Most of these quotes are serious, others are humorous. Some I agree with, some I disagree with.
Talent:
"Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book." - Emerson, Representative Men: Goethe
Teaching:
"Let him find first what is right and then he can teach it to others, avoiding thus useless pain." - Dhammapada 158
Temperance:
"...not for him who eats too much, nor for him who eats too little; not for him who sleeps too little nor for him who sleeps too much." - Bhagavad Gita 6.16
"Not to hurt by deeds or words, self-control as taught in the Rules, moderation in food, the solitude of one's room and one's bed, and the practice of the highest consciousness: this is the teaching of the Buddhas who are awake." - Dhammapada 185
Temptation:
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. And when the tempter came to Him, he said, "If you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread." But He answered and said, "It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God." Then the devil took him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, "If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: 'He will give His angels charge concerning you,' and, 'In their hands they will bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.'" Jesus said to him, "It is written again, 'You shall not tempt the Lord your God.'" Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, "All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me." Then Jesus said to him, "Away with you, Satan! For it is written, 'You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.'" Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him. - Matthew 4:1-11, New King James Bible
"Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak." - Matthew 26:41
Thought:
"There is nothing either good or bad, / but thinking makes it so." - Shakespeare, Hamlet, act 2, scene 2
If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think, they'll hate you.
Time:
"Time has a wonderful way of weeding out the trivial." - Richard Ben Sapir, Quest
Timeliness:
Then the disciples of John came to Him, saying, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not fast?" And Jesus said to them, "The attendants of the bridegroom cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast." - Matthew 9:14-15, New American Standard
"If a man loudly blesses his neighbor early in the morning, it will be taken as a curse." (Proverbs 27:14)
"A man finds joy in giving an apt reply -- and how good is a timely word!" (Proverbs 15:23)
"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven." (Ecclesiastes 3:1)
"The lips of the righteous know what is fitting, but the mouth of the wicked only what is perverse." - Proverbs 10:32
"Seldom set foot in your neighbor's house - too much of you, and he will hate you." - Proverbs 25:17
Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and people came and said to him, "Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?" Jesus said to them, "The wedding guests cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day." - Mark 2:18-20, New Revised Standard
The Buddha defined 'right words' as 'words at the right time, true, profitable and kindly'. - from Juan Mascaro's preface to the Penguin edition of the Dhammapada
Bis das si cito das. "You give twice if you give quickly." Latin proverb
"He who helps early helps twice." - Tadeusz Mazowiecki
Toleration:
"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." (Matthew 7:1,2)
"If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." - John 8:7
In Exodus 22:21, God gives this command to the Hebrews: "Do not mistreat an alien or oppress him, for you were aliens in Egypt."
"Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For the measure you give will be the measure you get back." - Luke 6:37-38, Revised Standard Version
Verse 6 of the Dhammapada reads, "Many do not know that we are here in the world to live in harmony. Those who know this do not fight against each other." Verse 257 adds, "A wise man calmly considers what is right and what is wrong, and faces different opinions with truth, non-violence and peace. This man is guarded by truth and is a guardian of truth. He is righteous and he is wise."
In defense of religious tolerance, Thomas More wrote that in Utopia "no man shall be blamed for reasoning in the maintenance of his own religion."
"I could never divide my self from any man upon the difference of an opinion, or be angry with his judgment for not agreeing with me in that, from which perhaps within a few days I should dissent my self." - Sir Thomas Browne
"Toleration is the greatest gift of the mind; it requires the same effort of the brain that it takes to balance oneself on a bicycle." - Helen Keller
"The less secure a man is, the more likely he is to have extreme prejudices." - Clint Eastwood:
"Tolerance is a very dull virtue. It is boring. Unlike love, it has always had a bad press. It is negative. It merely means putting up with people, being able to stand things." - E.M. Forster
Tranquillity:
"Better one handful with tranquillity than two handfuls with toil and chasing after the wind." - Ecclesiastes 4:6
"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:6-7)
"Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable." - Benjamin Franklin
"Should the whole frame of nature round him break, in ruin and confusion hurled, he, unconcerned, would hear the mighty crack, and stand secure amidst a falling world." - Horace, "Odes"
"There is no such thing as perpetual tranquillity of mind while we live here; because life itself is but motion, and can never be without desire, nor without fear, no more than without sense." - Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan
In "The Theory of Moral Sentiments", Adam Smith wrote, "Happiness consists in tranquillity and enjoyment. Without tranquillity there can be no enjoyment; and where there is perfect tranquillity there is scarce any thing which is not capable of amusing." Smith continues, "In every permanent situation, where there is no expectation of change, the mind of every man, in a longer or shorter time, returns to its natural and usual state of tranquillity In the confinement and solitude of the Bastille, the fashionable and frivolous Count de Lauzun recovered tranquillity enough to be capable of amusing himself with feeding a spider The great source of both the misery and disorders of human life, seems to arise from over-rating the difference between one permanent situation and another. Avarice over-rates the difference between poverty and riches: ambition, that between a private and a public station: vain-glory, that between obscurity and extensive reputation. The person under the influence of any of those extravagant passions, is not only miserable in his actual situation, but is often disposed to disturb the peace of society, in order to arrive at that which he so foolishly admires. The slightest observation, however, might satisfy him, that, in all the ordinary situations of human life, a well-disposed mind may be equally calm, equally cheerful, and equally contented. Some of those situations may, no doubt, deserve to be preferred to others: but none of them can be pursued with that passionate ardour which drives us to violate the rules either of prudence or of justice; or to corrupt the future tranquillity of our minds, either by shame from the remembrance of our own folly, or by remorse from the horror of our own injustice. In the most glittering and exalted situation that our idle fancy can hold out to us, the pleasures from which we propose to derive our real happiness, are almost always the same with those which, in our actual, though humble station, we have at all times at hand, and in our power (except) the frivolous pleasures of vanity and superiority (which) are seldom consistent with perfect tranquillity, the principle and foundation of all real and satisfactory enjoyment. Neither is it always certain that, in the splendid situation which we aim at, those real and satisfactory pleasures can be enjoyed with the same security as in the humble one which we are so very eager to abandon."
The second chapter of Ecclesiastes tell us, "A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment?"
Treachery:
"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
Truth:
For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. - John 1:17
"We are much beholden to Machiavelli and others, that write what men do, and not what they ought to do." - Sir Francis Bacon
"... No pleasure is comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth (a hill not to be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene), and to see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale below..." - Francis Bacon, "Of Truth"
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.