Inspirational Quotations

Today marks the birthday of Bruce Lee (1940–73,) the influential martial artist and pop culture icon. This American-born film actor helped popularize martial arts movies in the 1970s and influenced numerous Hollywood action heroes.

Lee was born Lee Jun-fan in San Francisco’s Chinatown, but grew up in Hong Kong. When he returned to America in his early twenties, Lee developed a new martial arts technique called “jeet kune do” by blending traditional kung fu, fencing, boxing, and Eastern philosophy. He taught martial arts and performed minor roles in TV and film.

In 1971, Lee moved back to Hong Kong and immediately starred in two films that broke box-office records: Tang shan da xiong (1971, The Big Boss in Hong Kong/ Fists of Fury in USA) and Jing wu men (1972, Fist of Fury/ The Chinese Connection.)

Lee produced, directed, wrote, and starred in his next film, Meng long guo jiang (1972, The Way of the Dragon/ Return of the Dragon.) Lee’s subsequent film Enter the Dragon (1973) became a worldwide hit and thrust him into international super-stardom. Unfortunately, Lee died a sudden and mysterious death six days before the film’s Hong Kong release. An unfinished film called Game of Death (1978) was compiled with stand-ins and paper cutouts of Lee’s face.

Over the decades, Lee’s action performances, onscreen humor, and dramatic sensibility in his five films cultivated a huge following. Lee became a prominent pop culture icon of the 20th century.

Inspirational Quotations by Bruce Lee

Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless—like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup, you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle, you put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.
—Bruce Lee (Hong-Kong-born American Sportsperson)

Take things as they are. Punch when you have to punch. Kick when you have to kick.
—Bruce Lee (Hong-Kong-born American Sportsperson)

One does not accumulate but eliminate. It is not daily increase but daily decrease. The height of cultivation always run to simplicity.
—Bruce Lee (Hong-Kong-born American Sportsperson)

As long as we separate this ‘oneness’ into two, we won’t achieve realization.
—Bruce Lee (Hong-Kong-born American Sportsperson)

Flow in the living moment.—We are always in a process of becoming and nothing is fixed. Have no rigid system in you, and you’ll be flexible to change with the ever changing. Open yourself and flow, my friend. Flow in the total openness of the living moment. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Moving, be like water. Still, be like a mirror. Respond like an echo.
—Bruce Lee (Hong-Kong-born American Sportsperson)

I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine.
—Bruce Lee (Hong-Kong-born American Sportsperson)

If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.
—Bruce Lee (Hong-Kong-born American Sportsperson)

Ideas are the beginning of all achievement.
—Bruce Lee (Hong-Kong-born American Sportsperson)

Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind.
—Bruce Lee (Hong-Kong-born American Sportsperson)

Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty,|Often hot and fierce, But still only light and flickering. As love grows older, Our hearts mature And our love becomes as coals, Deep-burning and unquenchable.
—Bruce Lee (Hong-Kong-born American Sportsperson)

To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities.
—Bruce Lee (Hong-Kong-born American Sportsperson)

Let the spirit out—Discard all thoughts of reward, all hopes of praise and fears of blame, all awareness of one’s bodily self. And, finally closing the avenues of sense perception, let the spirit out, as it will.
—Bruce Lee (Hong-Kong-born American Sportsperson)

It’s not the daily increase but daily decrease. Hack away at the unessential.
—Bruce Lee (Hong-Kong-born American Sportsperson)

I am learning to understand rather than immediately judge or to be judged. I cannot blindly follow the crowd and accept their approach. I will not allow myself to indulge in the usual manipulating game of role creation. Fortunately for me, my self-knowledge has transcended that and I have come to understand that life is best to be lived and not to be conceptualized. I am happy because I am growing daily and I am honestly not knowing where the limit lies. To be certain, every day there can be a revelation or a new discovery. I treasure the memory of the past misfortunes. It has added more to my bank of fortitude.
—Bruce Lee (Hong-Kong-born American Sportsperson)

If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.
—Bruce Lee (Hong-Kong-born American Sportsperson)

One who gains strength by overcoming obstacles possesses the only strength which can overcome adversity.
—Albert Schweitzer (French Theologian)

The excesses of love soon pass, but its insufficiencies torment us forever.
—Mignon McLaughlin (American Journalist)

Get mad, then get over it.
—Colin Powell (American Military Leader)

The simplest things are often the truest.
—Richard Bach (American Novelist)

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie—deliberate, contrived, and dishonest—but the myth—persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.
—John F. Kennedy (American Head of State)

A pat on the back is only a few vertebrae removed from a kick in the pants, but is miles ahead in results.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox (American Poet)

Do the truth ye know, and you shall learn the truth you need to know.
—George MacDonald (Scottish Christian Author)

Unless you are willing to drench yourself in your work beyond the capacity of the average man, you are just not cut out for positions at the top.
—James Cash Penney (American Entrepreneur)

In the final analysis, the questions of why bad things happen to good people transmutes itself into some very different questions, no longer asking why something happened, but asking how we will respond, what we intend to do now that it happened.
—Harold Kushner (American Jewish Religious Leader)

You must have the devil in you to succeed in the arts.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher)

From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.
—Socrates (Anceient Greek Philosopher)

Hope is a light diet, but very stimulating.
—Honore de Balzac (French Novelist)

It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and, as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it.
—Anais Nin (French-American Essayist)

Today marks the birthday of Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94,) the Scottish adventurer and author of novels, short stories, essays, and travel literature.

Stevenson is best known for his novels Treasure Island (1883,) Kidnapped (1886) and Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886.) and his collection of poetry A Child’s Garden of Verses (1885.)

Stevenson suffered from a lung disease from a very early age. When he couldn’t sleep at night, his nurse stayed up with him and told him stories of ghosts, monsters, and pirates. He studied law but never practiced it. Instead, he traveled and wrote books about his experiences.

One rainy summer afternoon, Stevenson painted a map of an imaginary island to amuse his stepson. This and the pirate stories he frequently told his stepson inspired the idea for his first great adventure novel, Treasure Island (1883.) Subsequently, he wrote Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1885) in just three days. Those two novels made Stevenson rich and famous.

For the rest of his life, Stevenson traveled continuously in search of a suitable climate to improve his health. He suffered from ill health all through adulthood and did much of his writing from his sickbed. Stevenson and his wife tried living in Switzerland, Scotland, France, England, and America. They eventually settled in Apia, the capital of Samoa, where the locals christened him “Tusitala” (teller of tales.)

When Stevenson died from cerebral hemorrhage at age 44, he was buried at a spot on Mount Vaea overlooking the Pacific Ocean. His gravestone was inscribed with his poem “Requiem”:

Under the wide and starry sky,

Dig the grave and let me lie.

Glad did I live and gladly die,

And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:

Here he lies where he longed to be;

Home is the sailor, home from sea,

And the hunter home from the hill.

Inspirational Quotations by Robert Louis Stevenson

You cannot run away from a weakness. You must sometimes fight it out or perish; and if that be so, why not now, and where you stand?
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life’s plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

A man finds he has been wrong at every stage of his career, only to deduce the astonishing conclusion that he is at last entirely right.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

We are all travelers in the wilderness of the world, and the best that we can find in our travels is an honest friend.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

The cruelest lies are often told in silence. A man may have sat in a room for hours and not opened his mouth, and yet come out of that room a disloyal friend or a vile calumniator.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

There is only one difference between a long life and a good dinner: that, in the dinner, the sweets come last.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

Marriage is one long conversation, checkered by disputes.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

An aim in life is the only fortune worth finding; and it is not to be found in foreign lands, but in the heart itself.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

It is the mark of a good action that it appears inevitable, in retrospect.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

The existence of a man is so small a thing to take, so mighty a thing to employ.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

A generous prayer is never presented in vain; the petition may be refused, but the petitioner is always, I believe, rewarded by some gracious visitation.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business, is only to be sustained by perpetual neglect of many other things.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

To know what you prefer, instead of humbly saying “Amen” to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to keep your soul alive.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

Our business in this world is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

A friend is a present you give to yourself.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

All sorts of allowances are made for the illusions of youth; and none, or almost none, for the disenchantments of age.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

Youth is wholly experimental.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

Don’t write merely to be understood. Write so that you cannot possibly be misunderstood.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

In every part and corner of our life, to lose oneself is to be the gainer; to forget oneself is to be happy.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

A happy man or woman is a better thing to find than a five-pound note. He or she is a radiating focus of goodwill; and their entrance into a room is as though another candle had been lighted.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

Wealth I ask not, hope nor love, nor a friend to know me; all I ask, the heavens above, and the road below me.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

Money alone is only a mean; it presupposes a man to use it. The rich man can go where he pleases, but perhaps please himself nowhere. He can buy a library or visit the whole world, but perhaps has neither patience to read nor intelligence to see…. The purse may be full and the heart empty. He may have gained the world and lost himself; and with all his wealth around him … he may live as blank a life as any tattered ditcher.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

Talk is by far the most accessible of pleasures. It costs nothing in money, it is all profit, it completes our education, founds and fosters our friendships, and can be enjoyed at any age and in almost any state of health.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

It is a golden maxim to cultivate the garden for the nose, and the eyes will take care of themselves.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

To hold the same views at forty as we held at twenty is to have been stupefied for a score of years, and take rank, not as a prophet, but as an unteachable brat, well birched and none the wiser.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

To be wholly devoted to some intellectual exercise is to have succeeded in life.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

Our affections and beliefs are wiser than we; the best that is in us is better than we can understand; for it is grounded beyond experience, and guides us, blindfold but safe, from one age on to another.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

The price we have to pay for money is sometimes liberty.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

Anyone can carry his burden, however hard, until nightfall. Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day. Anyone can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely, till the sun goes down. And this is all that life really means.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

Today marks the birthday of Zig Ziglar (1926–2012,) American motivational consultant. This prolific author and public speaker was renowned for his energy, optimism, and plain-spoken style. His recipe “The Ziglar Way” blended homespun wit, sound-bite positivity, and Christian faith to urge people to appreciate the bright side of life.

Born Hilary Hinton Ziglar in rural Mississippi, Ziglar considered his devout mother the foremost influence on his life. Her mental repository of adages (e.g., “The person who won’t stand for something will fall for anything”) influenced many of Ziglar’s faith-filled metaphors and proverbs.

Ziglar initially worked as a salesman and later as a sales-trainer. He switched careers after becoming enthralled with the ability of self-help lecturers to influence others. His first book, Biscuits, Fleas, and Pump Handles (1974, later titled See You at the Top) advised readers to reexamine their lives with a “checkup from the neck up” and to abandon their “stinkin’ thinkin’.”

Seminars such as “Success Rallies” and “Born to Win” and over thirty books attracted millions of devoted followers to Ziglar’s advice on personal growth, faith, moral strength, character, leadership, and sales. His bestselling books include See You at the Top (1975,) Secrets of Closing the Sale (1982,) Top Performance (1986,) Success for Dummies (1998,) Selling 101 (2003,) and an autobiography (2004.)

Inspirational Quotations by Zig Ziglar

Winning is not everything, but the effort to win is.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

There’s often no way you can look into the game of life and determine whether or not you’ll get that big break tomorrow or whether it will take another week, month, year or even longer. But it will come!
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

The foundation stones for a balanced success are honesty, character, integrity, faith, love and loyalty.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

If you learn from defeat, you haven’t really lost.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

When we do more than we are paid to do, eventually we will be paid more for what we do.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

You can’t hit a target you cannot see, and you cannot see a target you do not have.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

If you don’t see yourself as a winner, then you cannot perform as a winner.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

There are no traffic jams on the extra mile.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

You cannot tailor-make the situations in life but you can tailor-make the attitudes to fit those situations.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Of all the “attitudes” we can acquire, surely the attitude of gratitude is the most important and by far the most life-changing.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Outstanding people have one thing in common: an absolute sense of mission.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Obstacles are the things we see when we take our eyes off our goals.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Man was designed for accomplishment, engineered for success, and endowed with the seeds of greatness.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

The only way to coast is downhill.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Success is like a ladder, and no one has ever climbed a ladder with their hands in their pockets.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

People who build hope into their own lives and who share hope with others become powerful people.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

The price of success is much lower than the price of failure.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

You build a successful career, regardless of your field of endeavor, by the dozens of little things you do on and off the job.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

The most practical, beautiful, workable philosophy in the world won’t work—if you won’t.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Positive thinking won’t let you do anything but it will let you do everything better than negative thinking will.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Success is the maximum utilization of the ability that you have.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Be firm on principle but flexible on method.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

It’s your aptitude, not just your attitude that determines your ultimate altitude.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

The door to a balanced success opens widest on the hinges of hope and encouragement.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

When your image improves, your performance improves.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

You are free to choose, but the choices you make today will determine what you will have, be and do in the tomorrow of your life.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

If God would have wanted us to live in a permissive society He would have given us Ten Suggestions and not Ten Commandments.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

When you forgive somebody else you accept the responsibility for your own future.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

You can have everything in life you want if you’ll just help enough other people get what they want.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

For every sale you miss because you’re too enthusiastic, you will miss a hundred because you’re not enthusiastic enough.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

People who have good relationships at home are more effective in the marketplace.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Many people spend more time in planning the wedding than they do in planning the marriage.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Money isn’t the most important thing in life, but it’s reasonably close to oxygen on the “gotta have it” scale.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Motivation is the fuel necessary to keep the human engine running.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

We all need a daily check up from the neck up to avoid stinkin’ thinkin’ which ultimately leads to hardening of the attitudes.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Our children are our only hope for the future, but we are their only hope for their present and their future.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

What comes out of your mouth is determined by what goes into your mind.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Failure is a detour, not a dead-end street.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

It was character that got us out of bed, commitment that moved us into action, and discipline that enabled us to follow through.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

If you want to reach a goal, you must ‘see the reaching’ in your own mind before you actually arrive at your goal.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Today marks the birthday of John Adams (1735–1826,) American lawyer, author, and statesman. This Founding Father was the first Vice President (1789–97) and the second President (1797–1801) of the United States.

After studying law at Harvard, Adams became famous for questioning Britain’s right to tax its American colonies. At the First Continental Congress in 1774, he argued that the British Parliament had no legal authority over its colonies. He quickly became the foremost advocate for breaking from Britain.

At the Second Continental Congress on 1-July-1776, Adams proposed autonomy and persuaded the delegates from the colonies to embrace a declaration of independence. That resolution was approved and signed on 2-July, but was only formally adopted on 4-July. Adams believed that the 2-July was America’s real birthday and refused to celebrate 4-July for the rest of his life in protest.

After independence, Adams served as America’s diplomat to France, Holland, and Great Britain. He then returned to America and became vice president for George Washington. In 1796, he was elected the second president of the United States. His Federalist Party soon split and Adams lost his presidency to Thomas Jefferson in 1800. In due course, the two Founding Fathers began a famous 14-year correspondence of 158 letters (109 written by from Adams and 49 by Jefferson). Adams and Jefferson died on the same day.

Inspirational Quotations by John Adams

Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society.
—John Adams (American Head of State)

A desire to be observed, considered, esteemed, praised, beloved, and admired by his fellows is one of the earliest as well as the keenest dispositions discovered in the heart of man.
—John Adams (American Head of State)

Be not intimidated, therefore, by any terrors, from publishing with the utmost freedom whatever can be warranted by the laws of your country; nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberty by any pretenses of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery, and cowardice.
—John Adams (American Head of State)

As much as I converse with sages and heroes, they have very little of my love and admiration. I long for rural and domestic scene, for the warbling of birds and the prattling of my children.
—John Adams (American Head of State)

Ambition is the subtlest beast of the intellectual and moral field. It is wonderfully adroit in concealing itself from its owner.
—John Adams (American Head of State)

Liberty, according to my metaphysics…is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power.
—John Adams (American Head of State)

The happiness of society is the end of government.
—John Adams (American Head of State)

Let us dare to read, think, speak and write.
—John Adams (American Head of State)

Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak.
—John Adams (American Head of State)

The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles.
—John Adams (American Head of State)

The preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks is of more importance to the public than all the property of all the rich men in the country.
—John Adams (American Head of State)

History is the recital of facts represented as true. Fable, on the other hand, is the recital of facts represented as fiction. The history of man’s ideas is nothing more than the chronicle of human error.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher)

The surest way to fail is not to determine to succeed.
—Richard Brinsley Sheridan (Irish-born British Playwright)

There is this difference between the two temporal blessings—health and money; money is the most envied, but the least enjoyed; health is the most enjoyed, but the least envied; and this superiority of the latter is still more obvious when we reflect that the poorest man would not part with health for money, but that the richest would gladly part with all his money for health.
—Charles Caleb Colton (English Angelic Priest)

Fear of becoming a ‘has-been’ keeps some people from becoming anything.
—Eric Hoffer (American Philosopher)

Never regard study as a duty but as an enviable opportunity to learn to know the liberating influence of beauty in the realm of the spirit for your own personal joy and to the profit of the community to which your later works belong.
—Albert Einstein (German-born Theoretical Physicist)

What the caterpillar calls the end, the rest of the world calls a butterfly.
—Laozi (Chinese Philosopher)

Falling out of love is chiefly a matter of forgetting how charming someone is.
—Iris Murdoch (English Novelist)

Today marks the birthday of Oscar Wilde (1854-1900,) the Anglo-Irish playwright considered one of the greatest writers of the Victorian Era.

In his 30s, although married with two children, Oscar Wilde had a love affair with a young aristocrat. The affair became public; the revelation of Wilde’s homosexual double life ruined his reputation in the Victorian society. Still, this was the most creative period of his life. He wrote The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), Salome (1891), and Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892.) He then erupted on the British theater scene with three successive comedy hits featuring people leading double lives: A Woman of No Importance (1893), An Ideal Husband (1895), and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895.)

His masterpiece The Importance of Being Earnest opened in London on Valentine’s Day 1895. It featured two protagonists who keep up fictitious personas to dodge burdensome social obligations until their sham identities and stories grow so intricate that everything gets revealed.

A few months later, Wilde was sentenced to two years of hard labor for homosexuality. When he got out of prison, he wrote The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898,) a poem concerning inhumane prison conditions. With his reputation ruined, he wandered around France and Italy. Wilde’s health declined rapidly and he died penniless in a seedy hotel in Paris at the age of 46.

Oscar Wilde is considered the world’s greatest wit ever. He was a brilliant conversationalist; anecdotes abound about his well-known retorts. Once, when US Customs asked him if he had anything to declare upon arrival in New York, Wilde replied, “Nothing but my genius.”

Entire books have been devoted to Oscar Wilde’s one-liners. He said, “The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.” And, “I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.” And, “An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.”

Inspirational Quotations by Oscar Wilde

What a pity that in life we only get our lessons when they are of no use to us.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

Experience, the name men give to their mistakes.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

I have the simplest tastes. I am always satisfied with the best.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

Prayer must never be answered: if it is, it ceases to be prayer and becomes correspondence.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell that would tell anything.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

One should never listen. To listen is a sign of indifference to one’s hearers.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

Ridicule is the tribute paid to the genius by the mediocrities.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

Rich bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men should be happier than others.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

Hard work is simply the refuge of people who have nothing whatever to do.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

Life is not complex. We are complex. Life is simple, and the simple thing is the right thing.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

Only good questions deserve good answers.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

I have said to you to speak the truth is a painful thing. To be forced to tell lies is much worse.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

When I was young I used to think that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old, I know it is.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

An acquaintance that begins with a compliment is sure to develop into a real friendship.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else’s opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

Education is an admirable thing. But it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

Men marry because they are tired; women because they are curious. Both are disappointed.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

Wherever there is a man who exercises authority, there is a man who resists authority.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

One should always be a little improbable.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

Life is much too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

The only thing that can console one for being poor is extravagance. The only thing that can console one for being rich is economy.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

If you pretend to be good, the world takes you very seriously. If you pretend to be bad, it doesn’t. Such is the astounding stupidity of optimism.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

Self-denial is simply a method by which man arrests his progress.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

Charity creates a multitude of sins.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

Experience is one thing you can’t get for nothing.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

Most modern calendars mar the sweet simplicity of our lives by reminding us that each day that passes is the anniversary of some perfectly uninteresting event.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

When a man has no enemy left there must be something mean about him.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

In examinations the foolish ask questions that the wise cannot answer.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

All authority is quite degrading. It degrades those who exercise it, and degrades those over whom it is exercised.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

To do nothing at all is the most difficult thing in the world, the most difficult and the most intellectual.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

The supreme vice is shallowness.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

‘Know thyself’ was written over the portal of the antique world. Over the portal of the new world, ‘Be thyself’ shall be written.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

If one tells the truth, one is sure, sooner or later, to be found out.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

Indifference is the revenge the world takes on mediocrities.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

When the gods choose to punish us, they merely answer our prayers.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure. I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

Man reaches his perfection, not through what he has, not even through what he does, but entirely through what he is.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

Skepticism is the beginning of Faith.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

I can resist everything except temptation.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

Women are never disarmed by compliments. Men always are.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

The best way to appreciate your job is to imagine yourself without one.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

There is only one class in the community that thinks more about money than the rich, and that is the poor.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

Looking good and dressing well is a necessity. Having a purpose in life is not.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

People who count their chickens before they are hatched act very wisely because chickens run about so absurdly that it’s impossible to count them accurately.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

One should absorb the color of life, but one should never remember its details.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

Ambition is the last refuge of the failure.
—Oscar Wilde (Irish Poet)

Today marks the birthday of John Lennon (1940-1980,) English rock legend and co-founder of the Beatles, the most influential music band of the rock era.

A native of Liverpool, Lennon did not show much musical inclination as a child. He was smart but often got into trouble for his angry streak, petty crimes, and rebellious attitude.

At age 16, Lennon listened to Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and other rock-and-roll legends whose records were brought over by American sailors docking at the Liverpool port. Fascinated by rock and roll music, Lennon formed his own band with several friends and called it the Quarrymen.

Lennon met Paul McCartney at a church party in the summer of 1957. They became fast friends after Lennon learnt that McCartney could not only tune and play the guitar, but also recall the lyrics of the latest rock and roll songs. The two formed a legendary songwriting partnership that composed 180 songs. After McCartney’s friend George Harrison joined them in 1958, they formed the Beatals, which they later renamed Silver Beetles and finally the Beatles. Drummer Pete Best enlisted in 1960.

The Beatles played at various clubs around England and in Hamburg, Germany. They then returned to England and played at Liverpool’s Cavern Club where businessman Brian Epstein discovered them. After signing up as their manager, Epstein signed the Beatles with EMI records in 1962 and had drummer Pete Best replaced by Ringo Starr. By 1963, the Beatles were the most popular rock and roll band in England. The following year, they took America by storm with their appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. ‘Beatlemania’ swept across Europe and America.

Lennon was the Beatles’most controversial member. His 1966 statement, “The Beatles are bigger than Jesus Christ,” instigated a religious counterattack in the United States. During the later ’60s, he used his celebrity to draw attention to various political causes and feminism. His vehement denunciation of the Vietnam War resulted in a protracted—but unsuccessful—effort by the Nixon administration to deport him from his adopted hometown of New York. His single “Give Peace a Chance” became the anti-Vietnam-War anthem in 1969.

Lennon married Yoko Ono in 1969. After the Beatles disbanded in 1970, Lennon embarked on a successful solo career. After the birth of son Sean in 1975, Lennon retired from public life and stayed home with family. In 1980, he was assassinated by Mark Chapman who had asked Lennon for his autograph only hours earlier. A few days later, Ono organized over 100,000 people gathered in New York’s Central Park and thousands others around the world to observe a 10-minute silence to honor him. A section of Central Park is designated “Strawberry Fields” in his memory.

Inspirational Quotations by John Lennon

The unknown is what it is. And to be frightened of it is what sends everybody scurrying around chasing dreams, illusions, wars peace, love, hate, all that. Unknown is what it is. Accept that it’s unknown, and it’s plain sailing.
—John Lennon (British Singer)

A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.
—John Lennon (British Singer)

There’s nothing you can know that isn’t known.
—John Lennon (British Singer)

It just was a gradual development over the years. I mean last year was ‘all you need is Love.’ This year, it’s ‘all you need is Love and peace, baby.’ Give peace a chance, and remember Love. The only hope for us is peace. Violence begets violence. You can have peace as soon as you like if we all pull together. You’re all geniuses, and you’re all beautiful. You don’t need anyone to tell you who you are. You are what you are. Get out there and get peace, think peace, and live peace and breathe peace, and you’ll get it as soon as you like.
—John Lennon (British Singer)

Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue with that; I’m right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first—rock and roll or Christianity.
—John Lennon (British Singer)

You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.
—John Lennon (British Singer)

We’ve got this gift of love, but love is like a precious plant. You can’t just accept it and leave it in the cupboard or just think it’s going to get on by itself. You’ve got to keep watering it. You’ve got to really look after it and nurture it.
—John Lennon (British Singer)

Everything is clearer when you’re in love.
—John Lennon (British Singer)

Work is life, you know, and without it, there’s nothing but fear and insecurity.
—John Lennon (British Singer)

I don’t care too much for money, money can’t buy me love.
—John Lennon (British Singer)

Today marks the birthday of William Faulkner (1897–1962,) the American author of novels, short stories, poetry, essays, and screenplays. He won not only the 1949 Nobel Prize for Literature, but also the Pulitzer Prize twice and the National Book Award twice.

Faulkner dropped out of high school and took a few courses at the University of Mississippi where he got a ‘D’ grade in English. He worked odd jobs as a house painter, dishwasher, and bootlegger. While working as an overnight supervisor at University of Mississippi’s Old Power Plant, he wrote The Sound and The Fury (1929) and As I Lay Dying (1930.)

Faulkner wrote As I Lay Dying in just six weeks between midnight and 4:00 AM while working at the power plant and sent it to his publisher without changing a word. Regarded his most famous novel, As I Lay Dying portrays a poor white family that accompanies a mother’s body across the state of Mississippi for burial.

Faulkner also worked as a Hollywood screenwriter for more than 50 films including To Have and Have Not (1944) and The Big Sleep (1946.)

Inspirational Quotations by William Faulkner

We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.
—William Faulkner (American Novelist)

Given the choice between the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose pain.
—William Faulkner (American Novelist)

Gratitude is a quality similar to electricity: it must be produced and discharged and used up in order to exist at all.
—William Faulkner (American Novelist)

The salvation of the world is in man’s suffering.
—William Faulkner (American Novelist)

People need trouble—a little frustration to sharpen the spirit on, toughen it. Artists do; I don’t mean you need to live in a rat hole or gutter, but you have to learn fortitude, endurance. Only vegetables are happy.
—William Faulkner (American Novelist)

The end of wisdom is to dream high enough not to lose the dream in the seeking of it.
—William Faulkner (American Novelist)

A writer needs three things: experience, observation, and imagination—any two of which, at times any one of which, can supply the lack of the others.
—William Faulkner (American Novelist)

The past is never dead, it is not even past.
—William Faulkner (American Novelist)

Man performs and engenders so much more than he can or should have to bear. That’s how he finds that he can bear anything.
—William Faulkner (American Novelist)

All of us have failed to reach our dream of perfection, so I rate us on the basis of our splendid failure to do the impossible.
—William Faulkner (American Novelist)

A mule will labor ten years willingly and patiently for you, for the privilege of kicking you once.
—William Faulkner (American Novelist)

I believe that man will not merely endure; he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among the creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of kindness and compassion.
—William Faulkner (American Novelist)

Maybe the only thing worse than having to give gratitude constantly is having to accept it.
—William Faulkner (American Novelist)

A man’s moral conscience is the curse he had to accept from the gods in order to gain from them the right to dream.
—William Faulkner (American Novelist)

Fear is the most damnable, damaging thing to human personality in the whole world.
—William Faulkner (American Novelist)