The Little Retreat Quotes: Unsorted
There's no harm in asking.
Chinese fortune cookie
Others cannot figure out what you want - speak up.
Chinese fortune cookie
Small brains think conflict. Large brains think thermodynamics.
Roger Erickson
Little things affect little minds.
Benjamin Disraeli
Even God can not change the past
A popular misconception
The past is never dead. It's not even past.
William Faulkner
A diamond cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.
Chinese proverb
A smooth sea never made a skillful mariner.
English proverb
Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which, in prosperous circumstances,
would have lain dormant.
Horace
The whole history of civilization is strewn with creeds and institutions which were invaluable at first, and deadly afterwards.
Walter Bagehot
Everything begins in mysticism and ends in politics.
Charles Peguy
If it is to be, it is up to me.
Unknown
Refuse to be a sidekick.
Unknown
Never complain, never explain.
Unknown
A great teacher is not simply one who imparts knowledge to his students, but one who awakens their interest in it and makes them eager to pursue it for themselves. He is a spark plug, not a fuel pipe. The reason colleges exist is to bring students into contact with contagious personalities, for otherwise they might as well be correspondance schools.
Edmund Ware Sinnott, The biology of the spirit, Viking Press, 1955, p.99
You cannot really teach anyone anything; all you can do is help them learn on their own.
Unknown
Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
Unknown
Time exists solely to prevent all things from happening at once.
Chinese fortune cookie
It is far better to be silent than merely to increase the quantity of bad books.
Voltaire
We never live; we are always in the expectation of living.
Voltaire
Madness is to think of too many things in succession too fast or of one thing too exclusively.
Voltaire
The best is the enemy of the good.
Voltaire
A free soul ought not to pursue any study slavishly, for nothing that is learned under compulsion stays with the mind.
Socrates, in Plato's Republic
He who provides for this life but takes no care for eternity, is wise for a
moment but a fool forever.
Unknown
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Reinhold Niebuhr
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I cannot accept, and the wisdom to hide the bodies of those people I had to kill today because they pissed me off. And also, help me to be careful of the toes I step on today as they may be connected to the ass that I may have to kiss tomorrow. Help me to always give 100% at work - 12% on Monday, 23% on Tuesday, 40% on Wednesday, 20% on Thursday, 5% on Friday. And help me to remember - When I'm having a really bad day, and it seems that people are trying to piss me off, that it takes 42 muscles to frown and only 4 to extend my middle finger and tell them to bite me! Amen.
A Prayer for the Stressed, Author Unknown
We all suffer from the disease of immortality. Those who do not make it to a monument
on a square, want to have at least a street named after them - and similar guarantees
of eternal memory. We want, if not an entire obituary column in a newspaper, then
at least a mentioning as one who "lived life to the fullest and who always gave
his all." But a child is not a lottery ticked with a chance to win a bust in a
theater foyer or a portrait in the townhall. Wines and cigarettes, but not human
beings, need to be popular.
Janusz Korczak, How to Love a Child
Life is a succession of moments. To live each is to succeed.
Corita Kent
Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Don’t be so humble—you are not that great.
Golda Meir
It's not the most talented people who survive, but the ones with the most drive.
Norma Kamali
If a man's mind becomes pure, his surroundings will also become pure.
Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha)
Mind is indeed the source of bondage and also the source of liberation.
To be bound to things of this world: this is bondage. To be free of them:
this is liberation.
Maitri Upanishad
The moment of victory is much too short to live for that and nothing else.
Martina Navratilova
Don't be afraid of opposition. Remember, a kite rises against--not with--the wind.
Hamilton Mabie
How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin.
Ronald Reagan
Don't talk to me about naval tradition. It's nothing but rum, sodomy and the lash.
Winston Churchill
Personally I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.
Winston Churchill
It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.
Winston Churchill
Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is.
Erich Fromm
You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take.
Wayne Gretzky
It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.
Oscar Wilde
Those fighting for free enterprise and free competition do not defend the interests of those rich today. They want a free hand left to unknown men who will be the entrepreneurs of tomorrow...
Ludwig von Mises
It is all about re-wiring your brain.
Unknown
Lying makes a problem part of the future; truth makes a problem part of the past.
Rick Pitino
The squeaky wheel may get the most oil, but it is also the first to be replaced.
Marilyn Vos Savant
There are two ways to study butterflies: chase them with nets then inspect their dead bodies, or sit quietly in the garden and watch them dance among the flowers.
Nongnuch Bassham
It's great to be great, but its greater to be human.
Will Rogers
Never chase a lie. Let it alone, and it will run itself to death.
Lyman Beecher
The greatest right in the world is the right to be wrong.
Harry Weinberger
Nothing is a snap.
Marc C. Hochberg
Living well is the best revenge.
George Herbert
Modern man thinks he loses something - time - when he does not do things quickly. Yet he does not know what to do with the time he gains - except kill it.
Erich Fromm
It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake.
H.L. Mencken
For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
H.L. Mencken
Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
H.L. Mencken
The strictest justice is sometimes the greatest injustice.
Terrence
We must always tell what we see. Above all, and this is more difficult, we must always see what we see.
Charles Peguy
Tyranny is always better organized than freedom.
Charles Peguy
The honest man must be a perpetual renegade, the life of an honest man a perpetual infidelity. For the man who wishes to remain faithful must take himself perpetually unfaithful to all the continual, successive, indefatigable, renascent errors.
Charles Peguy
If you do not think about the future, you cannot have one.
John Galsworthy
What's the use of running when you are not on the right road?
Unknown
Strategic planning is worthless - unless there is first a strategic vision.
John Naisbitt
Blessed are the people whose leaders can look destiny in the eye without flinching, but also without attempting to play God.
Henry Kissinger
Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.
Judy Garland
People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. ... The leader works in the open, and the boss in covert. The leader leads, and the boss drives.
Theodore Roosevelt
Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.
Marilyn vos Savant
Those who desire to give up Freedom in order to gain Security, will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.
Thomas Jefferson
If you are losing your leisure, look out! You are losing your soul.
Logan Pearsall Smith
If the only prayer you say in your life is "thank you," that would
suffice.
Meister Eckhart
A problem is something you have hopes of changing. Anything else is a fact of life.
S.R. Smith
Delay is preferable to error.
Thomas Jefferson
Progress might have been all right once, but it has gone on too long.
Ogden Nash
Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy.
Howard W. Newton
It is much safer to obey than to rule.
Thomas Kempis
So long as authority inspires awe, confusion and absurdity enhance conservative tendencies in society. Firstly, because clear and logical thinking leads to a cumulation of knowledge (of which the progress of the natural sciences provides the best example) and the advance of knowledge sooner or later undermines the traditional order. Confused thinking, on the other hand, leads nowhere in particular and can be indulged indefinitely without producing any impact upon the world.
Stanislav Andreski
Above all, try something.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
The world is all gates, all opportunities, strings of tension waiting to be struck.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Dare to be naive.
R. Buckminster Fuller
As soon as you bend over, people think you like to work in a bent-over position.
Peter Block
Easy to criticize. More difficult to be correct.
Charlie Chan
To make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.
T.S. Eliot
Fight! Be somebody! If you have lost confidence in yourself, make believe you are somebody else, somebody that’s got brains, and act like him.
Sol Hess
When a man sits down to think, he is immediately asked if he has a headache.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
We become that which we tolerate.
Nan DeMars
Never ask a barber if you need a haircut.
H. Jackson Brown
Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise.
Bertrand Russel
People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered; Forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; Be kind anyway. If you are successful you will win some false friends and true enemies; Succeed anyway. If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; Be honest and frank anyway. What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight; Build anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous; Be happy anyway. The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; Do good anyway. Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough; Give the world the best you've got anyway. You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God; It was never between you and them anyway.
Mother Teresa
New technologies should be applied very cautiously to the traditional areas. For example, one can substitute toilet paper with a computer, however, wiping your bottom with a computer is probably not the best idea. Some traditional areas should remain unchanged - no matter what new technologies come and go. This relates particularly to education. All students must memorize the multiplication facts, no matter how powerful their calculators are.
Faina Atamas
Rest not! Life is sweeping by; go and do before you die. Something mighty and sublime, leave behind to conquer time.
Johann Goethe
Endurance is one of the most difficult disciplines, but it is to the one who endures that the final victory comes.
Buddha
One should act in consonance with the way of Heaven and Earth, enduring and eternal, the superior man perseveres long in his course, adapts to the times, but remains firm in his direction and correct in his goals.
I Ching
Pain and suffering are inevitable, but misery is optional.
Unknown
Change is inevitable. Struggle is an option.
Unknown
You will either step forward into growth or you will step back into safety.
Abraham Maslow
A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.
Abraham Maslow
If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.
Abraham Maslow
Only the flexibly creative person can really manage the future, only the one who can face novelty with confidence and without fear.
Abraham Maslow
I have learned the novice can often see things that the expert overlooks. All that is necessary is not to be afraid of making mistakes, or of appearing naive.
Abraham Maslow
If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.
Abraham Maslow
I'm not a good shot, but I shoot often.
Theodore Roosevelt
Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
Theodore Roosevelt
Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, 'Certainly I can!' Then get busy and find out how to do it.
Theodore Roosevelt
When you play, play hard; when you work, don't play at all.
Theodore Roosevelt
Don't hit at all if it is honorable possible to avoid hitting; but never hit soft!
Theodore Roosevelt
Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.
Unknown
Do what you can with what you have where you are.
Theodore Roosevelt
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
Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.
Theodore Roosevelt
Nine-tenths of wisdom consists in being wise in time.
Theodore Roosevelt
If I must choose between righteousness and peace, I choose righteousness.
Theodore Roosevelt
A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.
Winston Churchill
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
Winston Churchill
Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.
Winston Churchill
Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
Winston Churchill
However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.
Winston Churchill
Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.
Winston Churchill
When you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
Winston Churchill
Nothing worthwhile comes easily. Half effort does not produce half results, it
produces no results. Work, continuous work and hard work, it the only way to accomplish
results that last.
Hamilton Holt
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
Leo Tolstoy
Only those who attempt the absurd will achieve the impossible.
Maurits Cornelis Escher
Wisdom comes by disillusionment.
George Santayana
True, but irrelevant.
Barbara White
Do not ask for what you cannot take.
Unknown
Do not trouble trouble, until trouble troubles you.
Unknown
There is never a raised voice or an argument, there is just a conversation.
Barbara White
Look broadly. Think broadly. Act and write specifically, narrow, repetitive,
much - do not be afraid to re-iterate your point.
Unknown
The only fool bigger than the person who knows it all is the person who argues
with him.
Stanislaw Jerszy Lec
He who limps still walks.
Stanislaw Jerszy Lec
Thoughts, like fleas, jump from man to man. But they don't bite everybody.
Stanislaw Jerszy Lec
Murder is a crime. Describing murder is not. Sex is not a crime. Describing
sex is.
Gershon Legman
Inspiration usually comes during work, rather than before it.
Madeleine L'Engle
The Great God Science. It has failed us, because it was never meant to be a
god, but only a few true scientists understand that.
Madeleine L'Engle
I take no more notice of the wind that comes out of the mouths of critics than
of the wind expelled from their backsides.
Leonardo da Vinci
Every man gets a narrower and narrower field of knowledge in which he must be
an expert in order to compete with other people. The specialist knows more and
more about less and less and finally knows everything about nothing.
Konrad Lorenz
Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.
Thomas Henry Huxley
Any subject may be made repulsive by presenting it bristling with difficulties.
Silvanus Thompson
Civilization rests on a set of promises; if the promises are broken too often,
the civilization dies, no matter how rich it may be, or how mechanically clever.
Hope and faith depend on the promises; if hope and faith go, everything goes.
Herbert Agar
Ignorant people are sure of the causes of everything.
James Thorpe
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
Aldous Huxley
The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.
Plutarch
Never stop looking for a better job.
Unknown
Live as if everything you do will eventually be known.
Hugh Prather
Just when I think I have learned the way to live, life changes.
Hugh Prather
Almost any difficulty will move in the face of honesty. When I am honest I never
feel stupid. And when I am honest I am automatically humble.
Hugh Prather
If the desire to write is not accompanied by actual writing, then the desire
must be not to write.
Hugh Prather
The society based on production is only productive, not creative.
Albert Camus
We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings
having a human experience.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Life is a struggle. Before lunch - with hunger, and after lunch - with sleepiness.
Unknown
Neurosis is the inability to tolerate ambiguity.
Sigmund Freud
Beaten paths are for beaten people and it's not that life is too short it's
just that we're dead for such a long time.
Unknown
Keep trying. Stay humble. Trust your instincts. Most importantly, act. When
you come to a fork in the road, take it.
Yogi Berra
The fool wonders, the wise man asks.
Benjamin Disraeli
Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once
eccentric.
Bertrand Russell
I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.
Bertrand Russell
Sir J. Arthur Thomson says: "Science as science never asks the question Why?
That is to say, it never inquires into the meaning, or significance, or purpose
of this manifold Being, Becoming, and Having Been." And he continues: "Thus
science does not pretend to be a bedrock of truth." "Science," he tells us,
"cannot apply its methods to the mystical and spiritual." Professor J. S. Haldane
holds that "it is only within ourselves, in our active ideals of truth, right,
charity, and beauty, and consequent fellowship with others, that we find the
revelation of God." Dr. Malinowski says that "religious revelation is an experience
which, as a matter of principle, lies beyond the domain of science."
Bertrand Russell
One should guard against preaching to young people success in the customary
form as the main aim in life. The most important motive for work in school and
in life is pleasure in work, pleasure in its result, and the knowledge of the
value of the result to the community.
Albert Einstein
Any action of an individual is meaningful only in a social context, either immediate
and direct or remote and indirect, but still social context.
Some fat guy
Avoiding unnecessary activities is a sign of a clear mind.
Some fat guy
Small choices may have far-going consequences.
Unknown
Be not astonished at new ideas; for it is well known to you that a thing does
not therefore cease to be true because it is not accepted by many.
Baruch Spinoza
All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to
discover them.
Galileo Galilei
It is a puzzling thing. The truth knocks on the door and you say, 'Go away,
I'm looking for the truth.' and so it goes away. Puzzling.
Robert M. Pirsig
The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.
Oscar Wilde
Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement;
then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant.
The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude,
you kill the monster, and fling him out to the public.
Winston Churchill
If you cannot fix the people, fix the situation.
Barbara White
There are two paths to follow in life. One is the path of the Dreamer, and the
other is the path of the Dream Stealer. Which path are you following through
life? If your life is worth living then it's worth living the life of your DREAMS!
Rod Moore
Where is the fun of religion if you can't disapprove of other people! There
are some people, I suspect, who would feel obscurely cheated if, when they finally
arrive in heaven, they found everybody else there as well. Heaven would not
be heaven unless those who reached it could peer over the celestial parapets
and watch other unfortunates roasting below. We need training in compassion
because it does not come to us naturally.
Karen Armstrong
Carl Jung once said that a great deal of institutional religion seems designed
to prevent the faithful from having a spiritual experience.
Karen Armstrong
All great truths begin as blasphemies.
George Bernard Shaw
The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.
George Bernard Shaw
Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds
cannot change anything.
George Bernard Shaw
Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds
cannot change anything.
George Bernard Shaw
It takes as much effort to be nice and polite as it does to be rude and vulgar.
Unknown
Underpromise and overdeliver.
Business wisdom
In business, you don't get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate.
Chester L. Karrass
Among the many things my late father, God bless his soul, taught me was don't
whine, don't complain, don't fall in a trap and say, well, it's bad luck or
good luck.
Dan Rather
Never miss a chance to shut up.
Unknown
Many of us live perpetually in fire-fighting mode afraid to stop the assembly
line long enough to fix chronic problems.
Roger Erickson
When you find people digging themselves into a hole, and offer to help, they
will ask you to jump in and help them dig faster.
Anonymous
A common dilemma in decision-making: rely on evidence or eminence?
Everyone's problem
The basis of optimism is sheer terror.
Oscar Wilde
Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
Oscar Wilde
The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly - that
is what each of us is here for.
Oscar Wilde
Failing to plan is planning to fail.
Unknown
The more human beings proceed by plan the more effectively they may be hit by
accident.
Friedrich Dürrenmatt
The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days
in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.
Jack London
The secret of joy in work is contained in one word - excellence. To know how
to do something well is to enjoy it.
Pearl S. Buck
You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself
one.
James A. Froude
If you wait until you are sure, you will never take off the training wheels.
Unknown
If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can't, you're right.
Henry Ford
There are only two forces in the world, the sword and the spirit. In the long
run the sword will always be conquered by the spirit.
Napoleon Bonaparte
If you want a thing done well, do it yourself.
Napoleon Bonaparte
Be faithful to that which exists within yourself.
Andre Gide
Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.
Andre Gide
It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for something you
are not.
Andre Gide
One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore
for a very long time.
Andre Gide
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
Gandhi
If at first, the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.
Albert Einstein
To teach how to live without certainty and yet without being paralysed by hesitation
is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can do for those who
study it.
Bertrand Russell
Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance
and above all, confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for
something and that this thing must be attained.
Marie Curie
I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great
affair is to move.
Robert Louis Stevenson
What you do not do is as important, if not more important, as what you do do.
Barbara White
All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning.
Albert Camus
It is as important to decide what not to do as what to do.
Folk wisdom
Problems are the price we pay for living.
Some fat guy
In business, the only rational thing to do is to make a suggestion.
Some fat guy
Let spirited, chaotic dreams
Rule rational, orderly days
Trusting in fate
Mark V. Dahl
One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Gratitude is the sign of noble souls.
Aesop
Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes
genius.
Arthur Conan Doyle
Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men.
John F. Kennedy
The secret of good writing is to say an old thing in a new way or to say a new
thing in an old way.
Richard Davis
As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances,
there is a twilight when everything remains unchanged. And it is in such twilight
that we all must be most aware of change in the air--however slight--lest we
become unwitting victims of the darkness.
Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas
Half the truth is often a great lie.
Benjamin Franklin
Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent change inevitable.
John F. Kennedy
Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are
wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar.
Edward R. Murrow
Difficulty is the excuse history never accepts.
Edward R. Murrow
We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies,
I think the soul of America dies with it.
Edward R. Murrow
I quote others only in order the better to express myself.
Michel de Montaigne
It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others.
Michel de Montaigne
“It is important that an aim never be defined in terms of activity or methods.
It must always relate directly to how life is better for everyone... The aim
of the system must be clear to everyone in the system. The aim must include
plans for the future. The aim is a value judgment.”
W. Edwards Deming
If you can't describe what you are doing as a process, you don't know what you're
doing.
W. Edwards Deming
It is not enough to do your best; you must know what to do, and then do your
best.
W. Edwards Deming
It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.
W. Edwards Deming
Innovation comes from the producer -- not from the customer.
W. Edwards Deming
The ideal man bears the accidents of life with dignity and grace, making the
best of circumstances.
Aristotle
An organization's ability to learn, and translate that learning into action
rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage.
Jack Welch
The best people want to interact with other best people. It is always about
making a better union.
Roger Erickson
If you can't stand to be with your real peers, get out of science.
James D. Watson
Everything about modeling concerns time scales and length scales.
Jonathan Bell
Do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it.
Thomas Jefferson
Enlighten the people, generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind
will vanish like spirits at the dawn of day.
Thomas Jefferson
Honesty is the first chapter of the book of wisdom.
Thomas Jefferson
In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like
a rock.
Thomas Jefferson
Never trouble another for what you can do for yourself.
Thomas Jefferson
An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow
citizens.
Thomas Jefferson
Health is worth more than learning.
Thomas Jefferson
Say nothing of my religion. It is known to God and myself alone. Its evidence
before the world is to be sought in my life: if it has been honest and dutiful
to society the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one.
Thomas Jefferson
Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always
cool and unruffled under all circumstances.
Thomas Jefferson
The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time.
Abraham Lincoln
Four-fifths of all our troubles would disappear, if we would only sit down and
keep still.
Calvin Coolidge
Trust, but verify.
Ronald Reagan
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
There is nothing more thrilling in this world, I think, than having a child
that is yours, and yet is mysteriously a stranger.
Agatha Christie
Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality.
Be not simply good; be good for something.
Henry David Thoreau
People need love most when they deserve it least.
Ernest Eberhard
Ambition is the last refuge of failure.
Oscar Wilde
Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
Proverbs 16:18
Only those who will risk going too far, can possibly find out how far one can
go.
T.S. Elliot
An issue that has been controversial for a long time is unlikely to be resolved
by repeated exercising of the same approaches that made it controversial in
the first place. A new approach, including a new perspective on the issue, is
needed for pushing the controversy toward resolution.
SPA
It is a comfort to the miserable to have comrades in misfortune, but it is a
poor comfort after all.
Christopher Marlowe
To know how to grow old is the master work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult
chapters in the great art of living.
Herman Melville
A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist
is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.
Harry Truman
It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it.
W. Somerset Maugham
A lot of good arguments are spoiled by some fool who knows what he is talking
about.
Miguel de Unamuno
Never underestimate the power of a few committed individuals to change the world.
Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead
Both in thought and in feeling, even though time be real, to realise the unimportance
of time is the gate of wisdom.
Bertrand Russell
You see things; and you say "Why?" But I dream things that never were; and I
say "Why not?"
George Bernard Shaw
When applying for a job, show respect, but do not view your potential employer
as authority. In most cases they are no more qualified than you are.
SPA
Exuberance is beauty.
H.G. Wells
It is wise to turn circumstances to good account.
Aesop
From now on, you will view human bodies as physico-chemical machines, and yourself
as mechanics who maintain and repair them.
Herman V. Troitski - Biochemistry lecture to 2nd-year medical
students
From now on, you will view all human endeavors as process-machines, and yourselves
as the process mechanics who maintain and repair them.
Roger Erickson - On similarites of economies/cultures and
biology
Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together
is success.
Henry Ford
Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than
any one thing.
Abraham Lincoln
All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.
Aristotle
In any complex system, the highest cost, by far, is the cost of coordination.
Walter A. Shewhart
Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them to become
what they are capable of being.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Data without context is meaningless, so post-docs without markets are useless.
Business view of academics (RGE)
Never underestimate the destructive power of a pretentious fool.
Some fat guy
Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain -- and most fools do.
Dale Carnegie
Isolation - and trying to be "happy" - is not a sustainable strategy.
Only adventure keeps happiness in equilibrium.
Roger Erickson
Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.
Thomas Jefferson
Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances
with none.
Thomas Jefferson
Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations.
Thomas Jefferson
In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.
John Adams
Exams and interviews only select good performers who know how to mobilize themselves. Exams and interviews do not select those who are smart and knowledgeable, because the smart and knowledgeable are always full of doubt, and therefore do not perform well.
Herman V. Troitski
Speak in benefits, not features.
Salesman's wisdom
There is much more truth in a metaphor than in a fact.
Norman Mailer
The trouble with metaphors is that no matter how true they may be when they are fresh and clever, when the multitudes pick them up, they almost immediately become worn out and false. For the whole truth is always complex to the point of being unknowable, even to the world's greatest geniuses.
Bill Bonner
People of action despise thinking of any sort, and rightly so, because the more they think, the more their actions are beset by doubts and arrière-pensées. The more man thinks, the slower he moves. Thought uncovers the limitations of his plans. Exploring the possibilities, he sees yet more potential outcomes, a greater number of problems... and he increasingly recognizes how little he actually knows. If he keeps thinking long and hard enough, he is practically paralyzed... a person of action no more.
Bill Bonner
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein
There are two ways of exerting one's strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.
Booker T. Washington
One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.
Booker T. Washington
I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.
Booker T. Washington
He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave.
Sir William Drummond
As long as people will accept crap, it will be financially profitable to dispense it.
Dick Cavett
On the human imagination events produce the effects of time. Thus, he who has traveled far and seen much is apt to fancy that he has lived long; and the history that most abounds in important incidents soonest assumes the aspect of antiquity.
James Fenimore Cooper
A refined simplicity is the characteristic of all high bred deportment, in every country.
James Fenimore Cooper
If we would have civilization and the exertion indispensable to its success, we must have property; if we have property, we must have its rights; if we have the rights of property, we must take those consequences of the rights of property which are inseparable from the rights themselves.
James Fenimore Cooper
We see things not as they are, but as we are.
Henry Major Tomlinson
The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and to watch somebody else doing it wrong without comment.
T. H. White
Today I had a choice of doing something important that no one would ever realize... or doing something useless that would look like an accomplishment. So I attended meetings until I could no longer appreciate the difference.
Dilbert [Scott Adams]
Things are never so bad they can't be made worse.
Humphrey Bogart
Even the wicked get worse than they deserve.
Willa Cather
All the best stories in the world are but one story in reality - the story of escape. It is the only thing which interests us all and at all times, how to escape.
Walter Bagehot
Honor sinks where commerce long prevails.
Walter Bagehot
No great work has ever been produced except after a long interval of still and musing meditation.
Walter Bagehot
One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea.
Walter Bagehot
Things work out best for those who make the best of the way things work
out.
Unknown
The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.
Walter Bagehot
The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he's always doing both.
James A. Michener
I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.
Kahlil Gibran
Exactitude in small matters is the very soul of discipline.
Joseph Conrad, The Secret Sharer
In the absence of clearly-defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily trivia until ultimately we become enslaved by it.
Robert Heinlein
Absent selective pressure, random habit becomes fixed policy.
Roger Erickson
All great masters are chiefly distinguished by the power of adding a second, a third, and perhaps a fourth step in a continuous line. Many a man had taken the first step. With every additional step you enhance immensely the value of your first.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.
Oscar Wilde
If Columbus had an advisory committee he would surely still be at the dock.
Marc Faber
I am not young enough to know everything.
Oscar Wilde
You can give a serf freedom, but you can't make him keep it.
Roger Erickson
I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one.
Mark Twain
People support something not because they believe in it; not because they were paid a bribe to support it; but because they think supporting it is a fashion accessory, will increase their own face value.
Chetan Pandit
Beware the barrenness of a busy life.
Socrates
Nothing is so common as the wish to be remarkable.
attributed to William Shakespeare
Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.
Confucius
There is no formula for success except perhaps an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings.
Arthur Rubinstein
A sad soul can kill you quicker, far quicker, than a germ.
John Steinbeck
Never mind what others do; do better than yourself, beat your own record each & everyday, and you are a success.
Willim Boetcker
What we must decide is how we are valuable, rather than how valuable we are.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
There are truly no enemies, only failure to see group options offering orders of magnitude higher stakes.
Roger Erickson
University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.
Henry Kissinger
Accept everything about yourself - I mean everything. You are you and that is the beginning and the end - no apologies, no regrets.
Henry Kissinger
If it's going to come out eventually, better have it come out immediately.
Henry Kissinger
The real distinction is between those who adapt their purposes to reality and those who seek to mold reality in the light of their purposes.
Henry Kissinger
The strength of a family, like the strength of an army, is in its loyalty to each other.
Mario Puzo
Never get angry. Never make a threat. Reason with people.
Mario Puzo
The truest characters of ignorance are vanity, and pride and arrogance.
Samuel Butler
Nobody can be so amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and thinks it is his own.
Sydney J. Harris
I don't own the personal hubris to assume that any book I'm writing is going to get published.
Mark Spragg
A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
I would sooner eat garbage than feign enthusiasm.
Ran Prieur
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.
Voltaire
To counter the avoidance of intellectual challenge and responsibility, we must reduce the domination of certainty in education.
William Glasser
Opportunity misses those who view the world through the eyes of their profession.
Gerald Celente
All progress is seen to be a frantic struggle towards an objective which you hope and pray will never be reached.
George Orwell
Man is a slow, sloppy and brilliant thinker; the machine is fast, accurate and stupid.
William M. Kelly
Nature which governs the whole will soon change all things which thou seest, and out of their substance will make other things, and again other things from the substance of them, in order that the world may be ever new.
Marcus Aurelius, Roman Emperor
Every act of will is an act of self-limitation. To desire action is to desire limitation. In that sense, every act is an act of self-sacrifice. When you choose anything, you reject everything else.
G. K. Chesterton
The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.
George Bernard Shaw
Never tell a young person that anything cannot be done. God may have been waiting centuries for someone ignorant enough of the impossible to do that very thing.
G. M. Trevelyan
An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.
Thomas Paine
These are facts the heart can feel; yet they call for careful study before they become clear to the intellect.
Albert Camus
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
Oscar Wilde
Bigamy is having one wife too many. Monogamy is the same.
Oscar Wilde
In whatever you're doing, failure is an option, but fear is not.
James Cameron