Archives for August 2011

The biggest disease today is not leprosy or cancer or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted, uncared for, deserted by everybody. The greatest evil is the lack of love and charity, the terrible indifference towards one’s neighbor.
—Mother Teresa (Albanian Catholic Humanitarian)

The ordinary man is involved in action, the hero acts. An immense difference.
—Henry Miller (American Novelist)

Whoever does not know how to find the way to his ideal lives more frivolously and impudently than the man without an ideal.
—Friedrich Nietzsche (German Philosopher, Scholar)

It is always in the midst, in the epicenter, of your troubles that you find serenity.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery (French Novelist, Aviator)

The real tragedy of life is not being limited to one talent, but in failing to use that one talent.
—E. W. Howe (American Novelist)

Everything great in the world is done by neurotics; they alone founded our religions and created our masterpieces.
—Marcel Proust (French Novelist)

We learn our virtues from the bosom friends who love us; our faults from the enemy who hates us. We cannot easily discover our real character from a friend. He is a mirror, on which the warmth of our breath impedes the clearness of the reflection.
—Jean Paul (German Novelist)

A preoccupation with the future not only prevents us from seeing the present as it is, but often prompts us to rearrange the past.
—Eric Hoffer (American Philosopher)

There are events which are so great that if a writer has participated in them his obligation is to write truly rather than assume the presumption of altering them with invention.
—Ernest Hemingway (American Author)

Religion is what keeps the poor man from murdering the rich
—Napoleon I (French Monarch)

Freedom unexercised may become freedom forfeited.
—Margaret Chase Smith

A university should be a place of light, of liberty and of learning.
—Benjamin Disraeli (British Head of State)

Always walk through life as if you have something new to learn and you will.
—Vernon Howard

Morality is always the product of terror; its chains and strait-waistcoats are fashioned by those who dare not trust others, because they dare not trust themselves, to walk in liberty.
—Aldous Huxley (English Humanist)

Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones.
—Charles Caleb Colton (English Angelic Priest)

What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Men’s hearts ought not to be set against one another, but set with one another, and all against evil only.
—Thomas Carlyle (Scottish Writer)

Man ought to know that in the theater of human life, it is only for Gods and angels to be spectators.
—Francis Bacon (English Philosopher)

Contempt for happiness is usually contempt for other people’s happiness, and is an elegant disguise for hatred of the human race.
—Bertrand A. Russell (British Philosopher)

Our duty is to be useful, not according to our desires, but according to our powers.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (Swiss Philosopher)

Be like the bird, who, feeling the branch break beneath him sings, knowing that he has wings.
—Victor Hugo (French Novelist)

Politeness is an inexpensive way of making friends.
—William Feather (American Publisher)

Common-sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (English Poet)

The man who acquires the ability to take full possession of his own mind may take possession of anything else to which he is justly entitled.
—Andrew Carnegie (Scottish-American Industrialist, Philanthropist)

We don’t need men with new ideas as much as we need men who will put energy behind the old ideas.
—William Feather (American Publisher)

Men of genius are rarely much annoyed by the company of vulgar people.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (English Poet)

Go as far as you can see, and when you get there you will see farther.
—Orison Swett Marden (American New Thought Writer)

Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself to do the thing you have to do when it ought to be done whether you like it or not. It is the first lesson that ought to be learned and however early a person’s training begins, it is probably the last lesson a person learn thoroughly.
—Thomas Henry Huxley (English Biologist)

The ability to make yourself do what you should do, when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not.
—Elbert Hubbard (American Writer)

Superiority to fate is difficult to gain; ’tis not conferred of any, but possible to earn.
—Emily Dickinson (American Poet)

Manifest plainness, embrace simplicity, reduce selfishness, have few desires.
—Laozi (Chinese Philosopher)

The nation which forgets its defenders will be itself forgotten.
—Calvin Coolidge (American Head of State)

Shun idleness. It is a rust that attaches itself to the most brilliant metals.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher)

The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.
—Eleanor Roosevelt (American First Lady)

The emotions aren’t always immediately subject to reason, but they are always immediately subject to action.
—William James (American Philosopher)

What are numbers knit|By force or custom? Man who man would be,|Must rule the empire of himself; in it|Must be supreme, establishing his throne|On vanquished will, quelling the anarchy|Of hopes and fears, being himself alone.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (English Poet)

Our minds are often permeated by memories of the past|or worries about the future. What gets missed is the present and|right there in the moment is the doorway into timelessness.
—Ram Dass (American Hindu Teacher)

We have to create strength where it did not exist before; we have to change our natures, and become new men with new hearts, to be born again.
—Sri Aurobindo (Indian Yogi, Nationalist)

People who are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their other talents.
—Andrew Carnegie (Scottish-American Industrialist, Philanthropist)

No two things differ more than hurry and dispatch. Hurry is the mark of a weak mind, dispatch of a strong one. A weak man in office, like a squirrel in a cage, is laboring eternally, but to no purpose, and is in constant motion without getting on a job; like a turnstile, he is in everybody’s way, but stops nobody; he talks a great deal, but says very little; looks into everything but sees nothing; and has a hundred irons in the fire, but very few of them are hot, and with those few that are, he only burns his fingers.
—Charles Caleb Colton (English Angelic Priest)

It is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped.
—Tony Robbins (American Actor Author)

Keep your fears to yourself, but share your inspiration with others.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)