammapada 285 (Narcissism and self-respect are two different things, one desirable, the other undesirable.)
Self-righteousness:
"Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him." - Proverbs 26:12
"The sluggard is wiser in his own eyes than seven men who answer discreetly." - Proverbs 26:16
"He who trusts in himself is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom is kept safe." - Proverbs 28:26
"Sometimes when we accuse others we are actually excusing ourselves. The more we need to justify ourselves, the greater will be our self-righteousness." - Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind
"The chief taint of self-righteousness is not its injustice but its insensitivity." - Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind
"Beaming with the inward consciousness of his faith, like a conceited saint unable to forget his glorious reward." "Podmore cooked what there was to cook, remorsefully, and felt all the time that by preparing the food of such sinners he imperiled his own salvation." - Joseph Conrad, TNOTN
Selfishness:
"The inordinately selfish are particularly susceptible to frustration. The more selfish a person, the more poignant his disappointments. It is the inordinately selfish, therefore, who are likely to be the most persuasive champions of selflessness. / The fiercest fanatics are often selfish people who were forced, by innate shortcomings or external circumstances, to lose faith in their own selves. They separate the excellent instrument of their selfishness from their ineffectual selves and attach it to the service of some holy cause. And though it be a faith of love and humility they adopt, they can be neither loving nor humble." - Eric Hoffer, The True Believer
"I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle." - Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, ch. 58
"'Tis not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger." - Hume, Treatise, II.iii.3
Selflessness:
"The taint hidden in selflessness is that selflessness is the only moral justification of ruthlessness." - Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind
"The burning conviction that we have a holy duty toward others is often a way of attaching our drowning selves to a passing raft. What looks like giving a hand is often a holding on for dear life. Take away our holy duties and you leave our lives puny and meaningless. There is no doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain enormously in self-esteem. The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless." "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." - Eric Hoffer, The True Believer
Sense:
"Between good sense and good taste there is the same difference as between cause and effect." - Jean de la Bruyère, Les Caractères
Sensuousness:
"From sensuousness arises sorrow and from sensuousness arises fear. If a man is free from sensuousness, he is free from fear and sorrow." "He who clings not to sensuous pleasures, even as water clings not to a lotus leaf, or a grain of mustard seed to the point of a needle - him I call a Brahmin." - Dhammapada 214, 401
Separation:
"It is seldom indeed that one parts on good terms, because if one were on good terms one would not part." - Marcel Proust
Sex:
"It isn't sex that wrecks these guys, it's staying up all night looking for it." - legendary baseball manager Casey Stengel
"A portion of the proceeds of this show go to charity: I do a lot of work with unwed mothers. Just helping them get their start." - Steve Martin
"Sex, mere sex, is repellent to me. I will never prostitute myself again. Unless something touches my very spirit, the very quick of me, I will stay alone, just alone." "She understood now the meaning of the Vestal Virgins: they were symbolic of herself, of woman weary of the embrace of incompetent men, weary, weary, weary of all that, turning to the unseen gods, the unseen spirits, the hidden fire, and devoting herself to that, and that alone. Receiving thence her pacification and her fulfillment." - D.H. Lawrence, St. Mawr, page 139
Sex is not the answer. Sex is the question. "Yes" is the answer.
Sexism:
"Of my two 'handicaps', being female put many more obstacles in my path than being black." - Shirley Chisholm
Silence:
"If only you would be altogether silent! For you, that would be wisdom." - Job 13:5
"If you can be in silent quietness like a broken gong that is silent, you have reached the peace of Nirvana and your anger is peace." - Dhammapada 134
"When a man knows the solitude of silence, and feels the joy of quietness, he is then free from fear and sin and he feels the joy of the Dhamma." - Dhammapada 205
"There are times when silence has the loudest voice." - Leroy Brownlow, Today is Mine
"If a man is only silent because he is ignorant or a fool, he is not a silent thinker, a Muni who considers and thinks. But as one who, taking a pair of scales, puts in what is good and rejects what is bad, if a man considers the two worlds, then he is called a Muni of silence, a man who considers and thinks." - Dhammapada 268-9
"Silence is the virtue of fools." - Francis Bacon
A closed mouth gathers no foot.
"Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing."
Sin:
And Jesus said, "For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see; and that those who see may become blind." Those of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these things, and said to Him, "We are not blind too, are we?" Jesus said to them, "If you were blind, you would have no sin; but since you say, 'We see,' your sin remains." - John 9:39-41, New American Standard
"If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates Me hates My Father also. If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated Me and My Father as well. But they have done this in order that the word may be fulfilled that is written in their Law, 'They hated me without a cause.'" - John 15:22-25, New American Standard
And as he sat at dinner in Levi's house, many tax collectors and sinners were also sitting with Jesus and his disciples -- for there were many who followed him. When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, "Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?" When Jesus heard this, he said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners." - Mark 2:15-17, New Revised Standard
He said to his disciples, "Things that cause sin will inevitably occur, but woe to the person through whom they occur. It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck and he be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin." - Luke 17:1-2, New American Bible
He went on: "What comes out of a man is what makes him 'unclean'. For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean'." - Mark 7:20-23
The seven deadly sins of medieval literature: anger, avarice, envy, gluttony, lust, pride, and sloth
"The repetition of a crime is sometimes part of a device of justification: we do it again and again to convince ourselves and others that it is a common thing and not an enormity." - Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind
"The technique of a proselytizing mass movement aims to evoke in the faithful the mood and frame of mind of a repentant criminal. Self-surrender, which is... the source of a mass movement's unity and vigor, is a sacrifice, an act of atonement, and clearly no atonement is called for unless there is a poignant sense of sin." - Eric Hoffer, The True Believer
Sincerity:
"The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith." (1 Timothy 1:5)
"A lying tongue hates those it hurts, and a flattering mouth works ruin." (Proverbs 26:28)
"An honest answer is like a kiss on the lips." - Proverbs 24:26
"Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly." - Benjamin Franklin
"To be honest, as this world goes, / is to be one man picked out of ten thousand." - Shakespeare, Hamlet, act 2, scene 2
"Sincerity is the luxury allowed, like diadems and authority, only to the highest rank. . . . Every man alone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins." "Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Be so true to thyself as thou be not false to others." - Francis Bacon
"If only we try to live sincerely, it will go well with us, even though we are certain to experience real sorrow and great disappointments, and also will probably commit great faults and do wrong things, but it certainly is true that it is better to be high-spirited, even though one makes more mistakes, than to be narrow-minded and all too prudent." - Vincent Van Gogh
"Few things concentrate the mind more efficiently than the necessity of saying what you mean. It brings you face to face with what you are talking about, what you are actually proposing. It gets you away from catch phrases that not merely substitute for thought but preclude it." - Edwin Newman, Across The Board
"An honest tale speeds best being plainly told." - Shakespeare, King Richard III, act 4, scene 4
Solitude:
"With some people solitariness is an escape not from others but from themselves. For they see in the eyes of others only a reflection of themselves." - Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind
the Soul:
"To make our soul good and beautiful is to make ourselves like unto God: because God is beauty." - Plotinus
"Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them." - Emerson, Representative Men: Montaigne
Speaking (Speech):
"Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers, how can you, being evil, speak what is good? For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. The good man out of his good treasure brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of his evil treasure brings forth what is evil. And I say to you, that every careless word that men shall speak, they shall render account for it in the day of judgment. For by your words you shall be justified, and by your words you shall be condemned." - Matthew 12:33-37
Jesus called the crowd to Him and said, "Listen and understand. What goes into a man's mouth does not make him 'unclean', but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him 'unclean'." - Matthew 15:10-11
"A fool's lips bring him strife, and his mouth invites a beating. A fool's mouth is his undoing, and his lips are a snare to his soul." - Proverbs 18:6-7
"He who answers before listening - that is his folly and his shame." - Proverbs 18:13
"The tongue that brings healing is a tree of life, but a deceitful tongue crushes the spirit." - Proverbs 15:4
"Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing." - Proverbs 12:18
"From the fruit of his lips a man is filled with good things as surely as the work of his hands rewards him." - Proverbs 12:14
"From the fruit of his mouth a man's stomach is filled; with the harvest from his lips he is satisfied." - Proverbs 18:20
"He who guards his lips guards his soul, but he who speaks rashly will come to ruin." - Proverbs 13:3
"Better than a thousand useless words is one single word that gives peace." "Never speak harsh words, for once spoken they may return to you. Angry words are painful, and there may be blows for blows." - Dhammapada 100, 133
Spirituality:
"And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?" - Luke 11:9-13, King James Version
Spite:
"The smith's dog could not overturn the anvil; he (therefore) overturned the water-pot instead." - Sumerian saying
Stubbornness:
"A man who remains stiff-necked after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed - without remedy." - Proverbs 29:1
Stupidity:
"Stupidity is not always a mere want of intelligence. It can be a sort of corruption. It is doubtful whether the good of heart can be really stupid." - Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind
Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.
Naeser's law: You can make it foolproof, but you can't make it damnfoolproof.
Style:
"Style is the man himself." - Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon, Discours sur le Style
Success:
"Deification of success is truly commensurate with human meanness. Whoever has closely studied even a single success knows what factors (stupidity, wickedness, laziness etc.) have always helped - and not as the weakest factors either. What is strong wins: that is the universal law. If only it were not so often precisely what is stupid and evil!" - Nietzsche, The Viking Portable, page 39
"The only infallible criterion of wisdom to vulgar judgments - success." - Edmund Burke
"The penalty of success is to be bored by people who used to snub you." - Nancy Astor
"Tis not in mortals to command success, / But we'll do more, Sempronius; we'll deserve it." - Joseph Addison, The Campaign
"I couldn't wait for success - so I went ahead without it." - Jonathan Winters
"Success without honor is an unseasoned dish; it will satisfy your hunger, but it won't taste good." - Joe Paterno
Suffering:
"Suffering cleanses only when it is free of resentment. Wholehearted contempt for our tormentors safeguards our soul from the mutilations of bitterness and hatred." - Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind
Superstition:
"Superstition is the religion of feeble minds." - Edmund Burke
"There is a superstition in avoiding superstition." - Francis Bacon
"Freedom and not servitude is the cure of anarchy; as religion, and not atheism, is the true remedy for superstition." - Edmund Burke
"It is bad luck to be superstitious." - Andrew Mathis
Suspicion:
"There is nothing makes a man suspect much, more than to know little." - Francis Bacon
Sympathy:
"If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too will cry out and not be answered." - Proverbs 21:13
"When you're cold, don't expect sympathy from someone who's warm." - Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
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.
