Archives for March 2012

When people screw up, give them a second chance.
—Richard Branson (British Entrepreneur)

It is our mental attitude which makes the world what it is for us. Our thoughts make things beautiful, our thoughts make things ugly. The whole world is in our own minds.
—Swami Vivekananda (Indian Hindu Mystic)

Our patience will achieve more than our force.
—Edmund Burke (Irish Political leader)

Great works are done when one is not calculating and thinking.
—D. T. Suzuki (Japanese Buddhist Philosopher)

There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds.
—G. K. Chesterton (English Journalist)

One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.
—Booker T. Washington (American Educator)

My philosophy of life is that if we make up our mind what we are going to make of our lives, then work hard toward that goal, we never lose–somehow we win out.
—Ronald Reagan (American Head of State)

We made too many wrong mistakes.
—Yogi Berra (American Sportsperson)

This, indeed, is one of the eternal paradoxes of both life and literature—that without passion little gets done; yet, without control of that passion, its effects are largely ill or null.
—F. L. Lucas (English Literary Critic)

Fear to let fall a drop and you spill a lot.
—Malaysian Proverb

No one means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.
—Henry Adams (American Journalist)

Courage that grows from constitution often forsakes a man when he has occasion for it; courage which arises from a sense of duty acts in a uniform manner.
—Joseph Addison (English Essayist)

Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.
—Arnold Schwarzenegger (Austrian-born American Actor)

We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection.
—The 14th Dalai Lama (Tibetan Buddhist Religious Leader)

The wheel of change moves on, and those who were down go up and those who were up go down.
—Jawaharlal Nehru (Indian Head of State)

Success is dangerous. One begins to copy oneself, and to copy oneself is more dangerous than to copy others. It leads to sterility.
—Pablo Picasso (Spanish Painter)

And truly it demands something godlike in him who cast off the common motives of humanity and ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Philosopher)

Ugliness creates bitterness. Ugliness is an eroding force on the people of our land. We are all here to try to change that.
—Lady Bird Johnson (American Entrepreneur)

The human heart in its perversity finds it hard to escape hatred and revenge.
—Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (Italian Jewish Rabbi)

My chief task has been to conquer fear. The public sees only the thrill of the accomplished trick; they have no conception of the tortuous preliminary self-training that was necessary to conquer fear… no one except myself can appreciate how I have to work at this job every single day, never letting up for a moment. I always have on my mind the thought that next year I must do something greater, something more wonderful.
—Harry Houdini (Hungarian-born American Magician)

The mill wheel turns, it turns forever, though what is uppermost remains not so.
—Bertolt Brecht (German Poet)

Henceforth I ask not good fortune. I myself am good fortune.
—Walt Whitman (American Poet)

It’s a strange thing, but when you are dreading something, and would give anything to slow down time, it has a disobliging habit of speeding up.
—J. K. Rowling (British Children’s Books Writer)

Those who are prepared to die for any cause are seldom defeated.
—Jawaharlal Nehru (Indian Head of State)

A single conversation with a wise man is better than ten years of study.
—Chinese Proverb

The cause of most of man’s unhappiness is sacrificing what he wants most for what he wants now.
—Gordon B. Hinckley (American Mormon Religious Leader)

An unshared life is not living. He who shares does not lessen, but greatens, his life.
—Stephen Samuel Wise (American Jewish Rabbi)

There couldn’t be a society of people who didn’t dream. They’d be dead in two weeks.
—William S. Burroughs (American Novelist)

Men, whose trade is rat-catching, love to catch rats; the bug destroyer seizes on his bug with delight; and the suppressor is gratified by finding his vice.
—Sydney Smith (English Anglican Writer)

Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.
—Leo Tolstoy (Russian Novelist)

The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters is simplicity: nothing is better than simplicity.
—Walt Whitman (American Poet)

Hope is the word which God has written on the brow of every man.
—Victor Hugo (French Novelist)

It’s okay if you mess up. You should give yourself a break.
—Billy Joel (American Singer)

A mind not to be changed by place or time. The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heav’n of hell, a hell of heav’n.
—John Milton (English Poet)

An act of God was defined as something which no reasonable man could have expected.
—A. P. Herbert (English Humorist)

Few people know so clearly what they want. Most people can’t even think what to hope for when they throw a penny in a fountain.
—Barbara Kingsolver (American Novelist)