A man may be very industrious, and yet not spend his time well. There is no more fatal blunderer than he who consumes the greater part of life getting his living.

-- Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)

The artist must raise the cup of his vision aloft to the gods in the high hope that they will pour into it the sweet mellow wine of inspira- tion.

-- Paul Brunton

The newer people of this modern age are more eager to amass than to re- alize.

-- Rabindranath Tagore

Dare, dare to dream, dare to convert dreams into reality - for the world lies within the reach of those, who reach beyond their dreams, who reach beyond themselves.

-- Anonymous

A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it.

-- Rabindranath Tagore

Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors, and the most patient of teachers.

-- Charles W. Eliot

Never bear more than one trouble at a time. Some people bear three kinds - all they have had, all they have now, and all they expect to have.

-- Edward Everett Hale

Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward. They may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.

-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.

-- Charles Dickens

When success comes in after hard work the leader should give the credit of the success to the team members. When failure comes the leaders should absorb the failures and protect the team members.

-- Abdul Kalam

Desire, when it stems from the heart and spirit, when it is pure and in- tense, possesses awesome electromagnetic energy. You can rely, young man, upon this ageless promise as surely as you can rely upon the eter- nally unbroken promise of sunrise. Accept your destiny and go ahead with your life. Forget this failure, as you are destined for a different path.

-- Anonymous

In the midst of great joy, do not promise anyone anything. In the midst of great anger, do not answer anyone's letter.

-- Chinese proverb

It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be re- minded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.

-- Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)

The palest ink is better than the best memory.

-- Chinese proverb

Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mas- tering others is strength, mastering yourself is true power.

-- Lao-Tzu, philosopher (6th century B.C.)

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it; Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it!

-- Anonymous

If I have seen further it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.

-- Sir Isaac Newton

Appreciation is a wonderful thing; it makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.

-- Voltaire

The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thou- sandfold.

-- Aristotle

It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.

-- Edmund Hillary, mountaineer and explorer

A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contem- plates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.

-- Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author and aviator (1900-1945)

What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

A multitude of laws in a country is like a great number of physicians, a sign of weakness and malady.

-- Voltaire

If any man wishes to write in a clear style, let him be first clear in his thoughts; and if any would write in a noble style, let him first possess a noble soul.

-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Reason often makes mistakes, but conscience never does.

-- Josh Billings, columnist and humorist (1818-1885)

One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture and, if it were possible, speak a few reasonable words.

-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.

-- Henry Hadsworth Longfellow

If you must play, decide on three things at the start: the rules of the game, the stakes, and the quitting time.

-- Chinese Proverb

Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.

-- Abraham Lincoln

Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents.

-- Arthur Schopenhauer

He who sacrifices his conscience to ambition burns a picture to obtain the ashes.

-- Chinese Proverb

Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won't come in.

-- Alan Alda

Advice is like snow; the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind.

-- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can feel trust and reverence.

-- George Eliot

Walking is also an ambulation of mind.

-- Gretel Ehrlich

I have learned through bitter experience the one supreme lesson to con- serve my anger, and as heat conserved is transmitted into energy, even so our anger controlled can be transmitted into a power that can move the world.

-- Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

There is no greatness where there is not simplicity, goodness, and truth.

-- Leo Tolstoy

Reading makes a full man, meditation a profound man, discourse a clear man.

-- Benjamin Franklin

Better than a thousand days of diligent study is one day with a great teacher.

-- Japanese proverb

Men of genius are often dull and inert in society, as a blazing meteor when it descends to earth, is only a stone.

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him.

-- Galileo Galilei

Poetry should please by a fine excess and not by singularity. It should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost as a remembrance.

-- John Keats

He is the best physician who is the most ingenious inspirer of hope.

-- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Nature magically suits a man to his fortunes, by making them the fruit of his character.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

When we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and ex- amine ourselves.

-- Confucius

There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside of you.

-- Maya Angelou

To love is to receive a glimpse of heaven.

-- Karen Sunde

What a heavy oar the pen is, and what a strong current ideas are to row in!

-- Gustave Flaubert

Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers.

-- Mignon McLaughlin

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

In seeking wisdom, the first step is silence, the second listening, the third remembering, the fourth practicing, the fifth -- teaching others.

-- Ibn Gabirol, poet and philosopher

The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears.

-- John Vance Cheney

All the world's a stage, And the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts.

-- William Shakespeare

Charity sees the need not the cause.

-- German proverb

Write down the advice of him who loves you, though you like it not at present.

-- English Proverb

A book is a garden carried in the pocket.

-- Chinese proverb

When you read a classic, you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in yourself than there was before.

-- Cliff Fadiman

To own a bit of ground, to scratch it with a hoe, to plant seeds and watch their renewal of life -- this is the commonest delight of the race, the most satisfactory thing a man can do.

-- Charles Dudley Warner,

The best effect of fine persons is felt after we have left their pres- ence.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

-- Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought; our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.

-- Samuel Johnson

Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.

-- Will Durant

We can be knowledgeable with other men's knowledge but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom.

-- Michel Montaigne

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

-- Abraham Lincoln,

Every saint has a past and every sinner a future.

-- Oscar Wilde

To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for or- nament, is affectation; to make judgement wholly by their rules, is the humour of a scholar ... Read not to contradict and confute; nor to be- lieve and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested ... Reading maketh a full man; con- ference a ready man; and writing an exact man ... Histories make men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtile; natural philosophy deep; moral grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend.

-- Francis Bacon

Nothing worse could happen to one than to be completely understood.

-- Carl Gustav Jung

Knowledge is hard earned. But, without knowledge, we can do no more than fantasize, which is childishly easy. The knowledge that can take us be- yond fantasy requires an exercise of mind, as exercise that can be as invigorating as exercise of the body.

-- Signals: The Science of Telecommunications

Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)

When one has too great a dread of what is impending, one feels some relief when the trouble has come.

-- Joseph Joubert

I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to these teachers.

-- Kahlil Gibran, mystic, poet and artist (1883-1931)

Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.

-- Albert Schweitzer, philosopher, physician, and musician (1875-1965)

The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet (1807-1882)

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

-- Robert Frost, poet (1874-1963)

There are a thousand thoughts lying within a man that he does not know till he takes up a pen to write.

-- William Makepeace Thackeray, novelist (1811-1863)

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep And miles to go before I sleep.

-- Robert Frost, poet (1874-1963)

There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.

-- Aristotle, philosopher (384-322 BCE)

There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.

-- Alfred Hitchcock, film-maker (1899-1980)

The bamboo that bends is stronger than the oak that resists.

-- Japanese proverb

You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

-- Kahlil Gibran, mystic, poet and artist (1883-1931)

Never advise anyone to go to war or to marry.

-- Spanish Proverb

Money, n. A blessing that is of no advantage to us excepting when we part with it. An evidence of culture and a passport to polite society.

-- Ambrose Bierce, writer (1842-1914)

Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission.

-- Eleanor Roosevelt, diplomat, author, and lecturer (1884-1962)

People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea , at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering.

-- Saint Augustine (354-430)

Remember when life's path is steep to keep your mind even.

-- Horace, poet and satirist (65-8 BCE)

Your only obligation in any lifetime is to be true to yourself. Being true to anyone else or anything else is ... impossible.

-- Richard Bach, writer (1936- )

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.

-- Confucius, philosopher and teacher (c. 551-478 BCE)

Everyone is the son of his own works.

-- Miguel de Cervantes, novelist (1547-1616)

... defines successful intelligence as the ability to capitalise on one's strengths and compensate for one's weaknesses.

-- Anonymous

A man does not show his greatness by being at one extremity, but rather by touching both at once.

-- Blaise Pascal, philosopher and mathematician (1623-1662)

Make it thy business to know thyself, which is the most difficult lesson in the world.

-- Miguel de Cervantes

Not all those that wander are lost.

-- J.R.R. Tolkien, novelist and philologist (1892-1973)

I believe that the first test of a truly great man is his humility. I do not mean by humility, doubt of his own powers. But really great men have a curious feeling that the greatness is not in them, but through them. And they see something divine in every other man and are endlessly, foolishly, incredibly merciful.

-- John Ruskin, author, art critic, and social reformer (1819-1900)

One can be instructed in society, one is inspired only in solitude.

-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet and philosopher (1749-1832)

The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things.

-- Plato, philosopher (427-347 BCE)

We would often be ashamed of our finest actions if the world understood all the motives which produced them.

-- Duc de La Rochefoucauld, writer (1613-1680)

Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence.

-- Hal Borland, journalist (1900-1978)

I have suffered from being misunderstood, but I would have suffered a hell of a lot more if I had been understood.

-- Clarence Darrow, lawyer and author (1857-1938)

Nature never did betray the heart that loved her.

-- William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

-- Carl Jung, psychiatrist (1875-1961)

He who would leap high must take a long run.

-- Danish Proverb

To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.

-- Lao-Tzu, philosopher (6th century BCE)

Many live in the ivory tower called reality; they never venture on the open sea of thought.

-- Francois Gautier, journalist (1950- )

There is no disguise that can for long conceal love where it exists or simulate it where it does not.

-- Francois de La Rochefoucauld

To be well informed, one must read quickly a great number of merely instructive books. To be cultivated, one must read slowly and with a lingering appreciation the comparatively few books that have been written by men who lived, thought, and felt with style.

-- Aldous Huxley, writer (1894-1963)

When the Master governs, the people are hardly aware that he exists. Next best is a leader, who is loved, Next, one who is feared, The worst is the one who is despised.

-- Dao De Jing, the 2,500-year old Taoist Classic

The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest men of past centuries.

-- Rene Descartes, philosopher and mathematician (1596-1650)

Speech is conveniently located midway between thought and action, where it often substitutes for both.

-- John Andrew Holmes

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.

-- Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)

Why should I fear death? If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not. Why should I fear that which cannot exist when I do?

-- Epicurus, philosopher (c. 341-270 BCE)

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned.

-- Buddha (c. 566-480 BCE)

Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste they hurry past it.

-- Soren Kierkegaard, philosopher (1813-1855)

It is easy enough to be friendly to one's friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business.

-- Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)

The higher we soar the smaller we appear to those who cannot fly.

-- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)

A misery is not to be measured from the nature of the evil, but from the temper of the sufferer.

-- Joseph Addison, essayist and poet (1672-1719)

Nothing contributes so much to tranquilizing the mind as a steady purpose - a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.

-- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, author (1797-1851)

The great rulers - the people do not notice their existence. The lesser ones they attach to and praise them. The still lesser ones - they fear them. The still lesser ones - they despise them. For where faith is lacking it cannot be met by faith.

-- Tao Te Ching

Universities are full of knowledge. The freshmen bring a little in, and the seniors take none away, and knowledge accumulates.

-- A. L. Lowell (Harvard President)

We allow our ignorance to prevail upon us and make us think we can survive alone, alone in patches, alone in groups, alone in races, even alone in genders.

-- Maya Angelou, poet (1928- )

You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of discussion.

-- Plato, philosopher (427-347 BCE)

Reading is seeing by proxy.

-- Herbert Spencer, philosopher (1820-1903)

If you are going to tell people the truth, you'd better make them laugh. Otherwise they'll kill you.

-- G. B. Shaw.

My library Was dukedom large enough.

-- William Shakespeare, poet and dramatist (1564-1616)

To see a world in a grain of sand, And a heaven in a wild flower, Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, And eternity in an hour.

-- William Blake, poet, engraver, and painter (1757-1827)

Words are things; and a small drop of ink Falling like dew upon a thought, produces That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.

-- Lord Byron, poet (1788-1824)

To do great work a man must be very idle as well as very industrious.

-- Samuel Butler, poet (1612-1680)

The only gift is giving to the poor; All else is exchange.

-- Thiruvalluvar, poet (c. 30 BCE)

A good heart is better than all the heads in the world.

-- Edward Bulwer-Lytton, writer (1803-1873)

I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

-- Isaac Newton, philosopher and mathematician (1642-1727)

Love like you have never been hurt, Work like you don't need money, Dance like no one is watching

-- Anonymous

Beware the fury of the patient man.

-- John Dryden, poet and dramatist (1631-1700)

Little Strokes, Fell great Oaks.

-- Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)

His mother had often said, When you choose an action, you choose the consequences of that action. She had emphasized the corollary of this axiom even more vehemently: when you desired a consequence you had damned well better take the action that would create it.

-- Lois McMaster Bujold, writer (1949- )

Him that I love, I wish to be free -- even from me.

-- Anne Morrow Lindbergh, writer (1906-2001)

When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.

-- R. Buckminster Fuller, engineer, designer, and architect (1895-1983)

We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.

-- Kahlil Gibran, mystic, poet, and artist (1883-1931)

Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral.

-- Paulo Freire, educator (1921-1997)

The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.

-- Chinese Proverb

It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds.

-- William Ellery Channing, clergyman and writer (1780-1842)

Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.

-- Ovid, poet (43 BCE - CE 17)

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

-- Kahlil Gibran, mystic, poet, and artist (1883-1931)

Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.

-- Thomas Henry Huxley, biologist (1825-1895)

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.

-- Leo Buscaglia, author (1924-1998)

Just as appetite comes by eating, so work brings inspiration, if inspiration is not discernible at the beginning.

-- Igor Stravinsky, composer (1882-1971)

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

-- Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)

Never idealize others. They will never live up to your expectations.

-- Leo Buscaglia, author, speaker and professor (1924-1998)

Silence will save me from being wrong (and foolish), but it will also deprive me of the possibility of being right.

-- Igor Stravinsky, composer (1882-1971)

An artist is not paid for his labor but for his vision.

-- James McNeill Whistler, painter (1834-1903)

He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.

-- Edmund Burke, statesman and writer (1729-1797)

Few people think more than two or three times a year. I've made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.

-- George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)

He who has imagination without learning has wings and no feet.

-- Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)

When governments fear the people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny.

-- Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author (1743-1826)

He who has imagination without learning has wings and no feet.

-- Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)

Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others. His culture is based on "I am not too sure."

-- H.L.Mencken

hat a strange machine man is! You fill him with bread, wine, fish, and radishes, and out comes sighs, laughter, and dreams.

-- Nikos Kazantzakis, poet and novelist (1883-1957)

If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.

-- George Orwell, writer (1903-1950)

A single rose can be my garden... a single friend, my world.

-- Leo Buscaglia, author, speaker and professor (1924-1998)

If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and the fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.

-- Louis Dembitz Brandeis, lawyer, judge, and writer (1856-1941)

Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.

-- Ambrose Bierce, writer (1842-1914)

Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.

-- George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)

The great tragedy of science -- the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.

-- Thomas Huxley, biologist and writer (1825-1895)

Tears are not arguments.

-- Machado de Assis, writer (1839-1908)

It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.

-- Arthur Conan Doyle, physician and writer (1859-1930)

Say oh wise man how you have come to such knowledge? Because I was never ashamed to confess my ignorance and ask others.

-- Johann Gottfried Von Herder, critic and poet (1744-1803)

The road to wisdom? Well it's plain and simple to express: Err and err and err again, but less and less and less.

-- Piet Hein, poet and scientist (1905-1996)

No, no, you're not thinking, you're just being logical.

-- Niels Bohr, physicist (1885-1962)

To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust.

-- Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)

If only I may grow: firmer, simpler, -- quieter, warmer.

-- Dag Hammarskjold, Secretary General of the United Nations, Nobel laureate (1905-1961)

All human beings should try to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.

-- James Thurber, writer and cartoonist (1894-1961)

A true measure of your worth includes all the benefits others have gained from your successes.

-- Cullen Hightower, salesman and writer (1923- )

He will always be a slave who does not know how to live upon a little.

-- Horace, poet and satirist (65-8 BCE)

Rewards and punishments are the lowest form of education.

-- Chuang-Tzu, philosopher (4th c. BCE)

Jokes of the proper kind, properly told, can do more to enlighten questions of politics, philosophy, and literature than any number of dull arguments.

-- Isaac Asimov, scientist and writer (1920-92)

A closed mind is like a closed book: just a block of wood.

-- Chinese Proverb

No man can be called friendless when he has God and the companionship of good books.

-- Elizabeth Barret Browning, poet (1806-1861)

Too much sanity may be madness. And maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be!

-- Miguel de Cervantes, writer (1547-1616)

Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed.

-- Francis Bacon

A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight.

-- Robertson Davies, writer (1913-1995)

If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the military, nothing is safe.

-- Lord Salisbury, British prime minister(1830-1903)

The movement away from the artificial is a sign of progress.

-- Anonymous

Grief is the agony of an instant, the indulgence of grief the blunder of a life.

-- Benjamin Disraeli

But man, proud man, Drest in a little brief authority, Most ignorant of what he's most assured, His glassy essence, like an angry ape, Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven As make the angels weep.

-- William Shakespeare, playwright and poet (1564-1616)

To sit alone in the lamplight with a book spread out before you, and hold intimate converse with men of unseen generations--such is a pleasure beyond compare.

-- Kenko Yoshida, essayist (1283-1352)

The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.

-- Voltaire, philosopher and writer (1694-1778)

If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play.

-- John Cleese, comic actor (1939- )

One can pay back the loan of gold, but one dies forever in debt to those who are kind.

-- Malayan Proverb

Efficiency is intelligent laziness.

-- David Dunham

The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress.

-- Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)

Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity.

-- Socrates, philosopher (469?-399 BCE)

Every increased possession loads us with new weariness.

-- John Ruskin, author, art critic, and social reformer (1819-1900)

We aim above the mark to hit the mark.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)

Confidence, like art, never comes from having all the answers; it comes from being open to all the questions.

-- Earl Gray Stevens

For me, words are a form of action, capable of influencing change.

-- Ingrid Bengis, writer and teacher (1944- )

Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers; pray for powers equal to your tasks.

-- Phillips Brooks, bishop and orator (1835-1893)

Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience.

-- George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)

God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.

-- Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778)

I wish you all the joy that you can wish.

-- William Shakespeare, playwright and poet (1564-1616)

The world in general doesn't know what to make of originality; it is startled out of its comfortable habits of thought, and its first reaction is one of anger.

-- W. Somerset Maugham, writer (1874-1965)

Think not those faithful who praise all thy words and actions; but those who kindly reprove thy faults.

-- Socrates, philosopher (469?-399 BCE)

To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not, rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common -- this is my symphony.

-- William Henry Channing

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

-- Oscar Wilde

When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.

-- Leonardo da Vinci

Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness, and just be happy.

-- Guillaume Apollinaire

Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.

-- Dalai Lama

Grief is the agony of an instant, the indulgence of grief the blunder of a life.

-- Benjamin Disraeli

Nurture your mind with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes.

-- Benjamin Disraeli

A child becomes an adult when he realizes that he has a right not only to be right but also to be wrong.

-- Thomas Szasz

Things are only as bad as the stuff you can't joke about.

-- Mark Katz (former humor speechwriter for President Bill Clinton)

There is no one, no matter how wise he is, who has not in his youth said things or done things that are so unpleasant to recall in later life that he would expunge them entirely from his memory if that were possible.

-- Marcel Proust, novelist (1871-1922)

In a democracy dissent is an act of faith. Like medicine, the test of its value is not in its taste, but in its effects.

-- J. William Fulbright, US Senator (1905-1995)

Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could; Some blunders and absurdities crept in; Forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)

Avaritia facit Bardus - Greed makes you stupid.

-- Latin Proverb

If men could regard the events of their own lives with more open minds, they would frequently discover that they did not really desire the things they failed to obtain.

-- Emile Herzog, writer (1885-1967)

The penalty that good men pay for not being interested in politics is to be governed by men worse than themselves.

-- Plato, philosopher (427-347 BCE)

In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.

-- Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)

Talent is formed in solitude, character in the bustle of the world.

-- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.

-- Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)

There is pleasure in the pathless woods, There is rapture in the lonely shore, There is society where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar: I love not man the less, but nature more.

-- Lord Byron, poet (1788-1824)

To kill time is not murder, it's suicide.

-- William James, psychologist and philosopher (1842-1910)

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact than a drunken man is happier than a sober one.

-- George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)

It is surprising what a man can do when he has to, and how little most men will do when they don't have to.

-- Walter Linn

Man and his deed are two distinct things. Whereas a good deed should call forth approbation, and a wicked deed disapprobation, the doer of the deed, whether good or wicked always deserves respect or pity as the case may be.

-- Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist.

-- Louis Nizer, lawyer (1902-1994)

A person is never happy except at the price of some ignorance.

-- Anatole France, novelist, essayist, Nobel laureate (1844-1924)

Everyone wishes to have truth on his side, but not everyone wishes to be on the side of truth.

-- Richard Whately, philosopher, reformer, theologian, economist (1787-1863)

The drying up a single tear has more of honest fame than shedding seas of gore.

-- Lord Byron, poet (1788-1824)

The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself for an oracle, is inborn in us.

-- Paul Valery, poet and philosopher (1871-1945)

The only devils in this world are those running around in our own hearts, and that is where all our battles should be fought.

-- Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

Words are a mirror of their times. By looking at the areas in which the vocabulary of a language is expanding fastest in a given period, we can form a fairly accurate impression of the chief preoccupations of society at that time and the points at which the boundaries of human endeavour are being advanced.

-- John Ayto, lexicographer (1949- )

The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.

-- Marcus Tullius Cicero, statesman, orator and writer (106-43 BCE)

Many highly intelligent people are poor thinkers. Many people of average intelligence are skilled thinkers. The power of the car is separate from the way the car is driven.

-- Edward De Bono, consultant, writer, and speaker (1933- )

Hatred - the anger of the weak.

-- Alphonse Daudet, writer (1840-1897)

A man who uses a great many words to express his meaning is like a bad marksman who, instead of aiming a single stone at an object, takes up a handful and throws at it in hopes he may hit.

-- Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)

Work on good prose has three steps: a musical stage when it is composed, an architectonic one when it is built, and a textile one when it is woven.

-- Walter Benjamin, critic and philosopher (1982-1940)

A man is not old until his regrets take the place of dreams.

-- Yiddish proverb

Other men are lenses through which we read our own minds.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson , writer and philosopher (1803-1882)

Every man is a volume if you know how to read him.

-- William Ellery Channing, clergyman, reformer (1810-1884)

Beauty is the purgation of superfluities.

-- Michelangelo Buonarroti, sculptor, painter, architect, and poet (1475-1564)

Simplicity is making the journey of this life with just baggage enough.

-- Charles Dudley Warner, editor and author (1829-1900)

One has to be a lowbrow, a bit of a murderer, to be a politician, ready and willing to see people sacrificed, slaughtered, for the sake of an idea, whether a good one or a bad one.

-- Henry Miller, writer (1891-1980)

The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.

-- Theodore M. Hesburgh, educator (1917- )

I and the public know. What all schoolchildren learn. Those to whom evil is done. Do evil in return

-- W.H. Auden, poet (1907-1973)

A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.

-- Theodore Roosevelt, 26th US president (1858-1919)

Our elections are free, it's in the results where eventually we pay.

-- Bill Stern, sports announcer (1907-1971)

Words - so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.

-- Nathaniel Hawthorne, writer (1804-1864)

The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.

-- Niccolo Machiavelli, political philosopher and author (1469-1527)

Everything secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity.

-- Lord Acton, historian (1834-1902)

The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it.

-- Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher (1788-1860)

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.

-- Francis Bacon, essayist, philosopher, and statesman (1561-1626)

Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well.

-- Josh Billings (1818 - 1885)

So many of you wrote in your applications that you wanted to change the world. Before you change the world you need to be able to change yourself. And before you can change yourself you need to know yourself. It is our goal that at the end of these two years you know yourself.

-- Dean Bob Joss, Stanford Welcome Address

No one ever ever won a chess game by betting on each move. Sometimes you have to move backward to get a step forward.

-- Amar Gopal Bose, electrical engineer, inventor, founder Bose Corp. (1929- )

Certainly virtue is like precious odours, most fragrant when they are incensed, or crushed: for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.

-- Francis Bacon, essayist, philosopher, and statesman (1561-1626)

Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward. Maybe they have to be crazy. How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear a song that's never been written? Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels? We make tools for these kinds of people. While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

-- Carl Sagan, astronomer and author (1934-1996)

The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

-- L.P. Hartley, writer (1895-1972)

If you don't find God in the next person you meet, it is a waste of time looking for him further.

-- Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)

A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience.

-- Miguel de Cervantes, novelist (1547-1616)

Respecting others' rights is the way to peace.

-- Benito Juárez

It is always the secure who are humble.

-- G.K. Chesterton, essayist and novelist (1874-1936)

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.

-- Charles Darwin, naturalist and author (1809-1882)

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time and the government when it deserves it.

-- Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.

-- Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)

A person usually has two reasons for doing something: a good reason and the real reason.

-- Thomas Carlyle, historian and essayist (1795-1881)

By words the mind is winged.

-- Aristophanes, dramatist (c. 448-385 BCE)

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

-- George Santayana, philosopher (1863-1952)

People rarely win wars; governments rarely lose them.

-- Arundhati Roy, writer and activist (1961- )

What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare?

-- W.H. Davies

He judged them all accurately but never in bitterness;

-- David Mitrany (about Albert Einstein)

Rhetoric is the outer face of the presidency, while organization is the inner face.

-- Fred Greenstein

Grasp the subject, the words will follow.

-- Cato the Elder, statesman, and writer (234-149 BCE)

The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same.

-- Stendal (Marie Henri Beyle), novelist (1783-1842)

Life is short. Be swift to love! Make haste to be kind!

-- Henri Frederic Amiel philosopher and writer (1821-1881)

Nothing so completely baffles one who is full of trick and duplicity himself, than straightforward and simple integrity in another.

-- Charles Caleb Colton, author and clergyman (1780-1832)

Many a secret that cannot be pried out by curiosity can be drawn out by indifference.

-- Sydney J. Harris, journalist (1917-1986)

Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all.

-- Thomas Szasz, author, professor of psychiatry (1920- )

A language is an exact reflection of the character and growth of its speakers.

-- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

What's done to children, they will do to society.

-- Karl A. Menninger, psychiatrist (1893-1990)

To keep your marriage brimming, With love in the loving cup, Whenever you're wrong, admit it; Whenever you're right, shut up.

-- Ogden Nash, author (1902-1971)

Love truth, but pardon error.

-- Voltaire, philosopher and writer (1694-1778)

Lower your voice and strengthen your argument.

-- Lebanese proverb

The voice of conscience is so delicate that it is easy to stifle it; but it is also so clear that it is impossible to mistake it.

-- Madame De Stael, writer (1766-1817)

Questions show the mind's range, and answers its subtlety.

-- Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)

A quiet conscience sleeps in thunder.

--- English proverb

A timid question will always receive a confident answer.

-- Henry Lytton Bulwer, diplomat and author (1801-1872)

In words are seen the state of mind and character and disposition of the speaker.

-- Plutarch, biographer and philosopher (circa 46-120)

The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.

-- Harriet Beecher Stowe, abolitionist and novelist (1811-1896)

The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.

-- Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)

To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.

-- Edmund Burke, statesman and writer (1729-1797)

Learning is weightless, a treasure you can always carry easily.

-- Chinese Proverb

A library is thought in cold storage.

-- Herbert Samuel, politician and diplomat (1870-1963)

Truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.

-- Flannery O'Connor, writer (1925-1964)

What is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage. The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious.

-- Marcus Tullius Cicero, statesman, orator, writer (106-43 BCE)

You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view.

-- Harper Lee, writer (1926- )

Smoking cures weight problems... eventually.

-- Steven Wright, comedian (1955- )

It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.

-- Thomas Paine, philosopher and writer (1737-1809)

We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and bones.

-- Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)

We should have a great many fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas, and not for things themselves.

-- John Locke, philosopher (1632-1704)

It's good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it's good, too, to check up once in a while and make sure that you haven't lost the things that money can't buy.

-- George H. Lorimer, editor (1868-1937)

You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.

-- Naguib Mahfouz, writer (1911- )

Good books don't give up all their secrets at once.

-- Stephen King, novelist (1947- )

Once upon a time a man whose ax was missing suspected his neighbor's son. The boy walked like a thief, looked like a thief, and spoke like a thief. But the man found his ax while digging in the valley, and the next time he saw his neighbor's son, the boy walked, looked and spoke like any other child.

-- Lao-tzu, philosopher (6th century BCE)

A word in earnest is as good as a speech.

-- Charles Dickens, novelist (1812-1870)

Write with nouns and verbs, not with adjectives and adverbs. The adjective hasn't been built that can pull a weak or inaccurate noun out of a tight place.

-- William Strunk and E.B. White, (The Elements of Style)

What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.

-- Herbert Alexander Simon, economist, Nobel laureate (1916-2001)

God is conscience. He is even the atheism of the atheist.

-- Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)

You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.

-- Anne Lamott, writer (1954- )

The best politics is right action.

-- Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)

I am malicious because I am miserable. ... If any being felt emotions of benevolence towards me, I should return them a hundred and a hundred fold (words of Frankenstein monster).

-- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, author (1797-1851)

A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers.

-- Robert Quillen, journalist and cartoonist (1887-1948)

The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere.

-- Anne Morrow Lindbergh, writer (1906-2001)

It came to me that reform should begin at home, and since that day I have not had time to remake the world.

-- Will Durant, historian (1885-1981)

My life is my message.

-- Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)

To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.

-- Abraham Lincoln, 16th US president (1809-1865)

Half the truth is often a great lie.

-- Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)

War, at first, is the hope that one will be better off; next, the expectation that the other fellow will be worse off; then, the satisfaction that he isn't any better off; and, finally, the surprise at everyone's being worse off.

-- Karl Kraus, writer (1874-1936)

People do not wish to appear foolish; to avoid the appearance of foolishness, they are willing to remain actually fools.

-- Alice Walker, writer (1944- )

Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God's service when it is violating all his laws.

-- John Adams, 2nd US president (1735-1826)

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

-- Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778)

Why should I give them my mind we well?

-- Dalai Lama (1935 -)

, when asked if he wasn't angry at the Chinese for taking over his country.

It does not require many words to speak the truth.

-- Chief Joseph, native American leader (1840-1904)

When we have the courage to speak out -- to break our silence -- we inspire the rest of the "moderates" in our communities to speak up and voice their views.

-- Sharon Schuster

Lying is done with words and also with silence.

-- Adrienne Rich, writer and teacher (1929- )

I love you, and because I love you, I would sooner have you hate me for telling you the truth than adore me for telling you lies.

-- Pietro Aretino, satirist and dramatist (1492-1556)

As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.

-- Gore Vidal, writer (1925- )

In the republic of mediocrity genius is dangerous.

-- Robert G. Ingersoll, lawyer and orator (1833-1899)

If you wouldn't write it and sign it, don't say it.

-- Earl Wilson, columnist (1907-1987)

There are four ways, and only four ways, in which we have contact with the world. We are evaluated and classified by these four contacts: what we do, how we look, what we say, and how we say it.

-- Dale Carnegie, author and educator (1888-1955)

The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.

-- Ludwig Wittgenstein, philosopher (1889-1951)

We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security.

-- Dwight David Eisenhower, U.S. general and 34th president (1890-1969)

A king can stand people fighting but he can't last long if people start thinking.

-- Will Rogers, humorist (1879-1935)

An open mind is a prerequisite to an open heart.

-- Robert M. Sapolsky, neuroscientist and author (1957- )

Literature is the language of society, as speech is the language of man.

--Louis de Bonald, philosopher and politician (1754-1840)

Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.

-- Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate (1872-1970)

We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.

-- William Somerset Maugham, writer (1874-1965)

Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts... perhaps the fear of a loss of power.

-- John Steinbeck, novelist, Nobel laureate (1902-1968)

For all our conceits about being the center of the universe, we live in a routine planet of a humdrum star stuck away in an obscure corner ... on an unexceptional galaxy which is one of about 100 billion galaxies. ... That is the fundamental fact of the universe we inhabit, and it is very good for us to understand that.

-- Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer (1934-1996)

Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it.

-- Christopher Morley, writer (1890-1957)

Intolerance of ambiguity is the mark of an authoritarian personality.

-- Theodor Adorno, philosopher and composer (1903-1969)

These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves.

-- Gilbert Highet, writer (1906-1978)

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

-- Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd US President (1882-1945)

Earth is here so kind, that just tickle her with a hoe and she laughs with a harvest.

-- Douglas William Jerrold, playwright and humorist (1803-1857)

We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.

-- Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)

Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.

-- Edmund Burke, statesman and writer (1729-1797)

I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart, and that is softness of head.

-- Theodore Roosevelt, 26th US President (1858-1919)

When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.

-- Abraham Joshua Heschel, theology professor (1907-1972)

Nature's law affirm instead of prohibit. If you violate her laws, you are your own prosecuting attorney, judge, jury, and hangman.

-- Luther Burbank, horticulturist (1849-1926)

Because we don't understand the brain very well we're constantly tempted to use the latest technology as a model for trying to understand it. In my childhood we were always assured that the brain was a telephone switchboard. (What else could it be?) And I was amused to see that Sherrington, the great British neuroscientist, thought that the brain worked like a telegraph system. Freud often compared the brain to hydraulic and electromagnetic systems. Leibniz compared it to a mill, and now, obviously, the metaphor is the digital computer.

-- John R. Searle, philosophy professor (1932- )

Worth begets in base minds, envy; in great souls, emulation.

-- Henry Fielding, author (1707-1754)

Creative activity could be described as a type of learning process where teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.

-- Arthur Koestler, novelist and journalist (1905-1983)

The greatest masterpiece in literature is only a dictionary out of order.

-- Jean Cocteau, writer, artist, and filmmaker

In the case of good books, the point is not how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.

-- Mortimer J. Adler, philosopher, educator and author (1902-2001)

Several excuses are always less convincing than one.

-- Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)

The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.

-- Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)

Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.

-- Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd US President (1882-1945)

Interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art.

-- Susan Sontag, author and critic (1933-2004)

The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another, and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it.

-- J.M. Barrie, novelist and playwright (1860-1937)

Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

-- Ernest Hemingway, author and journalist, Nobel laureate (1899-1961)

When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kind of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.

-- Robert T. Pirsig, author and philosopher (1928- )

The power to command frequently causes failure to think.

-- Barbara Tuchman, author and historian (1912-1989)

In some circumstances, the refusal to be defeated is a refusal to be educated.

-- Margaret Halsey, novelist (1910-1997)

Laws too gentle are seldom obeyed; too severe, seldom executed.

-- Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)

Poetry is the clear expression of mixed feelings.

-- W.H. Auden, poet (1907-1973)

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.

-- Robert Frost, poet (1874-1963)

Don't judge men's wealth or godliness by their Sunday appearance.

-- Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)

You can't do anything about the length of your life, but you can do something about its width and depth.

-- H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)

The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race or his holy cause. A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business.

-- Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)

There is a loftier ambition than merely to stand high in the world. It is to stoop down and lift mankind a little higher.

-- Henry van Dyke, poet (1852-1933)

There is a road from the eye to the heart that does not go through the intellect.

-- G.K. Chesterton, essayist and novelist (1874-1936)

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.

-- Immanuel Kant, philosopher (1724-1804)

Most institutions demand unqualified faith; but the institution of science makes skepticism a virtue.

-- Robert King Merton, sociologist (1910-2003)

The fingers of your thoughts are molding your face ceaselessly.

-- Charles Reznikoff, poet (1894-1976)

If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.

-- George Orwell, writer (1903-1950)

Who has not for the sake of his reputation sacrificed himself?

-- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)

It is as easy to dream a book as it is hard to write one.

-- Honore de Balzac, novelist (1799-1850)

Beauty, unaccompanied by virtue, is as a flower without perfume.

-- French proverb

A diamond with a flaw is better than a common stone that is perfect.

-- Chinese proverb

Fatigue is the best pillow.

-- Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)

A root is a flower that disdains fame.

-- Kahlil Gibran, mystic, poet, and artist (1883-1931)

A closed mind is like a closed book: just a block of wood.

-- Chinese Proverb

No society that feeds its children on tales of successful violence can expect them not to believe that violence in the end is rewarded.

-- Margaret Mead, anthropologist (1901-1978)

True religion is the life we lead, not the creed we profess.

-- Louis Nizer, lawyer (1902-1994)

There are some that only employ words for the purpose of disguising their thoughts.

-- Voltaire, philosopher (1694-1778)

One day's exposure to mountains is better than cartloads of books. See how willingly Nature poses herself upon photographers' plates. No earthly chemicals are so sensitive as those of the human soul.

-- John Muir, naturalist, explorer, and writer (1838-1914)

If moral behavior were simply following rules, we could program a computer to be moral.

-- Samuel P. Ginder, US navy captain

The intellect of man is forced to choose Perfection of the life, or of the work, And if it take the second must refuse A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.

-- William Butler Yeats, writer, Nobel laureate (1865-1939)

Force without wisdom falls of its own weight.

-- Horace, poet and satirist (65-8 BCE)

You can out-distance that which is running after you, but not what is running inside you.

-- Rwandan Proverb

I am, indeed, a king, because I know how to rule myself.

-- Pietro Aretino, satirist and dramatist (1492-1556)

The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.

-- Hans Hofmann, painter (1880-1966)

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

-- Albert Einstein

Life is short, the art long, opportunity fleeting, experiment trecherous, judgement difficult.

-- Hippocrates

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth learning can be taught.

-- Oscan Wilde

Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.

-- W. B. Yeats

You cannot teach a man anything. You can only help him discover it within himself.

-- Galileo Galilei

It is much easier for a man to fail conventionally than to stand against the crowd and speak the truth.

-- John Maynard Keynes

Eighty percent of success is showing up.

-- Woody Allen

When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind: it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science.

-- Lord Kelvin

Only the small secrets need to be protecteed. The big ones are kept secret by public incredulity.

-- Marshall McCluhan

When one teaches, two learn.

-- Robert Half

The only difference between theory and practice is that practice takes into account all the theory.

-- Barney Oliver

Don't fight forces; use them.

--Buckminster Fuller

If I had eight hours to chopd down a tree, I'd spend six hours sharpening my axe.
I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends.
I walk slowly, but I never walk backward.

--Abraham Lincoln

Nulla die sine linea (Not a day without a line. Do something everyday!)

-- Apeles (Greek Painter)

Email is a wonderful thing for people whose role in life is to be on top of things. But not for me; my role is to be on the bottom of things. What I do takes long hours of studying and uninterruptible concentration. I try to learn certain areas of computer science exhaustively; then I try to digest that knowledge into a form that is accessible to people who don't have time for such study.

-- Donald Knuth

When you start looking at a problem and it seems really simple, you don't really understand the complexity of the problem. Then you get into the problem, and you see that it's really complicated, and you come up with all these convoluted solutions. That's sort of the middle, and that's where most people stop ... But the really great person will keep on going and find the key, the underlying principle of the problem - and come up with an elegant, really beautiful solution that works. That's what we wanted to do with Mac.

-- Steve Jobs