A thousand words will not leave so deep an impression as one deed.
—Henrik Ibsen (Norwegian Playwright)
A president’s hardest task is not to do what is right, but to know what is right.
—Lyndon B. Johnson (American Head of State)
Our human compassion binds us to one another—not in pity or patronizingly, but as human beings who have learnt how to turn our common suffering into hope for the future.
—Nelson Mandela (South African Political leader)
Luck is a dividend of sweat. The more you sweat, the luckier you get.
—Ray Kroc (American Entrepreneur)
Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest.
—Mark Twain (American Humorist)
I would rather hear the pleased laugh of a child over some feature of my exhibition than receive as I did the flattering compliments of the Prince of Wales.
—P. T. Barnum (American Businessperson)
Life is to be lived. If you have to support yourself, you had bloody well better find some way that is going to be interesting. And you don’t do that by sitting around wondering about yourself.
—Katharine Hepburn (American Actor)
Conceit spoils the finest genius. There is not much danger that real talent or goodness will be overlooked long; even if it is, the consciousness of possessing and using it well should satisfy one, and the great charm of all power is modesty.
—Louisa May Alcott (American Novelist)
It’s no use growing older if you only learn new ways of misbehaving yourself.
—Saki (Hector Hugh Munro) (British Short Story Writer)
An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes, which can be made, in a very narrow field.
—Niels Bohr (Danish Physicist)
The trouble in America is not that we are making too many mistakes, but that we are making too few.
—Philip H. Knight (American Businessman)
Happiness quite unshared can scarcely be called happiness; it has no taste.
—Emily Bronte (English Novelist, Poet)
It’s not what we’re against which defines us, it’s what we stand for. Sometimes the footing is surest where the fewest walk.
—Bob Goff (American Philanthropist)
Try to keep your soul young and quivering right up to old age, and to imagine right up to the brink of death that life is only beginning. I think that is the only way to keep adding to one’s talent, and one’s inner happiness.
—George Sand (French Novelist, Dramatist)
For truth and duty it is ever the fitting time; who waits until circumstances completely favor his undertaking, will never accomplish anything.
—Martin Luther (German Protestant Theologian)
Our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.
—William Shakespeare (British Playwright)
We cannot seek or attain health, wealth, learning, justice or kindness in general. Action is always specific, concrete, individualized, unique.
—John Dewey (American Philosopher)
Except in cases of necessity, which are rare, leave your friend to learn unpleasant things from his enemies; they are ready enough to tell him.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (American Physician)