Archives for April 2011

There are few things in life that bring as much joy as the joy that comes from assisting another improve his or her life.
—Richard G. Scott (American Mormon Religious Leader)

Once you get rid of the idea that you must please other people before you please yourself, and you begin to follow your own instincts—only then can you be successful. You become more satisfied, and when you are other people tend to be satisfied by what you do.
—Raquel Welch (American Actor)

Behind every advance of the human race is a germ of creation growing in the mind of some lone individual. An individual whose dreams waken him in the night while others lie contentedly asleep.
—Crawford Greenewalt (American Engineer)

Love and kindness are never wasted. They always make a difference. They bless the one who receives them, and they bless you, the giver.
—Barbara De Angelis (American Lecturer)

The man who saves time by galloping loses it by missing his way; the shepherd who hurries his flock to get them home spends the night on the mountain looking for the lost; economy does not consist in haste, but in certainty.
—Ramsay MacDonald (British Head of State)

Thought creates character.
—Annie Besant (British-born Indian Theosophist)

Love is a force more formidable than any other. It is invisible – it cannot be seen or measured, yet it is powerful enough to transform you in a moment, and offer you more joy than any material possession could.
—Barbara De Angelis (American Lecturer)

Reasoning draws a conclusion and makes us grant the conclusion, but does not make the conclusion certain, nor does it remove doubt.
—Roger Bacon (English Philosopher)

Now intelligence seemed quantifiable. You could measure someone’s actual or potential height, and now, it seemed, you could also measure someone’s actual or potential intelligence. We had one dimension of mental ability along which we could array everyone… The whole concept has to be challenged; in fact, it has to be replaced.
—Howard Gardner (American Psychologist)

Do not fight the darkness, let the light in and the darkness will disappear.
—Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (Indian Hindu Religious Leader)

We conquer – not in any brilliant fashion – we conquer by continuing.
—George Matheson (Scottish Theologian)

The covetous man is always poor.
—Claudian (Roman Poet)

Love people and use things. Don’t use people and love things.
—Joseph Simmons

Strange how a single conversation can change you. Or maybe it only seems that way in retrospect. A year passes and you know you feel differently, but you’re not sure what or why or how, so your mind casts back for something that might give that difference shape: a word, a glance, a touch.
—Barack Obama (American Head of State)

Success is achieved by development of our strengths, not by elimination of our weakness.
—Marilyn vos Savant (American Columnist)

The real differences around the world today are not between Jews and Arabs; Protestants and Catholics; Muslims, Croats, and Serbs. The real differences are between those who embrace peace and those who would destroy it; between those who look to the future and those who cling to the past; between those who open their arms and those who are determined to clench their fists.
—Bill Clinton (American Head of State)

We begin to die as soon as we are born, and the end is linked to the beginning.
—Marcus Manilius (Roman Poet)

Love the moment and the energy of the moment will spread beyond all boundaries.
—Corita Kent (American Artist)

I wish I could stand on a busy corner, hat in hand, and beg people to throw me all their wasted hours.
—Bernard Berenson (Russian-born American Art Historian)

One is taught by experience to put a premium on those few people who can appreciate you for what you are.
—Gail Godwin (American Novelist)

The test of good manners is to be able to put up pleasantly with bad ones.
—Wendell Willkie (American Politician)

A gentleman is one who is too brave to lie, too generous to cheat, and who takes his share of the world and lets other people have theirs.
—Paul G. Hoffman (American Businessperson)

Happiness is a matter of one’s most ordinary and everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self.
—Iris Murdoch (English Novelist)

You don’t develop courage by being happy in your relationships everyday. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity.
—Barbara De Angelis (American Lecturer)

My formula for living is quite simple. I get up in the morning and I go to bed at night. In between, I occupy myself as best I can.
—Cary Grant (British-born American Actor)

Be brave enough to live creatively. The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. You can’t get there by bus, only by hard work, risking, and by not quite knowing what you’re doing. What you’ll discover will be wonderful: yourself.
—Alan Alda (American Actor)

Common sense is strengthened by joy.
—Nachman of Breslov (Ukrainian Jewish Religions Leader)

Nothing contributes so much to tranquilizing the mind as a steady purpose-a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.
—Mary Shelley (English Novelist)

A word of kindness is seldom spoken in vain, while witty sayings are as easily lost as the pearls slipping from a broken string.
—George D. Prentice (American Journalist)

There are fathers who do not love their children, but there is no grandfather who does not adore his grandson.
—Victor Hugo (French Novelist)

We’ll do all right if we can capitalize on our mistakes.
—Mickey Rivers (American Sportsperson)

The biggest problem in the world could have been solved when it was small.
—Witter Bynner (American Poet)

When you finally go back to your old hometown, you find it wasn’t the old home you missed but your childhood.
—Sam Ewing (American Sportsperson)

Every failure made me more confident. Because I wanted even more to achieve as revenge. To show that I could.
—Roman Polanski (French Film Director)

If there is anything that can be called genius, it consists chiefly in the ability to give that attention to a subject which keeps it steadily in the mind, till we have surveyed it accurately on all sides.
—Thomas Reid (Scottish Philosopher)

If one only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier than other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are.
—Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu

Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on.
—Bob Newhart (American Comedian)

It happens a little unluckily that the persons who have the most infinite contempt of money are the same that have the strongest appetite for the pleasures it procures.
—William Shenstone (English Poet)

The purpose of life is to discover your gift. The meaning of life is to give your gift away.
—David Viscott (American Psychiatrist)

Research is to see what everybody else has seen, and to think what nobody else has thought.
—Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

Establish specific objectives, and move steadily toward them. A rudder won’t control a drifting boat; it must be underway. Similarly, you need to be moving forward to gain control of your life.
—Richard G. Scott (American Mormon Religious Leader)

Knowledge is a sacred cow, and my problem will be how we can milk her while keeping clear of her horns.
—Albert Szent-Gyorgyi

The road to happiness lies in two simple principles: find what it is that interests you and that you can do well, and when you find it, put your whole soul into it—every bit of energy and ambition and natural ability you have.
—John D. Rockefeller III (American Philanthropist)

Happiness doesn’t depend on what we have, but it does depend on how we feel towards what we have. We can be happy with little and miserable with much.
—William D. Hoard (American Elected Rep)

The trouble with experience is that by the time you have it you are too old to take advantage of it.
—Jimmy Connors (American Sportsperson)

Life’s under no obligation to give us what we expect.
—Margaret Mitchell (American Author)