Nagesh Belludi

No wind favors him who has no destined port.
—Michel de Montaigne (French Essayist)

Water is the most precious, limited natural resource we have in this country…But because water belongs to no one – except the people – special interests, including government polluters, use it as their private sewers
—Ralph Nader (American Activist)

Take the risk of thinking for yourself. Much more happiness, truth, beauty and wisdom will come to you that way.
—Christopher Hitchens (Anglo-American Social Critic)

No nation became great by becoming rich. Neither does a man find enduring satisfaction in life by owning something—only by becoming something.
—Norman Vincent Peale (American Clergyman, Self-Help Author)

I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now. It is an absurd attitude to take towards life. We are not sent into the world to air our moral prejudices. I never take any notice of what common people say, and I never interfere with what charming people do.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

Love me when I least deserve it, because that’s when I really need it.
—Swedish Proverb

This life is what you make it. Not matter what, you’re going to mess up sometimes, it’s a universal truth.
—Marilyn Monroe (American Actor)

The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.
—Ayn Rand (Russian-born American Novelist)

Do not leave to the morning the business of the evening.
—Turkish Proverb

Friendship is a pretty full-time occupation if you really are friendly with somebody. You can’t have too many friends because then you’re just not really friends.
—Truman Capote (American Novelist)

You will find out that Charity is a heavy burden to carry, heavier than the kettle of soup and the full basket. But you will keep your gentleness and your smile. It is not enough to give soup and bread. This the rich can do. You are the servant of the poor, always smiling and good-humored. They are your masters, terribly sensitive and exacting master you will see and the uglier and the dirtier they will be, the more unjust and insulting, the more love you must give them. It is only for your love alone that the poor will forgive you the bread you give to them.
—Vincent de Paul (French Catholic Saint)

Man is a paradoxical being—the constant glory and scandal of this world.
—Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (Indian Philosopher, Political Leader)

It is more offensive to outshine in dignity than in personal attractions.
—Baltasar Gracian (Spanish Philosopher, Prose Writer)

There is all the difference in the world between the criminal’s avoiding the public eye and the civil disobedience’s taking the law into his own hands in open defiance. This distinction between an open violation of the law, performed in public, and a clandestine one is so glaringly obvious that it can be neglected only by prejudice or ill will.
—Hannah Arendt (German-American Political Theorist)

Satire lies about literary men while they live and eulogy lies about them when they die.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher, Author)

They say that nobody is perfect. Then they tell you practice makes perfect. I wish they’d make up their minds.
—Wilt Chamberlain (American Sportsperson)

The decay of logic results from an untroubled assumption that the particular is real and the universal is not.
—C. S. Lewis (Irish-born Author, Scholar)

Worship is a way of seeing the world in the light of God.
—Abraham Joshua Heschel (American Jewish Rabbi)

The artist belongs to his work, not the work to the artist.
—Novalis (German Romantic Poet)

Never forget that your life passes as swiftly as a flash of lightening or a wave of your hand, while you have the opportunity to practice, don’t waste a moment: devote all your energy to the spiritual path.
—Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche (Tibetan Buddhist Teacher)

Today is the first day of the rest of your life.
—Abbie Hoffman (American Political Activist)

There are some things which cannot be learned quickly, and time, which is all we have, must be paid heavily for their acquiring. They are the very simplest things and because it takes a man’s life to know them the little new that each man gets from life is very costly and the only heritage he has to leave.
—Ernest Hemingway (American Author)

I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.
—Warren Buffett (American Investor)

Pride is increased by ignorance; those assume the most who know the least.
—John Gay (English Poet, Dramatist)

Self-interest is the most powerful force in the world. People in unethical, predatory, and nonsense jobs will do mental gymnastics to convince themselves they’re doing the right thing. Those who criticize the behavior of “greedy Wall Street bankers” underestimate their tendency to do the same thing if offered an eight-figure salary.
—Morgan Housel (American Financial Journalist, Investor)

A great statesman is he who knows when to depart from traditions, as well as when to adhere to them.
—John Stuart Mill (English Philosopher, Economist)

All wish to possess knowledge, but few, comparatively speaking, are willing to pay the price.
—Juvenal (Roman Poet)

Never lend books, for no one ever returns them. The only books I have in my library are those that other folks have lent me.
—Anatole France (French Novelist)

Prayer is the little implement through which men reach; where presence is denied them.
—Emily Dickinson (American Poet)

The difference between one man and another is not mere ability … it is energy.
—Thomas Arnold (English Educationalist)

Of all God’s gifts to the sighted man, color is holiest, the most divine, the most solemn.
—John Ruskin (English Art Critic)

There is but one way to tranquillity of mind and happiness; let this, therefore, be always ready at hand with thee, both when thou wakest early in the morning, and all the day long, and when thou goest late to sleep, to account no external things thine own, but commit all these to God.
—Epictetus (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

Life is a journey up a spiral staircase; as we grow older we cover the ground covered we have covered before, only higher up; as we look down the winding stair below us we measure our progress by the number of places where we were but no longer are. The journey is both repetitious and progressive; we go both round and upward.
—William Butler Yeats (Irish Poet)

Literature is a great staff, but a sorry crutch.
—Walter Scott (Scottish Novelist)

Shakespeare, Leonardo Da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, and Lincoln never saw a movie, heard a radio, or looked at a TV. They had loneliness and knew what to do with it. They were not afraid of being lonely because they knew that was when the creative mood in them would mark.
—Carl Sandburg (American Poet, Historian)

It matters not how long you live, but how well.
—Publilius Syrus (Syrian-born Latin Writer)

Nothing is more dreadful than a cold, unimpassioned indulgence. And love infallibly becomes cold and unimpassioned when it is too lightly made.
—Aldous Huxley (English Humanist)

If only people thought a little more about it, they would see that life is not worrying about so much.
—Mikhail Lermontov (Russian Novelist, Poet)

There’s no voiceless, there’s only the deliberately silenced or the purposely unheard.
—Arundhati Roy (Indian Novelist, Activist)

All oppression creates a state of war; this is no exception.
—Simone de Beauvoir (French Philosopher)

Gratitude is the memory of the heart; therefore forget not to say often, I have all I have ever enjoyed.
—Lydia Maria Child (American Abolitionist)