Archives for August 2019

Life will have terrible blows in it, horrible blows, unfair blows. It doesn’t matter. And some people recover and others don’t. And there I think the attitude of Epictetus is the best. He thought that every missed chance in life was an opportunity to behave well, every missed chance in life was an opportunity to learn something, and that your duty was not to be submerged in self-pity, but to utilize the terrible blow in constructive fashion. That is a very good idea.
—Charlie Munger (American Investor, Philanthropist)

The finest eloquence is that which gets things done; the worst is that which delays them.
—David Lloyd George (British Liberal Statesman)

The generality of men are naturally apt to be swayed by fear rather than reverence, and to refrain from evil rather because of the punishment that it brings than because of its own foulness.
—Aristotle (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

Writing is an escape from a world that crowds me. I like being alone in a room. It’s almost a form of meditation—an investigation of my own life. It has nothing to do with “I’ve got to get another play.”
—Neil Simon (American Playwright)

Fools! Do you argue, that things ancient ought, on that account, to be true and noble! Fallacies and Falsehoods there were from time immemorial, and dare you argue that because these are ancient these should prevail?
—Subramanya Bharathi (Indian Tamil Poet )

The praise of ancient authors proceeds not from the reverence of the dead, but from the competition and mutual envy of the living.
—Thomas Hobbes (English Political Philosopher)

It was no great tragedy being Judy Garland’s daughter. I had tremendously interesting childhood years—except they had little to do with being a child.
—Liza Minnelli (American Singer, Actress)

Few things in the world are more powerful than a positive push. A smile. A word of optimism and hope.
And you can do it when things are tough.
—Richard DeVos (American Businessman, Philanthropist)

Time weighs down on you like an old ambiguous dream. You keep on moving, trying to slip through it. But even if you go to the ends of the earth, you won’t be able to escape it. Still, you have to go there—to the edge of the world. There’s something you can’t do unless you get there.
—Haruki Murakami (Japanese Novelist)

You start chasing a ball and your brain immediately commands your body to Run forward! Bend! Scoop up the ball! Peg it to first! Then your body says who me?
—Joe DiMaggio (American Baseball Player)

Written laws are like spiders’ webs; they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor, but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.
—Anacharsis (Scythian Prince)

You can’t fake listening. It shows.
—Raquel Welch (American Actress, Singer)

You just can’t beat the person who won’t give up.
—Babe Ruth (American Baseball Player)

The doctor has been taught to be interested not in health but in disease. What the public is taught is that health is the cure for disease.
—Ashley Montagu (British-American Anthropologist)

That’s the risk you take if you change: that people you’ve been involved with won’t like the new you. But other people who do will come along.
—Lisa Alther (American Novelist)

Never allow a person to tell you ‘no’ who doesn’t have the power to say ‘yes.’
—Eleanor Roosevelt (American Humanitarian)

Happiness should always remain a bit incomplete. After all, dreams are boundless.
—Anatoly Karpov (Russian Chess Player)

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
—Arthur C. Clarke (English Science-fiction Writer)

It is not necessary to live, but to carve our names beyond that point, this is necessary.
—Gabriele D’Annunzio (Italian Writer, Political Leader)

Hateful is the power, and pitiable is the life, of those who wish to be feared rather than to be loved.
—Cornelius Nepos (Roman Historian)

When a person places the proper value on freedom, there is nothing under the sun that he will not do to acquire that freedom. Whenever you hear a man saying he wants freedom, but in the next breath he is going to tell you what he won’t do to get it, or what he doesn’t believe in doing in order to get it, he doesn’t believe in freedom. A man who believes in freedom will do anything under the sun to acquire… or preserve his freedom.
—Malcolm X (American Civil Rights Leader )

It’s easy to have faith in yourself and have discipline when you’re a winner, when you’re number one. What you’ve got to have is faith and discipline when you’re not yet a winner.
—Vince Lombardi (American Football Coach)

Anger, lust—these enemies of mine—
Are limbless and devoid of faculties.
They have no bravery, no cleverness;
How then have they reduced me to such slavery?
—Shantideva (Indian Buddhist Scholar)

The defects of a preacher are soon spied. Let him be endued with ten virtues, and have but one fault, and that one fault will eclipse and darken all his virtues and gifts, so evil is the world in these times.
—Martin Luther (German Protestant Theologian)

In a state of mindfulness, you see yourself exactly as you are. You see your own selfish behavior. You see your own suffering. And you see how you create that suffering. You see how you hurt others. You pierce right through the layer of lies that you normally tell yourself, and you see what is really there. Mindfulness leads to wisdom.
—Henepola Gunaratana (Sri Lankan Buddhist Monk)

Happiness, I do not know where to turn to discover you on earth, in the air or the sky; yet I know you exist and are no futile dream.
—Rosalia de Castro (Spanish Writer)

I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.
—Blaise Pascal (French Philosopher, Scientist)

One of the ridiculous aspects of being a poet is the huge gulf between how seriously we take ourselves and how generally we are ignored by everybody else.
—Billy Collins (American Poet)

Only two classes of books are of universal appeal. The very best and the very worst.
—Ford Madox Ford (English Novelist, Poet, Critic)

Clouds and darkness surround us, yet Heaven is just, and the day of triumph will surely come, when justice and truth will be vindicated. Our wrongs will be made right, and we will once more, taste the blessings of freedom.
—Mary Todd Lincoln (American First lady)

There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all occasions.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher, Author)

Remember if people talk behind your back, it only means you’re two steps ahead.
—Fannie Flagg (American Comedian, Novelist)

If you have men who will only come if they know there is a good road, I don’t want them. I want men who will come if there is no road at all.
—David Livingstone (Scottish Missionary, Explorer)

Except for children (who don’t know enough not to ask the important questions), few of us spend time wondering why nature is the way it is.
—Carl Sagan (American Astronomer)

A good traveler is one who does not know where he is going to, and a perfect traveler does not know where he came from.
—Lin Yutang (Chinese Author, Philologist)

The great obstacle to progress is prejudice.
—Christian Nestell Bovee (American Writer, Aphorist)

I thank you God for this most amazing day; for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes.
—e. e. cummings (American Poet, Writer, Painter)

Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of Nature. And it is because in the last analysis we ourselves are part of the mystery we are trying to solve.
—Max Planck (German Theoretical Physicist)

There is no one who can undertake this task for you. The student’s hunger can never be satisfied by his teacher’s eating a meal for him. It is like competing in a marathon. The winner will only be the person who is either the fittest or the most determined. It is solely up to the individual to win the race. Likewise, to achieve the aim of your practice, do not be distracted by things that are not related to this task. For the time being, just let everything else remain as it is and put it out of your mind. Only when you are awakened will you be able to truly benefit others.
—Kusan Sunim (Korean Buddhist Priest)

The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear.
—Aung San Suu Kyi (Burmese Political Activist)

Do the best you can in every task, no matter how unimportant it may seem at the time. No one learns more about a problem than the person at the bottom.
—Sandra Day O’Connor (American Jurist)

Everyday I discover more and more beautiful things. It’s enough to drive one mad. I have such a desire to do everything, my head is bursting with it.
—Claude Monet (French Painter)

The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything.
—Warren Buffett (American Investor)

A donkey that is made to have bath in a sacred river does not become a horse. He, who does not have a pure mind, does not listen to any good advice. Even if a sweet juice is fed to a snake, there won’t be any reduction in its poison.
—Tukaram (Indian Marathi Poet)

The activist is not the man who says the river is dirty. The activist is the man who cleans up the river.
—Ross Perot (American Businessman)

When the soul drifts uncertainly between life and the dream, between the mind’s disorder and the return to cool reflection, it is in religious thought that we should seek consolation.
—Gerard de Nerval (French Romantic Poet)

If it is true that love is the pursuit in another of qualities we lack in ourselves, then in our love of someone from another culture, one ambition may be to weld ourselves more closely to values missing from our own culture.
—Alain de Botton (Swiss-born British Philosopher)

A great part of art consists in imitation. For the whole conduct of life is based on this: that what we admire in others we want to do ourselves.
—Quintilian (Roman Rhetorician, Literary Critic)

Every book has an intrinsic impossibility, which its writer discovers as soon as his first excitement dwindles.
—Annie Dillard (American Writer)

A small debt makes a man your debtor, a large one makes him your enemy.
—Seneca the Elder (Marcus Annaeus Seneca) (Roman Rhetorician)

There seems to me a thousand occasions when my soul knows more than it can tell, and a has a spirit of it’s own which is far superior to my everyday one. It seems to me too, that men are far superior to all the books they write.
—Pierre de Marivaux (French Dramatist, Author)

Good luck needs no explanation.
—Shirley Temple (American Actress, Diplomat)

When saluted with a salutation, salute the person with a better salutation, or at least return the same, for God taketh account of all things.
—The Holy Quran (Sacred Scripture of Islam)

Try never to be the smartest person in the room. And if you are, I suggest you invite smarter people … or find a different room.
—Michael Dell (American Businessperson)