When you jump for joy, beware that no one moves the ground from beneath your feet.
—Stanislaw Jerzy Lec (Polish Aphorist, Poet)
One of our ironclad rules is ‘Never do business with anybody you don’t like.’ If you don’t like somebody, there’s a reason. Chances are it’s because you don’t trust him, and you’re probably right. I don’t care who it is or what guarantees you get—cash in advance or whatever. If you do business with somebody you don’t like, sooner or later you’ll get screwed.
—Harry V. Quadracci (American Entrepreneur)
If it’s a good idea, go ahead and do it. It’s much easier to apologize than it is to get permission.
—Grace Hopper (American Mathematician)
There is really no insurmountable barrier save your own inherent weakness of purpose.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Philosopher)
To know what people really think, pay regard to what they do, rather than what they say.
—Rene Descartes (French Mathematician, Philosopher)
Happiness comes from spiritual wealth, not material wealth… Happiness comes from giving, not getting. If we try hard to bring happiness to others, we cannot stop it from coming to us also. To get joy, we must give it, and to keep joy, we must scatter it.
—John Templeton (American-British Investor)
The pursuit of happiness is often the pursuit of emptiness. Far wiser is the pursuit of contribution.
—Marty Nemko (American Career Coach, Author)
A society to be successful must maintain a balance between nurturing excellence and encouraging the average to improve.
—Lee Kuan Yew (Singaporean Statesman)
Habits of thinking need not be forever. One of the most significant findings in psychology in the last twenty years is that individuals can choose the way they think.
—Martin Seligman (American Psychologist)
Children need guidance and sympathy far more than instruction.
—Anne Sullivan Macy (American Educator)
The knowledge we have acquired ought not to resemble a great shop without order, and without an inventory; we ought to know what we possess, and be able to make it serve us in our need.
—Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (German Philosopher, Mathematician)
There is no greatness where simplicity, goodness and truth are absent.
—Leo Tolstoy (Russian Novelist)
A man who owes a little can clear it off in a little time, and, if he is prudent, he will: whereas a man, who, by long negligence, owes a great deal, despairs of ever being able to pay, and therefore never looks into his accounts at all.
—Earl of Chesterfield (English Statesman, Man of Letters)