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Adversity

  • Casey, M. Kathleen
    Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.
  • Greenberg, Sidney
    A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him.
  • Halsey, William F.
    All problems become smaller if you don't dodge them but confront them.
  • Hazlitt, William
    Prosperity is a great teacher; adversity a greater.
  • Nietzsche, Friedrich
    He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.
  • Sophocles
    The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.

Advice

  • Jong, Erica
    Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't.
  • Truman, Harry S.
    I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.

America

  • Blair, Tony
    I just want to say this. I want to say it gently but I want to say it firmly: There is a tendency for the world to say to America, "the big problems of the world are yours, you go and sort them out," and then to worry when America wants to sort them out.
  • Churchill, Sir Winston
    Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing...after they have exhausted all other possibilities.
  • Churchill, Sir Winston
    To have the United States at our side was to me the greatest joy. Now at this very moment I knew the United States was in the war, up to the neck and in to the death. So we had won after all!...Hitler's fate was sealed. Mussolini's fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to powder.
  • Churchill, Sir Winston
    The United States stands at the pinnacle of world power. This is a solemn moment for the American democracy. For with primacy in power is joined an awe-inspiring accountability for the future.
  • Clark, General Wesley K.
    And now I dream of an even greater America than the one [my grandparents] viewed from a ship's railing. An America where we live in peace and harmony, not just amongst ourselves, but with our neighbors around the world. I can see such a place. To me, it's just over the next hill. And I guess when you get right down to it, I'm an old soldier and I always believe in taking the next hill. I believe we can get that; that together, we can create a world in which all our children are able to fulfill the promise of their own destiny. We can do this. We must do this. For it is our duty, our honor and our country.
  • Clark, General Wesley K.
    100 years out, the only things we leave behind that will matter are the environment and Constitutional legitimacy.
  • Eisenhower, Dwight D.
    Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels--men and women who dare to disssent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.
  • Eisenhower, Dwight D.
    Only Americans can hurt America.
  • Jefferson, Thomas
    In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.
  • Johnson, Lyndon B.
    We did not choose to be the guardians of the gate, but there is no one else.
  • Kennedy, John F.
    The American, by nature, is optimistic. He is experimental, an inventor and a builder who builds best when called upon to build greatly.
  • Kennedy, Robert F.
    The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of bold projects and new ideas. Rather, it will belong to those who can blend passion, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the great enterprises and ideals of American society.
  • Kennedy, Robert F.
    Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our Gross National Product, now, is over $800 billion dollars a year, but that Gross National Product - if we judge the United States of America by that - that Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and counts nuclear warheads and armored cars for the police to fight the riots in our cities. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children. Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.
  • Lincoln, Abraham
    With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan - to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.
  • Lincoln, Abraham
    A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be disolved. I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other.
  • Nasser, Gamel
    The genius of you Americans is that you never make clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves which make us wonder at the possibility that there may be something to them which we are missing.
  • Roosevelt, Theodore
    The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living and the get-rich-quick theory of life.
  • Roosevelt, Theodore
    Americans learn only from catastrophe and not from experience.
  • Ustinov, Peter
    In America, through pressure of conformity, there is freedom of choice, but nothing to choose from.
  • Washington, George
    The United States is in no way founded upon the Christian religion.
  • Wolfe, Claire
    America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards.

Anger

  • Aristotle
    Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everybody's power and is not easy.
  • Franklin, Benjamin
    Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.
  • Luther, Martin
    I never work better than when I am inspired by anger. When I am angry I can write, pray, and preach well; for then my whole temperament is quickened, my understanding sharpened, and all mundane vexations and temptations depart.

Change

  • James, William
    The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.

Character

  • Asimov, Isaac
    And above all things, never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you at your own reckoning.
  • Churchill, Sir Winston
    Churchill: Madam, would you sleep with me for five million pounds? Socialite: My goodness, Mr. Churchill... Well, I suppose we would have to discuss terms, of course. Churchill: Would you sleep with me for five pounds? Socialite: Mr. Churchill, what kind of woman do you think I am?! Churchill: Madam, we've already established that. Now we are haggling about the price.
  • Dawson, Nicole
    The eyes are the windows to the soul; if you look into them long enough, one's true self is revealed.
  • Einstein, Albert
    Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.
  • Frost, Lane
    Don't be afraid to go after what you want to do, and what you want to be. But don't be afraid to be willing to pay the price.
  • Holmes, Oliver Wendell
    When in doubt, do it.
  • Jackson, Andrew
    One man with courage makes a majority.
  • Jefferson, Thomas
    In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
  • Kennedy, Robert F.
    Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world which yields most painfully to change.
  • King, Dr. Martin Luther
    The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
  • Milgram, Stanley
    The disappearance of a sense of responsibility is the most far-reaching consequence of submission to authority.
  • Rand, Ayn
    Pride is the recognition of the fact that you are your own highest value and, like all of man's values, it has to be earned.
  • Roosevelt, Eleanor
    No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
  • Roosevelt, Theodore
    Alike for the nation and the individual, the one indispensable requisite is character.
  • Saint Augistine
    Do you wish to be great? Then begin by being. Do you desire to construct a vast and lofty fabric? Think first about the foundations of humility. The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundation.
  • Shakespeare, William
    Be not afraid of greatness; some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them.
  • Straczynski, J. Michael
    People spend too much time finding other people to blame, too much energy finding excuses for not being what they are capable of being, and not enough energy putting themselves on the line, growing out of the past, and getting on with their lives.
  • Whorfin, Lord John
    History is made at night. Character is what you are in the dark.

Computers

  • Borenstein, Nathaniel
    The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals. We cause accidents.
  • Cringely, Robert
    If the automobile had followed the same development as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year killing everyone inside.
  • Tsiangkun
    This is great ! I have been waiting for the helpfulness of clippy combined with the performance of java.

Dreams

  • Kennedy, Robert F.
    Some people see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not?

Education

  • Adams, Franklin P.
    I find that a great part of the information I have was acquired by looking up something and finding something else on the way.
  • Aristotle
    It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
  • Brougham, Baron Henry Peter
    Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern but impossible to enslave.
  • Confucius
    I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.
  • Darrow, Clarence
    Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak it to?
  • Einstein, Albert
    Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
  • Galilei, Galileo
    You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself.
  • Holmes, Oliver Wendell
    Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.
  • Schulz, Charles
    Try not to have a good time...this is supposed to be educational.

Fear

  • Burke, Edmund
    No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.
  • Roosevelt, Franklin Delano
    The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
  • Twain, Mark
    Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.

Freedom & Liberty

  • Bakunin, Mikhail
    Freedom, morality, and the human dignity of the individual consists precisely in this; that he does good not because he is forced to do so, but because he freely conceives it, wants it, and loves it.
  • Belloc, Hillaire
    Never could an increase of comfort or security be a sufficient good to be bought at the price of liberty.
  • Brandeis, Justice Louis
    Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficient...The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.
  • Burke, Edmund
    Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.
  • Clark, Ramsey
    A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you.
  • Clinton, William Jefferson
    Just as war is freedom's cost, disagreement is freedom's privilege.
  • Douglas, Justice William Orville
    The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom.
  • Douglas, Justice William Orville
    The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of the people.
  • Einstein, Albert
    Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.
  • Ford, Andrew
    The price of liberty is, always has been, and always will be blood. The person who is not willing to die for his liberty has already lost it to the first scoundrel who is willing to risk dying to violate that person's liberty. Are you free?
  • Franklin, Benjamin
    They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
  • Goldwater, Senator Barry
    Moderation in the protection of liberty is no virtue; extremism in the defense of freedom is no vice.
  • Halisham, Lord Chief Justice
    The only freedom which counts is the freedom to do what some other people think to be wrong. There is no point in demanding freedom to do that which all will applaud. All the so-called liberties or rights are things which have to be asserted against others who claim that if such things are to be allowed their own rights are infringed or their own liberties threatened. This is always true, even when we speak of the freedom to worship, of the right of free speech or association, or of public assembly. If we are to allow freedoms at all there will constantly be complaints that either the liberty itself or the way in which it is exercised is being abused, and, if it is a genuine freedom, these complaints will often be justified. There is no way of having a free society in which there is not abuse. Abuse is the very hallmark of liberty.
  • Henry, Patrick
    Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.
  • Henry, Patrick
    It is in vain, Sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace! But there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the North will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that Gentlemen want? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
  • Howdershelt, Ed
    There are four boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order.
  • Jefferson, Thomas
    Rightful liberty is unobstructed action, according to our will, within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others.
  • Jefferson, Thomas
    Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.
  • Jefferson, Thomas
    God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... And what country can preserve its liberties, if it's rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
  • Jefferson, Thomas
    The natural progress of things is for government to gain ground and for liberty to yield.
  • Jefferson, Thomas
    The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
  • Johnson, Lyndon B.
    You [should] not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harm it would cause if improperly administered.
  • Kennedy, John F.
    Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
  • Kennedy, John F.
    Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom.
  • Kennedy, John F.
    We stand for freedom. That is our conviction for ourselves; that is our only commitment to others.
  • Kennedy, John F.
    Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty.
  • Kennedy, Robert F.
    At the heart of western freedom and democracy is the belief that the individual man... is the touchstone of value, and all society, groups, the state, exist for his benefit. Therefore the enlargement of liberty for individual human beings must be the supreme goal and abiding practice of any western society.
  • Kissinger, Henry
    Today Americans would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will pledge with world leaders to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the "Unknown". When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well being granted to them by their world government.
  • Lawrence, Tony
    Too many people are only willing to to defend rights that are personally important to them. It's selfish ignorance, and it's exactly why totalitarian governments are able to get away with trampling on people. Freedom does not mean freedom just for the things *I* think I should be able to do. Freedom is for all of us. If people will not speak up for other's people's rights, there will come a day when they will lose their own.
  • Lincoln, Abraham
    "I leave you, hoping that the lamp of liberty will burn in your bosoms until there shall no longer be a doubt that all men are created free and equal.
  • Lincoln, Abraham
    Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.
  • Lord Acton
    By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes is his duty against the influence of authority and majorities, custom and opinion.
  • Lord Acton
    Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.
  • Madison, James
    It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens and one of the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The freemen of America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by exercise and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much ... to forget it.
  • Madison, James
    There are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by the gradual and silent encroachment of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpation.
  • Mencken, H.L.
    The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
  • Mill, John Stuart
    The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental or spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.
  • Mill, John Stuart
    The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.
  • Mill, John Stuart
    A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares about more than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
  • Mullen, James X.
    Freedom is being able to live with the consequences of your decisions.
  • Niemoller, Martin
    In Germany they first came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.
  • Paine, Thomas
    He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression: for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach unto himself.
  • Paine, Thomas
    Those who expect to reap the blessing of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.
  • Pitt, William
    Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
  • Rand, Ayn
    What disaster took their reason away from men? What whip lashed them to their knees in shame and submission? The worship of the word 'We.'
  • Rand, Ayn
    "Are we to understand," asked the judge, "that you hold your own interests above the interests of the public?" "I hold that such a question can never arise except in a society of cannibals."
  • Roosevelt, Franklin Delano
    In the truest sense freedom cannot be bestowed, it must be achieved.
  • Royster, Richard
    Acceptance of dissent is the fundamental requirement of a free society.
  • Stark, General George
    Live free or die; death is not the worst of evils.
  • Toynbee, A.J.
    As human beings, we are endowed with freedom of choice, and we cannot shuffle off our responsibility upon the shoulders of God or nature. We must shoulder it ourselves. It is up to us.
  • Von Goethe, Johann W.
    None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
  • Washington, George
    The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die.
  • Webster, Daniel
    Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.
  • Zapata, Emiliano
    It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!

Friendship

  • Adams, Henry Brooks
    Every man should have a fair-sized cemetary in which to bury the faults of his friends.
  • Aristotle
    Without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods.
  • Aristotle
    What is a friend? A single soul in two bodies.
  • Aristotle
    Misfortune shows those who are not really friends.
  • Aristotle
    My best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake.
  • Askinas, Wilma
    A friend is one who sees through you and still enjoys the view.
  • (Author Unknown)
    There isn't much better in this life than finding a way to spend a few hours in conversation with people you respect and love. You have to carve this time out of your life because you aren't really living without it.
  • (Author Unknown)
    A real friend is someone who would feel loss if you jumped on a train, or in front of one.
  • (Author Unknown)
    Friends are those rare people who ask how you are and then wait for the answer.
  • (Author Unknown)
    Friendship isn't a big thing - it's a million little things.
  • (Author Unknown)
    Material things can't make the soul whole. The only the love, trust, and loyalty of friends can do that.
  • (Author Unknown)
    A friend is one who believes in you when you have ceased to believe in yourself
  • (Author Unknown)
    Love is blind, but friendship closes its eyes.
  • (Author Unknown)
    True friends not only protect you from others when something goes bad, but from yourself when you try to take blame.
  • (Author Unknown)
    A true friend wants nothing more from you than the pleasure of your company.
  • (Author Unknown)
    When someone allows you to bear his burdens, you have found deep friendship.
  • (Author Unknown)
    A true friend thinks of you when all others are thinking of themselves.
  • (Author Unknown)
    The knife from the enemy leaves only a scar while the knife of a friend can be mortal.
  • (Author Unknown)
    The trick is not to die for a friend, but to find a friend worth dying for.
  • (Author Unknown)
    People say true friends must always hold hands. But true friends don't need to hold hands because they know the other hand will always be there.
  • (Author Unknown)
    Happiness comes from the ones I love, but it's strength that comes from the ones who love me.
  • (Author Unknown)
    A true friend is someone who makes us do what we can.
  • Bach, Richard
    Every gift from a friend is a wish for your happiness.
  • Bacon, Francis
    This communicating of a man's self to his friend works two contrary effects; for it redoubleth joy, and cutteth griefs in half.
  • Blake, William
    It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.
  • Bovee, Christian Nevell
    False friends are like our shadow, keeping close to us while we walk in the sunshine, but leaving us the instant we cross into the shade.
  • Brault, Robert
    I value the friend who for me finds time on his calendar, but I cherish the friend who for me does not consult his calendar.
  • Bremer, Syvia
    The finest kind of friendship is between two people who excpect a great deal of each other, but never ask it.
  • Buddha
    An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind.
  • Butler, Samuel
    Friendship is like money, easier made than kept.
  • Cicero
    Never injure a friend, even in jest.
  • Colton, Charles Caleb
    True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it be lost.
  • Cortes, Diana
    There is magic in long-distance friendships. They let you relate to other human beings in a way that goes beyond being physically together and is often more profound.
  • Craik, Dinah
    But oh! the blessing it is to have a friend to whom one can speak fearlessly on any subject; with whom one's deepest as well as one's most foolish thoughts come out simply and safely. Oh, the comfort - the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person - having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.
  • Czech Proverb
    Do not protect yourself by a fence, but rather by your friends.
  • Dietrick, Marlene
    It's the friends you can call up at 4am that matter.
  • Disraeli, Benjamin
    The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but to reveal to him, his own.
  • Emerson, Ralph Waldo
    It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.
  • Epicurus
    It is not so much our friends' help that helps us as the confident knowledge that they will help us.
  • Franklin, Benjamin
    'Tis a great confidence in a friend to tell him your faults; greater to tell him his.
  • Friday, Nancy
    The perfect friend sees the best in you -- sees it constantly -- not just when you occasionally are that way, but also when you waver, when you forget yourself, act like less than you are. In time, you become more like his vision of you -- which is the person you have always wanted to be.
  • Fuller, Thomas
    No man can be happy without a friend, nor be sure of his friend until he is unhappy.
  • Gibran, Kahlil
    Friendship is always a sweet responsibilty, never an oppourtunity.
  • Glasgow, Arnold H.
    A loyal friend laughs at your jokes when they're not so good, and sympathizes with your problems when they're not so bad.
  • Hazlitt, William
    Do not keep on with a mockery of friendship after the substance is gone - but part, while you can part friends. Bury the carcass of friendship: it is not worth embalming.
  • Hubbard, Elbert
    Your friend is the man who knows all about you, and still likes you.
  • Hubbard, Elbert
    Never explain--your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.
  • Jefferson, Thomas
    Be polite to all, but intimate with few.
  • John 15:13
    Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
  • Johnston, Samuel
    True happiness consists not in the multitude of friends, but in their worth and choice.
  • Keller, Helen
    Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.
  • King, Dr. Martin Luther
    In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
  • Kohtz, Linden
    It is not the people that lift you up that matter but the people who keep you up.
  • Michels Jr., James P.
    Friendship is not friendship without trust, without it I walk alone.
  • Nouwen, Henri
    When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.
  • Pagels, Douglas
    A friend is one of the nicest things you can have, and one of the best things you can be.
  • Penn, William
    A true friend unbosoms freely, advises justly, assists readily, adventures boldly, takes all patiently, defends courageously, and continues a friend unchangeably.
  • Plautus
    Nothing but heaven itself is better than a friend who is really a friend.
  • Rochefoucauld, Duc de la
    It is more shameful to distrust one's friends than to be deceived by them
  • Socrates
    Get not your friends by bare compliments, but by giving them sensible tokens of your love.
  • Stroup, Megan
    Keep your eyes upon me, keep me in your sight, Help me don the crooked road, lead me to the light. The road I'm on is dark, I'm not sure if I know the way, Yet with you right beside me, I'm certain I won't stray. Protect me from the world, I know we'll make it through, Give me all the strength I need..... Let me lean on you.
  • Thucydides
    We secure our friends not by accepting favors but by doing them.
  • Tolkien, J.R.R.
    Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.
  • Voltaire
    May God defend me from my friends; I can defend myself from my enemies.
  • Washington, George
    True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.
  • Washington, George
    I can never think of promoting my convenience at the expense of a friend's interest and inclination.
  • Wein, Len
    A friend is someone who is there for you when he'd rather be anywhere else.
  • West, Rebecca
    There was a definite process by which one made people into friends, and it involved talking to them and listening to them for hours at a time.
  • Whitman, Walt
    I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe I deserved my friends.
  • Wilde, Oscar
    A true friend stabs you in the front.

God & Religion

  • Adams, John
    This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.
  • Anthony, Susan B.
    I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.
  • Aristotle
    A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.
  • Asimov, Isaac
    To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today.
  • Asimov, Isaac
    I don't believe in an afterlife, so I don't have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse.
  • Bierce, Ambrose
    Pray, v.: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled on behalf of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy.
  • Bumper Sticker
    God, please save me from your followers!
  • Carlin, George
    If God is so powerful, can He make a rock that is so heavy that He Himself can't lift it?
  • Churchill, Sir Winston
    I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
  • Clarke, Arthur C.
    Faith is believing in what you know isn't true.
  • Darrow, Clarence
    I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure -- that is all that agnosticism means.
  • Einstein, Albert
    There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
  • Einstein, Albert
    I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own -- a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism.
  • Einstein, Albert
    I see only with deep regret that God punishes so many of His children for their numerous stupidities, for which only He Himself can be held responsible; in my opinion, only His nonexistence could excuse Him.
  • Einstein, Albert
    Since our inner experiences consist of reproductions, and combinations of sensory impressions, the concept of a soul without a body seem to me to be empty and devoid of meaning.
  • Einstein, Albert
    It was the experience of mystery -- even if mixed with fear -- that engendered religion.
  • Einstein, Albert
    The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge.
  • Epicurus
    Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?
  • Galilei, Galileo
    I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
  • Greene, Graham
    Heresy is another word for freedom of thought.
  • Ingersoll, Robert G.
    It has always seemed absurd to suppose that a god would choose for his companions, during all eternity, the dear souls whose highest and only ambition is to obey.
  • Ingersoll, Robert G.
    Why should I allow that same God to tell me how to raise my kids, who had to drown His own?
  • Jefferson, Thomas
    The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.
  • Jefferson, Thomas
    They [the clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition of their schemes. And they believe rightly: for I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
  • Jefferson, Thomas
    The Christian god can easily be pictured as virtually the same god as the many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three headed monster; cruel, vengeful and capricious. If one wishes to know more of this raging, three headed beast-like god, one only needs to look at the caliber of people who say they serve him. They are always of two classes: fools and hypocrites.
  • Jefferson, Thomas
    Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.... Do not be frightened from this inquiry from any fear of its consequences. If it ends in the belief that there is no God, you will find incitements to virtue in the comfort and pleasantness you feel in its exercise...
  • Jefferson, Thomas
    I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.
  • Jefferson, Thomas
    In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own.
  • Lederer, Richard
    There once was a time when all people believed in God and the church ruled. This time was called the Dark Ages.
  • Magellan, Ferdinand
    The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church.
  • McLeod, Doug
    I still say a church steeple with a lightening rod on top shows a lack of confidence.
  • Robbins, Tom
    To emphasize the afterlife is to deny life. To concentrate on Heaven is to create hell. In their desperate longing to transcend the disorderliness, friction, and unpredictability that pesters life; in their desire for a fresh start in a tidy habitat, germ-free and secured by angels, religious multitudes are gambling the only life they may ever have on a dark horse in a race that has no finish line."
  • Roberts, Stephen F.
    I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
  • Roddenberry, Gene
    We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes.
  • Sagan, Carl
    You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe.
  • Vique
    A man without religion is like a fish without a bicycle.
  • Voltaire
    Of all religions the Christian is without doubt the one which should inspire tolerance most, although up to now the Christians have been the most intolerant of all men.
  • Voltaire
    If God created us in his own image we have more than reciprocated.
  • Voltaire
    If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
  • Wilde, Oscar
    I think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.

Good & Evil

  • Burke, Edmund
    The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
  • Burke, Edmund
    There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men.
  • Burke, Edmund
    Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.
  • Einstein, Albert
    A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeeded be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.
  • Plato
    Let us remember that the unjust man is not unjust of his own free will; for no man of his own free will would choose to possess the greatest of all evils.
  • Rand, Ayn
    The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. Whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles.
  • Thoene, Bodie
    Apathy is the glove into which evil slips its hand.

Government

  • Aristotle
    Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.
  • Blair, Tony
    Power without principle is barren, but principle without power is futile. This is a party of government and I will lead it as party of government.
  • Blair, Tony
    It is not an arrogant government that chooses priorities, it's an irresponsible government that fails to choose.
  • Churchill, Sir Winston
    Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried.
  • Churchill, Sir Winston
    Democracy is the best form of the worst type of government.
  • Clark, General Wesley K.
    The sad fact is that two years after President Bush coined the term 'axis of evil,' we've got a new axis of evil. It's one our president himself has created. It's an axis of fiscal policies which threaten our future, foreign policies that threaten our security, and domestic policies that put families dead last. That's the axis of evil I want to attack and destroy.
  • Eisenhower, Dwight D.
    I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it.
  • Heinlein, Robert A.
    Love your country, but never trust its government.
  • Henry, Patrick
    The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.
  • Hightower, Cullen
    We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex - but Congress can.
  • Hubbard, Kin
    Now and then an innocent man is sent to the legislature.
  • Hutchins, Robert
    The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.
  • Jefferson, Thomas
    A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and all that is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.
  • Jefferson, Thomas
    [W]hat country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that [the] people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms...The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
  • Jefferson, Thomas
    The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then.
  • Jefferson, Thomas
    Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others?
  • Jefferson, Thomas
    When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.
  • Jefferson, Thomas
    Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms [of government] those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
  • Kristol, Irving
    Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions - it only guarantees equality of opportunity.
  • Lincoln, Abraham
    This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it.
  • Locke, John
    The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything which would be unlawful for them to do themselves.
  • Madison, James
    I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which grant[s] a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.
  • Marx, Karl
    From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.
  • Mencken, H.L.
    Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.
  • Nesen, Ron
    Nobody believes the official spokesman... but everybody trusts an unidentified source.
  • Paine, Thomas
    When the people fear the government, you have tyranny. When the government fears the people, you have freedom.
  • Pinochet, Augusto
    Sometimes democracy must be bathed in blood.
  • Rand, Ayn
    We are fast approaching the state of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the state of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.
  • Rogers, Will
    There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.
  • Thomas, Justice Clarence
    I don't believe in quotas. America was founded on a philosophy of individual rights, not group rights.
  • Thomas, Justice Clarence
    Government cannot make us equal; it can only recognize, respect, and protect us as equal before the law.
  • Thoreau, Henry David
    That government is best which governs least.
  • Truman, Harry S.
    Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.
  • Ventura, Michael
    Stop tolerating in your leaders what you would not tolerate in your friends.
  • Washington, George
    Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.

Happiness

  • Bodett, Tom
    They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.
  • Einstein, Albert
    We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.
  • Keller, Helen
    Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow.
  • Levant, Oscar
    Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember.
  • Shaw, George Bernard
    He who has never hoped can never despair.

History

  • Churchill, Sir Winston
    History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.
  • Santayana, George
    Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Humor

  • Barry, Dave
    If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there are men on base.
  • Brilliant, Ashleigh
    I either want less corruption, or more chance to participate in it.
  • Brilliant, Ashleigh
    By doing just a little every day, I can gradually let the task completely overwhelm me.
  • Churchill, Sir Winston
    From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put.
  • Churchill, Sir Winston
    He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.
  • Fields, W.C.
    I am free of all prejudices. I hate everyone equally.
  • Fields, W.C.
    If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then give up. No use being a damned fool about it.
  • Kennedy, Robert F.
    People say I am ruthless. I am not ruthless. And if I find the man who is calling me ruthless, I shall destroy him.
  • Levenson, Sam
    Lead us not into temptation. Just tell us where it is; we'll find it.
  • Lincoln, Abraham
    If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?
  • Longworth, Alice Roosevelt
    If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me.
  • Marx, Groucho
    The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made.
  • Marx, Groucho
    A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.
  • McCarthy, Charles
    Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy.
  • Tsongas, Senator Paul
    That's a good question. Let me try to evade you.
  • West, Mae
    When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I've never tried before.
  • Wilensky, Robert
    We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.
  • Wright, Frank Lloyd
    I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters.

Justice

  • King, Dr. Martin Luther
    Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
  • King, Dr. Martin Luther Jr.
    It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can stop him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.
  • Stubbs, Charles William
    To sit alone with my conscience will be judgment enough for me.

Knowledge

  • Adams, John
    Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
  • Asimov, Isaac
    Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
  • Bohr, Niels
    Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think.
  • Confucius
    Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.
  • Einstein, Albert
    Only two things are infinite - the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
  • Einstein, Albert
    Never memorize what you can look up.
  • Faraday, Michael
    We receive as friendly that which agrees with [us], we resist with dislike that which opposes us; whereas the very reverse is required by every dictate of common sense.
  • Galbraith, John Kenneth
    The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.
  • Hubbard, Elbert
    Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.
  • Hugo, Victor
    Nothing else in the world...not all the armies...is so powerful as an idea whose time has come.
  • Kennedy, John F.
    The greater our knowledge increases the more our ignorance unfolds.
  • Kennedy, John F.
    I think that this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.
  • Kierkegaard, Soren Aabye
    People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid.
  • Long, Lazarus
    Being intelligent is not a felony, but most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor.
  • McAdoo, William G.
    It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument.
  • Miller, Olin
    To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything or nothing about it.
  • Newton, Isaac
    No great discovery was ever made without a bold guess.
  • Perelman, Lewis
    Dogma is the sacrifice of wisdom to consistency.
  • Webster, Daniel
    The world is governed more by appearances than realities, so that it is fully as necessary to seem to know something as to know it.
  • White, Matthew
    Sarcasm is the only intelligent person's response to irritating stupidity.
  • Wolfe, Gene
    Knowledge is soon changed, then lost in the mist, an echo half-heard.

Leadership

  • Carnegie, Andrew
    No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it.
  • Carter, Rosalynn
    A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don't necessarily want to go but ought to be.
  • Clark, General Wesley K.
    Harry Truman used to say the buck stops here. [The Bush] White House doesn't even know where the buck is!
  • Clement, Mark A.
    Leaders who win the respect of others are the ones who deliver more than they promise, not the ones who promise more than they can deliver.
  • Glasow, Arnold
    One of the true tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.
  • Hopper, Admiral Grace Murray
    You manage things; you lead people.
  • Kennedy, John F.
    Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.
  • Maxwell, John C.
    A good leader is a person who takes a little more than his share of the blame and a little less than his share of the credit.
  • Nance, W.A.
    No person can be a great leader unless he takes genuine joy in the successes of those under him.
  • Schwarzkopf, General H. Norman
    Leadership is a potent combination of strategy and character. But if you must be without one, be without the strategy.
  • Smith, Fredrick
    Leaders get out in front and stay there by raising the standards by which they judge themselves - and by which they are willing to be judged.
  • Townsend, Robert
    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.
  • Walton, Sam
    Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves, it's amazing what they can accomplish.

Life

  • Taylor, Ida Scott
    One day at a time- this is enough. Do not look back and grieve over the past, for it is gone; and do not be troubled about the future, for it has not yet come. Live in the present, and make it so beautiful that it will be worth remembering.

Life & Death

  • Asimov, Isaac
    Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.
  • Butler, Samuel
    Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.
  • Churchill, Sir Winston
    It so often happens that, when men are convinced that they have to die, a desire to bear themselves well and to leave life?s stage with dignity conquers all other sensations.
  • Cobb, Irvin S.
    I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial.
  • Dickens, Charles
    He would make a lovely corpse.
  • Hubbard, Elbert
    The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.
  • King, Dr. Martin Luther
    If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.
  • Munro, H.H.
    He is one of those people who would be enormously improved by death.
  • Rand, Ayn
    I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction.
  • Tolkien, J.R.R.
    Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends.
  • Twain, Mark
    Don't go around saying the world owes you a living; the world owes you nothing; it was here first.

Literature

  • Twain, Mark
    The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them.

Love

  • Baldwin, James A.
    Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.
  • Beck, Martha
    Every instance of heartbreak can teach us powerful lessons about creating the kind of love we really want.
  • Bromel, Henry
    We all carry around so much pain in our hearts. Love and pain and beauty. They all seem to go together like one little tidy confusing package. It's a messy business, life. It's hard to figure--full of surprises. Some good. Some bad.
  • Buchanan, Edna
    True friends are those who really know you but love you anyway.
  • Croft, Roy
    I love you, not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you.
  • De La Rochefoucauld
    Absence extinguishes small passions and increases great ones, as the wind blows out a candle, and blows in a fire.
  • English Proverb
    Absence sharpens love, presence strengthens it.
  • Horace
    With you I should love to live, with you be ready to die.
  • Hugo, Victor
    Life's greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved.
  • Keats, John
    I love you the more that I believe you have liked me for my own sake and for nothing else.
  • Maeterlinck, Maurice
    When we lose one we love, our bitterest tears are called forth by the memory of hours when we loved not enough.
  • Milholland, Randy K.
    In the end, you'll know which people really love you. They're the ones who see you for who you are and, no matter what, always find a way to be at your side.
  • O'Hara, Mary
    Love cannot survive if you give it scraps of yourself, scraps of your time, scraps of your thoughts.
  • Ovid
    Love will enter cloaked in friendship's name.
  • Segal, Erich
    Love means not ever having to say you're sorry.
  • Shakespeare, William
    When my love swears that she is made of truth, I do believe her, though I know she lies.
  • Wilcox, Ella Wheeler
    All love that has not friendship for its base, is like a mansion built upon the sand.

Marriage

  • Adams, Joey
    Marriage is give and take. You'd better give it to her or she'll take it anyway.
  • Mencken, H.L.
    Men have a much better time of it than women; for one thing, they marry later; for another thing they die earlier.

Miscellanious

  • Adams, Henry Brooks
    No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.
  • Burke, Edmund
    An event has happened, upon which it is difficult to speak, and impossible to be silent.
  • DuBois, William Edward Burghardt
    A little less complaint and whining, and a little more dogged work and manly striving, would do us more credit than a thousand civil rights bills.
  • Horace
    Once a word has been allowed to escape, it cannot be recalled.
  • Jackson, Andrew
    Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.
  • Levine, Stephen
    If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?
  • Lincoln, Abraham
    Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that "all men are created equal" Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it, as a final resting place for those who died here, that the nation might live. This we may, in all propriety do. But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow, this ground -- The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have hallowed it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here; while it can never forget what they did here. It is rather for us, the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that, from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here, gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people by the people for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
  • Newton, Sir Isaac
    If I have seen further it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.
  • Shaw, George Bernard
    The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.
  • Socrates
    For if any man could arrive at the exterior limit, or take the wings of a bird and come to the top, then like a fish who puts his head out of the water and sees this world, he would see a world beyond; if the nature of man could sustain the sight, he would acknowledge that this other would was the place of the true heaven and the true light and the true earth.
  • Tennyson, Lord Alfred
    Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. "Forward, the Light Brigade! "Charge for the guns!" he said: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. "Forward, the Light Brigade!" Was there a man dismay'd? Not tho' the soldier knew Someone had blunder'd: Their's not to make reply, Their's not to reason why, Their's but to do and die: Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them Volley'd and thunder'd; Storm'd at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode and well, Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of Hell Rode the six hundred. Flash'd all their sabres bare, Flash'd as they turn'd in air, Sabring the gunners there, Charging an army, while All the world wonder'd: Plunged in the battery-smoke Right thro' the line they broke; Cossack and Russian Reel'd from the sabre stroke Shatter'd and sunder'd. Then they rode back, but not Not the six hundred. Cannon to right of them, Cannon to left of them, Cannon behind them Volley'd and thunder'd; Storm'd at with shot and shell, While horse and hero fell, They that had fought so well Came thro' the jaws of Death Back from the mouth of Hell, All that was left of them, Left of six hundred. When can their glory fade? O the wild charge they made! All the world wondered. Honor the charge they made, Honor the Light Brigade, Noble six hundred.
  • Tolkien, J.R.R.
    All that is gold does not glitter; not all those that wander are lost.
  • Wilde, Oscar
    A man cannot be too careful in his choice of enemies.

Money & Economics

  • Bryan, William Jennings
    You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.
  • Fiedler, Edgar R.
    Ask five economists and you'll get five different answers (six if one went to Harvard).
  • Galbraith, John Kenneth
    Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.
  • Hubbard, Kin
    When a fellow says it ain't the money but the principle of the thing, it's the money.
  • Hugo, Victor
    There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher.
  • Peter, Laurence J.
    An economist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn't happen today.
  • Twain, Mark
    I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position.

Patriotism

  • Abbey, Edward
    A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.
  • Clark, General Wesley K.
    Nothing is more American; nothing is more patriotic than speaking out, questioning authority and holding your leaders accountable.
  • Clark, General Wesley K.
    I think the height of patriotism is to speak out. Even in wartime in a democracy, you need a democracy. You need people with the courage to stand up and voice their opposition without being labeled unpatriotic. I've always thought that the height of loyalty is to ask questions and help sort things out.
  • Hale, Nathan
    I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.
  • Kennedy, John F.
    Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.
  • Marston Jr., Ralph S.
    You cannot be strong in the big, important things if you are weak in the little things.
  • Tan, Alex
    Perhaps our eyes need to be washed by our tears once in a while, so that we can see Life with a clearer view again.
  • Twain, Mark
    In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man brave, hated, and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.

Peace

  • Eisenhower, Dwight D.
    Though force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness, consideration and co-operation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace.

People

  • Huxley, Aldous
    There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.
  • Jefferson, Thomas
    Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.
  • Kennedy, John F.
    Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.
  • Kennedy, John F.
    For in the final analysis, our most basic common link, is that we all inhabit this small planet, we all breathe the same air, we all cherish our children's futures, and we are all mortal.
  • Kennedy, John F.
    We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world or to make it the last.
  • Machiavelli, Niccolo
    It is not titles that honour men, but men that honour titles.
  • Maxwell, John C.
    A big man is one who makes us feel bigger when we are with him.
  • Orwell, George
    On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good and not quite all the time.
  • Patton, General George S.
    Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.
  • Rooney, Andrew A.
    The average dog is a nicer person than the average person.
  • Shaw, George Bernard
    The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
  • Twain, Mark
    If you take a dog which is starving and feed him and make him prosperous, that dog will not bite you. This is the primary difference between a dog and a man.
  • Twain, Mark
    Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, are great.
  • Walpole, Horace
    The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think.
  • Wilde, Oscar
    Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.
  • Wolfe, Thomas
    The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence.

Philosophy

  • Adams, Henry Brooks
    Chaos often breeds life, when order breeds habit.
  • Adler, Alfred
    It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
  • Aesop
    Be content with your lot; one cannot be first in everything.
  • Ali, Mohammed
    Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.
  • Aristotle
    Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.
  • Aristotle
    No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.
  • Aristotle
    I have gained this from philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.
  • Asimov, Isaac
    It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.
  • Asimov, Isaac
    If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.
  • Bach, Richard
    Argue for your limitations, and sure enough they're yours.
  • Bates, Daisy
    No man or woman who tries to pursue an ideal in his or her own way is without enemies.
  • Bergson, Henri
    The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.
  • Bierce, Ambrose
    All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher.
  • Bierce, Ambrose
    Egotist: a person more interested in himself than in me.
  • Bodhidharma
    All know the way; few actually walk it.
  • Bonaparte, Napoleon
    A man will fight harder for his interests than for his rights.
  • Bonaparte, Napoleon
    Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.
  • Bulwer-Lytton, Edward George
    Talent does what it can; genius does what it must.
  • Burke, Edmund
    I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone.
  • Churchill, Sir Winston
    No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism.
  • Churchill, Sir Winston
    If you are going through hell, keep going.
  • Churchill, Sir Winston
    We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.
  • Churchill, Sir Winston
    A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
  • Churchill, Sir Winston
    A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.
  • Dada, Idi Amin
    In any country there must be people who have to die. They are the sacrifices any nation has to make to achieve law and order.
  • Da Vinci, Leonardo
    Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory.
  • de Gaulle, Charles
    The graveyards are full of indispensable men.
  • Descartes, Rene
    I think, therefore I am.
  • Donne, John
    No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
  • Drummond, William
    He that will not reason is a bigot, He that cannot reason is a fool, He that dares not reason is a slave.
  • Earl of Chesterfield
    People hate those who make them feel their own inferiority.
  • Einstein, Albert
    Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.
  • Eisenhower, Dwight D.
    What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight - it's the size of the fight in the dog.
  • Eisenhower, Dwight D.
    A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.
  • Eliot, T.S.
    Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
  • Emerson, Ralph Waldo
    A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.
  • Emerson, Ralph Waldo
    Every man I meet is in some way my superior.
  • Epictetus
    We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.
  • Ford, Henry
    Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right.
  • Franklin, Benjamin
    Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.
  • Franklin, Benjamin
    Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today.
  • Franklin, Benjamin
    I am a strong believer in luck and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.
  • Gandhi, Mahatma
    You must be the change you want to see in the world.
  • Gibran, Kahlil
    They have exiled me now from their society and I am pleased, because humanity does not exile except the one whose noble spirit rebels against despotism and oppression. He who does not prefer exile to slavery is not free by any measure of freedom, truth and duty.
  • Heinlein, Robert A.
    Don't ever become a pessimist, Ira; a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun--and neither can stop the march of events.
  • Hendricks, Howard
    Nothing is more common than unfulfilled potential.
  • Hubbard, Elbert
    To avoid criticis do nothing, say nothing, be nothing.
  • Humphrey, Hubert H.
    The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.
  • Ibsen, Henrick
    The strongest man in the world is he who stands alone.
  • Jones, F.P.
    Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
  • Keller, Helen
    No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars or sailed an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.
  • Kennedy, John F.
    A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.
  • Kennedy, John F.
    Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.
  • Kennedy, Robert F.
    Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, these ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.
  • Lichtenberg, Georg Christoph
    With most men, unbelief in one thing springs from blind belief in another.
  • Lincoln, Abraham
    Better to remain silent and be thought a fool then to speak out and remove all doubt.
  • Lincoln, Abraham
    To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.
  • Locke, John
    I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.
  • Mead, Margaret
    Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
  • Mencken, H.L.
    For every problem, there is one solution which is simple, neat and wrong.
  • Neill, Thomas
    Of those who say nothing, few are silent.
  • Nietzsche
    What does not destroy me, makes me stronger.
  • Oppenheimer, Robert
    The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true.
  • Orwell, George
    Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
  • Orwell, George
    During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
  • Peter, Laurence J.
    The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn.
  • Plato
    Necessity is the mother of invention.
  • Rand, Ayn
    That which you call your soul or spirit is your consciousness, and that which you call 'free will' is your mind's freedom to think or not, the only will you have, your only freedom, the choice that controls all the choices you make and determines your life and your character.
  • Roosevelt, Franklin Delano
    Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
  • Roosevelt, Theodore
    Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.
  • Shakespeare, William
    What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
  • Shedd, John A.
    A ship in harbor is safe--- but that is not what ships are for.
  • Sheppard, Arnot L. Jr.
    Isn't it surprising how many things, if not said immediately, seem not worth saying ten minutes from now?
  • Socrates
    If all our misfortuens were laid in one common heap, whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be content to take their own and depart.
  • Twain, Mark
    Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
  • Twain, Mark
    We are discreet sheep; we wait to see how the drove is going, and then go with the drove.
  • Twain, Mark
    Nothing that grieves us can be called little; by the eternal laws of proportion a child's loss of a doll and a king's loss of a crown are events of the same size.
  • von Bismarck, Otto
    When a man says he approves of something in principle, it means he hasn't the slightest intention of carrying it out in practice.
  • Wilde, Oscar
    A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
  • Wilson, Woodrow
    If you want to make enemies, try to change something.

Politics

  • Bonaparte, Napoleon
    In politics stupidity is not a handicap.
  • Cameron, Simon
    An honest politician is one who when he is bought will stay bought.
  • Churchill, Sir Winston
    I gather, young man, that you wish to be a Member of Parliament. The first lesson that you must learn is, when I call for statistics about the rate of infant mortality, what I want is proof that fewer babies died when I was Prime Minister than when anyone else was Prime Minister. That is a political statistic
  • Churchill, Sir Winston
    There is at least one thing worse than fighting with allies -- and that is to fight without them.
  • de Gaulle, Charles
    In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant.
  • Einstein, Albert
    It is the duty of every citizen according to his best capacities to give validity to his convictions in political affairs.
  • France, Anatole
    The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.
  • Galbraith, John K.
    Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.
  • Göring, Hermann
    The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.
  • Jefferson, Thomas
    I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.
  • Johnson, Lyndon B.
    If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: PRESIDENT CAN'T SWIM.
  • Johnson, Lyndon B.
    It is the common failing of totalitarian regimes that they cannot really understand the nature of our democracy. They mistake dissent for disloyalty. They mistake restlessness for a rejection of policy. They mistake a few committees for a country. They misjudge individual speeches for public policy.
  • Johnson, Lyndon B.
    A man without a vote is man without protection.
  • Kennedy, John F.
    So let us begin anew -- remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.
  • Kennedy, John F.
    Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be president, but they don't want them to become politicians in the process.
  • Kennedy, John F.
    When things don't go well they like to blame Presidents; and that's something that Presidents are paid for.
  • Lincoln, Abraham
    With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it, nothing can succeed. Consequently he who molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions.
  • Lincoln, Abraham
    As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.
  • Mencken, H.L.
    The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
  • Mill, John Stuart
    I did not say that conservatives tend to be stupid people. I said that stupid people tend to be conservative.
  • Plato
    One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
  • Reagan, Ronald
    Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book.
  • Reagan, Ronald
    Politics I supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.
  • Roosevelt, Franklin Delano
    A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward.
  • Roosevelt, Theodore
    To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.
  • Tavares, C.D.
    Since when is public safety the root password to the Constitution?
  • von Clausewitz, Carl
    War is not an independent phenomenon, but the continuation of politics by different means.
  • Wilson, Woodrow
    A conservative is a man who sits and thinks, mostly sits.
  • Wilson, Woodrow
    Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the U. S., in the field of commerce and manufacturing, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.

Power

  • Douglass, Frederick
    Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.
  • Frederick the Great
    I begin by taking. I shall find scholars later to demonstrate my perfect right.
  • Lewis, C.S.
    Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences.

Privacy

  • Brandeis, Justice Louis D.
    The makers of our constitution undertook to secure conditions favorable to the pursuit of happiness... They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the government, the right to be let alone - the most comprehensive of the rights and the right most valued by civilized men.
  • Douglas, Justice William O.
    The privacy and dignity of our citizens [are] being whittled away by sometimes imperceptible steps. Taken individually, each step may be of little consequence. But when viewed as a whole, there begins to emerge a society quite unlike any we have seen -- a society in which government may intrude into the secret regions of a [person's] life.
  • Johnson, Lyndon B.
    Every man should know that his conversations, his correspondence, and his personal life are private.
  • Scalia, Justice Antonin
    There is nothing new in the realization that the Constitution sometimes insulates the criminality of a few in order to protect the privacy of us all.

Proverbs

  • African Proverb
    Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors.
  • Chinese Proverb
    He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.
  • Chinese Proverb
    The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names.

Right & Wrong

  • Aristotle
    All persons ought to endeavor to follow what is right, and not what is established.
  • Bryan, William Jennings
    The humblest citizen in all the land, when clad in the armor of a righteous cause, is stronger than all the hosts of error.
  • Confucius
    To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice.
  • Lincoln, Abraham
    Stand with anybody that stands RIGHT. Stand with him while he is right and PART with him when he goes wrong.
  • Lincoln, Abraham
    If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what's said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.
  • Schwarzkopf, General H. Norman
    The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it.
  • Shakespeare, William
    The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.
  • Twain, Mark
    Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.
  • Twain, Mark
    Always do right- this will gratify some and astonish the rest.
  • Voltaire
    It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.

Right to Bear Arms

  • Henry, Patrick
    Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense?
  • Jefferson, Thomas
    A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercise, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise, and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walk.
  • Jefferson, Thomas
    The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Science & Technology

  • Asimov, Isaac
    The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I've found it!), but "That's funny...".
  • Clarke, Arthur C.
    When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
  • Gluckman, Max
    A science is any discipline in which the fool of this generation can go beyond the point reached by the genius of the last generation.
  • Hazlitt, William
    The origin of all science is the desire to know causes, and the origin of all false science and imposture is the desire to accept false causes rather than none; or, which is the same thing, in the unwillingness to acknowledge our own ignorance.
  • jfieber@indiana.edu
    But not in the World According to Microsoft where users are idiots and Wizards claim a monopoly on common sense. I want smart software, but if I can't have that, I want dumb software that knows it is dumb and comes to me for help, not dumb software that thinks it is smart and tells me lies it believes to be true.
  • Lederman, Leon
    Physics isn't a religion. If it were, we'd have a much easier time raising money.
  • Sagan, Carl
    In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time someting like that happened in politics or religion.
  • Snow, Carrie P.
    Science is the refusal to believe on the basis of hope.
  • Unknown
    We have not answered every question you have. Each answer led to more questions. But perhaps now we are confused at a more sophisticated level, and about more important things.

Slashdot

  • Triv
    He lets the righteous in, He kicks the heathens out, He lets the righteous in, and he plops 'em on a cloud We do the hokey-pokey to prove we're all devout, That's what God's all about.

Success

  • Bonaparte, Napoleon
    Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.
  • Bryan, William Jennings
    Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.
  • Churchill, Sir Winston
    Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
  • Cosby, Bill
    I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.
  • de Gaulle, Charles
    Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be so.
  • Edison, Thomas Alva
    I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
  • Einstein, Albert
    Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value.
  • Einstein, Albert
    If A equals success, then the formula is: A = X + Y + Z, X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut.
  • Fromm, Erich
    The successful revolutionary is a statesman, the unsuccessful one a criminal.
  • Kennedy, Robert F.
    Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.
  • Lincoln, Abraham
    My great concern is not whether you have failed, but whether you are content with your failure.
  • Lincoln, Abraham
    Good things come to those who wait, but only the things left over by those who hustle.
  • Morley, Christopher Darlington
    There is only one success: to be able to spend your life in your own way, and not to give others absurd maddening claims upon it.
  • Paterno, Joe
    Success without honor is an unseasoned dish; it will satisfy your hunger, but it won't taste good.
  • Perlis, Allan
    Dealing with failure is easy: Work hard to improve. Success is also easy to handle: You've solved the wrong problem. Work hard to improve.
  • Roosevelt, Theodore
    It's not the critic who counts or how the strong man stumbled and fell or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat, and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again, who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, and spends himself in a worthy cause; and if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly; so that he'll never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.
  • Sophocles
    Success is dependent on effort.
  • Truman, Harry S.
    It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.
  • Twain, Mark
    It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.

Taxes

  • Lamm, Richard
    Christmas is the time when kids tell Santa what they want and adults pay for it. Deficits are when adults tell government what they want and their kids pay for it.
  • Marshall, Chief Justice John
    The power to tax involves the power to destroy;...the power to destroy may defeat and render useless the power to create....

Terrorism

  • Blair, Tony
    There is no meeting of minds, no point of understanding with such terror. Just a choice: Defeat it or be defeated by it. And defeat it we must.
  • Blair, Tony
    This is not a battle between the United States of America and terrorism, but between the free and democratic world and terrorism.
  • Blair, Tony
    We, therefore, here in Britain stand shoulder to shoulder with our American friends in this hour of tragedy, and we, like them, will not rest until this evil is driven from our world.

The Future & Change

  • Johnson, Lyndon B.
    Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or to lose.
  • Kennedy, John F.
    All this will not be finished in the first 100 days. Nor will it be finished in the first 1,000 days, nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin.
  • Locke, John
    New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.
  • Richardson, John M.
    When it comes to the future, there are three kinds of people: those who let it happen, those who make it happen, and those who wonder what happened.
  • Twain, Mark
    Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.

Time

  • Brown, H. Jackson
    Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.
  • Buxton, Charles
    You will never find time for anything. If you want time you must make it.
  • Gorbachev, Mikhail
    Life punishes those who come too late.

Truth

  • Adler, Alfred
    A lie would have no sense unless the truth were felt dangerous.
  • Aristotle
    The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.
  • Churchill, Sir Winston
    Truth is incontrovertible, ignorance can deride it, panic may resent it, malice may destroy it, but there it is.
  • Churchill, Sir Winston
    A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.
  • Churchill, Sir Winston
    Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.
  • Disraeli, Benjamin
    There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics
  • Franklin, Benjamin
    Half a truth is often a great lie.
  • Galbraith, John Kenneth
    In any great organization it is far, far safer to be wrong with the majority than to be right alone.
  • Henry, Patrick
    It is natural to man to indulge in the illusion of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of the siren, till she transforms us into beasts.
  • Henry, Patrick
    For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst and provide for it.
  • Lincoln, Abraham
    You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.
  • Socrates
    False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.
  • Twain, Mark
    First get your facts; then you can distort them at your leisure.
  • West, Jassamyn
    We want the facts to fit the preconceptions. When they don't, it is easier to ignore the facts than to change the preconceptions.
  • Wilde, Oscar
    The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.

Virtue

  • Adams, John Quincy
    Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.
  • Churchill, Sir Winston
    Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm.
  • Churchill, Sir Winston
    Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees all others.
  • Franklin, Benjamin
    Honour, worthily obtained, is in its nature a personal thing, and incommunicable to any but those who had some share in obtaining it.
  • Gibran, Kahlil
    I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.
  • Hubbard, Elbert
    An ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness.
  • Socrates
    The nearest way to glory is to strive to be what you wish to be thought to be.
  • Taylor, Elizabeth
    The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues.
  • Thucydides
    The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding go out to meet it.
  • Wells, H.G.
    Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.

Wall Street Protests

  • Bloomberg, Michael
    You have a lot of kids graduating college, can't find jobs. That's what happened in Cairo. That's what happened in Madrid. You don't want those kinds of riots here.
  • Graeber, David
    Debts between the very wealthy or between governments can always be renegotiated and always have been through world history... It's when you have debts owed by the poor to the rich that suddenly debts become a sacred obligation, more important than anything else. The idea of renegotiating them becomes unthinkable.
  • Unknown
    We are the 99 percent that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1 percent.

War

  • Churchill, Sir Winston
    Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.
  • Churchill, Sir Winston
    We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on beaches, landing grounds, in fields, in streets and on the hills. We shall never surrender and even if, which I do not for the moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, will carry on the struggle until in God's good time the New World with all its power and might, sets forth to the liberation and rescue of the Old.
  • Churchill, Sir Winston
    We have before us an ordeal of the most grevous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival.
  • Churchill, Sir Winston
    Side by side... the British and French peoples have advanced to rescue...mankind from the foulest and most soul-destroying tyranny which has ever darkened and stained the pages of history. Behind them...gather a group of shattered States and bludgeoned races: the Czechs, the Poles, the Norwegians, the Danes, the Dutch, the Belgians -- upon all of whom the long night of barbarism will descend, unbroken even by a star of hope, unless we conquer, as conquer we must; as conquer we shall.
  • Cicero
    In time of war the law falls silent.
  • Edison, Thoms A.
    There will one day spring from the brain of science a machine of force so fearful in its potentialities, so absolutely terrifying, that even man, the fighter, who will dare torture and death in order to inflict torture and death, will be appalled, and so abandon war forever.
  • Ermey, R. Lee
    It was kind of a culinary "up yours."
  • Hugo, Victor
    In the Twentieth Century war will be dead, the scaffold will be dead, frontier boundaries will be dead, dogmas will be dead; man will live. He will possess something higher than all these -- a great country, the whole earth, and a great hope, the whole heaven.
  • Kennedy, John F.
    Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.
  • Lincoln, Abraham
    Dear Madam, I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts, that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours, to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom. Yours very sincerely and respectfully, A. Lincoln
  • MacArthur, General Douglas
    In war there is no substitute for victory.
  • MacArthur, General Douglas
    We are not retreating - we are advancing in another Direction.
  • Patton, General George S.
    The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
  • Plato
    A tyrant...is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.
  • Plato
    Only the dead have seen the end of war.

West Wing

  • President Bartlet
    Did you know that 2,000 years ago, a Roman citizen could walk across the face of the known world, free of the fear of molestation? He could walk across the Earth unharmed, cloaked only in the protection of the words "Civis Romanus" -- "I am a Roman citizen." So great was the retribution of Rome, universally understood as certain, should any harm befall even one of its citizens.
  • President Bartlet
    Let the word ring forth from this time and this place, gentleman: You kill an American, any American, we don't come back with a proportional response. We come back with total disaster.
  • President Bartlet
    I'm going to blow them off the face of the Earth with the fury of God's own thunder.
  • Rabbi Glausman
    You know what [the Torah] also says? It says a rebellious child can be brought to the city gates and stoned to death. It says homosexuality is an abomination and punishable by death. It says men can be polygamists and slavery is acceptable. For all I know, that thinking reflected the best wisdom of it's time--but it is just plain wrong by any modern standard. Society has a right to protect itself, but it doesn't have a right to be vengeful. It has a right to punish, but it doesn't have a right to kill.
  • Toby Zeigler
    I don't know where you get the idea that taxpayers shouldn't have to pay for anything of which they disapprove. Lots of them don't like tanks. Even more don't like Congress.

Wisdom

  • Coleridge, Samuel
    Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.
  • Descartes, Rene
    It is only prudent never to place complete confidence in that by which we have even once been deceived.
  • Euripides
    Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.
  • Jefferson, Thomas
    Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.
  • King, Dr. Martin Luther
    Rarely do we find men who willingly to engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.
  • Mahfouz, Naguib
    You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.
  • Plato
    Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.
  • Russell, Bertrand
    Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.
  • Wilde, Oscar
    The public is wonderfully tolerant. It forgives everything except genius.

Work

  • Edison, Thomas Alva
    There is no substitute for hard work.
  • Jefferson, Thomas
    I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.
  • Osler, Sir William
    The best preparation tor tomorrow is to do today's work superbly well.
  • Ruskin, John
    When men are rightly occupied, their amusement grows out of their work, as the color petals out of a fruitful flower.