QUOTES AND OTHER IMPORTANT THINGS

An Irish Prayer

May those that love us, love us;
and those that don't love us, may God turn their hearts;
and if He doesn't turn their hearts,
may He turn their ankles so we'll know them by their limping.

-Unknown

The end of one thing is the beginning of another. I am a pilgrim again.-

close of Yuichiro Miura's film The Man Who Skied Down Everest, from his journal.

Today is the day the Lord hath made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

-Psalms 118:24

Every man is his own Pygmalion,
and spends his life fashioning himself.
And in fashioning himself, for good or ill,
he fashions the human race and its future.

-I.F. Stone, crusading journalist

All men, by nature, desire to know.

-Aristole

The goal of formal education has always been to produce people
who could continue to learn on their own.

-Ronald Gross, The Lifelong Learner, p. 31.

Not I, but the city teaches.

-Socrates

Liberty without learning is always in peril;
learning without liberty is always in vain.

-John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Your value lies not in what you can do,
but in what you can get other people to do.

-Seaman Knapp, speaking to Extension Agents.

Attitude

The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life.
Attitude, to me, is more important than facts.
It is more important than the past, than education,
than money, than circumstances, than failures,
than successes, than what other people think or say or do.
It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill.
It will make or break a company...a church...a home.
The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day
regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day.
We cannot change our past...
we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way.
We cannot change the inevitable.
The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have,
and that is our attitude...
I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me
and 90% how I react to it.
And so it is with you...
We are in charge of our Attitudes.

- Charles Swindoll

The Sculptor

I took a piece of plastic clay
And idly fashioned it, one day.
And as my fingers pressed it, still
It moved and yielded to my will.

I came again, when days were passed.
That bit of clay was hard at last,
The form I gave it, still it bore,
And I could change that form no more.

Then I took a piece of living clay
And gently formed it, day by day,
And molded with my power and art,
A young child's soft and yielding heart.

I came again when years were gone,
It was a man I looked upon,
He still that early impress bore,
And I could change it, nevermore
.

- Author Unknown

I have learned that success is to be measured
not so much by the position that one has reached in life
as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.

- Booker T. Washington

In all things of nature, there is something of the marvelous.

- Aristotle

It is a brief period of life that is granted us by nature,
but the memory of a well-spent life never dies.

- Cicero

A journey of a thousand miles begins with but one step.

- Confucius

We all live under the same sky, but we don't all have the same horizon.

- Konrad Adenauer

The King asked his wise men for some single thing
that would make him happy when he was sad,
but sad when he was happy.
They consulted and came back with
a ring engraved with the message
"This Too Shall Pass".

-from Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson, Bantam Books: New York, 1993, p. 284.

If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it from him.
An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.

-Benjamin Franklin

Risk

You cannot discover new oceans unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.

Leadership

The speed of the leader determines the rate of the pack.

Attitude

Attitude is a little thing that makes a BIG difference.

Teamwork

Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision.
The ability to direct individual accomplishment toward organizational objectives.
It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.

Success

Success is a journey, not a destination.

Effort

Some people dream of worthy accomplishments,
while others stay awake and do them.

Team

Together Everyone Achieves More.

GOOD MORNING, GOD

You are ushering in another day
Untouched and freshly new.
So here I am, asking You, God
If You'll renew me too.
Forgive the many errors
That I made yesterday.
And let me try again, dear God,
to walk closer in Thy way.
Father, I am well aware
I can't make it on my own.
So take my hand and hold it tight
For I can't walk alone.

-Author Unknown

The first step to knowledge is to know that we are ignorant.

-Lord David Cecil, English biographer

Money will buy a pretty good dog,
but it won't buy the wag of his tail.

-Josh Billings

And be ye kind one to another,
tenderhearted, forgiving one another,
even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

-Ephesians, 4:32

Forget injuries; never forget kindness.

Find the seed at the bottom of your heart and bring forth a flower.

-Shigenori Kameoka

Most of us remain strangers to ourselves, hiding who we are,
and ask other strangers, hiding who they are, to love us ...

-Dr. Leo Buscaglia

Never look down on anybody unless you're helping him up.

-Jesse Jackson

We are what we repeatedly do.
Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

-Aristotle

Change is the law of life.
And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.

-John Fitzgerald Kennedy

We may affirm absolutely that nothing great in the world
has ever been accomplished without passion.

- Georg Hegel

If you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.

- W. Somerset Maugham

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters,
compared to what lies within us.

- Oliver Wendell Holmes

Discovery is seeing what everybody else has seen,
and thinking what nobody else has thought.

- Albert Szent-Gyorgi

What we must decide is perhaps how we are valuable,
rather than how valuable we are.

-Edgar Z. Friedenber

When one door closes, another opens;
but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.

-Alexander Graham Bell

Waiting until everything is perfect
before making a move is like waiting to start a trip
until all the traffic lights are green.

- Karen Ireland

The greatest mistake you can make in life
is to be continually fearing you will make one.

- Elbert Hubbard, American Writer

We did not weave the web of life,
we are merely a strand in it.
Whatever we do to the web,
we do to ourselves.

- Chief Seattle, 1852

Let us not forget that the cultivation of the earth
is the most important labor of man.
When tillage begins, other arts follow.
The farmers, therefore, are the founders of civilization.

- Daniel Webster

It is well that war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it.

- Lee to Lt.Gen. Longstreet at Battle of Fredericksburg.

There is many a boy here today who looks on war as all glory,
but, boys, it is all hell.
You can bear this warning to generations yet to come.

- W.T. Sherman, Columbus, Ohio, August 11, 1880.

A vivid imagination compels the whole body to obey it.

-Aristotle

Never tell people how to do things.
Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.

- George S. Patton

Teach others NOT what you have learned, BUT what you are learning.

-Dr. Craig Pace, Senior Consultant, Covey Leadership Center, Inc.,12/05/96.

People don't care how much you know
until they know how much you care.

-Dr. Craig Pace, Senior Consultant, Covey Leadership Center, Inc.,12/05/96.

The highest reward for a man's toil is not what he gets for it,
but what he becomes by it.

-John Ruskin

Be careful of the words you say
Keep them soft and sweet
You never know
From day to day
Which ones you'll have to eat

-Unknown, from a plate in my Mother's kitchen

An Irish Blessing

May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
the rains fall soft upon your fields,
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of his hand.

-Unknown, from a plate in my Mother's kitchen

Another Irish Blessing

May your neighbors respect you,
Trouble neglect you,
The Angels protect you,
And Heaven accept you.

- Anonymous

Place your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark.

-Robert A. Heinlein speaking as Lazarus Long in Time Enough for Love

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

-Robert A. Heinlein speaking as Lazarus Long in Time Enough for Love

Touch is the most fundamental sense. A baby experiences it, all over, even before he is born and long before he learns to use sight, hearing, or taste, and no human ever ceases to need it. Keep your children short on pocket money, but long on hugs.

-Robert A. Heinlein speaking as Lazarus Long in Time Enough for Love

Poetry begins in delight and ends in wisdom

-Robert Frost

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.

-Henry B. Adams

Education makes a people easy to lead,
but difficult to drive;
easy to govern
but impossible to enslave.

-Baron Henry Peter Brougham

Genius without education is like silver in the mine.

-Ben Franklin

You cannot teach a man anything;
you can only help him find it within himself.

-Galileo

To teach is to learn twice.

-Joseph Joubert

Experience is a hard teacher.
She gives the test first and the lessons afterwards.

-Author Unknown

He who asks is a fool for five minutes,
but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.

-Old Chinese saying

Action may not always bring happiness,
but there is no happiness without action.

-Benjamin Disraeli

Being a hero is about the shortest-lived profession on earth.

-Will Rogers

In times like these, it helps to recall that there have always been times like these.

-Paul Harvey

I find that a great part of the information
I have was acquired by looking up something
and finding something else on the way.

-Franklin P. Adams

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

-Albert Einstein

Knowledge is of two kinds.
We know a subject ourselves,
or we know where we can find information on it.

-Samuel Johnson

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.

-Rudyard Kipling

What is life?
It is the flash of a firefly in the night.
It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.
It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.

-Crowfoot, Blackfoot warrior and orator, 1890

A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.

-Robert Frost

We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world;
and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day
who don't know anything and can't read.

-Mark Twain

Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time
we have rushed through life trying to save.

-Will Rogers

Never try to guess your wife's size.
Just buy her anything marked `petite'
and hold on to the receipt.

-Author Unknown

Man's mind,
once stretched by a new idea,
never regains its original dimensions.

-Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

I like pigs.
Dogs look up to us.
Cats look down on us.
Pigs treat us as equals.

-Winston Churchill

Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless.

-Thomas Alva Edison

The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.

-Albert Einstein

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
It is the source of all true art and science.

-Albert Einstein

A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything.
Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity.

-Robert A.Heinlein

I find that the great thing in this world
is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving;
To reach the port of heaven,
we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it--
but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.

-Oliver Wendell Holmes

Eagles may soar in the clouds, but weasels never get sucked into jet engines.

-Jason Hutchison

A man may die,
nations may rise and fall,
but an idea lives on.

-John Fitzgerald Kennedy

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

-Abraham Lincoln

It takes less time to do a thing right than explain why you did it wrong.

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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

-Harriet Beecher Stowe

Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.

-Mark Twain

A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy,
and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes.

-Author Unknown

I don't believe in pessimism.
If something doesn't come up the way you want, forge ahead.
If you think it's going to rain, it will.

-Clint Eastwood

Don't ever become a pessimist, Ira;
a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist,
but an optimist has more fun--
and neither can stop the march of events.

-Robert A. Heinlein, "Time Enough For Love"

Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory.

-John Kenneth Galbraith

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

-Richard Buckminster Fuller

Technology is a gift of God.
After the gift of life it is perhaps the greatest of God's gifts.
It is the mother of civilizations, of arts and of sciences.

-Freeman Dyson, "Infinite in All Directions"

Science is organized knowledge.
Wisdom is organized life.

-Immanuel Kant

I expect Woman will be the last thing civilized by Man.

-George Meredith

I don't mind living in a man's world as long as I can be a woman in it.

-Marilyn Monroe

Men occasionally stumble over the truth,
but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.

- Winston Churchill

I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it's hell.

-Harry Truman

Reading is to the mind
what exercise is to the body.

-Joseph Addison

I will pay more for the ability to deal with people
than for any other ability under the sun.

- John D. Rockefeller

Knowing is not enough; we must apply.
Willing is not enough; we must do.

- Goethe

One learns by doing the thing;
for though you think you know it,
you have no certainty until you try.

- Sophocles

How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young,
compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving,
and tolerant of the weak and strong.
Because someday in your life you will have been all of these.

- George Washington Carver

By three methods we may learn wisdom:
First, by reflection, which is noblest;
Second, by imitation, which is easiest;
and third by experience, which is the bitterest.

- Confucius

Dost thou love life?
Then do not squander time,
for that is the stuff life is made of.

- Benjamin Franklin

It is a damn poor mind indeed
which can't think of at least two
ways to spell any word.

- Andrew Jackson

Never let the fear of striking out get in your way.

- Babe Ruth

I won't be wronged. I won't be insulted and I won't be laid a hand on.
I don't do these things to other people and I require the same from them.

- John Wayne, speaking as J.B. Books in The Shootist, his last film.

The truth is always the strongest argument.

- Sophocles

Fire is the test of gold;
adversity, of strong men.

- Seneca

Be ruled by time,
the wisest counselor of all.

- Plutarch

THESE are the times that try men's souls.
The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis,
shrink from the service of their country;
but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us,
that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly:
it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.

- Thomas Paine, writing in "The American Crisis", December 23, 1776.

The young do not know enough to be prudent,
and therefore they attempt the impossible,
and achieve it, generation after generation.

- Pearl S. Buck

You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take.

- Wayne Gretzky

If you see a snake, just kill it.
Don't appoint a committee on snakes.

- H. Ross Perot

I hear and I forget.
I see and I remember.
I do and I understand.

- Confucius

In this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes.

- Benjamin Franklin

There is nothing permanent except change.

- Heraclitus

Experience is not what happens to you.
It is what you do with what happens to you.

- Aldous Huxley

No man is rich enough to buy back his past.

- Oscar Wilde

For things we have to learn before we can do them,
we learn by doing them

- Aristotle

From the standpoint of everyday life...there is one thing we do know; that man is here for the sake of other men-above all, for those upon whose smile and well-being our own happiness depends, and also for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy. Many times a day I realize how much my own outer and inner life is built upon the labors of my fellow men, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received.

- Albert Einstein

The honor of one is the honor of all.
The hurt of one is the hurt of all.

- Creek Indian Creed

A faithful friend is a strong defense,
and he that hath found him,
hath found a treasure.

- Ecclesiates 6:14

If you want one year of prosperity, grow grain.
If you want ten years of prosperity, grow trees.
If you want one hundred years of prosperity, grow people.

- Chinese proverb

At 20 years of age the will reigns;
at 30 the wit;
at 40 the judgment.

- Benjamin Franklin

Consider the postage stamp:
its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there.

- Josh Billings

The wind and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.

- Edward Gibbon

The absent are never without fault.
Nor the present without excuse.

- Benjamin Franklin

Positive anything is better than negative nothing.

- Elbert Hubbard

The best way out is always through.

- Robert Frost

The good things of prosperity are to be wished;
but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.

- Seneca

Advice is like castor oil,
easy enough to give
but dreadful uneasy to take.

- Josh Billings

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

- Chinese Proverb

In great attempts it is glorious even to fail.

- Cassius

No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.

- William Blake

Beware the fury of a patient man.

- John Dryden

You can't hold a man down without staying down with him.

- Booker T. Washington

When you are aspiring to the highest place,
it is honorable to reach the second or even the third rank.

- Cicero

Let our object be our country,
our whole country,
and nothing but our country.

- Daniel Webster

The greatest remedy for anger is delay.

- Seneca

Keep cool; anger is not an argument.

- Daniel Webster

Do not anticipate trouble,
or worry about what may never happen.
Keep in the sunlight.

- Benjamin Franklin

The thinner the ice, the more anxious is everyone to see whether it will bear.

- Josh Billings

He that will not sail till all dangers are over must never put to sea.

- Thomas Fuller

A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than you love yourself

- Josh Billings

If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.

- Benjamin Franklin

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty.
Anyone who keeps learning stays young.
The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.

- Henry Ford

Love your neighbor; yet don't pull down your hedge.

- Benjamin Franklin

The concept is interesting and well-formed,
but in order to earn better than a 'C,'
the idea must be feasible.

- A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)

Those who will play with cats must expect to be scratched.

- Cervantes

We should take care not to make the intellect our god;
it has, or course, powerful muscles, but no personality.

- Albert Einstein

Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.

- B.F. Skinner

The smallest feline is a masterpiece

- Leonardo Da Vinci

No matter how much the cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.

-Abraham Lincoln

Trust in Allah, but tie your camel.

-Old Muslim Proverb

Those who educate children well are more to be honored than parents,
for these only gave life, those the art of living well.

-Aristotle

Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.

-Will Rogers

Simply the thing that I am shall make me live.

-William Shakespeare

The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.

-Chinese Proverb

Not all those who wander are lost.

-J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.

-Lao-Tsu, The Way of Lao-Tsu

To be matter of fact about the world is to blunder into fantasy --
and dull fantasy at that, as the real world is strange and wonderful.

-Robert A. Heinlein

Don't be afraid to take one large step because you can't cross a chasm in two small leaps.

-Lloyd George

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless,
and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

-Samuel Johnson

'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

-Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam, line 27, stanza 4 (1850)

There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why...
I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?

-Robert Francis Kennedy, 1968 presidential campaign

True friendship is seen through the heart not through the eyes.

-Unknown

Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.

-Chinese Proverb

The man who goes alone can start today;
but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.

-Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854)

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

-Benjamin Franklin

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
and that has made all the difference.

-Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken

The condition upon which God has given liberty to man is eternal vigilance.

-John Philpot Curran (July 10, 1790)

Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.

-Mother Theresa

Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side, and a dark side, and it holds the universe together.

-Carl Zwanzig

The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world is to be in reality what we would appear to be; all human virtues increase and strengthen themselves by the practice and experience of them.

-Socrates

How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a weary world.

-Shakespeare

A wise man knows everything
A shrewd one, everybody.

-A Chinese Fortune Cookie, April 1998

We would often be sorry if our wishes were gratified.

-Aesop

It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job;
it's a depression when you lose yours.

-Harry S Truman

Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.

-Will Rogers

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

-Thomas Edison

When angry, count ten before you speak;
if very angry, a hundred.

-Thomas Jefferson, Writings

Never mistake motion for action.

-Ernest Hemingway

When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced.
Live your life so that when you die,
the world cries and you rejoice.

-Old Indian saying

Delay is preferable to error.

-Thomas Jefferson

A man who has committed a mistake and doesn't correct it,
is committing another mistake.

-Confucius

Still round the corner there may wait,
A new road or a secret gate.

-J. R. R. Tolkien

Let your heart guide you. It whispers, so listen closely.

-The Land Before Time

I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.

-Albert Einstein

If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything.

-Mark Twain

Do what's right. Do it right. Do it right now.

-Barry Forbes

Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.

-Don Marquis

In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life. It goes on.

-Robert Frost

Slight not what's near through aiming at what's far.

-Euripides

War is based on deception.

-Sun Tzu

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity;
an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

-Sir Winston Churchill

A soft answer turneth away wrath.

-Proverbs 15:1

Do what you can with what you have where you are.

-Theodore Roosevelt

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare,
it is because we do not dare that things are difficult.

-Seneca

Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't.

-Erica Jong

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.

-Albert Einstein

The service you do for others is the rent you pay for the time you spend on earth.

-Mohammed Ali

What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

-Mark 8:36

Use the talents you possess --
for the woods would be a very silent place
if no birds sang except for the best.

-Unknown

Remember there's no such thing as a small act of kindness.
Every act creates a ripple with no logical end.

-Scott Adams

The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything.

-Theodore Roosevelt

Humor is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humor;
for a subject which will not bear raillery is suspicious,
and a jest which will not bear serious examination is false wit.

-Aristotle

Compromise, if not the spice of life, is its solidity. It is what makes nations great and marriages happy.

-Phyllis McGinley

They can because they think they can.

-Virgil

No one feels another's grief, no one understands another's joy. People imagine they can reach one another. In reality they only pass each other by.

-Franz Schubert

Do all the good you can, By all the means you can, In all the ways you can, In all the places you can, At all the times you can, To all the people you can, As long as ever you can.

-John Wesley

What difference does it make how much you have?
What you do not have amounts to much more.

-Seneca

You may delay, but time will not.

-Benjamin Franklin

For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
the saddest are these, "It might have been!"

-John Greenleaf Whittier

They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.

-Carl W. Buechner

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

-Josh Billings

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

-Confucius

How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.

-Marcus Aurelius

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.

-Thoreau

The empires of the future are the empires of the mind.

-Winston Churchill

Therefore, my son, do not seize impulsively the pleasures
offered by a woman, for know this: That joys grow cold
if an evil woman shares your bed and home.

-Creon in Sophocles' Antigone.

They came after the Jews. And I was not a Jew.
So I did not object.
Then they came after the trade unionists. I was not a trade unionist.
So I did not object.
Then they came after me--and there was no one left to object.

-Pastor Niemoller --speaking in Nazi Germany

My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.

-Romeo, in Romeo & Juliet, Act II, Scene II, Lines 133- 135.

You can't find tomorrow through the past.

-Bruce Emmons, January, 1976

Look back at our struggle for freedom,
Trace our present day's strength to its source;
And you'll find that man's pathway to glory
Is strewn with the bones of a horse.

-Anonymous.

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin

-Ulysses in William Shakespeare's, Troilus & Cressida, Act 3, Scene 3

When the effective leader is finished with his work,
the people say it happened naturally.

-Lao Tse

Those that know, do.
Those that understand, teach.

-Aristotle

People might not get all they work for in this world,
but they must certainly work for all they get.

-Frederick Douglas

Whether they give or refuse,
it delights women just the same to have been asked.

-Ovid

No one would be foolish enough to choose war over peace--
in peace sons bury their fathers, but in war fathers bury their sons.

-Croesus of Lydia

If I had to sum up in one word what makes a good manager,
I'd say decisiveness.
You can use the fanciest computers to gather the numbers,
but in the end you have to set a timetable and act.

-Lee Iacocca

One kernel is felt in a hogshead;
one drop of water helps to swell the ocean;
a spark of fire helps to give light to the world.
None are too small, too feeble, too poor to be of service.
Think of this and act.

-Hannah More

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains or slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take but as for me; give me liberty or give me death!

-Patrick Henry

If you can give your son or daughter only one gift, let it be Enthusiasm.

-Bruce Barton

The supreme accomplishment is to blur the line between work and play.

-Arnold Toynbee

He who learns but does not think, is lost!
He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.

-Confucius

The greater difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it.
Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.

-Epicures

Learn all you can from the mistakes of others.
You won't have time to make them all yourself.

-Alfred Sheinwold

Happiness is not a station you arrive at,
but a manner of traveling.

-Margaret Lee Runbeck

I am not young enough to know everything.

-Oscar Wilde

Temper gets you into trouble. Pride keeps you there.

-Anonymous

He who ceases to learn cannot adequately teach.

-Unknown

It is difficult to live in the present,
ridiculous to live in the future,
and impossible to live in the past.
Nothing is as far away as one minute ago.

-Jim Bishop

You cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time.

-M. Scott Peck

Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.

-Thomas Edison

Talk low, talk slow, and don't say too much

-John Wayne

Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education.
The human mind is our fundamental resource.

-John F. Kennedy

Perception is strong and sight weak. In strategy it is important to see distant things as if they were close and to take a distanced view of close things.

-Miyamoto Musashi

Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have.

-Ronald Reagan

If you are near the enemy, make him believe you are far from him.
If you are far from the enemy, make him believe you are near.

-Sun-Tzu, The Art of War

To the generous mind the heaviest debt is that of gratitude, when it is not in our power to repay it.

-Benjamin Franklin

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it,
and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

-Samuel Johnson

The future belongs to those who prepare for it today.

-Malcolm X

The will to do, the soul to dare.

-Sir Walter Scott

The illiterate of the future will not be the person who cannot read.
It will be the person who does not know how to learn.

-Alvin Toffler

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

-Thomas Jefferson

We can have no "50-50" allegiance in this country. Either a man is an American and nothing else, or he is not an American at all.

-Teddy Roosevelt

Nature is trying very hard to make us succeed, but nature does not depend on us. We are not the only experiment.

-R. Buckminster Fuller

Success is not the key to happiness.
Happiness is the key to success.
If you love what you are doing,
you will be successful.

-Herman Cain

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

Children are the hands by which we take hold of heaven.

-Henry Ward Beecher

A moment's thinking is an hour in words.

-Thomas Hood

It behooves every man to remember that the work of the critic, is of altogether secondary importance, and that, in the end, progress is accomplished by the man who does things.

-Theodore Roosevelt

Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve. He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind

-Leonardo DaVinci, Notebooks (c. 1500)

Where there is no vision, the people perish.

-Proverbs 29:18

One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.

-Maya Angelou

To be a well-favored man is the gift of fortune, but to write or read comes by nature.

-William Shakespeare

Treat a person as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat him as he could be, and he will become what he should be.

-Jimmy Johnson

Age is opportunity no less than youth itself.

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.

-Mark Twain

The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.

-Socrates

The race is not [always] to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.

-Ecclesiastes 9:11

Whatever you want to do, do it now.
There are only so many tomorrows.

-Michael Landon

If a man take no thought about what is distant,
he will find sorrow near at hand

-Confucius

If you can keep your wits about you while all others are losing theirs, and blaming you.... The world will be yours and everything in it, what's more, you'll be a man, my son.

-Rudyard Kipling, "If"

Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So... get on your way.

-Dr. Seuss

Few things are impossible to diligence and skill.

-Samuel Johnson

Ability is what you're capable of doing.
Motivation determines what you do.
Attitude determines how well you do it.

-Lou Holtz

The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude.

-William James

Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.

-Benjamin Spock

Keep your fears to yourself, but share your inspiration with others.

-Robert Louis Stevenson

Remember happiness doesn't depend upon who you are or what you have; it depends solely on what you think.

-Dale Carnegie

The surest hindrance of success is to have too high a standard of refinement in our own minds, or too high an opinion of the judgment of the public. He who is determined not to be satisfied with anything short of perfection will never do anything to please himself or others.

-Hazlitt

Yesterday is but today's memory, tomorrow is today's dream.

-Kahlil Gibian

Whatever you are, be a good one.

-Abraham Lincoln

America is great because she is good.
If America ceases to be good,
America will cease to be great.

-Alexis de Tocqueville

Kindness in words creates confidence.
Kindness in thinking creates profoundness.
Kindness in giving creates love.

-Lao-Tzu

The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time.

-James Taylor

Fortune favors the bold.

-Virgil

They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.

-Tom Bodett

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

-Sun-Tzu

The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.

-William A. Ward

The trail is the thing, not the end of the trail. Travel too fast and you miss all you are traveling for.

-Louis L'Amour, Ride the Dark Trail

Let us not be weary in doing good; for at the proper time,
we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good...

-Galatians 6:9-10

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty.

-John F. Kennedy

Idealism increases in direct proportion to one's distance from the problem.

-John Galsworthy

Experience is a dear teacher, but fools will learn at no other.

-Benjamin Franklin

A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never remembers her age.

-Robert Frost

Believe me, a thousand friends suffice thee not;
In a single enemy thou hast more than enough.

-Ali Ben Abi Taleb, 660 A.D.

If you would not be forgotten,
as soon as you are dead and rotten,
either write things worth reading,
or do things worth the writing.

- Benjamin Franklin

Beautiful young people are acts of nature,
but beautiful old people are works of art.

- from an email message from Mrs. Joyce Brickhouse, Columbia, NC

The tongue weighs practically nothing,
but so few people can hold it.

- from an email message from Mrs. Joyce Brickhouse, Columbia, NC

Time moves in one direction, memory in the other.

-William Gibson

You catch a bear with honey,
not with bumblebees.

Frances Belangia Emmons (my wife), August 20, 1999

A baby is God's way of saying that the world should go on.

-Unknown, from a picture in my son's room.

What you do not want done to yourself,
do not do to others.

-Confucius

Never contend with a man who has nothing to lose.

-Baltasar Gracian

Happiness depends upon ourselves.

-Aristotle

Take time for all things:
great haste makes great waste.

-Benjamin Franklin

We are the hero of our own story.

-Mary McCarthy

What's done cannot be undone.
To bed, to bed, to bed.

-William Shakespeare

The shortest grammatically correct sentence in the English language is "I am."
However, some people think that "I do" might, in fact, be the longest sentence.

-Joe Burns, Ph.D, author of "The HTML Goodies"

Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.

-Hendry David Thoreau

O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments!
Then had thy peace been as a river,
and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea.

Isiah 48:18

There is nothing stronger in the world than gentleness.

-Han Suyin

Never be afraid to try something new.
Remember, amateurs built the Ark.
Professionals built the Titanic.

-Author Unknown

Man has responsibility, not power.

-Tuscarora proverb

It's only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth
-- and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up
-- that we will begin to live each day to the fullest,
as if it was the only one we had.

-Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.

-Theodore Roosevelt

Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.

-Peter Drucker

Diversity is the one true thing we all have in common. Celebrate it every day.

-Anonymous

Kindness in words creates confidence.
Kindness in thinking creates profoundness.
Kindness in giving creates love.

-Lao-Tzu

The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time.

-James Taylor

There is one certain means by which I can be sure never to see my country's ruin
-- I will die in the last ditch.

-William Of Orange

I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives.
I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him.

-Abraham Lincoln

Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash.

-George S. Patton

Courage is doing what you are afraid to do.
There can be no courage unless you're scared.

-Eddie Rickenbacher

There are three things which if one does not know,
one cannot live long in the world:

• what is too much for one,
• what is too little for one,
• and what is just right for one.

-Swahili proverb

Praise is like sunlight to the human spirit:
we cannot flower and grow without it.

-Jess Lair

He who guards his lips guards his soul.

-Proverbs 13:3

To lengthen thy life, lessen thy meals.

-Benjamin Franklin

In prosperity, caution; in adversity, patience.

-Dutch Proverb

My mother once said to me, "Elwood" -- she always called me Elwood -- "Elwood, in this world you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant." For years I tried smart. I recommend pleasant.

-Elwood P. Dowde (James Stewart), "Harvey"

How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.

-Marcus Aurelius

The principal foundations of all states are good laws and good arms; and there cannot be good laws where there are not good arms.

-Niccolo Machiavelli

No matter what you think your job is, your job is to make your boss's life easier.

-Anonymous

The Lord does not look at the things man looks at.
Man looks at outward appearance;
but the Lord looks at the heart.

-I Samuel 16:7

A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs, jolted by every pebble in the road.

-Henry Ward Beecher

Work and play are words used to describe the same thing under differing circumstances.

-Mark Twain

Be careful the environment you choose for it will shape you;
be careful the friends you choose for you will become like them.

-W. Clement Stone

Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing.

-Benjamin Franklin

Books are the building blocks of civilization, for without the written word, a man knows nothing beyond what occurs during his own brief years and, perhaps, in a few tales his parents tell him.

-Louis L'Amour

Money, horse racing and women three things the boys just can't figure out.

-Will Rogers, March 7, 1935, The New York Times.

We are here just for a spell and then pass on...
So get a few laughs and do the best you can.
Live your life so that whenever you lose, you are ahead.

-Will Rogers

I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.

-Thomas Jefferson

Never trouble another for what you can do for yourself.

-Thomas Jefferson

Education is the best provision for the journey to old age.

-Aristotle

Be great in act, as you have been in thought.

-William Shakespeare

Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting a particular way...
you become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions,
brave by performing brave actions.

-Aristotle

I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.

-William Shakespeare

He who has injured thee was either stronger or weaker than thee.
If weaker, spare him;
if stronger, spare thyself.

-William Shakespeare

As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand.

-Josh Billings

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end.

-William Shakespeare

April 1.
This is the day upon which
we are reminded of what we are
on the other three hundred and sixty-four.

-Mark Twain

If a man does not know to what port he is steering, no wind is favourable to him.

-Seneca

It is a great thing to know the season for speech and the season for silence.

-Seneca

Whoever is happy will make others happy, too.

-Mark Twain

The young have aspirations that never come to pass,
the old have reminiscences of what never happened.

-Saki (H. H. Munro)

Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!

-Sir Walter Scott, Marmion, Canto vi. Stanza 17.

Do not do to others what angers you if done to you by others.

-Socrates

Better be wise by the misfortunes of others than by your own.

-Aesop

If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can't, you're right.

-Mary Kay Ash

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.

-Aesop

You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you.

-Heraclitus

There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist.

-Mark Twain

Recommend to your children virtue;
that alone can make them happy,
not gold.

-Ludwig van Beethoven

That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.

-Henry David Thoreau

When you come to a fork in the road, take it.

-Yogi Berra

Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

-John 8:32

The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want,
drink what you don't like,
and do what you'd rather not.

- Mark Twain

Take time to deliberate,
but when the time for action has arrived,
stop thinking and go in.

-Napoleon Bonaparte

My great concern is not whether you have failed,
but whether you are content with your failure.

- Abraham Lincoln

Ask, and it shall be given you;
Seek, and ye shall find;
Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

-Matthew 7:7

Only I can change my life.
No one can do it for me.

-Carol Burnett

Never do today what you can put off till tomorrow.
Delay may give clearer light as to what is best to be done.

-Aaron Burr

It is not these well-fed long-haired men that I fear,
but the pale and the hungry-looking.

-Julius Caesar

Well, if crime fighters fight crime
and fire fighters fight fire,
what do freedom fighters fight?
They never mention that part to us, do they?

-George Carlin

Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.

-Mark Twain

There's two theories to arguin' with a woman. Neither one works.

-Will Rogers

If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around.

-Will Rogers

You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was.

-Abraham Lincoln

Dance like nobody's watching;
love like you've never been hurt.
Sing like nobody's listening;
live like it's heaven on earth.

-Mark Twain

The art of living is more like wrestling than dancing.

- Marcus Aurelius (121-180)

The Lord prefers common looking people.
That is why he made so many of them.

- Abraham Lincoln

You're braver than you believe,
and stronger than you seem,
and smarter than you think.

- Christopher Robin, speaking to Pooh in "Pooh's Grand Adventure"

Most of your friends,
and some of your enemies,
aren't.

-Raul Bermudez

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society

-Mark Twain

Life is really simple,
but we insist on making it complicated.

-Confucius

We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.

-Sir Winston Churchill

The greatest gift you can give your children is not your riches, but revealing to them their own.

- Max Lucado, 2005

Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.

- Robert Heinlein

If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.

-Dolly Parton

Youth is a blunder;
manhood a struggle;
old age a regret

-Benjamin Disraeli

We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse.

-Rudyard Kipling

The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.

- Henry Kissinger

The World is like a mirror
Reflecting what you do
And if you face it smiling
It smiles right back at you

-Author Unknown, shared by Madlyne Papot, mother of Susan Papot Reece.

For in much wisdom is much grief:
and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.

-Ecclesiastes 1:18 (King James Version)

It is not enough to wire the world if you short-circuit the soul.
Technology without heart is not enough.

-Tom Brokaw at a 1999 graduation speech at the College of Santa Fe in New Mexico.

I have noticed that nothing I have never said ever did me any harm.

-Calvin Coolidge

The important work of moving the world forward
does not wait to be done by perfect men.

- George Eliot

There are only two ways to live your life.
One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a miracle.

-Albert Einstein

Make it a Great Day!

- Kai Ryssdal, daily closing on NPR's Marketplace

Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.

-Albert Einstein

No matter how busy you may think you are,
you must find time for reading,
or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance.

-Confucius

Efficiency is doing the thing right
Effectiveness is doing the right thing.

-Peter F. Drucker

I hear and I forget.
I see and I remember.
I do and I understand.

-Confucius

Wheresoever you go,
go with all your heart.

-Confucius

Always do right.
This will gratify some people and astonish the rest.

-Mark Twain

Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.

-Confucius

I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth--that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?

If you could kick the posterior of the person who has hurt you the most,
...you wouldn’t be able to sit down for six weeks.

-John Hagee

Back to Bruce Emmons Home Page

This page (http://www4.ncsu.edu/~baemmons/quotestxt.html) created by Bruce A. Emmons on March 19, 1996.

Last revised on September 22, 2008.