Nagesh Belludi

The tolerance of the skeptic … accepts the most diverse and indeed the most contradictory opinions, and keeps all his suspicions for the “dogmatist.”
—Jean Guitton (French Catholic Philosopher)

The heaviest penalty for deciding to engage in politics is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself.
—Plato (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

Fear is the tax that conscience pays to guilt.
—George Sewell (English Physician, Poet)

History is a story. If history forgets or neglects to tell a story, it will inevitably forfeit much of its appeal and much of its authority as well.
—Henry Steele Commager (American Historian)

Once something becomes discernible, or understandable, we no longer need to repeat it. We can destroy it.
—Robert Wilson (American Theatremaker)

Prune these alleged friends ruthlessly from your life. You need all the positive reinforcement you can get. You need friends who think you’re fabulous, an angel in human shape, and a breath of springtime.
—Cynthia Heimel (American Humor Columnist)

When a peasant gives me his bit of cheese he’s making me a bigger present than the Prince of Làscari when he invites me to dinner. That’s obvious. The difficulty is that the cheese is nauseating. So all that remains is the heart’s gratitude which can’t be seen and the nose wrinkled in disgust which can be seen only too well.
—Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (Italian Author)

No good work is ever done while the heart is hot and anxious and fretted.
—Olive Schreiner (South African Novelist, Feminist)

If Nature had arranged that husbands and wives should have children alternately, there would never be more than three in a family.
—Laurence Housman (English Novelist, Dramatist)

There isn’t a plant or a business on earth that couldn’t stand a few improvements—and be better for them. Someone is going to think of them. Why not beat the other fellow to it?
—Roger Babson (American Economist)

Don’t worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition.
—Abraham Lincoln (American Head of State)

Boys will be boys. And even that wouldn’t matter if only we could prevent girls from being girls.
—Anthony Hope (English Author)

How little do they see what really is, who frame their hasty judgment upon that which seems.
—Robert South (English Theologian)

Nothing recedes like success.
—Bryan Forbes (English Actor, Film Director)

A thick skin is a gift from God.
—Konrad Adenauer (German Statesman)

The upside of painful knowledge is so much greater than the downside of blissful ignorance.
—Sheryl Sandberg (American Executive, Author)

The function of intellect is to provide a means of modifying our reactions to the circumstances of life, so that we may secure pleasure, the symptom of welfare.
—Edward Thorndike (American Psychologist)

It takes a kind of shabby arrogance to survive in our time, and a fairly romantic nature to want to.
—Edgar Z. Friedenberg (American Sociologist)

There is no more interesting place in the world to meet characters than a movie set. If you have lost anybody anywhere in the World and don’t know where they are, they are in Hollywood trying to get in the Movies.
—Will Rogers (American Humorist, Actor)

Cynicism is what passes for insight when courage is lacking.
—Anita Roddick (English Businessperson)

The essence of risk management lies in maximizing the areas where we have some control over the outcome while minimizing the areas where we have absolutely no control over the outcome and the linkage between effect and cause is hidden from us.
—Peter L. Bernstein (American Economist, Author)

It is not the size of a man but the size of his heart that matters.
—Evander Holyfield (American Boxer)

When you get right down to it, one of the most important tasks of a leader is to eliminate his people’s excuse for failure.
—Robert C. Townsend (American Businessman)

A good holiday is one spent among people whose notions of time are vaguer than yours.
—J. B. Priestley (British Novelist, Playwright, Essayist)

If it’s intuitive, it’s probably wrong. The absolutely distinguishing quality of a leader is that a leader takes us elsewhere.
—Bob Galvin (American Business Executive)

This is where you will win the battle—in the playhouse of your mind.
—Maxwell Maltz (American Surgeon)

Once you have been confronted with a life-and-death situation, trivia no longer matters. Your perspective grows and you live at a deeper level. There’s no time for pettiness.
—Happy Rockefeller (American Philanthropist)

I can’t stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession, let alone two years or ten years. If you can, then it ain’t music, it’s close-order drill, or exercise or yodeling or something, not music.
—Billie Holiday (American Jazz Singer)

It’s just as easy to be happy with a lot of money as with a little.
—Marvin Traub (American Businessman)

We are only vulnerable and ridiculous through our pretensions.
—Delphine de Girardin (French Novelist)

Collect impressions. Don’t be in a hurry to write them down. Because that’s something music can do better than painting: it can centralise variations of colour and light within a single picture—a truth generally ignored, obvious as it is.
—Claude Debussy (French Composer)

If heaven had granted me five more years, I could have become a real painter.
—Hokusai (Japanese Artist, Wood Engraver)

A fault confessed is half redressed.
—African Proverb

One ought to go too far, in order to know how far one can go.
—Heinrich Boll (German Writer)

You gotta play the hand that’s dealt you. There may be pain in that hand, but you play it.
—James Brady (American Government Official)

An alleged scientific discovery has no merit unless it can be explained to a barmaid.
—Ernest Rutherford (New Zealand-born Physicist)

It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.
—Eugene Ionesco (French Dramatist)

The function of literature, through all its mutations, has been to make us aware of the particularity of selves, and the high authority of the self in its quarrel with its society and its culture. Literature is in that sense subversive.
—Lionel Trilling (American Critic)

Except that right side up is best, there is not much to learn about holding a baby. There are one hundred and fifty-two distinctly different ways—and all are right! At least all will do.
—Heywood Broun (American Journalist)

You will never know a man till you do business with him.
—Scottish Proverb

We find it hard to believe that other people’s thoughts are as silly as our own, but they probably are.
—James Harvey Robinson (American Historian)

The formula for success is simple: practice and concentration then more practice and more concentration.
—Babe Didrikson Zaharias (American Athlete)

By bourgeoisie is meant the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage labor. By proletariat, the class of modern wage laborers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labor power in order to live.
—Friedrich Engels (German Socialist Political Philosopher)