Nagesh Belludi

How easy to be amiable in the midst of happiness and success.
—Sophie Swetchine (Russian Mystic, Writer)

The years of getting up again after a tremendous collapse, these are the good growth years of the people.
—Hans Carossa (German Novelist)

I do not think anyone can be taught anything about humor, but I do think that certain persons may be taught the mechanism of producing humorous copy that will sell to magazines and newspapers.
—Don Marquis (American Humorist, Journalist)

Absence is one of the most useful ingredients of family life, and to dose it rightly is an art like any other.
—Freya Stark (British Explorer, Writer)

A dream is a scripture, and many scriptures are nothing but dreams.
—Umberto Eco (Italian Novelist)

Great is peace, for it is to the world what yeast is to the dough.
—The Talmud (Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith)

Atheism deprives superstition of its stand ground, and compels Theism to reason for its existence.
—George Holyoake (English Social Reformer)

Thought expands, but paralyzes; action animates, but narrows.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

All religions have based morality on obedience, that is to say, on voluntary slavery. That is why they have always been more pernicious than any political organization. For the latter makes use of violence, the former—of the corruption of the will.
—Alexander Herzen (Russian Revolutionary, Writer)

Intrinsic is the belief that quality does not happen by accident, it must be planned!
—Joseph Juran (American Quality Scholar)

A desire to “give back” needn’t imply giving to the neediest. It could mean giving to those with the most potential to benefit.
—Marty Nemko (American Career Coach)

Use your weaknesses; aspire to the strength.
—Laurence Olivier (English Actor, Producer,, Director)

The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man’s right to his body, or woman’s right to her soul.
—Emma Goldman (American Anarchist)

There is a certain justice in criticism. The critic is like a midwife—a tyrannical midwife.
—Stephen Spender (English Poet, Critic)

Our hearts of stone become hearts of flesh when we learn where the outcast weeps.
—Brennan Manning (American Franciscan Priest Theologian, Author)

A human being whose life is nurtured in an advantage which has accrued from the disadvantage of other human beings, and who prefers that this should remain as it is, is a human being by definition only, having much more in common with the bedbug, the tapeworm, the cancer, and the scavengers of the deep sea.
—James Agee (American Man of Letters)

I always say beauty is only sin deep.
—Saki (Hector Hugh Munro) (British Short Story Writer)

Only by standing on their shoulders can we build a better world, but we should use the wise as advisers, not masters.
—William Coperthwaite (American Builder, Designer)

There are as many paths to God as there are stars in the firmament, or pores in body; searching through any one of them a true seeker can find Him, feel satisfied and can sing his achievement.
—Malik Muhammad Jayasi (Indian Poet)

If a man coaches himself, then he has only himself to blame when he is beaten.
—Roger Bannister (British Athlete, Neurologist)

Personal information is increasingly used to enforce standards of behavior. Information processing is developing, therefore, into an essential element of long-term strategies of manipulation intended to mold and adjust individual conduct.
—Shoshana Zuboff (American Social Psychologist)

The most subtle flattery a woman can receive is that conveyed by actions, not by words.
—Suzanne Curchod (French-Swiss Salonist, Writer)

Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.
—Rick Warren (American Evangelical Pastor)

A woman’s heart is a deep ocean of secrets.
—Gloria Stuart (American Actress)

In what light soever we regard the Bible, whether with reference to revelation, to history, or to morality, it is an invaluable and inexhaustible mine of knowledge and virtue.
—John Quincy Adams (American Head of State)

The sage, who is living outside the routine of the world, contemplates his own character, not as an isolated ego manifestation, but in relation to the laws of life. He judges freedom from blame to be the highest good.
—I Ching (Ancient Chinese Divination Text)

Victory becomes, to some degree, a state of mind. Knowing ourselves superior to the anxieties, troubles, and worries which obsess us, we are superior to them.
—Basil King (Canadian Clergyman)

The best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them up.
—Dorothy Day (American Journalist Reformer)

Well, love is insanity. The ancient Greeks knew that. It is the taking over of a rational and lucid mind by delusion and self-destruction. You lose yourself, you have no power over yourself, you can’t even think straight.
—Marilyn French (American Feminist Author)

One of the grandest things in having rights is that though they are your rights you may give them up.
—George MacDonald (Scottish Poet, Novelist)

The most successful businessman is the man who holds onto the old just as long as it is good and grabs the new just as soon as it is better.
—Waid Vanderpoel (American Financier, Conservationist)

We have a problem. “Congratulations.” But it’s a tough problem. “Then double congratulations.”
—W. Clement Stone (American Self-help Guru)

Why are we born? We’re born eventually to die, of course. But what happens between the time we’re born and we die? We’re born to live. One is a realist if one hopes.
—Studs Terkel (American Oral Historian)

Does history repeat itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce? No, that’s too grand, too considered a process. History just burps, and we taste again that raw-onion sandwich it swallowed centuries ago.
—Julian Barnes (British Novelist, Critic)

Make good use of bad rubbish.
—Elisabeth Beresford (British Children’s Writer)

What we think of as our sensitivity is only the higher evolution of terror in a poor dumb beast. We suffer for nothing. Our own death wish is our only real tragedy.
—Mario Puzo (American Novelist)

The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides. Accept life, and you must accept regret.
—Henri Frederic Amiel (Swiss Philosopher, Writer)

Men freely believe that which they desire.
—Julius Caesar (Roman Ruler)

We’ve made great medical progress in the last generation. What used to be merely an itch is now an allergy.
—Modern Proverb

Weary the path that does not challenge. Doubt is an incentive to truth and patient inquiry leadeth the way.
—Hosea Ballou (American Theologian)

He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.
—Harold Wilson ((1916–95) British Political Leader)

Until the rise of American advertising, it never occurred to anyone anywhere in the world that the teenager was a captive in a hostile world of adults.
—Gore Vidal (American Novelist)

Magic becomes art when it has nothing to hide.
—Ben Okri (Nigerian Novelist, Poet)

Virtue is more clearly shown in the performance of fine actions than in the non-performance of base ones.
—Aristotle (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

Turning away from the world and toward your own happiness is the path of authenticity.
—Sarah Ban Breathnach (American Self-help Author)

The individual activity of one man with backbone will do more than a thousand men with a mere wishbone.
—William J. H. Boetcker (American Presbyterian Minister)

You don’t understand anything until you learn it more than one way.
—Marvin Minsky (American Computer Scientist)

The horse does abominate the camel; the mighty elephant is afraid of a mouse; and they say that the lion, which scorneth to turn his back upon the stoutest animal, will tremble at the crowing of a cock.
—Increase Mather (American Theologian)