Archives for September 2012

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)

You can do what you have to do, and sometimes you can do it even better than you think you can.
—Jimmy Carter (American Head of State)

You are not responsible for the programming you picked up in childhood. However, as an adult, you are one hundred percent responsible for fixing it.
—Ken Keyes, Jr. (American Motivational Speaker)

Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little.
—Charlie Chaplin (British Actor)

Charm is a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question.
—Albert Camus (Algerian-born French Philosopher)

I cannot discover that anyone knows enough to say definitely what is and what is not possible.
—Henry Ford (American Businessperson)

The truth comes as conqueror only because we have lost the art of receiving it as guest.
—Rabindranath Tagore (Indian Hindu Polymath)

A burnt child dreads the fire.
—English Proverb

It seemed the world was divided into good and bad people. The good ones slept better… while the bad ones seemed to enjoy the waking hours much more.
—Woody Allen (American Actor)

Without an open-minded mind, you can never be a great success.
—Martha Stewart (American Entrepreneur)

Time is a part of eternity, and of the same piece with it.
—Moses Mendelssohn (German Jewish Philosopher)

The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective.
—Warren Buffett (American Investor)

Slumps are like a soft bed. They’re easy to get into and hard to get out of.
—Johnny Bench (American Sportsperson)

Each individual should work for himself. People will not sacrifice themselves for the company. They come to work at the company to enjoy themselves.
—Soichiro Honda (Japanese Inventor)

Nobody stands taller than those willing to stand corrected.
—William Safire (American Columnist)

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.
—Isaac Asimov (Russian-born American Children’s Books Writer)

Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher)

Man’s main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is. The most important product of his effort is his own personality.
—Erich Fromm (German Psychologist)

I would say to the House, as I said to those who have joined this Government: I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.
—Winston Churchill (British Head of State)

Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.
—Thomas Edison (American Inventor)

My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.
—Henry Ford (American Businessperson)

You never want to give a man a present when he’s feeling good. You want to do it when he’s down.
—Lyndon B. Johnson (American Head of State)

It’s better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction.
—Warren Buffett (American Investor)

The most fertile soil does not necessarily produce the most abundant harvest. It is the use we make of our faculties which renders them valuable.
—Thomas Wentworth Higginson (American Unitarian Minister)

I have never found in a long experience of politics that criticism is ever inhibited by ignorance.
—Harold Macmillan (British Head of State)

Scratch a lover, and find a foe.
—Dorothy Parker (American Poet)

I pity that man who wants a coat so cheap that the man or woman who produces the cloth shall starve in the process.
—Benjamin Harrison (American Political leader)

Unless we give part of ourselves away, unless we can live with other people and understand them and help them, we are missing the most essential part of our own lives.
—Harold Taylor

One should strive and employ oneself to uplift oneself. One should never dishonor oneself. The self is one’s friend as well as one’s enemy.
—The Bhagavad Gita (Hindu Scripture)

The curse which lies upon marriage is that too often the individuals are joined in their weakness rather than in their strength –each asking from the other instead of finding pleasure in giving. It is even more deceptive to dream of gaining through the child a plenitude, a warmth, a value, which one is unable to create for oneself; the child brings joy only to the woman who is capable of disinterestedly desiring the happiness of another, to one who without being wrapped up in self seeks to transcend her own existence.
—Simone de Beauvoir (French Philosopher)

It must be borne in mind that the tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. It isn’t a calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is a calamity not to dream. It is not a disaster to be unable to capture your ideal, but it is a disaster to have no ideal to capture. It is not a disgrace not to reach the stars, but it is a disgrace to have no stars to reach for. Not failure, but low aim is a sin
—Benjamin Mays (American Minister)

Even if one lives for a second it must be filled with knowledge, valour, magnanimity and other good qualities. Only such a life is considered worth living. Even a crow lives a long life just by living on food offered by others. It is up to us whether we want to live like a crow or make our life worth remembering.
—Panchatantra

We cannot close ourselves off to information and ignore the fact that millions of people are out there suffering. I honestly want to help. I don’t believe I feel differently from other people. I think we all want justice and equality, a chance for a life with meaning. All of us would like to believe that if we were in a bad situation someone would help us.
—Angelina Jolie (American Actor)

Charm is a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question.
—Albert Camus (Algerian-born French Philosopher)

A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.
—Edmund Burke (Irish Political leader)

My friend, the sufi is the friend of the present moment. To say tomorrow is not our way.
—Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi (Persian Muslim Mystic)

The expression “to write something down” suggests a descent of thought to the fingers whose movements immediately falsify it.
—William H. Gass (American Short Story Writer)

Only in grammar can you be more than perfect.
—William Safire (American Columnist)

Silent gratitude isn’t much use to anyone.
—Gladys Bronwyn Stern (British Novelist)