You cannot achieve the impossible without attempting the absurd. % Assumption is the mother of all screw-ups. % Thinking you know something is a sure way to blind yourself. % Neckties strangle clear thinking. % The first principle is that you must not fool yourself -- and you are the easiest person to fool. -- Richard Feynman % The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark. -- Michelangelo % I would rather have a mind opened by wonder than one closed by belief. -- Gerry Spence % What you are is what you have been. What you'll be is what you do now. -- Buddha % What we see is mainly what we look for. % A friend is someone who understands your past, believes in your future, and accepts you just the way you are. % Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. -- Plato % Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are. -- Marianne Williamson % Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. -- Gandhi % When you doubt your power, you give power to your doubt. -- Honore de Balzac % We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope. -- Martin Luther King Jr. % You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection. -- Buddha % We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly. -- Sam Keen % Fear makes strangers of those who would be friends. -- Shirley MacLaine % Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere. -- Albert Einstein % The excitement of learning separates youth from old age. As long as you're learning, you're not old. -- Rosalyn S.Yalow % Silence is a source of great strength. -- Lao Tzu % He who deliberates fully before taking a step will spend his entire life on one leg. -- Chinese Proverb % There is not one big cosmic meaning for all, there is only the meaning we each give to our life. -- Anais Nin % We cannot see our reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can. -- Taoist proverb % Don't walk in front of me; I may not follow. Don't walk behind me; I may not lead. Just walk beside me and be my friend. -- Albert Camus % Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you. -- Jean-Paul Sartre % One who asks a question is a fool for a minute; one who does not remains a fool forever. -- Chinese proverb % Problems are the price of progress. -- Charles F. Kettering % Being happy doesn't mean that everything is perfect. It means you've decided to look beyond the imperfections. % Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will. -- Mahatma Gandhi % If you have made mistakes, there is always another chance. You may have a fresh start any moment you choose. -- Mary Pickford % You know that person you can call at 3 AM when the worst news comes? Thank them NOW for being that person for you. Don't wait for disaster! % To the world you may be just one person, but to one person, you may be the world. -- Brandi Snyder % Impossibilities are merely things which we have not yet learned. -- Charles W. Chestnutt % You can only grow if you're willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new. -- Brian Tracy % Nothing in the cry of cicadas suggests they are about to die. -- Bassho % Above all, be true to yourself, and if you cannot put your heart in it, take yourself out of it. % Strangers are friends you have yet to meet. % Confidence is preparation. Everything else is beyond your control. -- Richard Kline % Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions. -- Dalai Lama % Doing your best means never stop trying. % Integrity is telling myself the truth. And honesty is telling the truth to other people. -- Spencer Johnson % Good judgement comes with experience. Unfortunately, the experience usually comes from bad judgement. % Well done is better than well said. -- Benjamin Franklin % Meet the first beginnings. Look to the budding mischief before it has time to ripen to maturity. -- Shakespeare % As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world, that is the myth of the atomic age -- as in being able to remake ourselves. -- Gandhi % Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy. -- Thich Nhat Hanh % Never look down on anybody unless you're helping him up. -- Jesse Jackson % The poor man is not he who is without a cent, but he who is without a dream. -- Harry Kemp % We are limited, not by our abilities, but by our vision. % The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. -- Gandhi % Don't wait for people to be friendly. Show them how. % 1. If the game is rigged so you can't win, find another game or invent your own. 2. If you're not winning because you don't know the rules, learn the rules. 3. If you know the rules but aren't willing to follow them, there's either something wrong with the game or you need to change something in yourself. 4. Don't play the game in a half-baked way. Either get all the way in or all the way out. 5. It shouldn't be necessary for others to lose in order for you to win. If others have to lose, re-evaluate the game's goals. (Breszny, 2005, pg. 84) % We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing. -- George Bernard Shaw % When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you. -- African Proverb % If we look at the world with a love of life, the world will reveal its beauty to us. -- Daisaku Ikeda % Enthusiasm is the greatest asset in the world. It beats money, power, and influence. -- Henry Chester % The best place to find a helping hand is at the end of your own arm. -- Swedish Proverb % To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did. % Ideas can be life-changing. Sometimes all you need to open the door is just one more good idea. -- Jim Rohn % Pleasure can be supported by an illusion; but happiness rests upon truth. -- Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort % Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it. -- Buddha % If you don't like something change it; if you can't change it, change the way you think about it. -- Mary Engelbreit % Because of your smile, you make life more beautiful. -- Thich Nhat Hanh % Put your future in good hands -- your own. % The past has no power to stop you from being present now. Only your grievance about the past can do that. -- Eckhart Tolle % Every day brings a choice: to practice stress or to practice peace. -- Joan Borysenko % Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand. -- Albert Einstein % Give whatever you are doing and whoever you are with the gift of your attention. -- Jim Rohn % When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering. -- Miguel Ruiz % Tip: When deciding on defense or education spending ask yourself how many terrorist do you see in a day compared to how many fucking idiots -- https://twitter.com/#!/GodlessAtheist % Until you make peace with who you are, you will never be content with what you have. -- Doris Mortman % The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift. -- Albert Einstein % The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it. -- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950) % Knowledge and ego are directly related. The less knowledge, the greater the ego. -- Albert Einstein % Begin, be bold, and venture to be wise. -- Horace % If you are never scared, embarrassed, or hurt, it means you never take chances. -- Julia Soul % Patience is passion tamed. -- Lyman Abbott % The two most powerful warriors are patience and time. -- Leo Tolstoy % An honest answer is the sign of true friendship. % Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something. -- Henry David Thoreau % 1. We are born and we die. No one cares, no one remembers, and it doesn't matter. This is why we laugh. 2. Our pack, our children, our territory, the hunt, the kill, the battle. Health, full stomach, sharp weapons, your packmates next to you under the stars, seeing your child kill her first prey. These are important. 3. Anything else is needless complication, no matter how much fun it is. 4. If you can't eat it, wear it, wield it, or carry it, leave it behind. 5. Plan before hunting, discuss after hunting, hunt while hunting. 6. Lead, follow, or hunt alone. Success-first meat of kill, greater trust. Failure-less trust. Disaster-survivors eat you. 7. Expect trust outside the pack to be betrayed. 8. Two are much stronger than one. Three are much stronger than two. Ten are barely stronger than nine. Fifty are much stronger than ten, but barely stronger than forty. 9. An archer, a swordsman, and a scout are stronger than three swordsmen. 10. Stay alive. Hopeless battles are hopeless. Dead is dead. 11. Stay alive. Once you decide to kill, use all your skill, strength, and deception. Nobly dead is dead. 12. Die biting the throat. % All of them, those in power, and those who want the power, would pamper us, if we agreed to overlook their crookedness by wilfully restricting our activities. -- Refus Global % When you live on a round planet, there's no choosing sides. -- Wayne Dyer % What other people think of me is none of my business. -- Wayne Dyer % Enjoy when you can, and endure when you must. -- Goethe % If it's not fun, you're not doing it right. -- Bob Basso % The things you own end up owning you. -- Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club % It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything. -- Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club % "You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis. You're the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world." -- Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club % Reject the basic assumptions of civilization, especially the importance of material possessions. -- Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club % "Fuck off with your sofa units and string green stripe patterns, I say never be complete, I say stop being perfect, I say let...lets evolve, let the chips fall where they may." -- Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club % The liberator who destroyed my property has realigned my perceptions. -- Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club % "Do you know what a duvet is?...It's a blanket. Just a blanket. Now why do guys like you and me know what a duvet is? Is this essential to our survival, in the hunter-gatherer sense of the word? No. What are we then?...We are consumers. We're the byproducts of a lifestyle obsession." -- Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club % "We're consumers. We are byproducts of a lifestyle obsession. Murder, crime, poverty, these things don't concern me. What concerns me are celebrity magazines, television with 500 channels, some guy's name on my underwear. Rogaine, Viagra, Olestra...Fuck Martha Stewart. Martha's polishing the brass on the Titanic. It's all going down, man. So fuck off with your sofa units and Strinne green stripe patterns." -- Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club % Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war...our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off. -- Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club % What do you want? Wanna go back to the shit job, fucking condo world, watching sitcoms? Fuck you, I won't do it. -- Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club % We are all part of the same compost heap. (talking about consumerism) -- Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club % How embarrassing...a house full of condiments and no food. (a synecdoche for modern consumer driven life) -- Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club % Is that what a real man is supposed to look like? (narrator, while looking at a Calvin Klein-esque ad on the bus) -- Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club % Fuck what you know. You need to forget about what you know, that's your problem. Forget about what you think you know about life, about friendship, and especially about you and me. -- Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club % "Hitting bottom isn't a weekend retreat. It's not a goddamn seminar. Stop trying to control everything and just let go! LET GO!" -- Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club % Without pain, without sacrifice, we would have nothing. -- Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club % Only after disaster can we be resurrected. -- Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club % Guys, what would you wish you'd done before you died? -- Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club % Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of Raymond K. Hessel's life. His breakfast will taste better than any meal you and I have ever tasted. (after Raymond Hessel faces death but lives) -- Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club % Hey, you created me...take some responsibility! (talking to himself about himself) -- Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club % And the eighth and final rule: if this is your first time at Fight Club, you have to fight. (talking about Fight Club) -- Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club % God Damn! We just had a near-life experience, fellas. (suggesting that most experiences are, by nature, dead) -- Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club % Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken. -- Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club % Time to stand up for what you believe in. -- Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club % "If you are reading this then this warning is for you. Every word you read of this useless fine print is another second off your life. Don't you have other things to do? Is your life so empty that you honestly can't think of a better way to spend these moments? Or are you so impressed with authority that you give respect and credence to all that claim it? Do you read everything you're supposed to read? Do you think every thing you're supposed to think? Buy what you're told to want? Get out of your apartment. Meet a member of the opposite sex. Stop the excessive shopping and masturbation. Quit your job. Start a fight. Prove you're alive. If you don't claim your humanity you will become a statistic. You have been warned." -- Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club % This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time. -- Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club % The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure but from hope to hope. -- Samuel Johnson % Perfection is finally attained not when there is no longer anything to add but when there is no longer anything to take away, when a body has been stripped down to its nakedness. -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery % To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them. -- Charles de Montesquieu % Have respect for yourself, and patience and compassion. With these, you can handle anything. -- Jack Kornfield % If you worry about what might be, and wonder what might have been, you will ignore what is. % The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the grandest intention. -- Oscar Wilde % Let yourself be open and life will be easier. -- Buddha % As for the future, your task is not to foresee it but to enable it. -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry % One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar. -- Helen Keller % Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. -- Albert Schweitzer % Everything we know is only some kind of approximation. -- Richard Feynman % Stay committed in your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach. -- Tom Robbins % I don't know what's the matter with people: they don't learn by understanding, they learn by some other way -- by rote or something. Their knowledge is so fragile! -- Richard Feynman % Some people say, 'How can you live without knowing?' I do not know what they mean. I always live without knowing. That is easy. How you get to know is what I want to know. -- Richard Feynman % It is not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are. % Instead of complaining that the rose bush is full of thorns, be happy the thorn bush has roses. % When you're curious, you find lots of interesting things to do. -- Walt Disney % Don't think you're on the right road just because it's a well-beaten path. % Be formless, shapeless -- like water. -- Bruce Lee % An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field. -- Niels Bohr % There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way. -- Thich Nhat Hanh % Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security. -- John Allen Paulos % The whole life of a man is but a point in time; let us enjoy it. -- Plutarch % What you do today is important, because you are exchanging a day of your life for it. % The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react. -- George Bernard Shaw % Turn your face toward the sun and the shadows will fall behind you. -- Maori Proverb % When you believe something can be done, really believe, your mind will find ways to do it. -- Dr. David Schwartz % It's not who you are that holds you back; it's who you think you're not. % Our way to practice is one step at a time, one breath at a time. -- Shunryu Suzuki % Judgments prevent us from seeing the good that lies beyond appearances. -- Wayne Dyer % A wise man makes his own decisions; an ignorant man follows public opinion. -- Chinese Proverb % "Everyone who has ever built anywhere a "new heaven" first found the power thereto in his own hell" -- Nietzsche % Don't let today's disappointments cast a shadow on tomorrow's dreams. % Would you rather be right or free? -- Byron Katie % Faith as an imperative is a veto against science -- in praxi, it means lies at any price. -- Nietzsche % History is endured only by strong personalities -- the weak ones are extinguished by it. -- Nietzsche % Mistakes are a great educator when one is honest enough to admit them and willing to learn from them. % Does it just look nice or is it correct? -- zynamics developer about a control flow graph % "Nine out of the ten voices in my head say I'm not schizophrenic. The other one hums the melody of Tetris." % Serenity comes when you trade expectations for acceptance. % Only in growth, reform, and change, paradoxically enough, is true security to be found. -- Anne Morrow Lindbergh % The person who lives life fully, glowing with life's energy, is the person who lives a successful life. -- Daisaku Ikeda % There is only one big risk you should avoid at all costs, and that is the risk of doing nothing. -- Denis Waitley % The human spirit is stronger than anything that can happen to it. -- C.C. Scott % Happiness depends upon ourselves. -- Aristotle % Commitment in the face of conflict produces character. % Fear is a natural reaction to moving closer to the truth. -- Pema Chodron % Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today. -- Benjamin Franklin % By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail. -- Benjamin Franklin % When you're finished changing, you're finished. -- Benjamin Franklin % All mankind is divided into three classes: those that are immovable, those that are movable, and those that move. -- Benjamin Franklin % Never confuse motion with action. -- Benjamin Franklin % Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out. -- Benjamin Franklin % To succeed, jump as quickly at opportunities as you do at conclusions. -- Benjamin Franklin % Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man. -- Benjamin Franklin % Diligence is the mother of good luck. -- Benjamin Franklin % There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one's self. -- Benjamin Franklin % Who had deceived thee so often as thyself? -- Benjamin Franklin % Energy and persistence conquer all things. -- Benjamin Franklin % Life's tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late. -- Benjamin Franklin % If you don't underestimate me, I won't underestimate you. -- Bob Dylan % Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. -- Eckhart Tolle % Each time we face our fear, we gain strength, courage, and confidence in the doing. % What we must decide is how we are valuable rather than how valuable we are. -- Edgar Z. Friedenberg % Being right is highly overrated. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. % Make your life a mission, not an intermission. -- Arnold H. Glasgow % Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists. -- Eckhart Tolle % 'I have done my best.' That is about all the philosophy of living one needs. -- Lin Yutang % Happiness is simple. Everything we do to find it is complicated. -- Karen Maezen Miller % In seeking happiness for others, you find it for yourself. % The journey is the reward. -- Chinese Proverb % May your home always be too small to hold all your friends. -- Irish Blessing % Be yourself; everyone else is already taken. -- Oscar Wilde % Before someone's tomorrow has been taken away, cherish those you love, appreciate them today. -- Michelle C. Ustaszeski % Look at everything as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time -- Betty Smith % When you stop trying to change others and work on changing yourself, your world changes for the better. % You are very powerful, provided you know how powerful you are. -- Yogi Bhajan % If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich. -- Lao Tzu % Breakdowns can create breakthroughs. Things fall apart so things can fall together. % The best things in life are unexpected, because there were no expectations. -- Eli Khamarov % The secret of happiness is freedom. The secret of freedom is courage. -- Thucydides % Every day may not be good, but there's something good in every day. % Until you stop breathing, there's more right with you than wrong with you. -- Jon Kabat-Zinn % Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are. -- Chinese Proverb % Don't use a lot where a little will do. % Go on, prove me wrong. Destroy the fabric of the universe. See if I care. -- Terry Prachett % The only pressure I'm under is the pressure I've put on myself. -- Mark Messier % No matter how hard the past, you can always begin again. -- Buddha % We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading. -- B. F. Skinner % The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you. -- B. B. King % Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. -- Seneca % Those who wish to sing, always find a song. -- Swedish Proverb % Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. -- Mark Twain % The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire. -- Ferdinand Foch % Consider the postage stamp: its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there. -- Martin Luther King, Jr. % Enthusiasm is the mother of effort, and without it nothing great was ever achieved. -- Ralph Waldo Emmerson % There are no traffic jams along the extra mile. -- Roger Staubach % The difference between try and triumph is a little umph. -- Anonymous % Water continually dropping will wear hard rocks hollow. -- Jim Rohn % Men exist for the sake of one another. Teach them then or bear with them. -- Mary Ann Evans % It takes two wings to fly. -- Marcus Aurelius Antoninus % It is in the shelter of each other that the people live. -- Eric Schaub % We're here for a reason. I believe a bit of the reason is to throw little torches out to lead people through the dark. -- Irish Proverb % For happiness is anyone and anything at all that's loved by you. -- Charlie Brown % Who, being loved, is poor? -- Oscar Wilde % Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place. -- Zora Neale Hurst % The last of the human freedoms is to choose one's attitudes. -- Peter F. Drucker % I will offer a choice, not an echo. -- Barry M. Goldwater % Look at what you've got and make the best of it. It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. % Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience. -- Ralph Waldo Emmerson % The greatest power is often simple patience. -- E. Joseph Cossman % Perhaps the most important thing we can undertake toward the reduction of fear is to make it easier for people to accept themselves, to like themselves. -- Bonaro W. Overstreet % Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility. -- Booker T. Washington % Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard. -- Dietrich Bonhoeffer % Man is so made that when anything fires his soul, impossibilities vanish. -- Anne Sexton % The heart may be broken, and the soul remain unshaken. -- Jean de La Fontaine % There are souls in this world which have the gift of finding joy everywhere and of leaving it behind them when they go. -- Fredrick Faber % Just go out there and do what you've got to do. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt % Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. % Wisdom is knowing what to do next; virtue is doing it. -- David Star Jordan % In great matters men show themselves as they wish to be seen; in small matters, as they are. -- Gamaliel Bradford % No amount of ability is of the slightest avail without honor. -- Henry Ward Beecher % Better keep yourself clean and bright. You are the window through which you must see the world. -- Andrew Carnegie % We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations. -- Charles Swindoll % Live with intention. Walk to the edge. Listen hard. Practice wellness. Play with abandon. Laugh. Choose with no regret. Appreciate your friends. Continue to learn. Do what you love. Live as if this is all there is. -- Mary Anne Radmacher % Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others. -- Plato % Nothing is so strong as gentleness. Nothing is so gentle as real strength. -- J.R.R. Tolkien % The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection. -- Saint Francis de Sales % Once you choose hope, anything's possible. -- Carlos Casteneda % Were it not for hope the heart would break. -- Scottish Proverb % Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up. -- Anne Lamott % No winter lasts forever; no spring skips it's turn. -- Hal Borland % Open your heart -- open it wide; someone is standing outside. -- Mary Engelbreit % Strive to be first: first to nod, first to smile, first to compliment, and first to forgive. -- Anonymous % Work is either fun or drudgery. It depends on your attitude. I like fun. -- Thomas Jefferson % All the so-called "secrets of success" will not work unless you do. -- Colleen C. Barrett % Occasionally in life there are those moments of unutterable fulfillment which cannot be completely explained by those symbols called words. Their meanings can only be articulated by the inaudible language of the heart. % We are all in the same boat in a stormy sea, and we owe each other a terrible loyalty. -- Don Marquis % The best things in life are never rationed. Friendship, loyalty, love, do not require coupons. -- Louisa May Alcott % It is better to be faithful than famous. -- Theodore Roosevelt % The test of courage comes when we are in the minority. The test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority. -- Ralph W. Sockman % To sit patiently with a yearning that has not yet been fulfilled, and to trust that, that fulfillment will come, is quite possibly one of the most powerful "magic skills" that human beings are capable of. It has been noted by almost every ancient wisdom tradition. -- Elizabeth Gilbert % Life has meaning only if one barters it day by day for something other than itself. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % No one is more cherished in this world than someone who lightens the burden of another. % I can live for two months on a good compliment. -- Mark Twain % It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue. -- John Adams % When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it's bottomless, that it doesn't have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast, and limitless. You begin to discover how much warmth and gentleness is there, as well as how much space. -- Pema Chodron % No one's head aches when he is comforting another. -- Indian Proverb % The value of compassion cannot be over-emphasized. Anyone can criticize. It takes a true believer to be compassionate. No greater burden can be borne by an individual than to know no one cares or understands. -- Arthur H. Stainback % Compassion is sometimes the fatal capacity for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else's skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too. -- Frederick Buechner % Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do. -- Pope John XXIII % Life is full of beauty. Notice it. Notice the bumble bee, the small child, and the smiling faces. Smell the rain, and feel the wind. Live your life to the fullest potential, and fight for your dreams. -- Ashley Smith % Appreciation...acknowledges the presence of good wherever you shine the light of your thankful thoughts. -- Alan Cohen % The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others. -- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi % The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them. -- Ralph Nichols % Be a good listener. Your ears will never get you in trouble. -- Frank Tyger % To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe. -- Anatole France % Dreams come in a size too big so that we may grow into them. -- Josie Bisset % And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. -- Anaïs Nin % If one dream should fall and break into a thousand pieces, never be afraid to pick one of those pieces up and begin again. -- Flavia Weedn % Gracefulness has been defined to be the outward expression of the inward harmony of the soul. -- William Hazlitt % Within sorrow is grace. When we come close to those things that break us down, we touch those things that also break us open. And in that breaking open, we uncover our true nature. -- Wayne Muller % When you have a sense of your own identity and a vision of where you want to go in your life, you then have the basis for reaching out to the world and going after your dreams for a better life. -- Stedman Graham % What ever beauty may be, it has for its basis order, and for its essence unity. -- Father Andre % A mind is a fire to be kindled, not a vessel to be filled. -- Plutarch % To be good is noble, but to teach others how to be good is nobler--and less trouble. -- Mark Twain % Take control of your destiny. Believe in yourself. Ignore those who try to discourage you. Avoid negative sources, people, places, things and habits. Don't give up and don't give in. -- Wanda Hope Carter % When spider webs unite they can tie up a lion. -- Theodor Seuss Geisel % "The average person puts only 25% of his energy into his work. The world takes off its hat to those who put in more than 50% of their capacity, and stands on its head for those few and far between souls who devote 100%." -- African Proverb % Therefore hold to the things which are reliable. Look to simplicity; embrace purity; Lessen the self; diminish desire. -- Laozi % My belief is that personal freedom cannot grow beyond personal responsibility. The more people that learn to be fully accountable for their lives, the more freedom each of us can enjoy and the more fulfilling all of our lives will be. -- Ross Parmenter % The need for devotion to something outside ourselves is even more profound than the need for companionship. If we are not to go to pieces or wither away, we must have some purpose in life; for no man can live for himself alone. -- Ross Parmenter % Above all be of single aim; have a legitimate and useful purpose, and devote yourself unreservedly to it. -- James Allen % Whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do it well; whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself completely; in great aims and in small I have always thoroughly been in earnest. -- Charles Dickens % We learn more by looking for the answer to a question and not finding it than we do from learning the answer itself. -- Lloyd Alexander % Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand. -- Chinese Proverb % I am a part of all that I have met. -- Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson % Only a life lived for others is worth living. -- Albert Einstein % Only he can understand what a farm is, what a country is, who shall have sacrificed part of himself to his farm or country, fought to save it, struggled to make it beautiful. Only then will the love of farm or country fill his heart. -- Antoine de Sainte-Exupery % The wise man belongs to all countries, for the home of a great soul is the whole world. -- Democritus % Diversity is the one true thing we all have in common. Celebrate it every day. % As man draws nearer to the stars, why should he not also draw nearer to his neighbor? -- Lyndon B. Johnson % Infinitely more important than sharing one's material wealth is sharing the wealth of ourselves, our time and energy, our passion and commitment, and, above all, our love. -- William E. Simon % By sharing something, I realized that I'm not alone, that there are a lot of people that share with me the same preoccupations, the same ideas, the same ideals, and the same quest for a meaning for this life. -- Paulo Coelho % It's not enough to have lived. We should be determined to live for something. May I suggest that it be creating joy for others, sharing what we have for the betterment of personkind, bringing hope to the lost and love to the lonely. -- Dr. Leo Buscaglia % There is something more -- the spirit, or the soul. I think that that quality encourages our courtesy and care and our minds. And mercy, and identity. -- Maya Angelou % I place a high moral value on the way people behave. I find it repellent to have a lot, and to behave with anything other than courtesy in the old sense of the word -- politeness of the heart, a gentleness of the spirit. -- Dr. Thomas Fuller % Character is the total of thousands of small daily strivings to live up to the best that is in us. -- A. G. Trudeau % With courage you will dare to take risks, have the strength to be compassionate, and the wisdom to be humble. Courage is the foundation of integrity. -- Keshavan Nair % Courage is almost a contradiction in terms: it means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die. -- G. K. Chesterton % Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination, and dedication. Remember all things are possible for those who believe. -- Gail Devers % Life means to have something definite to do, a mission to fulfilled and in the measure in which we avoid setting our life to something, we make it empty. Human life, by its very nature, has to be dedicated to something. -- Jose Ortega y Gasset % Dedicate some of your life to others. Your dedication will not be a sacrifice. It will be an exhilarating experience because it is an intense effort applied toward a meaningful end. -- Dr. Thomas Dooley % Love yourself, accept yourself, forgive yourself, and be good to yourself, because without you the rest of us are without a source of many wonderful things. -- Dr. Leo Buscaglia % To love means loving the unlovable. To forgive means pardoning the unpardonable. Faith means believing the unbelievable. Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless. -- G. K. Chesterton % When work, commitment, and pleasure all become one and you reach that deep well where passion lives, nothing is impossible. -- Nancy Coey % When you get in a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn. -- Harriet Beecher Stowe % It was character that got us out of bed, commitment that moved us into action, and discipline that enabled us to follow through. -- Zig Ziglar % Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal. -- Pamela Vaull Starr % The road of life twists and turns and no two directions are ever the same. Yet our lessons come from the journey, not the destination. -- Don Williams Jr. % You are here for a purpose. There is no duplicate of you in the whole wide world. There never has been, there never will be. You were brought here now to fill a certain need. Take time to think that over. -- Lou Austin % Humility leads to strength and not to weakness. It is the highest form of self-respect to admit mistakes and to make amends for them. -- John J. McCloy % Sense shines with a double luster when it is set in humility. An able and yet humble man is a jewel worth a kingdom. -- William Penn % Dream your dream. Follow your heart. Imagine. Listen to the wind. Drink sunsets. Be free. Let the wonder never cease. Believe. Wish on EVERY star. Create adventure. Be Kind. -- Debbie Coulter % The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all men, charity. -- Benjamin Franklin % Respect is love in plain clothes. -- Frank Byrnes % Respect your fellow human being, treat them fairly, disagree with them honestly, enjoy their friendship, explore your thoughts about one another candidly, work together for a common goal and help one another achieve it. -- Bill Bradley % When your values are clear to you, making decisions becomes easier. -- Roy Disney % The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don't play together, the club won't be worth a dime. -- Babe Ruth % Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world. -- Harriet Tubman % The keys to patience are acceptance and faith. Accept things as they are, and look realistically at the world around you. Have faith in yourself and in the direction you have chosen. -- Ralph Marston % People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in their true beauty is revealed only if there is light from within. -- Elisabeth Kübler-Ross % Confidence, like art, never comes from having all the answers; it comes from being open to all the questions. -- Earl Gray Stevens % Confidence...thrives on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection and on unselfish performance. Without them it cannot live. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt % Laugh at yourself, but don't ever aim your doubt at yourself. Be bold. When you embark for strange places, don't leave any of yourself safely on shore. Have the nerve to go into unexplored territory. -- Alan Alda % Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love. -- Laozi % Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody else expects of you, never excuse yourself. -- Henry Ward Beecher % If you take responsibility for yourself you will develop a hunger to accomplish your dreams. -- Les Brown % You can turn painful situations around through laughter. If you can find humor in anything, even poverty, you can survive it. -- Bill Cosby % A kind heart is a fountain of gladness, making everything in its vicinity freshen into smiles. -- Washington Irving % Our character...is an omen of our destiny, and the more integrity we have and keep, the simpler and nobler that destiny is likely to be. -- George Santayana % Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right thing because it is right. These are the magic keys to living your life with integrity. -- W. Clement Stone % Integrity is not a conditional word. It doesn't blow in the wind or change with the weather. It is your inner image of yourself, and if you look in there and see a man who won't cheat, then you know he never will. -- John D. MacDonald % Parents, teach your children to express themselves. Teach them to be in touch with their emotions, to speak honestly to people, and to maintain integrity and stick by their principles in all they do. This is perhaps the highest morality you can instill. -- Jeffery Bryant % Don't wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great. Weak men wait for opportunities; strong men make them. -- Orison Swett Marden % There will always be a frontier where there is an open mind and a willing hand. -- Charles F. Kettering % A great attitude does much more than turn on the lights in our worlds; it seems to magically connect us to all sorts of serendipitous opportunities that were somehow absent before the change. -- Earl Nightingale % Live life fully while you're here. Experience everything. Take care of yourself and your friends. Have fun, be crazy, be weird. Go out and screw up! You're going to anyway, so you might as well enjoy the process. Take the opportunity to learn from your mistakes: find the cause of your problem and eliminate it. Don't try to be perfect; just be an excellent example of being human. -- Anthony Robbins % Start where you are. Distant fields always look greener, but opportunity lies right where you are. Take advantage of every opportunity of service. -- Robert J. Collier % Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful. -- Joshua J. Marine % The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering. -- Ben Okri % The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow brave by reflection. -- Thomas Paine % Be willing to have it so. Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune. -- William James % If we study the lives of great men and women carefully and unemotionally we find that, invariably, greatness was developed, tested and revealed through the darker periods of their lives. One of the largest tributaries of the River of Greatness is always the Stream of Adversity. -- Cavett Robert % It doesn't matter who you are, where you come from. The ability to triumph begins with you. Always. -- Oprah Winfrey % I do believe that when we face challenges in life that are far beyond our own power, it's an opportunity to build on our faith, inner strength, and courage. I've learned that how we face challenges plays a big role in the outcome of them. -- Sasha Azevedo % Greatness lies, not in being strong, but in the right using of strength; and strength is not used rightly when it serves only to carry a man above his fellows for his own solitary glory. He is the greatest whose strength carries up the most hearts by the attraction of his own. -- Henry Ward Beecher % Hope is the dream of a soul awake. -- French Proverb % When the world says, 'Give up,' hope whispers, 'Try it one more time.' % Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; but remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for. -- Epictetus % We are all functioning at a small fraction of our capacity to live life fully in its total meaning of loving, caring, creating, and adventuring. Consequently, the actualizing of our potential can become the most exciting adventure of our lifetime. -- Herbert A. Otto % You have the need and the right to spend part of your life caring for your soul. It is not easy...To be a soulful person means to go against all the pervasive, prove-yourself values of our culture and instead treasure what is unique and internal and valuable in yourself and your own personal evolution. -- Jean Shinoda Bolen % Extend to each person, no matter how trivial the contact, all the care and kindness and understanding and love that you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again. -- Og Mandino % Do not wait; the time will never be 'just right'. Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along. -- Napoleon Hill % Put your heart, mind, intellect and soul even to your smallest acts. This is the secret of success. -- Swami Sivananda % Some people grumble because roses have thorns; I am thankful that the thorns have roses. -- Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr % Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others. -- Sir Winston Churchill % Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world. -- John Milton % Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born. -- Anaïs Nin % You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing... By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that. -- E. B. White % I believe that friends are quiet angels who sit on our shoulders and lift our wings when we forget how to fly. % Friendship doubles our joy and divides our grief. -- Swedish Proverb % The most important key to achieving great success is to decide upon your goal and launch, get started, take action, move. -- Brian Tracy % Ambition is the path to success. Persistence is the vehicle you arrive in. -- Bill Bradley % A man without ambition is dead. A man with ambition but no love is dead. A man with ambition and love for his blessings here on earth is ever so alive. -- Pearl Bailey % We must have a theme, a goal, a purpose in our lives. If you don't know where you're aiming, you don't have a goal. My goal is to live my life in such a way that when I die, someone can say, she cared. -- Mary Kay Ash % To do something, however small, to make others happier and better, is the highest ambition, the most elevating hope, which can inspire a human being. -- John Lubbock % No more duty can be urged upon those who are entering the great theater of life than simple loyalty to their best convictions. -- Edwin Hubbel Chapin % Goals. There's not telling what you can do when you get inspired by them. There's no telling what you can do when you believe in them. There's no telling what will happen when you act upon them. -- Jim Rohn % If I have been of service, if I have glimpsed more of the nature and essence of ultimate good, if I am inspired to reach wider horizons of thought and action, if I am at peace with myself, it has been a successful day. -- Alex Noble % A smile is the beginning of peace. -- Mother Teresa % This is the way of peace: Overcome evil with good, falsehood with truth, and hatred with love. -- Peace Pilgrim % We shall find peace. We shall hear angels. We shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds. -- W. Anton Chekov % Peace is not something you wish for; It's something you make, Something you do, Something you are, And something you give away. -- Robert Fulghum % Trust yourself. Create the kind of self that you will be happy to live with all your life. Make the most of yourself by fanning the tiny, inner sparks of possibility into flames of achievement. -- Golda Meir % Follow your heart, but be quiet for a while first. Ask questions, then feel the answer. Learn to trust your heart. % Remember, there are no mistakes, only lessons. Love yourself, trust your choices, and everything is possible. -- Cherie Carter-Scott % Trust in what you love, continue to do it, and it will take you where you need to go. -- Natalie Goldberg % Dare to be true: nothing can need a lie: A fault, which needs it most, grows two thereby. -- George Herbert % A person is not given integrity. It results from the relentless pursuit of honesty at all times. % Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom. -- Thomas Jefferson % Don't worry so much about your self- esteem. Worry more about your character. Integrity is its own reward. -- Dr. Laura Schlessinger % Compassion is the desire that moves the individual self to widen the scope of its self-concern to embrace the whole of the universal self. -- Arnold Toynbee % Giving connects two people, the giver and the receiver, and this connection gives birth to a new sense of belonging. -- Deepak K. Chopra % Compassion is the ultimate and most meaningful embodiment of emotional maturity. It is through compassion that a person achieves the highest peak and deepest reach in his or her search for self-fulfillment. -- Arthur Jersild % If you realized how powerful your thoughts are, you would never think a negative thought. -- Peace Pilgrim % A word of encouragement during a failure is worth more than an hour of praise after success. % One of the sanest, surest, and most generous joys of life comes from being happy over the good fortune of others. -- Archibald Rutledge % Make it a habit to tell people thank you. To express your appreciation, sincerely and without the expectation of anything in return. Truly appreciate those around you, and you'll soon find many others around you. Truly appreciate life, and you'll find that you have more of it. -- Ralph Marston % Let me not hurt, by any selfish deed, Or thoughtless word, the heart of foe or friend; Nor would I pass, unseeing, worthy need, Or sin by silence when I should defend... 'The world is better that I lived to-day.' -- Ella Wheeler Wilcox % We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee. -- Marian Wright Edelman % Your vocation in life is where your greatest joy meets the world's greatest need. -- Frederick Buechner % Each day when I awake I know I have one more day to make a difference in someone's life. -- James Mann % Listening is such a simple act. It requires us to be present, and that takes practice, but we don't have to do anything else. We don't have to advise, or coach, or sound wise. We just have to be willing to sit there and listen. -- Margaret J. Wheatley % Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you'd have preferred to talk. -- Doug Larson % Listening is an attitude of the heart, a genuine desire to be with another which both attracts and heals. -- L. J. Isham % The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer. -- Henry David Thoreau % I remind myself every morning: Nothing I say this day will teach me anything. So if I'm going to learn, I must do it by listening. -- Larry King % Set out each day believing in your dreams. Know without a doubt that you were made for amazing things. -- Josh Hinds % The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives and the dreams shall never die. -- Edward "Ted" Kennedy % One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest. -- Maya Angelou % There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life-happiness, freedom, and peace of mind-are always attained by giving them to someone else. -- Peyton C. March % Champions aren't made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them -- a desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have the skill, and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill. -- Muhammad Ali [Cassius Clay] % There is no teaching to compare with example. -- Sir Robert Baden-Powell % There's only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self. -- Aldous Huxley % Love is an expression and assertion of self-esteem, a response to one's own values in the person of another. -- Ayn Rand % Believe in your dreams and they may come true; believe in yourself and they will come true. % The soul gives unity to what it looks at with love. -- Thomas Carlyle % Cooperation is the thorough conviction that nobody can get there unless everybody gets there. -- Virginia Burden Tower % There can only be one state of mind as you approach any profound test; total concentration, a spirit of togetherness, and strength. -- Pat Riley % One man may hit the mark, another blunder; but heed not these distinctions. Only from the alliance of the one, working with and through the other, are great things born. -- Antoine de Sainte-Exupery % There are no problems we cannot solve together, and very few that we can solve by ourselves. -- Lyndon B. Johnson % Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. -- George S. Patton % The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself. -- Alan Alda % The world is but a canvas to the imagination. -- Henry David Thoreau % The moment when you first wake up in the morning is the most wonderful of the twenty-four hours. No matter how weary or dreary you may feel, you possess the certainty that, during the day that lies before you, absolutely anything may happen. And the fact that it practically always doesn't, matters not a jot. The possibility is always there. -- Monica Baldwin % Friends are helpful not only because they will listen to us, but because they will laugh at us; Through them we learn a little objectivity, a little modesty, a little courtesy; We learn the rules of life and become better players of the game. -- Will Durant % Get over the idea that only children should spend their time in study. Be a student so long as you still have something to learn, and this will mean all your life. -- Henry L. Doherty % Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can -- there will always come a time when you will be grateful you did. -- Sarah Caldwell % I believe that the rendering of useful service is the common duty of mankind and that only in the purifying fire of sacrifice is the dross of selfishness consumed and the greatness of the human soul set free. -- John D. Rockefeller, Jr. % It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge. -- Albert Einstein % We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community. -- Dorothy Day % Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way. -- Booker T. Washington % All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on. -- Henry Ellis % Because life is a living, breathing work of art, you are a painting as you go. Be a masterpiece. Drink in life. Laugh too loud. Compliment others constantly. -- Nicole Johnson % Beauty is an experience, nothing else. It is not a fixed pattern or an arrangement of features. It is something felt, a glow or a communicated sense of fineness. -- D.H. Lawrence % A true hero is not someone who thinks about doing what is right, but one that simply does what is right without thinking! -- Kevin Heath % Passively listening to gossip or negative talk is implied agreement. -- Scott Hardy % Patience -- the gift of being able to see past the emotion. -- Rodney Williams % Class never runs scared. It is sure-footed and confident, and it can handle whatever comes along. Class has a sense of humor. It knows that a good laugh is the best lubricant for oiling the machinery of human relations. Class never makes excuses. It takes its lumps and learns from mistakes. Class knows that good manners are nothing more than a series of small sacrifices and minor inconveniences. Class bespeaks an aristocracy unrelated to ancestors or money. Some extremely wealthy people have no class at all, while others who are struggling to make ends meet are loaded with it. Class is real. You can't fake it. Class is comfortable in its own skin. It never puts on airs. Class never tries to build itself up by tearing others down. Class is already up and need not attempt to look better by making others look worse. Class can walk with kings and keep its virtue and talk with crowds and keep the common touch. Everyone is comfortable with the person who has class because he is comfortable with himself. If you have class, you've got it made. If you don't have class, no matter what else you have, it won't make up for it. % Peace at home, peace in the world. -- Mustafa Kemal Ataturk % A life full of enthusiasm, hope and contributions through one's own talent is a life well lived. -- Kimberly Day % One value that was sewn into the stitching of our character at a very early age had to do with our responsibility to help others....We were expected to be of assistance to our neighbors... 'Being neighborly'... was synonymous with being kind, friendly, and helpful to our neighbors and something that we were encouraged to do on a regular basis through firsthand experience. It was a bit like mandatory community service. -- BeNeca Ward % We were taught to respect everyone, especially those who were older and wiser than we were from whom we could learn. -- BeNeca Ward % Having to apply and try out for something forces kids to take the time to think about and make decisions on what they feel is worth their time and effort. It winds up being a great foreshadower and introduction of the reality of dealing with the competitiveness of life...The focus, practice, and determination that this process requires are preparation for life's challenges and teach lessons on facing disappointment during the times when someone does not make the team. -- BeNeca Ward % You are a master of the words you don't say and a slave to the ones you do. % Anticipation is the key to success. -- Monica Hortobagyi % I want to live long enough see the day the people in this world put aside their differences and work hand in hand to achieve that state of acceptance of themselves and their surroundings, also known as PEACE. -- Nadia Kelifa % No matter how much you plan, it is tenacity, unyielding desire to succeed, and the ability to cope with change that will eventually prevail. -- Perry Payne % If you are content with the best you have done, you will never become the best you can be. % Self-trust is the first secret of success, the belief that if you are here the authorities of the universe put you here, and for cause, or with some task strictly appointed you in your constitution, and so long as you work at that you are well and successful. -- Swami Kriyananda [J. Donald Walters] % In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted. -- Bertrand Russell % I've learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances. -- Martha Washington % Class never runs scared. It is sure-footed and confident, and it can handle whatever comes along. Class has a sense of humor. It knows that a good laugh is the best lubricant for oiling the machinery of human relations. Class never makes excuses. It takes its lumps and learns from mistakes...Class is comfortable in its own skin. It never puts on airs. Class never tries to build itself up by tearing others down. If you have class, you've got it made. -- Abigail Van Buren [Pauline Phillips] % Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write. -- John Adams % An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come. -- Victor Hugo % You cannot escape the results of your thoughts. Whatever your present environment may be, you will fall, remain or rise with your thoughts, your vision, your ideal. You will become as small as your controlling desire; as great as your dominant aspiration. -- James Allen % You've got to have a dream, if you want to have a dream come true. -- Dennis Waitley % He is rich who is content with the least; for contentment is the wealth of nature. -- Johannes A. Gaertner % When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around. -- Willie Nelson % Anyone can carry his burden, however hard, until nightfall. Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day. Anyone can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely, till the sun goes down. And this is all life really means. -- Robert Louis Stevenson % Your purpose may not always be obvious, but always remember that you do have a purpose. -- Rodney Williams % I've always thought that a big laugh is a really loud noise from the soul saying, 'Ain't that the truth.' -- Quincy Jones % When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on [all] the faces surrounding him. -- Albert Camus % Every heart that has beat strong and cheerfully has left a hopeful impulse behind it in the world, and bettered the tradition of mankind. -- Robert Louis Stevenson % Where hope grows, miracles blossom. -- Elna Rae % No act of kindness is too small. The gift of kindness may start as a small ripple that over time can turn into a tidal wave affecting the lives of many. -- Kevin Heath % A good friend is a connection to life, a tie to the past, a road to the future, the key to sanity in a totally insane world. -- Lois Wyse % There is one thing one has to have: either a soul that is cheerful by nature, or a soul made cheerful by work, love, art, and knowledge. -- Friedrich Nietzsche % Being rich of heart makes you wealthy beyond compare. -- Rodney Williams % The best part of life is not just surviving, but thriving with passion and compassion and humor and style and generosity and kindness. -- Maya Angelou % Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try! -- Theodor Seuss Geisel % Our success as a nation is not measured by how many years we have governed or how many wars we have won. It is measured by the quality of life which we have created for the society that our ideals were founded upon. -- Mathew Morgan % He who has faith has... an inward reservoir of courage, hope, confidence, calmness, and assuring trust that all will come out well -- even though to the world it may appear to come out most badly. -- George L. Bell % A sense of humor... is needed armor. Joy in one's heart and some laughter on one's lips is a sign that the person down deep has a pretty good grasp of life. -- B. C. Forbes % You don't have to accept the invitation to get angry. Instead, practice forgiveness, empathy and encouragement. -- Hugh Sidey % Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love. -- Hamilton Wright Mabie % We are each gifted in a unique and important way. It is our privilege and our adventure to discover our own special light. -- Mary Dunbar % There is neither happiness nor unhappiness in this world; there is merely the comparison of one state to the other. Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss. -- Alexandre Dumas % Every day you have the opportunity to learn and experience some-thing and some-one new. Seize the opportunity. Learn and experience everything you can, and use it to change the world. -- Rodney Williams % There is no beautifier of complexion, or form, or behavior, like the wish to scatter joy and not pain around us. 'Tis good to give a stranger a meal, or a night's lodging. 'Tis better to be hospitable to his good meaning and thought, and give courage to a companion. We must be as courteous to a man as we are to a picture, which we are willing to give the advantage of a good light. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % Love is patient, Love is Kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. -- Bible % Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy. -- Joseph Campbell % You're alive. Do something. The directive in life, the moral imperative was so uncomplicated. It could be expressed in single words, not complete sentences. It sounded like this: Look. Listen. Choose. Act. -- Barbara Hall % I appreciate people who are civil, whether they mean it or not. I think: Be civil. Do not cherish your opinion over my feelings. There's a vanity to candor that isn't really worth it. Be kind. -- Richard Greenberg % The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering. -- Bruce Lee % You have only always to do what is right. It will become easier by practice, and you enjoy in the midst of your trials the pleasure of an approving conscience. -- Robert E. Lee % The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want. -- Ben Stein % What is defeat? Nothing but education; nothing but the first step to something better. -- Wendell Phillips % When there is no where else to turn, turn inward. Enter into the sacred silence of your soul and ask for healing, guidance and personal peace. -- Michaiel Bovenes % Our soul desires to be understanding, our ego is only concerned with being understood. When you are being understanding you are connected to your soul. -- Michaiel Bovenes % Love is friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weaknesses. -- Ann Landers % Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear. -- James Neil Hollingworth (pseudonym Ambrose Redmoon) % Trials, temptations, disappointments -- all these are helps instead of hindrances, if one uses them rightly. They not only test the fiber of character but strengthen it...Every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before. -- James Buckham % Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one. -- Jane Howard % A true friend freely, advises justly, assists readily, adventures boldly, takes all patiently, defends courageously, and continues a friend unchangeably. -- William Penn % A leader is someone who demonstrates what's possible. -- Mark Yarnell % After all these years, I am still involved in the process of self-discovery. It's better to explore life and make mistakes than to play it safe. Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life. -- Sophia Loren % Society is joint action and cooperation in which each participant sees the other partner's success as a means for the attainment of his own. -- Ludwig von Mises % Despair shows us the limit of our imagination. Imaginations shared create collaboration, and collaboration creates community, and community inspires social change. -- Terry Tempest Williams % Love the moment. Flowers grow out of dark moments. Therefore, each moment is vital. It affects the whole. Life is a succession of such moments and to live each, is to succeed. -- Sister Mary Corita Kent % Wherever there is a human in need, there is an opportunity for kindness and to make a difference. -- Kevin Heath % Don't waste life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour's duties will be the best preparation for the hours and ages that will follow it. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % Peace holds within itself trust in the Lord, the trust that He governs all things and provides all things, and that He leads towards an end that is good. -- Emanuel Swedenborg % Life is just a chance to grow a soul. -- A. Powell Davies % I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing. -- Agatha Christie % Love life and life will love you back. Love people and they will love you back. -- Arthur Rubinstein % Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen. -- Conan O'Brien % Failing to prepare is like preparing to fail. -- John R. Wooden % Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are traveling the dark journey with us. Oh be swift to love, make haste to be kind. -- Gene Bedley % Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens. -- Henri-Frederic Amiel % Rejoice in the things that are present; all else is beyond thee. -- Khalil Gibran % Every now and again take a good look at something not made with hands: a mountain, a star, the turn of a stream. There will come to you wisdom and patience and solace and, above all, the assurance that you are not alone in the world. -- Sidney Lovett % A man knows he has found his vocation when he stops thinking about how to live, and begins to live. -- Thomas Merton % A person who doubts himself is like a man who would enlist in the ranks of his enemies and bear arms against himself. He makes his failure certain by himself being the first person to be convinced of it. -- Alexandre Dumas % All human wisdom is summed up in two words; wait and hope. -- Alexandre Dumas % Hope is always available to us. When we feel defeated, we need only take a deep breath and say, "Yes," and hope will reappear. -- Monroe Forester % I am happy for who I am, and what I have come to be. I look forward to whatever else that may come with positivity. -- Cornelius Kilgore % Don't be afraid to be amazing. -- Andy Offutt Irwin % The giving of love is an education in itself. -- Eleanor Roosevelt % Never talk defeat. Use words like hope, belief, faith, victory. -- Norman Vincent Peale % Judge me not by physical size or appearance, but judge me by the size of my character. -- Cornelius Kilgore % A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties. -- Harry Truman % Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine as children do. It's not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. -- Nelson Mandela % It always seems impossible until its done. -- Theodor Seuss Geisel % The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. -- Nelson Mandela % You know you're in love when you don't want to fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams. -- Theodor Seuss Geisel % When you are kind to someone in trouble, you hope they'll remember and be kind to someone else. And it'll become like a wildfire. -- Whoopi Goldberg % Love is always bestowed as a gift -- freely, willingly, and without expectation. We don't love to be loved; we love to love. -- Dr. Leo Buscaglia % Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure. -- Oprah Winfrey % Four Very Powerful Words to Say to Your Child: I BELIEVE IN YOU. -- Kevin Heath % Dig within. Within is the wellspring of Good; and it is always ready to bubble up, if you just dig. -- Marcus Aurelius % Kindness is an inner desire that makes us want to do good things even if we do not get anything in return. It is the joy of our life to do them. When we do good things from this inner desire, there is kindness in everything we think, say, want and do. -- Emanuel Swedenborg % When you do nothing, you feel overwhelmed and powerless. But when you get involved, you feel the sense of hope and accomplishment that comes from knowing you are working to make things better. -- Anonymous % Life is less about what you do, and more about how and why you do those things. This is called character. -- Josh Verseput % We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have. -- Fredrick Koeing % When what we want to do and what we ought to do are two different things, character is built in the choice we make. -- Bill Bennett % What first we find impossible, we later deem unlikely, and eventually accept as inevitable. -- Bill Bennett % What greater thing is there for human souls than to feel that they are joined for life -- to be with each other in silent unspeakable memories. -- George Eliot [Mary Ann Evans] % Let the beauty that we love be what we do. -- Jalal ad-Din Rumi % It's highly virtuous to say we'll be good, but we can't do it all at once, and it takes a long pull, a strong pull, and a pull all together before some of us even get our feet set in the right way. -- Louisa May Alcott % If your dream requires patience, give it. -- M. Russell Ballard % Be careful of your actions. You never know when your creating a memory. -- Ricki Lee Jones % What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured. -- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. % We can never get a re-creation of community and heal our society without giving our citizens a sense of belonging. -- Hunter Campbell "Patch" Adams % Among the things you can give and still keep are your word, a smile, and a grateful heart. -- Zig Ziglar % Know in your heart that all things are possible. We couldn't conceive of a miracle if none had ever happened. -- Libbie Fudim % I don't measure a man's success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits bottom. -- George S. Patton % If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything. -- Alexander Hamilton % When your brook dries up and disappointment comes your way, you do not necessarily need to assume that you did something wrong. -- Bryan Robles % Stop thinking gratitude as a buy product of your circumstances and start thinking of it as a world view. -- Bryan Robles % Live today. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Just today. Inhabit your moments. Don't rent them out to tomorrow. -- Jerry Spinelli % When obstacles arise, you change your direction to reach your goal, you do not change your decision to get there. -- Zig Ziglar % I guess I can't really change the past since it's now history and I certainly cannot change tomorrow, for I am not promised it, but I can change the way I live today. This realization in itself is the root of not only who I want to be tomorrow, but who I am working on being today. Never again do I want to fail anything without an attempt; I want push myself to my fullest potential, and if that means that I fall a few times along the way then so be it, but I will no longer allow myself to just give up. I deserve better, and it is time that I start believing that. -- Nadia Kelifa % He who wishes to secure the good of others, has already secured his own. -- Confucius % The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. -- Charles Swindoll % Dare to reach out your hand into the darkness, to pull another hand into the light. -- William Shakespeare % Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do. -- Norman B. Rice % Love never reasons but profusely gives; gives, like a thoughtless prodigal, its all, and trembles lest it has done too little. -- Hannah More % Hope is not pretending that troubles don't exist. It is the hope that they won't last forever. That hurts will be healed and difficulties overcome. That we will be led out of the darkness and into the sunshine. -- Anonymous % It ain't about how hard you can hit. Its about how hard you can get hit, and how much you can take, and keep moving forward. -- Rocky Balboa % Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination, full of hope. -- Maya Angelou % Who will tell whether one happy moment of love or the joy of breathing or walking on a bright morning and smelling the fresh air, is not worth all the suffering and effort which life implies. -- Erich Seligmann Fromm % I count life just a stuff, to try the soul's strength on. -- Robert Browning % Hold fast to dreams. For if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly. -- James Langston Hughes % Friendship, love, health, energy, enthusiasm, and joy are the things that make life worth living and exploring. -- Denise Austin % Walk with the dreamers, the believers, the courageous, the cheerful, the planners, the doers, the successful people with their heads in the clouds and their feet on the ground. Let their spirit ignite a fire within you to leave this world better than when you found it. -- Wilferd A. Peterson % Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out. -- John R. Wooden % There comes a time in your life when you have to let go of all the pointless drama and the people who create it and surround yourself with people who make you laugh so hard that you forget the bad and focus solely on the good. After all, life is too short to be anything but happy. -- Karl Marx % Do not count the days; make the days count. -- Muhammad Ali [Cassius Clay] % We do not remember days; we remember moments. -- Cesare Pavese % Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things. -- Robert Brault % And in the end it's not the years in your life that count; it's the life in your years. -- Abraham Lincoln % There's only us, there's only this. Forget regret, or life is yours to miss. No other road, no other way, no day but today. -- Jonathan Larson % Fruit does not grow on the trunk...it is found out on the limb. -- Steve Lobert % Each day offers us the gift of being a special occasion if we can simply learn that as well as giving, it is blessed to receive with grace and a grateful heart. -- Sarah Ban Breathnach % Remember the things in life that are free to each of us-our family, our friends, our soul, our hopes, our dreams, and our knowledge-are the most important. -- Jaren L. Davis % When we serve we experience, when we experience we teach, when we teach we learn, when we learn our lives are permanently changed, and as our lives are changed we are enriched beyond our wildest dreams. -- Jaren L. Davis % Some come and leave, fulfilling a single purpose; others, for a time or a season to teach us by sharing their experiences; and last, a select few who participate forever with relationships that endure through eternity. -- Jaren L. Davis % Spring ushers in the birth and growth of new beginnings. Summer develops and matures new life in the warmth of light. Fall celebrates life and displays inspiration through color. Winter then rests and builds for the new day, preparing for the next season. -- Jaren L. Davis % Motivation is knowing you are learning, growing, and succeeding toward your desired outcome while sustaining positive momentum. -- Jaren L. Davis % To live a life fulfilled reflect on the things you have with gratitude. -- Jaren L. Davis % Make the decision, make it with confidence, and the world will be yours. -- Jaren L. Davis % Success is nothing more or less than being who you want to be; progressing toward your ideal each day. -- Jaren L. Davis % At the end of your life, you will never regret not having passed one more test, not winning one more verdict, or not closing one more deal. You will regret time not spent with a husband, a friend, a child, or a parent. -- Barbara Bush % What I've experienced is that I can't know the future. I can't know if anything that I do will change what happens tomorrow. I can't know with certainty, but what I do know is if I do nothing, nothing will change. -- James Orbinski % Live your life from your heart. Share from your heart. And your story will touch and heal people's souls. -- Melodie Beattie % People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. -- Audrey Hepburn % In the hour of adversity, be not without hope; for crystal rain falls from black clouds. -- Nizami % Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect. -- Chief Seattle % Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. -- John Muir % Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely. -- Auguste Rodin % There is a destiny that makes us brothers, No one goes his way alone; All that we send into the lives of others, Comes back into our own. -- Edwin Markham % There is no problem unless we choose to make it one, so think carefully before you act. -- David Marshall % You are Braver than you Believe, Smarter than you Seem, and Stronger than you Think. -- Winnie the Pooh % Tomorrow do thy worst, I have lived today. -- John Dryden % The vision that you glorify in your mind, the ideal that you enthrone in your heart -- this you will build your life by, and this you will become. -- James Allen % To meet at all, one must open ones eyes to another; and there is no true conversation no matter how many words are spoken, unless the eye, unveiled and listening, opens itself to the other. -- Jessamyn West % Courage is about doing what you're afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you're scared. -- Eddie Rickenbacker % Thoughts lead on to purposes; purposes go forth in action; actions form habits; habits decide character; and character fixes our destiny. -- Tyron Edwards % It is the nature of the strong heart, that like the palm tree it strives ever upwards when it is most burdened. -- Sir Philip Sidney % When we talk about understanding, surely it takes place only when the mind listens completely -- the mind being your heart, your nerves, your ears- when you give your whole attention to it. -- Jiddu Krishnamurti % Nature, by example, shows us anything worthwhile comes over time. Anything worthwhile grows methodically, building on a strong foundation. Develop a willingness to carry on despite roadblocks. -- Jaren L. Davis % Maintain composure in times of heightened emotion, reacting only when thoughts are calm and clear. Being sensible will open doors for solutions and creativity. -- Jaren L. Davis % Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths. -- Etty Hillesum % There are two big forces at work, external and internal. We have very little control over external forces such as tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, disasters, illness and pain. What really matters is the internal force. How do I respond to those disasters? Over that I have complete control. -- Dr. Leo Buscaglia % Behold the turtle. He only makes progress when he sticks his neck out. -- Khalil Gibran % A mistake is a crash-course in learning. -- James Bryant Conant % Genius is nothing but a great capacity for patience. -- BIlly Anderson % The art of being yourself at your best is the art of unfolding your personality into the person you want to be...Be gentle with yourself, learn to love yourself, to forgive yourself, for only as we have the right attitude toward ourselves can we have the right attitude toward others. -- Georges-Louis Leclerc Buffon % Remember there's no such thing as a small act of kindness. Every act creates a ripple with no logical end. -- Scott Adams % There is no passion to be found playing small -- in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living. -- Nelson Mandela % There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will. -- Epictetus % Most of our obstacles would melt away if, instead of cowering before them, we should make up our minds to walk boldly through them. -- Orison Swett Marden % If a man does not know what port he is steering for, no wind is favorable to him. -- Seneca % Smile at each other, smile at your wife, smile at your husband, smile at your children, smile at each other -- it doesn't matter who it is -- and that will help you to grow up in greater love for each other. -- Mother Teresa % Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You. -- Theodor Seuss Geisel % Many small people, in many small places, do many small things, that can alter the face of the world. -- Anonymous % When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace. -- The 14th Dalai Lama % Be yourself. There is something that you can do better than any other. Listen to the inward voice and bravely obey that. % The happiest people I have known have been those who gave themselves no concern about their own souls, but did their uttermost to mitigate the miseries of others. -- Elizabeth Cady Stanton % Look for the good and praise it. % It is lack of love for ourselves that inhibits our compassion toward others. If we make friends with ourselves, then there is no obstacle to opening our hearts and minds to others. % You can't stay in your corner of the forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes. -- A. A. Milne % Courage is only the accumulation of small steps. -- George Konrad % If you laugh -- you change; and when you change -- the world changes. -- Shilpa Shah % If the world seems cold to you, kindle fires to warm it. -- Lucy Larcom % Helping, fixing and serving represent three different ways of seeing life. When you help, you see life as weak. When you fix, you see life as broken. When you serve, you see life as whole. Fixing and helping may be the work of the ego, and service the work of the soul. -- Rachel Naomi Remen % To live for results would be to sentence myself to continuous frustration. My only sure reward is in my actions and not from them. -- Hugh Prather % To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable. -- Helen Keller % Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed. -- Storm Jameson % Encouragement is the oxygen of the soul. -- George M. Adams % Do more than belong: participate. Do more than care: help. Do more than believe: practice. Do more than be fair: be kind. Do more than forgive: forget. Do more than dream: work. -- William Arthur Ward % A smile is the universal welcome. -- Max Eastman % Joy is prayer - Joy is strength - Joy is love - Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls. She gives most who gives with Joy. -- Mother Teresa % 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. -- Alex Tan % The turning point in the process of growing up is when you discover the core of strength within you that survives all hurt. -- Max Lerner % To bear defeat with dignity, to accept criticism with poise, to receive honors with humility -- these are marks of maturity and graciousness. -- William Arthur Ward % Self-acceptance comes from meeting life's challenges vigorously. Don't numb yourself to your trials and difficulties, nor build mental walls to exclude pain from your life. You will find peace not by trying to escape your problems, but by confronting them courageously. You will find peace not in denial, but in victory. -- Sophia Loren % Always fall in with what you're asked to accept. Take what is given, and make it over your way. My aim in life has always been to hold my own with whatever's going. Not against: with. -- Swami Sivananda % The creative person is willing to live with ambiguity. He doesn't need problems solved immediately and can afford to wait for the right ideas. -- Robert Frost % Everyone has a story, make your own worth telling. -- Abe Tannenbaum % We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindness there is at last one which makes the heart run over. -- Dr. Samuel Johnson % You are only as strong as your purpose, therefore let us choose reasons to act that are big, bold, righteous and eternal. -- Barry Munro % It's okay to look back at the past. Just don't stare. -- Benjamin Dover % Creativity doesn't wait for that perfect moment. It fashions its own perfect moments out of ordinary ones. -- Bruce Garrabrandt % The happy heart runs with the river, floats on the air, lifts to the music, soars with the eagle, hopes with the prayer. -- Richard Moss % Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb. -- Sir Winston Churchill % It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer. -- Albert Einstein % Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards. -- Vernon Sanders Law % Today, more than ever before, life must be characterized by a sense of Universal responsibility, not only nation to nation and human to human, but also human to other forms of life. -- Tenzin Gyatso % What is success? I think it is a mixture of having a flair for the thing that you are doing; knowing that it is not enough, that you have got to have hard work and a certain sense of purpose. -- Margaret Thatcher % Courage is like love; it must have hope for nourishment. -- Napoleon Bonaparte % Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed -- else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower % I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death. -- Thomas Paine % I have seen what a laugh can do. It can transform almost unbearable tears into something bearable, even hopeful. -- Bob Hope % As the builders say, the larger stones do not lie well without the lesser. -- Plato % Life becomes harder for us when we live for others, but it also becomes richer and happier. -- Albert Schweitzer % Aerodynamically, the bumble bee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumble bee doesn't know it so it goes on flying anyway. -- Mary Kay Ash % It isn't the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it's the pebble in your shoe. -- Pavithra Mehta % If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative. -- Woody Allen % What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal. -- Albert Camus % If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart. -- Nelson Mandela % You can gain more friends by being yourself than you can by putting up a front. You can gain more friends by building people up than you can by tearing them down. And you can gain more friends by taking a few minutes from each day to do something kind for someone, whether it be a friend or a complete stranger. What a difference one person can make! -- Sasha Azevedo % Everybody can be great. Because anybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve.... You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love. -- Martin Luther King, Jr. % We plant seeds that will flower as results in our lives, so best to remove the weeds of anger, avarice, envy and doubt, that peace and abundance may manifest for all. -- Pavithra Mehta % The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise. -- Dorothy Day % Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time. The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire. This is your moment. Own it. -- Oprah Winfrey % Every thought is a seed. If you plant crab apples, don't count on harvesting Golden Delicious. -- Bill Meyer % For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin -- real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. -- Alfred D. Souza % With every experience, you alone are painting your own canvas, thought by thought, choice by choice. -- Oprah Winfrey % Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goals: my strength lies solely in my tenacity. -- Louis Pasteur % The most important thing in life is to learn how to give out love, and to let it come in. -- Morrie Schwartz % My riches consist not in the extent of my possessions, but in the fewness of my wants. -- Joseph Brotherton % If we do not lay ourselves at the service of mankind, whom should we serve? -- John Adams % A man may fight fiercely to hold his own in business; but he does not need to fight to get ahead of someone in the elevator, or up the car steps, or at the post office window. And no matter how strong competition is, business and personal courtesy make it easier and pleasanter for everybody. -- William H. Hamby % Changing the world is good for those who want their names in books. But being happy, that is for those who write their names in the lives of others, and hold the hearts of others as the treasure most dear. -- Orson Scott Card % There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning. -- Louis L'Amour % Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility. -- Saint Augustine % It takes generosity to discover the whole through others. If you realize you are only a violin, you can open yourself up to the world by playing your role in the concert. -- Jacques Cousteau % Wisdom and penetration are the fruit of experience, not the lessons of retirement and leisure. Great necessities call out great virtues. -- Abigail Adams % Never lose sight of the fact that the most important yardstick of your success will be how you treat other people -- your family, friends, and coworkers, and even strangers you meet along the way. -- Barbara Bush % At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities. -- Jean Houston % The best way to pay for a lovely moment is to enjoy it. -- Richard David Bach % The mode by which the inevitable comes to pass is effort. -- Mary Helen Doyle % The small courtesies sweeten life; the greater, ennoble it. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. % Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others. -- Robert Louis Stevenson % They can because they think they can. -- Virgil % You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it come true. You may have to work for it, however. -- Richard David Bach % Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes... but no plans. -- Peter F. Drucker % Every calling is great when greatly pursued. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. % Example has more followers than reason. We unconsciously imitate what pleases us, and insensibly approximate to the characters we most admire. In this way, a generous habit of thought and of action carries with it an incalculable influence. -- Christian Nestell Bovee % To be rich in admiration and free from envy, to rejoice greatly in the good of others, to love with such generosity of heart that your love is still a dear possession in absence or unkindness -- these are the gifts which money cannot buy. -- Robert Louis Stevenson % Your attitude is your altitude. It determines how high you fly. -- Anonymous % Sometimes when learning comes before experience it doesn't make sense right away. -- Richard David Bach % The best way to predict the future is to create it. -- Peter F. Drucker % Man's mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. % To be honest, to be kind -- to earn a little and to spend a little less, to make upon the whole a family happier for his presence, to renounce when that shall be necessary and not be embittered, to keep a few friends, but these without capitulation -- above all, on the same grim condition, to keep friends with himself -- here is a task for all that a man has of fortitude and delicacy. -- Giac Nguyen % It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult. -- Robert Louis Stevenson % The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life. -- Segoyewatha [Red Jacket] % Wherever we are, it is our friends that make our world. -- Henry Drummond % I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving... we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it... but we must sail and not drift nor lie at anchor. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. % God's promises are like the stars; the darker the night the brighter they shine. -- David Nicholas % Respect for intellectual excellence, the restoration of vigor and discipline to our ideas of study, curricula which aim at strengthening intellectual fiber and stretching the power of young minds, personal commitment and responsibility-these are the preconditions of educational recovery in America today; and, I believe, they have always been the preconditions of happiness and sanity for the human race. -- Adlai E. Stevenson % Bloom where you are planted. % If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins to them. -- Sir Frances Bacon % When your views on the world and your intellect are being challenged and you begin to feel uncomfortable because of a contradiction you've detected that is threatening your current model of the world...pay attention. You are about to learn something. -- William H. Drury, Jr. % We must continually remind students in the classroom that expression of different opinions and dissenting ideas affirms the intellectual process. We should forcefully explain that our role is not to teach them to think as we do but rather to teach them, by example, the importance of taking a stance that is rooted in rigorous engagement with the full range of ideas about a topic. -- Bell Hooks [Gloria Jean Watkins] % Honest towards ourselves and towards anyone else who is our friend; brave towards the enemy; magnanimous towards the defeated; polite always: this is how the four cardinal virtues want us to act. -- Friedrich Nietzsche % The only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him. -- Henry Lewis Stimson % Patience is the companion of wisdom. -- Saint Augustine % Loyalty is a feature in a boy's character that inspires boundless hope. -- Sir Robert Baden-Powell % Joy is but the sign that creative emotion is fulfilling its purpose. -- Charles Du Bos % The most unambiguous sign that a person holds men in low esteem is this: That he either acknowledges them merely as means to his ends or does not acknowledge them at all. -- Friedrich Nietzsche % Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little. -- Plutarch % The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do. -- Walter Bagehot % Human diversity makes tolerance more than a virtue; it makes it a requirement for survival. -- Rene Dubois % The harder you fall, the higher you bounce. -- Doug Horton % It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages. -- Friedrich Nietzsche % You need to be aware of what others are doing, applaud their efforts, acknowledge their successes, and encourage them in their pursuits. When we all help one another, everybody wins. -- Jim Stovall % It takes both rain and sunshine to make a rainbow. % Surely the day will come when color means nothing more than skin tone, when religion is seen uniquely as a way to speak one's soul; when birth places have the weight of a throw of the dice and all men are born free, when understanding breeds love and brotherhood. -- Josephine Baker % Moderation is the feebleness and sloth of the soul, whereas ambition is the warmth and activity of it. -- François Duc De La Rochefoucauld % The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can't be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it. -- Elbert Hubbard % Shared joys make a friend, not shared sufferings. -- Friedrich Nietzsche % You should respect each other and refrain from disputes; you should not, like water and oil, repel each other, but should, like milk and water, mingle together. -- Buddha % One forgives to the degree that one loves. -- Mikhail Bakunin % I would rather be able to appreciate things I can not have than to have things I am not able to appreciate. -- Elbert Hubbard % Love is blind; friendship closes its eyes. -- Friedrich Nietzsche % ... life is moral responsibility. Life is several other things, we do not deny. It is beauty, it is joy, it is tragedy, it is comedy, it is psychical and physical pleasure, it is the interplay of a thousand rude or delicate motions and emotions, it is the grimmest and the merriest motley of phantasmagoria that could appeal to the gravest or the maddest brush ever put to palette; but it is steadily and sturdily and always moral responsibility. -- Elizabeth Stuart Phelps % Treat the other man's faith gently; it is all he has to believe with. -- Athenæus % Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them. -- James Baldwin % Hope, deceitful though it be, is at least of this good use to us that while we are traveling through this life, it conducts us by an easier and more pleasant way to our journey's end. -- François Duc De La Rochefoucauld % The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing that you will make one. -- Elbert Hubbard % The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude. -- Friedrich Nietzsche % Commerce and justice are not divorceable notions. -- Jeffrey Swartz % A man who lacks reliability is utterly useless. -- Confucius % He that has patience may compass anything. -- François Duc De La Rochefoucauld % Never regret yesterday. Life is in you today, and you make your tomorrow. -- L. Ron Hubbard % That which does not kill us makes us stronger. -- Friedrich Nietzsche % Love consists in this, that its own should be another's; to feel the joy of another as joy in oneself, that is loving. -- Emanuel Swedenborg % He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm. % One of the things I learned the hard way was that it doesn't pay to get discouraged. Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself. -- Lucille Ball % Nothing is more contagious than example, and no man does any exceeding good or exceeding ill but it spawns new deeds of the same kind. The good we imitate through emulation, the ill through the malignity of our nature, which shame keeps locked up, but example sets free. -- François Duc De La Rochefoucauld % If you work for a man, in heaven's name work for him! If he pays you wages that supply you your bread and butter, work for him -- speak well of him, think well of him, stand by him and stand by the institution he represents. I think if I worked for a man I would work for him. I would not work for him a part of the time, and the rest of the time work against him. I would give an undivided service or none. If put to the pinch, an ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness. -- Elbert Hubbard % The craving for equality can express itself either as a desire to pull everyone down to our own level or as a desire to raise ourselves up along with everyone else. -- Friedrich Nietzsche % Neither fire nor wind, birth nor death can erase our good deeds. -- Buddha % Discipline isn't just punishing, forcing compliance or stamping out bad behavior. Rather, discipline has to do with teaching proper deportment, caring about others, controlling oneself and putting someone else's wishes before one's own when the occasion calls for it. -- Lawrence Balter % Old people love to give good advice to console themselves for no longer being able to set a bad example. -- François Duc De La Rochefoucauld % Positive anything is better than negative nothing. -- Elbert Hubbard % Creativity is a natural extension of our enthusiasm. -- Earl Nightingale % A will finds a way. -- Orison Swett Marden % To see what is right and not to do it is want of courage. -- Confucius % The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness. -- Honore de Balzac % It is more shameful to distrust one's friends than to be deceived by them. -- François Duc De La Rochefoucauld % Religions are many and diverse, but reason and goodness are one. -- Elbert Hubbard % Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. -- Anaïs Nin % There is no investment you can make which will pay you so well as the effort to scatter sunshine and good cheer through your establishment. -- Orison Swett Marden % Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. -- Confucius % My responsibility to myself, my neighbors, my family and the human family is to try to tell the truth. -- Toni Cade Bambara % The world's people all share the earnest aspiration to have peace, stability, justice and cooperation. -- Tran Duc Luong % Never does the human soul appear so strong and noble as when it forgoes revenge and dares to forgive injury. -- Edwin Hubbel Chapin % Life is truly known only to those who suffer, lose, endure adversity and stumble from defeat to defeat. -- Anaïs Nin % And he gave it for his opinion, that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together. -- Jonathan Swift % Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared. -- Buddha % Happiness can be found in even the darkest of times, but only to those who remember to turn on the light. -- George Linnaeus Banks % Security is not the meaning of my life. Great opportunities are worth the risk. -- Shirley Hufstedler % I postpone death by living, by suffering, by error, by risking, by giving, by losing. -- Anaïs Nin % Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others. -- Jonathan Swift % A soul that is kind and intends justice discovers more than any sophist. -- Sophocles % The man who can drive himself further once the effort gets painful is the man who will win. -- Roger Bannister % Good, better, best. Never let it rest. Until your good is better and your better is best. -- Tim Duncan % Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face. -- Victor Hugo % Each contact with a human being is so rare, so precious, one should preserve it. -- Anaïs Nin % Patience is a remedy for every sorrow. -- Publius Syrus % Wherever you go, go with all your heart. -- Confucius % Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world. -- Joel A. Barker % Someone with their feet planted firmly on the ground has no hope of reaching the stars. -- Kelsey Dunn % Perseverance, secret of all triumphs. -- Victor Hugo % When you make a world tolerable for yourself, you make a world tolerable for others. -- Anaïs Nin % The tendency in modern civilization is to make the world uniform... Let the mind be universal. The individual should not be sacrificed. -- Rabindranath Tagore % But groundless hope, like unconditional love, is the only kind worth having. -- John Perry Barlow % Trust everybody, but cut the cards. -- Finley Peter Dunne % Each child is an adventure into a better life -- an opportunity to change the old pattern and make it new. -- Hubert H. Humphrey % Always give your best, never get discouraged, never be petty; always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself. -- Richard Nixon % Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky. -- Rabindranath Tagore % Willingness to compromise with others' ways of living and cooperation in common tasks, these make living happy and fruitful. -- Sri Sathya Sai Baba % ...there are persons who seem to have overcome obstacles and by character and perseverance to have risen to the top. But we have no record of the numbers of able persons who fall by the wayside, persons who, with enough encouragement and opportunity, might make great contributions. -- Mary Barnett Gilson % I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility that comes with his freedom. -- Bob Dylan [Robert Allen Zimmerman] % ...one of my motivating forces has been to recreate the world I know into a world I wish I could be in. Hence my optimism and happy endings. -- Kristin Hunter % As for courage and will we cannot measure how much of each lies within us, we can only trust there will be sufficient to carry through trials which may lie ahead. -- Andre Norton % Your thoughts, words and deeds are painting the world around you. -- Jewel Diamond Taylor % In union there is strength. -- Aesop % God gave us memory that we might have roses in December. -- James M. Barrie % A good cause can become bad if we fight for it with means that are indiscriminatingly murderous. A bad cause can become good if enough people fight for it in a spirit of comradeship and self-sacrifice. In the end it is how you fight, as much as why you fight, that makes your cause good or bad. -- Freeman Dyson % Thoughtfulness for others, generosity, modesty, and self-respect, are the qualities which make a real gentleman, or lady, as distinguished from the veneered article which commonly goes by that name. -- Thomas Henry Huxley % The day the child realizes that all adults are imperfect he becomes an adolescent; the day he forgives them, he becomes an adult; the day he forgives himself he becomes wise. -- Alden Nowlan % The hope, and not the fact, of advancement, is the spur to industry. -- Sir Henry Taylor % We could learn a lot from crayons; some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, while others bright, some have weird names, but they all have learned to live together in the same box. % Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else. -- James M. Barrie % Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace. The soul that knows it not, knows no release from little things; knows not the livid loneliness of fear. -- Amelia Earhart % Patience and tenacity of purpose are worth more than twice their weight of cleverness. -- Thomas Henry Huxley % Don't let your failures define you--let them teach you. -- Barack Obama % Work without Hope draws nectar in a sieve, And Hope without an object cannot live. -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge % So powerful is the light of unity that it can illuminate the whole earth. -- Bahaullah % You grow up the day you have your first real laugh at yourself. -- Ethel Barrymore % The more one does and sees and feels, the more one is able to do, and the more genuine may be one's appreciation of fundamental things like home, and love, and understanding companionship. -- Amelia Earhart % If only people would realize that moral principles are like measles...They have to be caught. And only the people who've got them can pass on the contagion. -- Aldous Huxley % Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential. -- Barack Obama % I stopped believing in Santa Claus at age six when my mother took me to see him in a store and he asked for my autograph. -- Shirley Temple Black % The highest of distinctions is service to others. -- King George IV % You must learn day by day, year by year, to broaden your horizon. The more things you love, the more you are interested in, the more you enjoy, the more you are indignant about, the more you have left when anything happens. -- Ethel Barrymore % If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough. -- Meister Eckhart [Johannes Eckhart] % A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm. -- Henrik Ibsen % Here, with whitened hair, desires failing, strength ebbing out of him, with the sun gone down and with only the serenity and the calm warning of the evening star left to him, he drank to Life, to all it had been, to what it was, to what it would be. Hurrah! -- Sean O'Casey % Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control: These three alone lead life to sovereign power. -- Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson % How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is something inside me, what can it be? % I may be compelled to face danger, but never fear it, and while our soldiers can stand and fight, I can stand and feed and nurse them. -- Clara Barton % Unheard of means it's only undreamed of yet; Impossible means it's just not yet done. -- Julia Ecklar % A good education is not so much one which prepares a man to succeed in the world, as one which enables him to sustain a failure. -- Bernard Iddings Bell % 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. -- Augustine of Hippo % The greater man the greater courtesy. -- Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson % Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside them was superior to circumstance. -- Bruce Barton % There is no substitute for hard work. -- Thomas Edison % With love and patience, nothing is impossible. -- Dr. Daisaku Ikeda % ... to a poet, the human community is like the community of birds to a bird, singing to each other. Love is one of the reasons we are singing to one another, love of language itself, love of sound, love of singing itself, and love of the other birds. -- Sharon Olds % Stay where you are. Find your own Calcutta. Find the sick, the suffering, and the lonely right there where you are -- in your own homes and in your own families, in your workplaces and in your schools. You can find Calcutta all over the world, if you have the eyes to see. Everywhere, wherever you go, you find people who are unwanted, unloved, uncared for, just rejected by society -- completely forgotten, completely left alone. -- Mother Teresa % Caring can be learned by all human beings, can be worked into the design of every life, meeting an individual need as well as a pervasive need in society. -- Mary Catherine Bateson % Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Accordingly a genius is often merely a talented person who has done all of his or her homework. -- Thomas Edison % A moment of patience in a moment of anger can help us avoid a thousand moments of sorrow. -- Imam Ali (A.S.) % My work is loving the world. -- Mary Oliver % Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless. -- Mother Teresa % It is a blessed thing that in every age someone has had the individuality enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions. -- Thomas Edison % One of the annoying things about believing in free will and individual responsibility is the difficulty of finding somebody to blame your problems on. And when you do find somebody, it's remarkable how often his picture turns up on your driver's license. -- Robert G. Ingersoll % The trouble is that rich people, well-to-do people, very often don't really know who the poor are; and that is why we can forgive them, for knowledge can only lead to love, and love to service. And so, if they are not touched by them, it's because they do not know them. -- Mother Teresa % Tact is the ability to make a person see lightning without letting him feel the bolt. -- Orlando A. Battista % Every man who expresses an honest thought is a soldier in the army of intellectual liberty. -- Robert G. Ingersoll % Effort is only effort when it begins to hurt. -- Jose Ortega y Gasset % Honesty and transparency make you vulnerable. Be honest and transparent anyway. -- Mother Teresa % Praise can be your most valuable asset as long as you don't aim it at yourself. -- Orlando A. Battista % To dream anything that you want to dream. That's the beauty of the human mind. To do anything that you want to do. That is the strength of the human will. To trust yourself to test your limits. That is the courage to succeed. -- Bernard Edmonds % He stands erect by bending over the fallen. He rises by lifting others. -- Robert G. Ingersoll % There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread. -- Mother Teresa % Emptiness is a symptom that you are not living creatively. You either have not goal that is important enough to you, or you are not using your talents and efforts in a striving toward an important goal. -- Maxwell Maltz % An error doesn't become a mistake until you refuse to correct it. -- Orlando A. Battista % In helping others, we shall help ourselves, for whatever good we give out completes the circle and comes back to us. -- Flora Edwards % Great minds have purposes, others have wishes. -- Washington Irving % We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort. -- Jesse Owens % It's not about how much you do, but how much love you put into what you do that counts. -- Mother Teresa % Goals give you more than a reason to get up in the morning; they are an incentive to keep you going all day. Goals tend to tap the deeper resources and draw the best out of life. -- Harvey Mackay % In necessary things, unity; in disputed things, liberty; in all things, charity. -- Richard Baxter % Good men prefer to be accountable. -- Michael Edwards % Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune; but great minds rise above them. -- Washington Irving % Character is much easier kept than recovered. -- Thomas Paine % If you judge people, you have no time to love them. -- Mother Teresa % He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying. -- Friedrich Nietzsche % It is thus tolerance that is the source of peace, and intolerance that is the source of disorder and squabbling. -- Pierre Bayle % Right actions in the future are the best apologies for bad actions in the past. -- Tyron Edwards % One man with courage makes a majority. -- Andrew Jackson % We have it in our power to change the world over. -- Thomas Paine % We can do no great things -- only small things with great love. -- Mother Teresa % Heaven on Earth is a choice you must make, not a place we must find. -- Dr. Wayne Dyer % Try not to become a man of success but a man of value. -- Albert Einstein % I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy. -- Thomas Paine % Music is the effort we make to explain to ourselves how our brains work. We listen to Bach transfixed because this is listening to a human mind. -- Lewis Thomas % It's never too late to be what you might have been. -- George Eliot [Mary Ann Evans] % You bring out the best in yourself by looking for the best in others. -- Gene Bedley % We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. -- Albert Einstein % Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error. -- Andrew Jackson % The world is my country, all mankind are my bethren, and to do good is my religion. -- Thomas Paine % Make no small plans for they have no power to stir the soul. -- Niccolo Machiavelli % Responsibility finds a way. Irresponsibilty makes excuses! -- Gene Bedley % We've removed the ceiling above our dreams. There are no more impossible dreams. -- Albert Einstein % The secret to mastery in any field is to forever be a student. -- Martin Palmer % The language of friendship is not words but meanings. -- Henry David Thoreau % Success isn't a result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire. -- Arnold H. Glasgow % Compassion will cure more sins than condemnation. -- Henry Ward Beecher % We forget that every good that is worth possessing must be paid for in strokes of daily effort. We postpone and postpone, until those smiling possibilities are dead. -- William James % Never violate the sacredness of your individual self-respect. -- Theoore Parker % The most I can do for my friend is simply to be his friend. I have no wealth to bestow on him. If he knows that I am happy in loving him, he will want no other reward. Is not friendship divine in this? -- Henry David Thoreau % Until you value yourself you will not value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it. -- M. Scott Peck % Every man should keep a fair-sized cemetery in which to bury the faults of his friends. -- Henry Ward Beecher % Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. -- Albert Einstein % Live all you can -- it's a mistake not to. It doesn't so much matter what you do in particular, so long as you have your life. If you haven't had that, what have you had? -- Henry James % Find out who you are and do it on purpose. -- Dolly Parton % The sacredness, if there is any, is all in yourself and not in the place. -- Henry David Thoreau % If you will think about what you ought to do for other people, your character will take care of itself. Character is a by-product, and any man who devotes himself to its cultivation in his own case will become a selfish prig. -- Woodrow Wilson % Courage is the ladder on which all the other virtues mount. -- Brandan Francis Behan % Nothing truly valuable arises from ambition or from a mere sense of duty; it stems rather from love and devotion towards men and towards objective things. -- Albert Einstein % To change one's life: Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly. No exceptions. -- William James % The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain. -- Dolly Parton % I am resolved that I will not through humility become the devil's attorney. I will endeavor to speak a good word for the truth. -- Henry David Thoreau % Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved. -- Helen Keller % When one door closes another door opens, but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us. -- Alexander Graham Bell % 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. -- Albert Einstein % The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind. -- William James % The struggle alone pleases us, not the victory. -- Blaise Pascal % If a man has any greatness in him, it comes to light, not in one flamboyant hour, but in the ledger of his daily work. -- Henry David Thoreau % Courage is a special kind of knowledge: the knowledge of how to fear what ought to be feared and how not to fear what ought not to be feared. -- Beryl Markham % I think and think for months and years, ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right. -- David Ben-Gurion % ...religious experience, as we have studied it, cannot be cited as unequivocally supporting the infinitist belief. The only thing that it unequivocally testifies to is that we can experience union with something larger than ourselves and in that union find our greatest peace. -- Albert Einstein % The strength of a man's virtue must not be measured by his efforts, but by his ordinary life. -- Blaise Pascal % If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost: that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them. -- Henry David Thoreau % Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. -- Abraham Lincoln % These are days when no one should rely unduly on his 'competence.' Strength lies in improvisation. All the decisive blows are struck left-handed. -- Walter Benjamin % Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized. -- Albert Einstein % Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing. -- Thomas Jefferson % The heart has reason which reason cannot understand. -- Blaise Pascal % Go confidently in the direction of our dreams! Live the life you've imagined. -- Henry David Thoreau % People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built. -- Eleanor Roosevelt % Happiness includes chiefly the idea of satisfaction after full honest effort. No one can possibly be satisfied and no one can be happy who feels that in some paramount affairs he failed to take up the challenge of life. -- Arnold Bennett % Relativity applies to physics, not ethics. -- Albert Einstein % It seems the harder I work, the more luck I have. -- Thomas Jefferson % Whoever you are, whatever your dream, you have to be strong in your head and strong in your heart. Be strong. There's no quitting in the person who wants it bad enough. -- Carly Patterson % We are not what we are, nor do we treat or esteem each other for such, but for what we are capable of being. -- Henry David Thoreau % When the character of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends. -- Japanese Proverb % There is incredible value in being of service to others. -- Elizabeth Berg % The most important human endeavor is striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance and even our very existence depend on it. Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to our lives. -- Albert Einstein % It is a great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual, he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions. -- Thomas Jefferson % If a man does his best, what else is there? -- George S. Patton % There never is but one opportunity of a kind. -- Henry David Thoreau % Whoever said anybody has a right to give up? -- Marian Wright Edelman % If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door. -- Milton Berle % He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. -- Albert Einstein % Health, learning and virtue will ensure your happiness; they will give you a quiet conscience, private esteem and public honour. -- Thomas Jefferson % Tolerance is only complacence when it makes no distinction between right and wrong. -- Sarah Patton Boyle % If men could combine thus earnestly, and patiently, and harmoniously to some really worthy end, what might they not accomplish? -- Henry David Thoreau % We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. -- Joseph Campbell % I'd rather be a could-be if I cannot be an are; because a could-be is a maybe who is reaching for a star. I'd rather be a has-been than a might-have-been, by far; for a might have-been has never been, but a has was once an are. -- Milton Berle % Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence and fulfills the duty to express the results of his thoughts in clear form.` -- Albert Einstein % The happiest moments my heart knows are those in which it is pouring forth its affections to a few esteemed characters. -- Thomas Jefferson % We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand. -- Randy Pausch % It is never too late to give up our prejudices. -- Henry David Thoreau % There's no scarcity of opportunity to make a living at what you love. There is only a scarcity of resolve to make it happen. -- Dr. Wayne Dyer % In each human heart are a tiger, a pig, an ass and a nightingale. Diversity of character is due to their unequal activity. -- Ambrose Bierce % True religion is real living; living with all one's soul, with all one's goodness and righteousness. -- Albert Einstein % The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers. -- M. Scott Peck % It is worth the while to live respectably unto ourselves. We can possibly get along with a neighbor, even with a bedfellow, whom we respect but very little; but as soon as it comes to this, that we do not respect ourselves, then we do not get along at all... -- Henry David Thoreau % Anyone can dabble, but once you've made that commitment, your blood has that particular thing in it, and it's very hard for people to stop you. -- Bill Cosby % The power of a movement lies in the fact that it can indeed change the habits of people. This change is not the result of force but of dedication, of moral persuasion. -- Stephen Biko % Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts. -- Albert Einstein % With faith, discipline and selfless devotion to duty, there is nothing worthwhile that you cannot achieve. -- Muhammad Ali Jinnah % I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again. -- William Penn % My actual life is a fact, in view of which I have no occasion to congratulate myself; but for my faith and aspiration I have respect. It is from these that I speak. -- Henry David Thoreau % Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching. -- Thomas Jefferson % Humility must always be the portion of any man who receives acclaim earned in the blood of his followers and the sacrifices of his friends. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower % Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. -- Bible % I wouldn't be human if I didn't feel pride and something that transcends pride humility. -- James Cash Penney % The world rests on principles. -- Henry David Thoreau % You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it. -- Margaret Thatcher % There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness. -- Josh Billings [Henry Wheeler Shaw] % The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower % Children are apt to live up to what you believe of them. -- Lady Bird Johnson % Learning is what most adults will do for a living in the 21st century. -- Alfred Edward Perlman % It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things. -- Henry David Thoreau % Though God hath raised me high, yet this I count the glory of my crown: that I have reigned with your loves. And though you have had, and may have, many mightier and wiser princes sitting in this seat; yet you never had, nor shall have any that will love you better. -- Queen Elizabeth I % It is a very delicate job to forgive a man, without lowering him in his own estimation, and yours too. -- Josh Billings [Henry Wheeler Shaw] % Charity activities are the force which gives our life meaning. -- Mazhar El Shorbagi % There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity. -- Dr. Samuel Johnson % Success is focusing the full power of all you are on what you have a burning desire to achieve. -- Wilferd A. Peterson % I think that we may safely trust a good deal more than we do. We may waive just so much care of ourselves as we honestly bestow elsewhere. Nature is as well adapted to our weakness as to our strength. -- Henry David Thoreau % Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there. -- Jalal ad-Din Rumi % A smile starts on the lips, A grin spreads to the eyes, A chuckle comes from the belly; But a good laugh bursts forth from the soul, Overflows, and bubbles all around. -- Carolyn Birmingham % If a man does not make new acquaintance as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, Sir, should keep his friendship in constant repair. -- T.S. Eliot % Now the alternative to despair is courage. And human life can be viewed as a continuous struggle between these two options. Courage is the capacity to affirm one's life in spite of the elements which threaten it. The fact that courage usually predominates over despair in itself tells us something important about life. It tells you that the forces that affirm life are stronger than those that negate it. -- Dr. Samuel Johnson % We belong to the community. It is not the tailor alone who is the ninth part of a man; it is as much the preacher, and the merchant, and the farmer. Where is this division of labor to end? and what object does it finally serve? No doubt another may also think for me; but it is not therefore desirable that he should do so to the exclusion of my thinking for myself. -- Henry David Thoreau % World peace, like community peace, does not require that each man love his neighbor -- it requires only that they live together with mutual tolerance, submitting their disputes to a just and peaceful settlement. -- John F. Kennedy % Great changes may not happen right away, but with effort even the difficult may become easy. -- Bill Blackman % What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence. -- T.S. Eliot % This is the first test of a gentleman: his respect for those who can be of no possible value to him. -- William Lyon Phelps % Commitment means that it is possible for a man to yield the nerve center of his consent to a purpose or cause, a movement or an ideal, which may be more important to him than whether he lives or dies. -- Howard Thurman % In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute. -- Thurgood Marshall % It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend. -- William Blaker % Friendship is the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words. -- George Eliot [Mary Ann Evans] % Physical bravery is an animal instinct; moral bravery is much higher and truer courage. -- Wendell Phillips % Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. -- Howard Thurman % Tolerance and celebration of individual differences is the fire that fuels lasting love. -- Tom Hannah % The real community of man...is the community of those who seek the truth, of the potential knowers. -- Allan Bloom % Perhaps the most delightful friendships are those in which there is much agreement, much disputation, and yet more personal liking. -- George Eliot [Mary Ann Evans] % Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords: but, like all other pleasures immoderately enjoyed, the excesses of hope must be expiated by pain; and expectations improperly indulged must end in disappointment. -- Dr. Samuel Johnson % Pure love is a willingness to give without a thought of receiving anything in return. -- Peace Pilgrim % It is the formidable character of the species to routinely seek the improbable, the difficult, even the impossible, as a source of pleasure and self-justification. Who would try to write poems, or novels, or paint pictures unless he is an optimist? -- Lionel Tiger % Our Similarities bring us to a common ground; Our Differences allow us to be fascinated by each other. -- Tom Robbins % The failure to read good books both enfeebles the vision and strengthens our most fatal tendency -- the belief that the here and now is all there is. -- Allan Bloom % Most of us who turn to any subject we love remember some morning or evening hour when we…sat with parted lips listening to a new talker, or for very lack of books began to listen to the voices within, as the first traceable beginning of our love. -- George Eliot [Mary Ann Evans] % Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful. -- Dr. Samuel Johnson % Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. -- Edgar Allen Poe % The first duty of love is to listen. -- Paul Tillich % As you become more clear about who you really are, you'll be better able to decide what is best for you -- the first time around. -- Oprah Winfrey % Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future. -- Paul Boese % The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men. -- George Eliot [Mary Ann Evans] % If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance. -- Dr. Samuel Johnson % We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. -- Karl Popper % In democratic ages men rarely sacrifice themselves for another, but they show a general compassion for all the human race. One never sees them inflict pointless suffering, and they are glad to relieve the sorrows of others when they can do so without much trouble to themselves. They are not disinterested, but they are gentle. -- Alexis de Tocqueville % We can all be angels to one another. We can choose to obey the still small stirring within, the little whisper that says, 'Go. Ask. Reach out. Be an answer to someone's plea. You have a part to play. Have faith.' We can decide to risk that He is indeed there, watching, caring, cherishing us as we love and accept love. The world will be a better place for it. And wherever they are, the angels will dance. -- Joan Wester Anderson % Your greatness is measured by your kindness; your education and intellect by your modesty; your ignorance is betrayed by your suspicions and prejudices, and your real caliber is measured by the consideration and tolerance you have for others. -- William J.H. Boetcker % Failure after long perseverance is much grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure. -- George Eliot [Mary Ann Evans] % It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust. -- Dr. Samuel Johnson % The healthiest competition occurs when average people win by putting above average effort. -- Colin Powell % For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack. -- Rudyard Kipling % That you may retain your self-respect, it is better to displease the people by doing what you know is right, than to temporarily please them by doing what you know is wrong. -- William J.H. Boetcker % No soul is desolate as long as there is a human being for whom it can feel trust and reverence. -- George Eliot [Mary Ann Evans] % The greatest ability is dependability. -- Robert "Bob" Jones % The freedom to be your best means nothing unless you are willing to do your best. -- Colin Powell % The world can only change from within. -- Eckhart Tolle % While the spirit of neighborliness was important on the frontier because neighbors were so few, it is even more important now because our neighbors are so many. -- Lady Bird Johnson % A resolute determination is the truest wisdom. -- Napoleon Bonaparte % What I would like to give my daughter is freedom. And this is something that must be given by example, not by exhortation. -- Black Elk [Hehaka Sapa] % There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure. -- Erica Jong % In life you can never be too kind or too fair; everyone you meet is carrying a heavy load. When you go through your day expressing kindness and courtesy to all you meet, you leave behind a feeling of warmth and good cheer, and you help alleviate the burdens everyone is struggling with. -- Colin Powell % I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. -- Brian Tracy % Victory belongs to the most persevering. -- Napoleon Bonaparte % Perseverance is not a long race; it is many short races one after another. -- Walter Elliott % If you're trying to achieve, there will be road blocks. I've had them; everybody has had them. But obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it. -- Michael Jordan % Animals don't hate, and we're supposed to be better than them. -- Elvis Presley % Never consider the possibility of failure; as long as you persist, you will be successful. -- Brian Tracy % We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men. -- Herman Melville % In ordinary life we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich. -- Dietrich Bonhoeffer % There are other measures of self-respect for a man, than the number of clean shirts he puts on every day. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % I can accept failure, but I can't accept not trying. -- Michael Jordan % We live by our genius for hope; we survive by our talent for dispensing with it. -- V.S. Pritchett % There's much to be said for challenging fate instead of ducking behind it. -- Diana Trilling % The strongest bond of human sympathy outside the family relation should be one uniting working people of all nations and tongues and kindreds. -- Abraham Lincoln % The essence of optimism is that it takes no account of the present, but it is a source of inspiration, of vitality and hope where others have resigned; it enables a man to hold his head high, to claim the future for himself and not to abandon it to his enemy. -- Dietrich Bonhoeffer % Character wants room; must not be crowded on by persons, nor be judged from glimpses got in the press of affairs, or on few occasions. It needs perspective, as a great building. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % I have missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I have lost almost 300 games. On 26 occasions I have been entrusted to take the game winning shot...and I missed. I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And thats precisely why I succeed. -- Michael Jordan % Your soul...is a dark forest. But the trees are of a particular species, they are genealogical trees. -- Marcel Proust % It is a grand thing to rise in the world. The ambition to do so is the very salt of the earth. It is the parent of all enterprise, and the cause of all improvement. -- Anthony Trollope % Community means strength that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done. Arms to hold us when we falter. A circle of healing. A circle of friends. Someplace where we can be free. -- Starhawk % The courage to imagine the otherwise is our greatest resource, adding color and suspense to all our life. -- Daniel Boorstin % Character is higher than intellect. Thinking is the function. Living is the functionary. The stream retreats to its source. A great soul will be strong to live, as well as strong to think. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % We must exchange the philosophy of excuse -- what I am is beyond my control -- for the philosophy of responsibility. -- Barbara Charline Jordan % A powerful idea communicates some of its strength to him who challenges it. -- Marcel Proust % It takes a noble man to plant a seed for a tree that will some day give shade to people he may never meet. -- D. Elton Trueblood % The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life. -- Jane Addams % In the final analysis, there is no other solution to a man's problems but the day's honest work, the day's honest decisions, the day's generous utterance, and the day's good deed. -- Claire Booth Luce % What lies behind us, and what lies before us are but tiny matters compared to what lies within us. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % Success or failure depends more upon attitude than upon capacity...successful men act as though they have accomplished or are enjoying something. Soon it becomes reality. Act, look, feel successful, conduct yourself accordingly, and you will be amazed at the positive results. -- DuPree Jordan, Jr. % Let us be grateful to people who make us happy -- they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. -- Marcel Proust % What is permissible is not always honorable. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero % When our eyes see our hands doing the work of our hearts, the circle of Creation is completed inside us, the doors of our souls fly open and love steps forth to heal everything in sight. -- Michael Bridge % Laughter is the shortest distance between two people. -- Victor Borge % In the matter of religion, people eagerly fasten their eyes on the difference between their own creed and yours; whilst the charm of the study is in finding the agreements and identities in all the religions of humanity. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves. -- Carl Gustav Jung % Even a toad has four ounces of strength. -- Chinese Proverb % I believe that no characteristic is so distinctively human as the sense of indebtedness we feel, not necessarily for a favor received, but even for the slightest evidence of kindness; and there is nothing so boorish, savage, inhuman as to appear to be overwhelmed by a favor, let alone unworthy of it. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero % No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it. -- Halford E. Luccock % Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience. Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence. -- Hal Borland % Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % A little less hypocrisy and a little more tolerance towards oneself can only have good results in respect for our neighbor; for we are all too prone to transfer to our fellows the injustice and violence we inflict upon our own natures. -- Carl Gustav Jung % Loving parents have caring children. -- Chinese Proverb % Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our joy and the dividing of our grief. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero % One piece of log creates a small fire, adequate to warm you up, add just a few more pieces to blast an immense bonfire, large enough to warm up your entire circle of friends; needless to say that individuality counts but team work dynamites. -- Jin Kwon % There are two ways of meeting difficulties. You alter the difficulties or you alter yourself to meet them. -- Phyllis Bottome % Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Those who look outside, dream. Those who looks inside, awaken. -- Carl Gustav Jung % If you wish your merit to be known, acknowledge that of other people. -- Chinese Proverb % People without firmness of character love to make up a fate for themselves; that relieves them of the necessity of having their own will and of taking responsibility for themselves. -- Ivan Turgenev % No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent. -- John Donne % Whatever we possess becomes of double value when we have the opportunity of sharing it with others. -- Jean-Nicolas Bouilly % Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to the end, requires some of the same courage which a soldier needs. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % An understanding heart is everything in a teacher, and cannot be esteemed highly enough. One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feeling. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child. -- Carl Gustav Jung % To understand all is to forgive all. -- French Proverb % Worrying is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do, but it gets you nowhere. -- Glen Turner % If you can't have faith in what is held up to you for faith, you must find things to believe in yourself, for a life without faith in something is too narrow a space to live. -- Alec Bourne % The best lightning rod for your protection is your own spine. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % Humility provides everyone, even him who despairs in solitude, with the strongest relationship to his fellow man, and this immediately, though, of course, only in the case of complete and permanent humility. -- Frank Kafka % If you have much, give of your wealth; if you have little, give of your heart. -- Arabic Proverb % There's a difference between interest and commitment. When you're interested in doing something, you do it only when circumstance permit. When you're committed to something, you accept no excuses, only results. -- Art Turock % Sticks in a bundle are unbreakable. -- Kenyan Proverb % I know you've heard it a thousand times before. But it's true -- hard work pays off. If you want to be good, you have to practice, practice, practice. If you don't love something, then don't do it. -- Ray Bradbury % By imposing too great a responsibility, or rather, all responsibility, on yourself, you crush yourself. -- Frank Kafka % When eating bamboo sprouts, remember the man who planted them. -- Chinese Proverb % 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, can become great. -- Mark Twain % None of us is as smart as all of us. -- Ken Blanchard % There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them. -- Ray Bradbury % In the uttermost meaning of the words, thought is devout, and devotion is thought. Deep calls unto deep. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % Feet, why do I need them if I have wings to fly? -- Frida Kahlo % They are not poor that have little, but they that desire much. The richest man, whatever his lot, is the one who's content with his lot. -- Dutch Proverb % The miracle, or the power, that elevates the few is to be found in their industry, application, and perseverance under the prompting of a brave, determined spirit. -- Mark Twain % It is amazing how much you can accomplish when it doesn't matter who gets the credit. % If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome. -- Anne Bradstreet % I do not wish to treat friendships daintily, but with the roughest courage. When they are real, they are not glass threads or frost-work, but the solidest thing we know. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % Toughness is in the soul and spirit, not in muscles. -- Alex Karras % If you can't reward then you should thank. -- Arabic Proverb % Loyalty to petrified opinions never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul in this world -- and never will. -- Mark Twain % There is overwhelming evidence that the higher the level of self-esteem, the more likely one will be to treat others with respect, kindness, and generosity. -- Nathaniel Branden % A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him, I may think aloud. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % Keep your face to the sunshine and you cannot see the shadow. -- Helen Keller % If there is no wind, row. -- Latin Proverb % There can be no defense like elaborate courtesy. -- Edward V. Lucas % Scientists study the world how it is now, but engineers take a paint brush and create a world that has never been before. -- Asher Brandley % Our chief want in life, is, someone who shall make us do what we can. This is the service of a friend. With him we are easily great. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % Slander cannot destroy an honest man when the flood recedes the rock is there. -- Chinese Proverb % Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it. -- Mark Twain % Count no day lost in which you waited your turn, took only your share and sought advantage over no one. -- Robert Brault % The reward of a thing well done, is to have done it. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature... Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. -- Helen Keller % Be honorable yourself if you wish to associate with honorable people. -- Welsh Proverb % Kites rise highest against the wind, not with it. -- Sir Winston Churchill % We must meet the challenge rather than wish it were not before us. -- William J. Brennan, Jr. % It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life, that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do. -- Helen Keller % Arrogance invites ruin; humility receives benefits. -- Chinese Proverb % My kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's country, not to...its office holders. -- Mark Twain % Nobody trips over mountains. It is the small pebble that causes you to stumble. Pass all the pebbles in your path and you will find that you have crossed the mountain. % It's the constant and determined effort that breaks down all resistance, sweeps away all obstacles. -- Claude M. Briston % Let not the tie be mercenary, though the service is measured in money. Make yourself necessary to somebody. Do not make life hard to any. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. -- Helen Keller % When helping others, do not look for a reward; if you are looking for rewards, don't help others. -- Chinese Proverb % Independence is loyalty to one's best self and principles, and this is often disloyalty to the general idols and fetishes. -- Mark Twain % Sacrifices are concerned with the feelings of devotion and longing. -- Xun Zi % This insight, which expresses itself by what is called Imagination, is a very high sort of seeing. -- Charlotte Brontë % Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy, and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties. -- Helen Keller % When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a manner that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice. -- Indian Proverb % A habit cannot be tossed out the window; it must be coaxed down the stairs a step at a time. -- Mark Twain % There is always the danger that we may just do the work for the sake of the work. This is where the respect and the love and the devotion come in -- that we do it to God, to Christ, and that's why we try to do it as beautifully as possible. -- Mother Teresa % If I could I would always work in silence and obscurity, and let my efforts be known by their results. -- Emily Brontë % Although the world is full of suffering, it's full also of the overcoming it. -- Helen Keller % The three qualities necessary for training: Great faith. Great doubt. Great effort. -- Zen Proverb % I learned that landscape by drawing it, and I came to care for it with a lover's devotion. -- Philip Pullman % Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same. -- Emily Brontë % To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others; to leave the world a bit better; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere. -- Helen Keller % Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example. -- Chinese Proverb % I really owe everything to my parents and their devotion and drive to see to it that their children had the education which led to the opportunities that they never were able to have. -- Mark Twain % Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the small ones. -- Phillip Brooks % To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom...Since our office is with moments, let us husband them. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, they must be felt with the heart. -- Helen Keller % He who is afraid to ask is ashamed of learning. -- Danish Proverb % It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horse races. -- Mark Twain % There are realities we all share, regardless of our nationality, language, or individual tastes. As we need food, so do we need emotional nourishment: love, kindness, appreciation, and support from others. We need to understand our environment and our relationship to it. We need to fulfill certain inner hungers: the need for happiness, for peace of mind -- for wisdom. -- Swami Kriyananda [J. Donald Walters] % Choose to chance the rapids and dare to dance the skies. -- Garth Brooks % The magnanimous know very well that they who give time, or money, or shelter, to the stranger -- so it be done for love, and not for ostentation -- do, as it were, put God under obligation to them, so perfect are the compensations of the universe. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much. -- Helen Keller % Listen not merely to what is said but to the tone of voice in which it is said. -- Chinese Proverb % I have three precious things which I hold fast and prize. The first is gentleness; the second is frugality; the third is humility, which keeps me from putting myself before others. Be gentle and you can be bold; be frugal and you can be liberal; avoid putting yourself before others and you can become a leader among men. -- Lao Tzu % My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together. -- Archbishop Desmond Tutu % An imagination is a powerful tool. It can tint memories of the past, shade perceptions of the present, or paint a future so vivid that it can entice...or terrify, all depending upon how we conduct ourselves today. -- James Robert "Jim" Davis % I still miss those I loved who are no longer with me but I find I am grateful for having loved them. The gratitude has finally conquered the loss. -- Rita Mae Brown % Open the doors of opportunity to talent and virtue and they will do themselves justice. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % And children whose backgrounds have stunted their sense of the future need to be taught by example that they are good for more than they dared dream. -- Kenneth Keniston % If a wind blows, ride it! -- Arabic Proverb % To love someone deeply gives you strength. Being loved by someone deeply gives you courage. -- Lao Tzu % Frequently people think compassion and love are merely sentimental. No! They are very demanding. If you are going to be compassionate, be prepared for action. -- Archbishop Desmond Tutu % Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts. And never hope more than you work. -- Rita Mae Brown % As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them. -- John F. Kennedy % To him who is determined it remains only to act. -- Italian Proverb % Opportunities multiply as they are seized. -- Sun Tzu % Although we are in different boats you in your boat and we in our canoe we share the same river of life. -- Chief Oren Lyons % Live so that when your children think of fairness and integrity, they think of you. -- H. Jackson Brown, Jr. % Life is unnecessarily long. Moments of insight, of fine personal relation, a smile, a glance -- what ample borrowers of eternity they are! -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on. -- John F. Kennedy % Don't let slip an opportunity; it may never come again. -- Chinese Proverb % Be careful what you water your dreams with. Water them with worry and fear and you will produce weeds that choke the life from your dream. Water them with optimism and solutions and you will cultivate success. -- Lao Tzu % Difference is of the essence of humanity. Difference is an accident of birth and it should therefore never be the source of hatred or conflict. The answer to difference is to respect it. Therein lies a most fundamental principle of peace: respect for diversity. -- John Hume % Obstinacy in a bad cause is but constancy in a good. -- Sir Thomas Browne % Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other. -- John F. Kennedy % Fall seven times, stand up eight. -- Japanese Proverb % At bottom every man knows well enough that he is a unique being, only once on this earth; and by no extraordinary chance will such a marvelously picturesque piece of diversity in unity as he is, ever be put together a second time. -- Friedrich Nietzsche % In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins -- not through strength but by perseverance. -- Jackson Browne % Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man 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, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. -- Robert F. Kennedy % With time and patience the mulberry leaf becomes a silk gown. -- Chinese Proverb % Loyalty and devotion lead to bravery. Bravery leads to the spirit of self-sacrifice. The spirit of self-sacrifice creates trust in the power of love. -- Morihei Ueshiba % [People] may be said to resemble not the bricks of which a house is built, but the pieces of a picture puzzle, each differing in shape, but matching the rest, and thus bringing out the picture. -- Felix Adler % Rough diamonds may sometimes be mistaken for worthless pebbles. -- Sir Thomas Browne % 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 [their] ideals. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % A handfull of patience is worth a bushel of brains. -- Dutch Proverb % You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear, as young as your hope, as old as your despair. -- Samuel Ullman % We have become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams. -- Jimmy Carter % ...the day will come when man will recognize woman as his peer, not only at the fireside but in the councils of the nation. Then, and not until then, will there be the perfect comradeship, the ideal union, between the sexes that shall result in the highest development of the race. -- Susan Brownell Anthony % Always do what you are afraid to do. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not? -- Robert F. Kennedy % Lack of patience in small matters can create havoc in great ones. -- Chinese Proverb % Cancer can take away all of my physical abilities. It cannot touch my mind, it cannot touch my heart, and it cannot touch my soul. And those three things are going to carry on forever. -- Jimmy Valvano % If you believe in yourself and have dedication and pride -- and never quit, you'll be a winner. The price of victory is high but so are the rewards. -- Emily Dickinson % Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % Pray not for easy lives, pray to be stronger men. -- John F. Kennedy % He who knows patience knows peace. -- Chinese Proverb % Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity. -- Henry Van Dyke % Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they've got a second. Give your dreams all you've got and you'll be amazed at the energy that comes out of you. -- William James % In a mood of faith and hope my work goes on. A ream of fresh paper lies on my desk waiting for the next book. I am a writer and I take up my pen to write. -- Pearl S. Buck % Man was born rich, or inevitably grows rich by the use of his faculties; by the union of thought with nature. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % If we cannot now end our differences, at least we can help made the world safe for diversity. -- John F. Kennedy % Patience: To wait with certainity; the art of allowing life to carry you. -- Chinese Proverb % Happiness is inward, and not outward; and so, it does not depend on what we have, but on what we are. -- Henry Van Dyke % No horse gets anywhere until he is harnessed. No stream or gas drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined. -- Harry Emerson Fosdick % To serve is beautiful, but only if it is done with joy and a whole heart and a free mind. -- Pearl S. Buck % The highest vocation we can have is Love. Love in action is service. -- Ken Essien % The unity of freedom has never relied on uniformity of opinion. -- John F. Kennedy % One may go a long way after one is tired. -- French Proverb % What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything? -- Vincent Van Gogh % Listening to someone talk isn't at all like listening to their words played over on a machine. What you hear when you have a face before you is never what you hear when you have before you a winding tape. -- J. E. Buckrose % The wave of the future is not the conquest of the world by a single dogmatic creed but the liberation of the diverse energies of free nations and free men. -- Oriana Fallaci % The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones. -- Chinese Proverb % Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together. -- Vincent Van Gogh % Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all. -- Sam Ewing % The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling stops or in what far place my touch will be felt. -- Frederick Buechner % Relationships of trust depend on our willingness to look not only to our own interests, but also the interests of others. -- Peter Farquharson % Believe in yourself and there will come a day when others will have no choice but to believe with you. -- Cynthia Kersey % Persistence can grind an iron beam down into a needle. -- Chinese Proverb % Be clearly aware of the stars and infinity on high. Then life seems almost enchanted after all. -- Vincent Van Gogh % To forgive is the highest, most beautiful form of love. In return, you will receive untold peace and happiness. -- Robert Muller % When a person is down in the world, an ounce of help is better than a pound of preaching. -- Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton % I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. -- William Faulkner % Prepare the umbrella before it rains. -- Malay Proverb % Friends broaden our horizons. They serve as new models with whom we can identify. They allow us to be ourselves--and accept us that way. They enhance our self-esteem because they think we're okay, because we matter to them. And because they matter to us-for various reasons, at various levels of intensity-they enrich the quality of our emotional life. -- Judith Viorst % Sincere forgiveness isn't colored with expectations that the other person apologize or change. Don't worry whether or not they finally understand you. Love them and release them. Life feeds back truth to people in its own way and time -- Sara Paddison % A good heart is better than all the heads in the world. -- Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton % We all need to know what it means to be honest. Honesty is more than not lying. It is truth telling, truth speaking, truth living, and truth loving. -- James E. Faust % He who wants a rose must respect the thorn. -- Persian Proverb % Arise, awake, and stop not until the goal is achieved. -- Swami Vivekananda % Without forgiveness, there's no future. -- Archbishop Desmond Tutu % You have a clean slate every day you wake up. You have a chance every single morning to make that change and be the person you want to be. You just have to decide to do it. Decide today's the day. Say it; This is going to be my day. -- Brendon Burchard % Success seems to be largely a matter of hanging on after others let go. -- William Feather % We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. -- Martin Luther King, Jr. % If you want to be respected, you must respect yourself. -- Spanish Proverb % Success flourishes only in perseverance--ceaseless, restless perseverance. -- Baron Manfred von Richthofen % No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible. -- Voltaire % Manners are of more importance than laws. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in. -- Edmund Burke % I fear no one, but I respect everyone. -- Roger Federer % Forgiveness is not an occasional act: it is an attitude. -- Martin Luther King, Jr. % The young should be treated with respect. -- Chinese Proverb % The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. -- Edmund Burke % There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the infinite passion of life. -- Federico Fellini % One may be old in years, but not in spirit, or poor in wealth, but not in ambition. -- Chinese Proverb % Where there is life, there is hope. Where there are hopes, there are dreams. Where there are vivid dreams repeated, they become goals. Goals become the action plans and game plans that winners dwell on in intricate detail, knowing that achievement is almost automatic when the goal becomes an inner commitment. The response to the challenges of life-purpose-is the healing balm that enables each of us to face up to adversity and strife. -- Dennis Waitley % The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart. -- Elizabeth Foley % When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle. -- Edmund Burke % Set your expectations high; find men and women whose integrity and values you respect; get their agreement on a course of action; and give them your ultimate trust. -- John Fellows Akers % If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven played music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well. -- Martin Luther King, Jr. % Man has responsibility, not power. -- Tuscarora Proverb % The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don't define them, learn about them, or even seriously consider them as believable or achievable. -- Dennis Waitley % When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle 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. -- Henri Nouwen % Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me. -- Carol Burnett % The words of kindness are more healing to a drooping heart than balm or honey. -- Sarah Fielding % Life's most urgent question is: What are you doing for others? -- Martin Luther King, Jr. % By learning you will teach, by teaching you will learn. -- Latin Proverb % Success is almost totally dependent upon drive and persistence. The extra energy required to make another effort or try another approach is the secret of winning. -- Dennis Waitley % We all need friends with whom we can speak of our deepest concerns, and who do not fear to speak the truth in love to us. -- Margaret Guenther % Greatness is more than potential. It is the execution of that potential. Beyond the raw talent. You need the appropriate training. You need the discipline. You need the inspiration. You need the drive. -- Eric A. Burns % Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold. -- Zelda Fitzgerald % If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. -- Martin Luther King, Jr. % Personal example carries more weight than preaching. -- Chinese Proverb % If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder, he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement and mystery of the world we live in. -- Howard Arnold Walter % Dare to be honest and fear no labor. -- Robert Burns % Action is character. -- F. Scott Fiztgerald % Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illumines it. -- Martin Luther King, Jr. % When two are of one mind, their strength can cut gold. -- Chinese Proverb % To carry a grudge is like being stung to death by one bee. -- William Walton % What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies. -- Aristotle % Vitality shows in not only the ability to persist but the ability to start over. -- Henry Burton % Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree. -- F. Scott Fiztgerald % It is an equal failing to trust everybody, and to trust nobody. -- Martin Luther King, Jr. % Courtesy is the one coin you can never have too much of or be stingy with. -- John Wanamaker % Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. -- Albert Camus % One must always hope when one is desperate, and doubt when one hopes. -- Dr. Leo Buscaglia % Unity is power. -- Arabic Proverb % Greatness is not found in possessions, power, position, or prestige. It is discovered in goodness, humility, service, and character. -- William Arthur Ward % The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings. -- Eric Hoffer % Change is the end result of all true learning. Change involves three things: First, a dissatisfaction with self -- a felt void or need; second, a decision to change to fill the void or need; and third, a conscious dedication to the process of growth and change -- the willful act of making the change, doing something. -- Dr. Leo Buscaglia % Most of us, swimming against the tides of trouble the world knows nothing about, need only a bit of praise or encouragement -- and we will make the goal. -- Jerome P. Fleishman % I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. -- Martin Luther King, Jr. % Variety is the spice of life. -- American Proverb % You measure the size of the accomplishment by the obstacles you had to overcome to reach your goals! -- Booker T. Washington % The Pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts. No Americans have been more impoverished than these who, nevertheless, set aside a day of thanksgiving. -- H. U. Westermayer % I have a very strong feeling that the opposite of love is not hate -- it's apathy. -- Dr. Leo Buscaglia % By the work one knows the workman. -- Jean de La Fontaine % Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. -- Martin Luther King, Jr. % At twenty-five I should have worn a big red A on my chest; it would have stood for ambition, an ambition so brazen and burning that it would have reduced Hester Prynne's transgression to pale pink. -- Anna Quindlen % Any man's life will be filled with constant and unexpected encouragement if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day. -- Booker T. Washington % Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul. -- Henry Ward Beecher % If human beings are perceived as potentials rather than problems, as possessing strengths instead of weaknesses, as unlimited rather that dull and unresponsive, then they thrive and grow to their capabilities. -- Barbara Bush % Patience and time do more than strength or passion. -- Jean de La Fontaine % Our children need our presence, not our presents. -- Martin Luther King, Jr. % The deepest craving of human nature is the need to be appreciated. -- William James % Giving frees us from the familiar territory of our own needs by opening our mind to the unexplained worlds occupied by the needs of others. -- Barbara Bush % It is the small doubts of timid souls that accomplish their ruin. It is the narrow vision, the fear and trembling hesitation, that constitute defeat. -- Alice Foote MacDougall % Ideas are only lethal if you suppress and don't discuss them. Ignorance is not bliss, it's stupid. Banning books shows you don't trust your kids to think and you don't trust yourself to be able to talk to them. -- Anna Quindlen % I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man. -- George Washington % God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one to say 'thank you?' -- William Arthur Ward % Forgiveness is man's deepest need and highest achievement. -- Horace Bushnell % Despising cowardice in others, I wished to prove myself no coward. Believing in the good, the gentle, the beautiful things of life, I addressed myself to the sweet duty of keeping these attributes for my children's sake and my own. And in striving to provide a living for them, I found a success beyond my wildest dreams. -- Alice Foote MacDougall % We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools. -- Martin Luther King, Jr. % Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I'll try again tomorrow. -- Mary Anne Radmacher % Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience. -- George Washington % Gratitude is the memory of the heart. -- Jean-Baptiste Massieu % The question "Who am I?" is not a philosophical football meant to be kicked around coffeehouses by pseudo-intellectuals. It's a real-life question. Nothing is more important and more relevant than to know who you are. -- Chris Butler % Much of the success of life depends upon keeping one's mind open to opportunity and seizing it when it comes. -- Alice Foote MacDougall % Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation; and this means we must develop a world perspective. -- Martin Luther King, Jr. % Those who can adapt to change are those who will continue to grow. -- Justin Ramalho % Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving. -- W. T. Purkiser % Optimism is the foundation of courage. -- Nicholas Murray Butler % You can easily judge the character of others by how they treat those who can do nothing for them or to them. -- Malcolm S. Forbes % A blessed thing it is for any man or woman to have a friend, one human soul whom we can trust utterly, who knows the best and worst of us, and who loves us in spite of all our faults. -- Charles Kingsley % Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values. -- Ayn Rand % Character is doing the right thing when nobody's looking. There are too many people who think that the only thing that's right is to get by, and the only thing that's wrong is to get caught. -- J. C. Watts % Gratitude is happiness double by wonder. -- G. K. Chesterton % I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. -- William Butler Yeats % Diamonds are nothing more than chunks of coal that stuck to their jobs. -- Malcolm S. Forbes % The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. -- Barbara Kingsolver % The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me. -- Ayn Rand % The wise person understands that his own happiness must include the happiness of others. -- Dennis Weaver % A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought. There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor. -- Victor Hugo % The longer I live, the more I am certain that the great difference between the great and the insignificant, is energy-invincible determination-a purpose once fixed, and then death or victory. -- Sir Thomas Buxton % There is joy in work. There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something. -- Henry Ford % I always prefer to believe the best of everybody-it saves so much trouble. -- Rudyard Kipling % From the smallest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from one attribute of man -- the function of his reasoning mind. -- Ayn Rand % The love of our neighbor in all its fullness simply means being able to say, What are you going through? -- Simone Weil % I don't wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work. -- Pearl S. Buck % Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and griefs which we endure help us in our marching onward. -- Sir Thomas Buxton % I will speak to a youth which can accomplish everything, precisely because it accepts no past, obeys no present, and fears no future. -- Henry Ford % The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live. -- Rudyard Kipling % If you can't excel with talent, triumph with effort. -- Stephen G. Weinbaum % Never work just for money or for power. They won't save your soul or help you sleep at night. -- Marian Wright Edelman % Great opportunities to help others seldom come, but small ones surround us every day. -- Henry Ford % In the name of the best within you, do not sacrifice this world to those who are its worst. In the name of the values that keep you alive, do not let your vision of man be distorted by the ugly, the cowardly, the mindless... Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it's yours. -- Ayn Rand % Money matters, but less than we think and not in the way we think. Family is important. So are friends. Envy is toxic. So is excessive thinking. Beaches are optional. Trust is not. Neither is gratitude. -- Eric Weiner % Careers, like rockets, don't always take off on schedule. The key is to keep working the engines. -- Gary Sinise % In the depths of winter I finally learned there was in me an invincible summer. -- Albert Camus % One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn't do. -- Henry Ford % The moment of truth, the sudden emergence of a new insight, is an act of intuition. Such intuitions give the appearance of miraculous flushes, or short-circuits of reasoning. In fact they may be likened to an immersed chain, of which only the beginning and the end are visible above the surface of consciousness. The diver vanishes at one end of the chain and comes up at the other end, guided by invisible links. -- Arthur Koestler % When you have established that one alternative is good and the other is evil, there is no justification for the choice of a mixture. There is no justification ever for choosing any part of what you know to be evil. -- Ayn Rand % Our happiness is completely and utterly intertwined with other people: family, friends, neighbors and the woman who you hardly notice who cleans your office. -- Eric Weiner % Imagine what a harmonious world it could be if every single person, both young and old, shared a little of what he is good at doing. -- Quincy Jones % Integrity has no need of rules. -- Albert Camus % Nobody can think straight who does not work. Idleness warps the mind. -- Henry Ford % Some people think only intellect counts: knowing how to solve problems, knowing how to get by, knowing how to identify an advantage and seize it. But the functions of intellect are insufficient without courage, love, friendship, compassion and empathy. -- Dean Koontz % They had that special grace, that special spirit that says, Give me a challenge and I'll meet it with joy. -- Ronald Reagan % Long before I wrote stories, I listened for stories. Listening for them is something more acute than listening to them. I suppose it's an early form of participation in what goes on. Listening children know stories are there. When their elders sit and begin, children are just waiting and hoping for one to come out, like a mouse from its hole. -- Eudora Welty % An essential part of a happy, healthy life is being of service to others. -- Susan Patton Thoele % The brain may take advice, but not the heart, and love having no geography, knows no boundaries: weight and sink it deep, no matter, it will rise and find the surface. -- Truman Capote % To do more for the world than the world does for you -- that is success. -- Henry Ford % To succeed, we must first believe that we can. -- Michael Korda % There is more learning in the question itself than the answer. -- Andrew Weremy % You will rise by lifting others. -- Robert G. Ingersoll % In the end the aggressors always destroy themselves, making way for others who know how to cooperate and get along. Life is much less a competitive struggle for survival than a triumph of cooperation and creativity. -- Fritjof Capra % Time and money spent in helping people to do more for themselves is far better than mere giving. -- Henry Ford % Honor isn't about making the right choices. It's about dealing with the consequences. -- Midori Koto % Once you choose hope, anything is possible. -- Christopher Reeve % Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can. -- John Wesley % We are prone to judge success by the index of our salaries or the size of our automobiles, rather than by the quality of our service and relationship to humanity. -- Martin Luther King, Jr. % A man without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder. -- Thomas Carlyle % Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it. -- Henry Ford % Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and know that everything in life has purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences. All events are blessings given to us to learn from. -- Elisabeth Kübler-Ross % So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable. -- Christopher Reeve % It is very easy to forgive others their mistakes; it takes more grit and gumption to forgive them for having witnessed your own. -- Jessamyn West % I have found the paradox that if I love until it hurts, then there is no hurt, but only more love. -- Mother Teresa % Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness. -- Thomas Carlyle % You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do. -- Henry Ford % Old age is not a disease -- it is strength and survivorship, triumph over all kinds of vicissitudes and disappointments, trials and illnesses. -- Maggie Kuhn % I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles. -- Christopher Reeve % There is no chance, no destiny, no fate, that can hinder or control the firm resolve of a determined soul. -- Ella Wheeler Wilcox % If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go fishing. If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody. -- Chinese Proverb % Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragements, and impossibilities: It is this that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak. -- Thomas Carlyle % Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently. -- Henry Ford % Caring about others, running the risk of feeling, and leaving an impact on people, brings happiness. -- Harold Kushner % The most basic and powerful way to connect to another person is to listen. Just listen. Perhaps the most important thing we ever give each other is our attention...A loving silence often has far more power to heal and to connect than the most well-intentioned words. -- Rachel Naomi Remen % Maybe the Fountain of Youth isn't a fountain at all. Maybe it's a way of looking at things. A way of thinking. -- Charles Whitley % Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is something for you to do in the world. So long as you can sweeten another's pain, life is not in vain. -- Helen Keller % A mystic bond of brotherhood makes all men one. -- Thomas Carlyle % Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right. -- Henry Ford % It's the most breathtakingly ironic things about living: the fact that we are all...alone. Singular. And yet what we seek -- what saves us -- is our connection to others. -- Wally Lamb % We cannot really love anybody with whom we never laugh. -- Agnes Repplier % Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing. -- Elie Wiesel % Condemn none: if you can stretch out a helping hand, do so. If you cannot, fold your hands, bless your brothers, and let them go their own way. -- Swami Vivekananda % Our grand duty is not to see what lies dimly in the distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand. -- Thomas Carlyle % Only connect. -- E. M. Forster % I do not at all understand the mystery of grace -- only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us. -- Anne Lamott % Humor brings insight and tolerance. Irony brings a deeper and less friendly understanding. -- Agnes Repplier % I don't believe in aging. I believe in forever altering one's aspect to the sun. Hence my optimism. -- Oscar Wilde % A laugh is a smile that bursts. -- Mary H. Waldrip % You have it easily in your power to increase the sum total of this world's happiness now. How? By giving a few words of sincere appreciation to someone who is lonely or discouraged. Perhaps you will forget tomorrow the kind words you say today, but the recipient may cherish them over a lifetime. -- Dale Carnegie % One must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life. -- E. M. Forster % Promise yourself to be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own. -- Christian D. Larson % Depend upon yourself. Make your judgement trustworthy by trusting it. You can develop good judgement as you do the muscles of your body -- by judicious, daily exercise. To be known as a man of sound judgement will be much in your favor. -- Grantland Rice % Pleasure is Nature's test, her sign of approval. When man is happy, he is in harmony with himself and his environment. -- Oscar Wilde % Humility does not mean thinking less of yourself than of other people, nor does it mean having a low opinion of your own gifts. It means freedom from thinking about yourself at all. -- William Temple % Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all. -- Dale Carnegie % The fact is we can only love what we know personally. And we cannot know much. In public affairs, in the rebuilding of civilization, something less dramatic and emotional is needed, namely tolerance. -- E. M. Forster % The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a person's determination. -- Thomas Tommy Lasorda % They learn tolerance for others' faults through our tolerance of their own. -- Cathy Ridner Tempelsman % Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you. -- Oscar Wilde % It is well to remember that the entire population of the universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others. -- Andrew J. Holmes % Are you bored with life? Then throw yourself into some work you believe in with all your heart, live for it, die for it, and you will find happiness that you had thought could never be yours. -- Dale Carnegie % Love and respect are the most important aspects of parenting, and of all relationships. -- Jodie Foster % The great virtue in life is real courage that knows how to face facts and live beyond them. -- D.H. Lawrence % I beg you to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves...Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now...the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. -- Rainer Maria Rilke % We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures. -- Thornton Wilder % What kills a skunk is the publicity it gives itself. -- Abraham Lincoln % To me it seems that to give happiness is a far nobler goal that to attain it: and that what we exist for is much more a matter of relations to others than a matter of individual progress: much more a matter of helping others to heaven than of getting there ourselves. -- Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] % Compassion is not sentiment but is making justice and doing works of mercy. Compassion is not a moral commandment but a flow and overflow of the fullest human and divine energies. -- Matthew Fox % The only rule is, do what you really, impulsively, wish to do. But always act on your own responsibility, sincerely. And have the courage of your own strong emotion. -- D.H. Lawrence % For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of our tasks; the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation. -- Rainer Maria Rilke % Hope, like faith, is nothing if it is not courageous; it is nothing if it is not ridiculous. -- Thornton Wilder % Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are. -- Malcolm S. Forbes % How far you go in life depends on you being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these. -- George Washington Carver % The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards. -- Anatole France % All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible. -- T. E. Lawrence "of Arabia" % To achieve the impossible, it is precisely the unthinkable that must be thought. -- Tom Robbins % I have always depended on the kindness of strangers. -- Tennessee Williams % We are all worms, but I do believe I am a glowworm. -- Sir Winston Churchill % I feel the capacity to care is the thing which gives life its deepest significance. -- Pablo Casals % Make hatred hated! -- Anatole France % Give children at least as many chances to show compassion as they have to be competitive. -- Erica Layman % Inspire and bring joy to all those you touch. -- Rod Williams % Blushing is the color of virtue. -- Diogenes of Sinope % You have to believe in yourself, that's the secret. Even when I was in the orphanage, when I was roaming the street trying to find enough to eat, even then I thought of myself as the greatest actor in the world. I had to feel the exuberance that comes from utter confidence in yourself. Without it, you go down to defeat. -- Charlie Chaplin % How wonderful that no one need wait a single moment to improve the world. -- Anne Frank % As great scientists have said and as all children know, it is above all by the imagination that we achieve perception, and compassion, and hope. -- Ursula K. Le Guin % If you don't go after what you want, you'll never have it. If you don't ask, the answer is always no. If you don't step forward, you're always in the same place. -- Nora Roberts % Good words bring good feelings to the heart. Speak with kindness, always. -- Rod Williams % No one should be ashamed to admit they are wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that they are wiser today than they were yesterday. -- Alexander Pope % We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. -- Charlie Chaplin % In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death. -- Anne Frank % It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end. -- Ursula K. Le Guin % I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity an obligation; every possession a duty. -- John D. Rockefeller, Jr. % Change what you can change and acknowledge and accept what you can't. -- Rod Williams % Humility is the only true wisdom by which we prepare our minds for all the possible changes of life. -- George Arliss % Parents can only give good advice or put [their children] on the right path, but the final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands. -- Anne Frank % I do not think there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature. -- John D. Rockefeller, Sr. % To appreciate the balance in life, you have to lose it every now and then. -- Rod Williams % Humility is like underwear; essential, but indecent if it shows. -- Helen Nielsen % We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same. -- Anne Frank % The Greatest Investment we can ever make is to invest our life in the life of someone else. -- Scott Lee % If you think you're too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito in the room. -- Anita Roddick % You can't change your past, and your future has not happened. Focus your energy on enjoying the moment you are living right now. -- Rod Williams % True merit, like a river, the deeper it is, the less noise it makes. -- Edward Frederick Lindley Wood % Service to a just cause rewards the worker with more real happiness and satisfaction than any other venture of life. -- Carrie Chapman Catt % We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. -- Viktor Frankl % Ambition beats genius 99 percent of the time. -- Jay Leno % Lead your life so you wouldn't be ashamed to sell the family parrot to the town gossip. -- Will Rogers % I choose to believe I can and will change the world with my words and thoughts. -- Rod Williams % Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence. -- Abigail Adams % Love is a special word, and I use it only when I mean it. You say the word too much and it becomes cheap. -- Ray Charles % Personality can open doors, but only character can keep them open. -- Elmer G. Letterman % Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there. -- Will Rogers % Weakness is nothing more than an opportunity to grow. -- Rod Williams % To understand is to forgive, even oneself. -- Euripides % Love one another and you will be happy. It's as simple and as difficult as that. -- Alexander Chase % I doubt that we can ever successfully impose values or attitudes or behaviors on our children certainly not by threat, guilt, or punishment. But I do believe they can be induced through relationships where parents and children are growing together. Such relationships are, I believe, build on trust, example, talk, and caring. -- Micael Leunig % We are like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. We are all unique, and have our own special place in the puzzle of the universe. Without each of us, the puzzle is incomplete. -- Rod Williams % We learn by example and by direct experience because there are real limits to the adequacy of verbal instruction. -- Malcolm Gladwell % Little, vicious minds abound with anger and revenge, and are incapable of feeling the pleasure of forgiving their enemies. -- Lord Chesterfield % Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing. -- Benjamin Franklin % When we no longer hold people responsible for their choices, civility and common sense will be diminished. -- Robert A. Levy % Whoever renders service to many puts himself in line for greatness -- great wealth, great return, great satisfaction, great reputation, and great joy. -- Jim Rohn % For those who have seen the Earth from space, and for the hundreds and perhaps thousands more who will, the experience most certainly changes your perspective. The things that we share in our world are far more valuable than those which divide us. -- Captain Donald Williams % The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said. -- Peter F. Drucker % The aim of life is appreciation; there is no sense in not appreciating things; and there is no sense in having more of them if you have less appreciation of them. -- G. K. Chesterton % I will speak ill of no man, and speak all the good I know of everybody. -- Benjamin Franklin % Commitment, by its nature, frees us from ourselves and, while it stands us in opposition to some, it joins us with others similarly committed. Commitment moves us from the mirror trap of the self absorbed with the self to the freedom of a community of shared values. -- Michael Lewis % What you love is a sign from your higher self of what you are to do. -- Sanaya Roman % Anyone can hate. It costs to love. -- John Williamson % Listen. Do not have an opinion while you listen because frankly, your opinion doesn't hold much water outside of Your Universe. Just listen. Listen until their brain has been twisted like a dripping towel and what they have to say is all over the floor. -- Hugh Elliott % I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder. -- G. K. Chesterton % A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body. -- Benjamin Franklin % You always pass failure on the way to success. -- Mickey Rooney % From every human being there rises a light that reaches straight to heaven. And when two souls that are destined to be together find each other, their streams of light flow together, and a single brighter light goes forth from their united being. -- Marianne Williamson % The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost. -- G. K. Chesterton % Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art...It has no survival value; rather is one of those things that give value to survival. -- C.S. Lewis % Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. -- Theodore Roosevelt % Loyalty means nothing unless it has at its heart the absolute principle of self-sacrifice. -- Woodrow Wilson % 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. -- Benjamin Franklin % Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: What! You, too? I thought I was the only one. -- C.S. Lewis % The mind has exactly the same power as the hands: not merely to grasp the world, but to change it. -- Eleanor Roosevelt % At the touch of love everyone becomes a poet. -- Colin Wilson % To make the right choices in life, you have to get in touch with your soul. To do this, you need to experience solitude, which most people are afraid of, because in the silence you hear the truth and know the solutions. -- Deepak K. Chopra % I was always looking outside myself for strength and confidence but it comes from within. It is there all the time. -- Anna Freud % Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn. -- C.S. Lewis % No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. -- Eleanor Roosevelt % You'll discover that real love is millions of miles past falling in love with anyone or anything. When you make that one effort to feel compassion instead of blame or self-blame, the heart opens again and continues opening. -- Sara Paddison % If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time -- a tremendous whack. -- Sir Winston Churchill % Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise. -- Sigmund Freud % You only live once -- but if you work it right, once is enough. -- Joe E. Lewis % To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society. -- Theodore Roosevelt % You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand. -- Woodrow Wilson % Perfect love is rare indeed -- for to be a lover will require that you continually have the subtlety of the very wise, the flexibility of the child, the sensitivity of the artist, the understanding of the philosopher, the acceptance of the saint, the tolerance of the scholar and the fortitude of the certain. -- Dr. Leo Buscaglia % The only guide to a man is his conscience. -- Sir Winston Churchill % Love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness. -- Sigmund Freud % Life is too deep for words, so don't try to describe it, just live it. -- C.S. Lewis % Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, 'Certainly I can!' Then get busy and find out how to do it. -- Theodore Roosevelt % Be thankful for what you have; you'll end up having more. If you concentrate on what you don't have, you will never, ever have enough. -- Oprah Winfrey % Trouble is part of your life -- if you don't share it, you don't give the person who loves you a chance to love you enough. -- Dinah Shore % Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. -- Sir Winston Churchill % Life was given to us to be an intentional event; Make it so! -- Sean A. Frontz % With great power comes great responsibility. -- Stanley Martin Lieber % You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do. -- Eleanor Roosevelt % The greatest discovery of all time is that a person can change his future by merely changing his attitude. -- Oprah Winfrey % We are, each of us angels with only one wing; and we can only fly by embracing one another. -- Lucianno de Crescenzo % Never, never, never give up. -- Sir Winston Churchill % Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say for one that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men. -- Robert Frost % Courtesy is as much a mark of a gentleman as courage. -- Abraham Lincoln % A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove... but the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child. -- Theodore Roosevelt % I have never met a person whose greatest need was anything other than real, unconditional love. You can find it in a simple act of kindness toward someone who needs help. There is no mistaking love…it is the common fiber of life, the flame that heats our soul, energizes our spirit and supplies passion to our lives. -- Forest E. Witcraft % Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence. -- Robert Frost % Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing. -- Abraham Lincoln % Friendship among nations, as among individuals, calls for constructive efforts to muster the forces of humanity in order that an atmosphere of close understanding and cooperation may be cultivated. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt % Commitment unlocks the doors of imagination, allows vision, and gives us the right stuff to turn our dream into reality. -- James Womack % Let your love be like the misty rains, coming softly, but flooding the river. -- Malagasy Proverb % History will be kind to me for I intend to write it. -- Sir Winston Churchill % Teachers: two kinds: the kind that fill you with so much quail shot that you can't move and the kind that just give you a little prod from behind and you jump to the skies. -- Robert Frost % You have confidence in yourself, which is valuable, if not an indispensable quality. -- Abraham Lincoln % Friendship with oneself is all-important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world. -- Eleanor Roosevelt % Happiness is itself a kind of gratitude. -- Joseph Wood Krutch % Love must be as much a light, as it is a flame. -- Henry David Thoreau % We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give. -- Sir Winston Churchill % This is the art of courage: to see things as they are and still believe that the victory lies not with those who avoid the bad, but those who taste, in living awareness, every drop of the good. -- Victoria Lincoln % Many people will walk in and out of your life but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart. -- Eleanor Roosevelt % Success is never final, failure is never fatal. It's courage that counts. -- John R. Wooden % Most important in a friendship? Tolerance and loyalty -- J.K. Rowling % A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty. -- Sir Winston Churchill % An invincible determination can accomplish almost anything and in this lies the great distinction between great men and little men. -- Dr. Thomas Fuller % I am a slow walker, but I never walk backwards. -- Abraham Lincoln % Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt % Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming. -- John R. Wooden % You can buy a person's hands but you can't buy his heart. His heart is where his enthusiasm, his loyalty is. -- Stephen R. Covey % If you're going through hell, keep going. -- Sir Winston Churchill % He that would have the fruit must climb the tree. -- Dr. Thomas Fuller % Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them? -- Abraham Lincoln % Freedom from effort in the present merely means that there has been effort stored up in the past. -- Theodore Roosevelt % Consider the rights of others before your own feelings, and the feelings of others before your own rights. -- John R. Wooden % When you're part of a team, you stand up for your teammates. Your loyalty is to them. You protect them through good and bad, because they'd do the same for you. -- Lawrence Peter "Yogi" Berra % The price of greatness is responsibility. -- Sir Winston Churchill % Honest men fear neither the light nor the dark. -- Dr. Thomas Fuller % Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built. -- Abraham Lincoln % Liberty requires opportunity to make a living -- a living decent according to the standard of the time, a living which gives a man not only enough to live by, but something to live for. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt % Do not let making a living prevent you from making a life. -- John R. Wooden % Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier. -- Colin Powell % In our daily lives, we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but the gratefulness that makes us happy. -- Albert Clarke % People should think things out fresh and not just accept conventional terms and the conventional way of doing things. -- R. Buckminster Fuller % The power of hope upon human exertion, and happiness, is wonderful. -- Abraham Lincoln % It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles 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 up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat. -- Theodore Roosevelt % Respect a man, and he will do all the more. -- John R. Wooden % Be thou the rainbow in the storms of life. The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, and tints tomorrow with prophetic ray. -- George Gordon Byron % The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible. -- Arthur C. Clarke % You have to do your own growing no matter how tall your grandfather was. -- Margaret Fuller % I could not, at any age, be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived. Curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life. -- Abraham Lincoln % Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends. -- Virginia Woolf % Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. -- Benjamin Franklin % Where the determination is, the way can be found. -- George S. Clason % A pessimist, they say, sees a glass as being half empty; an optimist sees the same glass as half full. But a giving person sees a glass of water and starts looking for someone who might be thirsty. -- G. Donald Gale % I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday. -- Abraham Lincoln % If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt % If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people. -- Virginia Woolf % Every experience is a stitch in the fabric of your character. -- Gary Clausing % Integrity is what we say, what we do, and what we say we do. -- Don Galer % Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle. -- Abraham Lincoln % The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. -- Eleanor Roosevelt % An optimist is a man who starts a crossword puzzle with a fountain pen. -- William Wordsworth % Courtesies of a small and trivial character are the ones which strike deepest in the grateful and appreciating heart. % Your own resolution to success is more important than any other one thing. -- Abraham Lincoln % When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die. -- Eleanor Roosevelt % No person ever ended his eyesight by looking on the bright side. -- William Wordsworth % 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. -- Zig Ziglar % Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment; full effort is full victory. -- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi % Whatever you are, be a good one. -- Abraham Lincoln % Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty... I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led diffcult lives and led them well. -- Theodore Roosevelt % Throw back the shoulders, let the heart sing, let the eyes flash, let the mind be lifted up, look upward and say to yourself ... nothing is impossible! -- William Wordsworth % Honor lies in honest toil. -- Grover Cleveland % I claim to be an average man of less than average ability. I have not the shadow of a doubt that any man or woman can achieve what I have, if he or she would make the same effort and cultivate the same hope and faith. -- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi % I think the authors of that notable instrument [the Declaration of Independence] intended to include all men. -- Abraham Lincoln % In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing. -- Theodore Roosevelt % Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose honest arrogance and have seen no occasion to change. -- Frank Lloyd Wright % The average pencil is seven inches long, with just a half-inch eraser-in case you thought optimism was dead. -- Robert Brault % There's only one way to succeed in anything, and that is to give it everything. -- Vincent "Vince" Lombardi % What we have to do... is to find a way to celebrate our diversity and debate our differences without fracturing our communities. -- Hillary Clinton % Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. -- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi % You don't have to preach honesty to men with creative purpose. Let a human being throw the engines of his soul into the making of something, and the instinct of workmanship will take care of his honesty. -- Walter Lippman % Competition has been shown to be useful up to a certain point and no further, but cooperation, which is the thing we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt % I know the price of success: dedication, hard work, and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen. -- Frank Lloyd Wright % Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow. -- Swedish Proverb % We need to empower our people so they can take more responsibility for their own lives in a world that is ever smaller, where everyone counts...We need a new spirit of community, a sense that we are all in this together... -- Bill Clinton % Where there is love there is life. -- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi % Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars. -- Brian Littrell % We must be willing to learn the lesson that cooperation may imply compromise, but if it brings a world advance it is a gain for each individual nation. -- Eleanor Roosevelt % Can't, never tried. -- Robert J. Wright % Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence. Inaction is not only the result, but the cause, of fear. Perhaps the action you take will be successful; perhaps different action or adjustments will have to follow. But any action is better than no action at all. -- Norman Vincent Peale % I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not. -- Kurt Cobain % Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent then the one derived from fear of punishment. -- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi % Love is a non-possessive delight in the particularity of the other. -- James E. Loder % An honest man nearly always thinks justly. -- Jean-Jacques Rousseau % The truth is more important than the facts. -- Frank Lloyd Wright % First thing every morning before you arise say out loud, 'I believe,' three times. -- Norman Vincent Peale % There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure. -- Paulo Coelho % We must become the change we want to see in the world. -- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi % A man can be as great as he wants to be. If you believe in yourself and have the courage, the determination, the dedication, the competitive drive and if you are willing to sacrifice the little things in life and pay the price for the things that are worth -- Vincent "Vince" Lombardi % It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities. -- J.K. Rowling % The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen. -- Frank Lloyd Wright % Life's blows cannot break a person whose spirit is warmed at the fire of enthusiasm. -- Norman Vincent Peale % Nobody's a natural. You work hard to get good and then work to get better. It's hard to stay on top. -- Paul Coffey % Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as is cooperation with good. -- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi % Once a man has made a commitment to a way of life, he puts the greatest strength in the world behind him. It's something we call heart power. Once a man has made this commitment, nothing will stop him short of success. -- Vincent "Vince" Lombardi % Compassion for myself is the most powerful healer of them all. -- Theodore Isaac Rubin % Honest hearts produce honest actions. -- Brigham Young % Drop the idea that you are Atlas carrying the world on your shoulders. The world would go on even without you. Don't take yourself so seriously. -- Norman Vincent Peale % Tolerance implies a respect for another person, not because he is wrong or even because he is right, but because he is human. -- John Cogley Commonweal % It's the action, not the fruit of the action, that's important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there will be any fruit. But that doesn't mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no result. -- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi % The quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor. -- Vincent "Vince" Lombardi % I think there is choice possible at any moment to us, as long as we live. But there is no sacrifice. There is a choice, and the rest falls away. Second choice does not exist. Beware of those who talk about sacrifice. -- Muriel Rukeyser % There never were, in the world, two opinions alike, no more than two hairs, or two grains; the most universal quality is diversity. -- Michel Yquem de Montaigne % It's always too early to quit. -- Norman Vincent Peale % Mind is all that counts. You can be whatever you make up your mind to be. -- Robert J. Collier % When restraint and courtesy are added to strength, the latter becomes irresistible. -- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi % The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary. -- Vincent "Vince" Lombardi % Quality is never an accident; it is always the result of intelligent effort. -- John Ruskin % Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials. -- Lin Yutang % Imagination is the true magic carpet. -- Norman Vincent Peale % Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out. -- Robert J. Collier % You will find that the mere resolve not to be useless, and the honest desire to help other people, will, in the quickest and delicatest ways, improve yourself. -- John Ruskin % Do not follow the ideas of others, but learn to listen to the voice within yourself. Your body and mind will become clear and you will realize the unity of all things. -- Dogen Zenji % Stand up to your obstacles and do something about them. You will find that they haven't half the strength you think they have. -- Norman Vincent Peale % Determination and perseverance move the world; thinking that others will do it for you is a sure way to fail. -- Marva Collins % You can't shake hands with a clenched fist. -- Indira Gandhi % Individual commitment to a group effort -- that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work. -- Vincent "Vince" Lombardi % To make your children capable of honesty is the beginning of education. -- John Ruskin % The most important persuasion tool you have in your entire arsenal is integrity. -- Zig Ziglar % One of the greatest moments in anybody's developing experience is when he no longer tries to hide from himself but determines to get acquainted with himself as he really is. -- Norman Vincent Peale % True friendship is like sound health, the value of it is seldom known until it be lost. -- Charles Caleb Colton % I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stifled. I want all the cultures of all lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any. -- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi % I believe the first test of a truly great man is his humility. -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow % By hero, we tend to mean a heightened man who, more than other men, possesses qualities of courage, loyalty, resourcefulness, charisma, above all, selflessness. He is an example of right behavior; the sort of man who risks his life to protect his society's values, sacrificing his personal needs for those of the community. -- John Ruskin % Face your deficiencies and acknowledge them; but do not let them master you. Let them teach you patience, sweetness, insight... When we do the best we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another. -- Helen Keller % There's a magical tie to the land of our home, which the heart cannot break, though the footsteps may roam. -- Eliza Cook % Consciously or unconsciously, every one of us does render some service or other. If we cultivate the habit of doing this service deliberately, our desire for service will steadily grow stronger, and will make, not only our own happiness, but that of the world at large. -- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi % Kind hearts are the gardens, Kind thoughts are the roots, Kind words are the flowers, Kind deeds are the fruits, Take care of your garden And keep out the weeds, Fill it with sunshine, Kind words, and Kind deeds. -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow % Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for cooperation with oneself. -- Bertrand Russell % Nothing that has ever been thought and said with a clear mind and pure ethical strength is totally in vain; even if it comes from a weak hand and is imperfectly formed, it inspires the ethical spirit to constantly renewed creation. -- Stefan Zweig % The practice of patience toward one another, the overlooking of one another's defects, and the bearing of one another's burdens is the most elementary condition of all human and social activity in the family, in the professions, and in society. -- Lawrence G. Lovasik % Listening to people keeps them entertained. -- Mason Cooley % Fear grows out of the things we think; it lives in our minds. Compassion grows out of the things we are, and lives in our hearts. -- Barbara Garrison % Intelligence and courtesy not always are combined; Often in a wooden house a golden room we find. -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow % What we don't need to know for achievement, we need to know for our pleasure. Knowing how things work is the basis for appreciation, and is thus a source of civilized delight. -- William L. Safire % Today is a gift. That's why it's called the present. % Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake. -- Victor Hugo % Opportunity knocks, but doesn't always answer to its name. -- Mason Cooley % Trusting your intuition means tuning in as deeply as you can to the energy you feel, following that energy moment to moment, trusting that it will lead you where you want to go and bring you everything you desire. -- Shakti Gawain % The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night. -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow % Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan % It's a poor frog who doesn't praise its own pond. % Learn to relax. Your body is precious, as it houses your mind and spirit. Inner peace begins with a relaxed body. -- Norman Vincent Peale % Mistrust makes life difficult. Trust makes it risky. -- Mason Cooley % To see ourselves as others see us can be eye-opening. To see others as sharing a nature with ourselves is the merest decency. But it is from the far more difficult achievement of seeing ourselves amongst others…that the largeness of mind, without which objectivity is self-congratulation and tolerance a sham, comes. -- Clifford Geertz % Perseverance is a great element of success. If you knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody. -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow % Believe nothing just because a so-called wise person said it. Believe nothing just because a belief is generally held. Believe nothing just because it is said in ancient books. Believe nothing just because it is said to be of divine origin. Believe nothing just because someone else believes it. Believe only what you yourself test and judge to be true. -- Buddha % Let nothing disturb thee; Let nothing dismay thee; All thing pass; God never changes. Patience attains All that it strives for. He who has God Finds he lacks nothing:God alone suffices. -- St. Teresa of Avila % All growth depends upon activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work. -- Calvin Coolidge % Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened. -- Theodor Seuss Geisel % It takes less time to do things right than to explain why you did it wrong. -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow % I feel that the greatest reward for doing is the opportunity to do more. -- Dr. Jonas Salk % In life you can make your own decisions or let other people make those decisions for you. Being Above The Influence is about staying true to yourself, and not letting people pressure you into being less than you. So be yourself. % If I had permitted my failures, or what seemed to me at the time a lack of success, to discourage me I cannot see any way in which I would ever have made progress. -- Calvin Coolidge % Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not. -- Theodor Seuss Geisel % For his heart was in his work, and the heart giveth grace unto every art. -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow % Good parents give their children Roots and Wings. Roots to know where home is, Wings to fly away and exercise what's been taught them. -- Dr. Jonas Salk % Don't try too hard to fit in; you were born to stand out. -- Anonymous % Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and Determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and will always solve the problems of the human race. -- Calvin Coolidge % Be who you are and say what you feel, because in the end those who matter don't mind and those who mind don't matter. -- Theodor Seuss Geisel % If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we would find in each person's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility. -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow % Sometimes even to live is an act of courage. -- Carl Sandburg % Character is that which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses and avoids. -- Aristotle % When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt % The right thing to do never requires any subterfuge; it is always simple and direct. -- Calvin Coolidge % I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, It's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, And that enables you to laugh at life's realities. -- Theodor Seuss Geisel % Dreams and dedication are a powerful combination. -- William Longgood % Nothing happens unless first a dream. -- Carl Sandburg % A man's character is his fate. -- Heraclitus % Don't let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use. -- Earl Nightingale % The true test of a person's character is how they treat the people in life that they don't need. -- Lee Corso % Friendship is always a sweet responsibility; never an opportunity. -- Khalil Gibran % We are all in the process of becoming. -- Audre Lorde % Theres no reason to be the richest man in the cemetery. You can't do any business from there. -- Harland David "Colonel""" Sanders % What you do when you don't have to will determine what you will be when you can't help it. % Look at a stone cutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred-and-first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not the last blow that did it, but all that had gone before. -- Jacob A. Riis % When a family is free of abuse and oppression, it can be the place where we share our deepest secrets and stand the most exposed, a place where we learn to feel distinct without being 'better,' and sacrifice for others without losing ourselves. -- Letty Cottin Pogrebin % Yesterday is but a dream, and tomorrow is only a vision, but today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope. -- Khalil Gibran % Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before. -- Audre Lorde % The deepest...dream is not the hunger for money or fame; it is the dream of settling down, in peace and freedom and cooperation. -- Scott Russell Sanders % Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors. -- African Proverb % Appreciation can make a day, even change a life. Your willingness to put it into words is all that is necessary. -- Margaret Cousins % Work is love made visible. And if you cannot work with joy but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple, and take alms from them who work with joy. -- Khalil Gibran % The sharing of joy, whether physical, emotional, psychic, or intellectual, forms a bridge between the sharers which can be the basis for understanding much of what is not shared between them, and lessens the threat of their difference. -- Audre Lorde % Character is the basis of happiness and happiness the sanction of character. -- George Santayana % Be not diverted from your duty by any idle reflections the silly world may make upon you, for their censures are not in your power and should not be at all your concerns. -- Epictetus % Age wrinkles the body. Quitting wrinkles the soul. -- Douglas MacArthur % Life is an adventure in forgiveness. -- Norman Cousins % If the other person injures you, you may forget the injury; but if you injure him you will always remember. -- Khalil Gibran % Getting ahead in a difficult profession -- singing, acting, writing, whatever -- requires avid faith in yourself. You must be able to sustain yourself against staggering blows and unfair reversals. When I think back to those first couple of years in Rome, those endless rejections, without a glimmer of encouragement from anyone, all those failed screen tests, and yet I never let my desire slide away from me, my belief in myself and what I felt I could achieve. -- Sophia Loren % Friendship is almost always the union of a part of one mind with a part of another: People are friends in spots. -- George Santayana % A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love. -- Saint Basil % The flower that follows the sun does so even in cloudy days. -- Robert Leighton % There is a tendency to mistake data for wisdom, just as there has always been a tendency to confuse logic with values, intelligence with insight. Unobstructed access to facts can produce unlimited good only if it is matched by the desire and ability to find out what they mean and where they lead. Facts are terrible things if left sprawling and unattended. They are too easily regarded as evaluated certainties rather than as the rawest of raw materials crying to be processed into the texture of logic. -- Norman Cousins % Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars. -- Khalil Gibran % You've got to get up every morning with determination if you're going to go to bed with satisfaction. -- George Horace Lorimer % Even the wisest mind has something yet to learn. -- George Santayana % I have never been hurt by anything I didn't say. -- Tiruvalluvar % Respect for the fragility and importance of an individual life is still the mark of an educated man. -- Calvin Coolidge % Its better to be hated for what you are then to be loved for something your not. -- Norman Cousins % We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction. -- André Gide % It takes patience to appreciate domestic bliss; volatile spirits prefer unhappiness. -- George Santayana % Teach this triple truth to all: A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things that renew humanity. -- Buddha % Probably no greater honor can come to any man than the respect of his colleagues. -- Cary Grant % If we were logical, the future would be bleak indeed. But we are more than logical. We are human beings, and we have faith, and we have hope. -- Jacques Cousteau % Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore. -- André Gide % There is no security on this earth; there is only opportunity. -- Douglas MacArthur % Nothing so much enhances a good as to make sacrifices for it. -- George Santayana % Letting a maximum number of views be heard regularly is not just a nice philosophical notion. It is the best way any society has yet discovered to detect maladjustments quickly, to correct injustices, and to discover new ways to meet our continuing stream of novel problems that rise in a changing environment. -- Aesop % Begin with the end in mind. -- Benjamin Bagdikian % If you want your children to improve, let them overhear the nice things you say about them to others. -- Haim Ginott % The soldier, above all other men, is required to perform the highest act of religious teaching -- sacrifice. -- Douglas MacArthur % If you were all alone in the universe with no one to talk to, no one with which to share the beauty of the stars, to laugh with, to touch, what would be your purpose in life? It is other life, it is love, which gives your life meaning. This is harmony. We must discover the joy of each other, the joy of challenge, the joy of growth. -- Mitsugi Saotome % I never look at the masses as my responsibility; I look at the individual. I can only love one person at a time -- just one, one, one. So you begin. I began - I picked up one person. Maybe if I didn't pick up that one person, I wouldn't have picked up forty-two thousand....The same thing goes for you, the same thing in your family, the same thing in your church, your community. Just begin -- one, one, one. -- Mother Teresa % I am personally convinced that one person can be a change catalyst, a transformer in any situation, any organization. Such an individual is yeast that can leaven an entire loaf. It requires vision, initiative, patience, respect, persistence, courage, and faith to be a transforming leader. -- Stephen R. Covey % Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is. -- Bhagavad Gita % Courage is not the towering oak that see storms come and go; it is the fragile blossom that opens in the snow. -- Alice Mackenzie Swaim % Original love never appears in pure form, but in manifold veils and shapes, such as confidence, humility, reverence, serenity, as faithfulness and modesty, as gratefulness... -- Friedrich Schlegel % Life is a gift, and it offers us the privilege, opportunity, and responsibility to give something back by becoming more. -- Anthony Robbins % If we keep doing what we're doing, we're going to keep getting what we're getting. -- Stephen R. Covey % We look forward to the time when the power to love will replace the love of power. Then will our world know the blessing of peace. -- William Gladstone % It's right to be contented with what we have, never with what we are. -- James Mackintosh % I believe life is a series of near misses. A lot of what we ascribe to luck is not luck at all. It's seizing the day and accepting responsibility for your future. It's seeing what other people don't see. And pursuing that vision. -- Howard Schultz % Respect yourself most of all. -- Pythagorus % The greatest use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it. -- William James % Doing more things faster is no substitute for doing the right things. -- Stephen R. Covey % Love is the harmony of two souls singing together. -- Gregory J. P. Godek % In republics, the great danger is that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority. -- James Madison % Love is the most difficult and dangerous form of courage. Courage is the most desperate, admirable and noble kind of love. -- Delmore Schwartz % Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others. -- Aristotle % Friendship is the greatest of worldly goods. Certainly to me it is the chief happiness of life. If I had to give a piece of advice to a young man about a place to live, I think I should say, 'Sacrifice almost everything to live where you can be near your friends.' I know I am very fortunate in that respect -- C.S. Lewis % It is discouraging how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit. -- Noel Coward % Just trust yourself, then you will know how to live. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe % The circulation of confidence is better than the circulation of money. -- James Madison % As far as men go, it is not what they are that interests me, but what they can become. -- Morrie Schwartz % No one has yet computed how many imaginary triumphs are silently celebrated by people each year to keep up their courage. -- Athenæus % Be curious, not judgmental. -- Walt Whitman % Listening, not imitation, may be the sincerest form of flattery. -- Dr. Joyce [Diane Bauer] Brothers % To me, sadness is great! Without it we could not appriciate true happiness. -- Kaitlyn Cox % There is a courtesy of the heart; it is allied to love. From it springs the purest courtesy in the outward behavior. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe % Equal laws protecting equal rights...the best guarantee of loyalty and love of country. -- James Madison % He is courageous who endures and fears the right thing, for the right motive, in the right way and at the right times. -- Stephen Schwartz % Behold I do not give lectures or a little charity, When I give I give myself. -- Walt Whitman % Continuous effort not strength or intelligence is the key to unlocking our potential. -- Black Elk [Hehaka Sapa] % You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you don't trust enough. -- Frank H. Crane % Correction does much, but encouragement does more. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe % Your life is an occasion; rise to it. -- Mr. Magorium % The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it. -- H. Norman Schwarzkopf % Stand up for what you believe in-even if it means standing alone. % Keep your face always toward the sunshine -- and shadows will fall behind you. -- Walt Whitman % I love you not because of who you are, but because of who I am when I am with you. -- Adam Lindsay [Lionel Gordon] Gordon % When we treat man as he is, we make him worse than he is; when we treat him as if he already were what he potentially could be, we make him what he should be. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe % You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions. -- Naguib Mahfouz % Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace. -- Albert Schweitzer % Never be afraid to try something new. Remember: An amateur built the Ark--professionals built the Titanic. % 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. -- Sam Walton % Mere human beings can't afford to be fanatical about anything. Not even about justice or loyalty...If we are to survive on this planet, there must be compromises. -- Storm [Margaret Storm Jameson] % Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them to become what they are capable of being. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe % I never saw love as luck, as that gift from the gods which put everything else in place, and allowed you to succeed. No, I saw love as reward. One could find it only after one's virtue, or one's courage, or self-sacrifice, or generosity, or loss, has succeeded in stirring the power of creation. -- Norman Mailer % To educate yourself for the feeling of gratitude means to take nothing for granted, but to always seek out and value the kind that will stand behind the action. Nothing that is done for you is a matter of course. Everything originates in a will for the good, which is directed at you. Train yourself never to put off the word or action for the expression of gratitude. -- Albert Schweitzer % Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game. -- Anonymous % The confidence which we have in ourselves gives birth to much of that which we have in others. -- François Duc De La Rochefoucauld % Take hope from the heart of man and you make him a beast of prey. -- Ouida [Marie Louise De La Ramée] % Every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around. -- Cameron Crowe % A leaf that is supposed to grow is full of wrinkles and creases before it develops; if one doesn't have the patience and wants the leaf to be as smooth as a willow leaf from the start, then there is a problem. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe % We must have the courage to bet on our ideas, to take the calculated risk, and to act. Everyday living requires courage if life is to be effective and bring happiness. -- Maxwell Maltz % At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us. -- Albert Schweitzer % We will either find a way, or make one. -- Hannibal % Put all excuses aside and remember this: YOU are capable. -- Zig Ziglar % Note how good you feel after you have encouraged someone else. No other argument is necessary to suggest that never miss the opportunity to give encouragement. -- George Burton Adams % We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience -- e. e. cummings % Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe % Every child should have a caring adult in their lives. And that's not always a biological parent or family member. It may be a friend or neighbor. Often times it is a teacher. -- Joe Manchin % Wherever a man turns he can find someone who needs him. -- Albert Schweitzer % I cannot lead you into battle. I do not give you laws or administer justice but I can do something else-I can give my heart and my devotion to these old islands and to all the peoples of our brotherhood of nations. -- Elizabeth II % If one is estranged from oneself, then one is estranged from others too. If one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others. -- Anne Morrow Lindbergh % If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. -- John Quincy Adams % I watched a small man with thick calluses on both hands work 15 and 16 hours a day. I saw him once literally bleed from the bottoms of his feet, a man who came here uneducated, alone, unable to speak the language, who taught me all I needed to know about faith and hard work by the simple eloquence of his example. -- Mario Cuomo % Tolerance should really be only a temporary attitude; it must lead to recognition. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe % A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination. -- Nelson Mandela % Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing. -- Albert Schweitzer % There is no greater calling than to serve your fellow men. There is no greater contribution than to help the weak. There is no greater satisfaction than to have done it well. -- Walter Reuther % Great difficulties may be surmounted by patience and perseverance. -- Abigail Adams % Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained. -- Marie Curie % If a good person does you wrong, act as though you had not noticed it. They will make note of this and not remain in your debt long. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe % For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. -- Nelson Mandela % The height of your accomplishments will equal the depth of your convictions. -- Willam F. Scolavino % The spirited horse, which will try to win the race of its own accord, will run even faster if encouraged. -- Ovid % As my mother says, 'You give back, you don't give up.' You can always choose to help others. If you do, it will change you. -- Susan Ford % Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish. -- John Quincy Adams % Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. -- Marie Curie % What does not kill me makes me stronger. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe % I always felt that the great high privilege, relief and comfort of friendship was that one had to explain nothing. -- Katherine Mansfield % I will not be labeled as average. -- Rachel Joy Scott % Words have the power to both destroy and heal. When words are both true and kind, they can change our world. -- Buddha % When we share -- that is poetry in the prose of life. -- Sigmund Freud % If Virtue and Knowledge are diffused among the People, they will never be enslav'd. This will be their great Security. -- Samuel Adams % Laughing together heartily at the same thing forms an instant bond. -- Liz Curtis Higgs % We can most safely achieve truly universal tolerance when we respect that which is characteristic in the individual and in nations, clinging, though, to the conviction that the truly meritorious is unique by belonging to all of mankind. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe % How many of us have enough trust, strength, and faith to believe that we could do the impossible? -- Rachel Joy Scott % What actions are most excellent? To gladden the heart of a human being, to feed the hungry, to help the afflicted, to lighten the sorrow of the sorrowful, and to remove the wrongs of the injured. -- Koran % Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half sorrow. -- Swedish Proverb % There is no such thing as a 'self-made' man. We are made up of thousands of others. Everyone who has ever done a kind deed for us, or spoken one word of encouragement to us, has entered into the make-up of our character and of our thoughts, as well as our success. -- George Burton Adams % A love affair with knowledge will never end in heartbreak. -- George A. Custer % I have this theory that if one person can go out of their way to show compassion, then it will start a chain reaction of the same. People will never know how far a little kindness can go. -- Rachel Joy Scott % Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well. -- Voltaire % An unshared life is not living. He who shares does not lessen, but greatens, his life. -- Stephen S. Wise % Devotion, when it does not lie under the check of reason, is apt to degenerate into enthusiasm. -- Joseph Addison % Obstacles cannot crush me. Every obstacle yields to stern resolve. He who is fixed to a star does not change his mind. -- Leonardo da da Vinci % I'll take fifty percent efficiency to get one hundred percent loyalty. -- Samuel Goldwyn % Gratitude is the most exquisite form of courtesy. -- Jacques Maritain % Compassion is the greatest form of love humans have to offer. -- Rachel Joy Scott % A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie. -- Anonymous % It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are, the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others. -- Joseph Addison % Without courage, wisdom bears no fruit. -- Leonardo da da Vinci % The crest and crowning of all good, Life's final star, is Brotherhood. -- Baltasar Gracian % I will put honesty before the risk of humiliation. -- Edwin Markham % He who forgives ends the quarrel. -- Anonymous % Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others, cannot keep it from themselves. -- James M. Barrie % The great essentials for happiness in this life are something to do, something to love and something to hope for. -- Joseph Addison % To decide, to be at the level of choice, is to take responsibility for your life and to be in control of your life. -- Abbie M. Dale % Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, riches take wings. Only one thing endures and that is character. -- Horace Greeley % Good timber does not grow with ease; the stronger the wind, the stronger the trees. -- Willard Marriott % Tomorrow is not a promise, but a chance. -- Rachel Joy Scott % Forgive many things in others; nothing in yourself. -- Ausonuis % What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. -- Alexander Pope % Without a sense of caring, there can be no sense of community. -- Anthony J. D'Angelo % It is impossible to go through life without trust: that is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself. -- Graham Greene % Morale is the state of mind. It is steadfastness and courage and hope. It is confidence and zeal and loyalty. It is élan, esprit de corps and determination. -- George C. Marshall % Trust and honesty is an investment you put in people. -- Rachel Joy Scott % Forgive, son; men are men; they needs must err. -- Euripides % Life is the soul's nursery. -- William Makepeace Thackeray % Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains, losses and disappointments; but let us have patience and we soon shall see them in their proper figures. -- Joseph Addison % Never let your persistence and passion turn into stubbornness and ignorance. -- Anthony J. D'Angelo % Libraries are reservoirs of strength, grace and wit, reminders of order, calm and continuity, lakes of mental energy, neither warm nor cold, light nor dark. The pleasure they give is steady, unorgastic, reliable, deep and long-lasting. -- Dr. Germaine Greer % Let us not be content to wait and see what will happen, but give us the determination to make the right things happen. -- Peter Marshall % I admire those who trust and are trustworthy. -- Rachel Joy Scott % Friendship is love with understanding. % The soul was never put in the body to stand still. -- John Webster % There is a courage of happiness as well as a courage of sorrow. -- Alfred Adler % Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine. -- Anthony J. D'Angelo % You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take. -- Wayne Gretzky % What if you gave someone a gift, and they neglected to thank you for it -- would you be likely to give them another? Life is the same way. In order to attract more of the blessings that life has to offer, you must truly appreciate what you already have. -- Ralph Marston % One of the most beautiful qualities of true friendship is to understand and to be understood. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca % Consult your friend on all things, especially on those which respect yourself. His counsel may then be useful where your own self-love might impair your judgment. -- Seneca % Give yourself the gift of time in coming to answers for your life…It takes time, and a lot of introspection and soul-searching, to get clear about what you really want to manifest in your life. -- David Emerald % The hero is one who kindles a great light in the world, who sets up blazing torches in the dark streets of life for men to see by. The saint is the man who walks through the dark paths of the world, himself a light. -- Felix Adler % Progress in every age results only from the fact that there are some men and women who refuse to believe that what they know to be right cannot be done. -- Russell W. Davenport % Maybe being grateful means recognizing what you have for what it is. Appreciating small victories. Admiring the struggle it takes to simply be human...At the end of the day, the fact that we have the courage to still be standing is reason enough to celebrate. -- Meredith Grey % Let go of your attachment to being right, and suddenly your mind is more open. You're able to benefit from the unique viewpoints of others, without being crippled by your own judgment. -- Ralph Marston % Have no friends not equal to yourself. -- Confucius % True achievement in any sphere of action depends upon real ability, and a strong, deep, whole-souled love. -- David Emerald % The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as we continue to live. -- Morris Adler % We need not think alike to love alike. -- Francis David % Faith, a gift from God, is one of the most powerful forces governing our universe, just as the unseen power of gravity works to pull all things down, the unseen power of faith works to lifts all things up. -- Gene Griffin % You have many choices. You can choose forgiveness over revenge, joy over despair. You can choose action over apathy. -- Stephanie Marston % Virtue is bold, and goodness never fearful. -- William Shakespeare % A friend is someone who reached for your hand and touched your heart. % A smile is a light in the window of the soul indicating that the heart is at home. -- Christian D. Larson % To all those who walk the path of human cooperation war must appear loathsome and inhuman. -- Alfred Adler % If you want to better yourself, better your fellow being. If you want to feel the richness and warmth of unfailing love, give it. If you want to make a difference and leave your world a better place, let others know how important they are as you put their needs above yours. -- Jaren L. Davis % Any necessary work that pays an honest wage carries its own honor and dignity. -- W. Kelly Griffith % The most fortunate are those who have a wonderful capacity to appreciate again and again, freshly and naively, the basic goods of life, with awe, pleasure, wonder, and even ecstasy. -- Abraham Maslow % Alack, when once our grace we have forgot, Nothing goes right; we would, and we would not. -- William Shakespeare % Gratitude is the sign of noble souls. -- Aesop % Hard work and togetherness. They go hand in hand. You need the hard work because it's such a tough atmosphere... to win week in and week out. You need togetherness because you don't always win, and you gotta hang though together. -- Tony Dungy % A failure establishes only this, that our determination to succeed was not strong enough. -- Hooshang N. Akhtar % Attempt the impossible in order to improve your work. -- Bette Davis % We confirm our reality by sharing. -- Barbara Grizzuti Harrison % Derive happiness in oneself from a good day's work, from illuminating the fog that surrounds us. -- Henri Matisse % You have no cause for anything but gratitude and joy. -- William Shakespeare % The key elements in the art of working together are how to deal with change, how to deal with conflict, and how to reach our potential...the needs of the team are best met when we meet the needs of individuals persons. -- Buddha % Like a lump of clay in the hands of the creator, we are forever being molded by life's experiences. -- Max De Pree % Treat everyone you meet as though they are the most important person you'll meet today. -- Feyisara Aladese % Hard work doesn't guarantee success, but improves its chances. -- B. J. Gupta % Athletes must dig down deep in the heat of competition to win; people must dig down deep in the game of life to succeed. The deeper we dig, the higher we soar. -- Kirby Maus % No legacy is so rich as honesty. -- William Shakespeare % He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has. -- Epictetus % I love to hear a choir. I love the humanity...to see the faces of real people devoting themselves to a piece of music. I like the teamwork. It makes me feel optimistic about the human race when I see them cooperating like that. -- Paul McCartney % I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning to sail my ship. -- Louisa May Alcott % Sometimes the situation is only a problem because it is looked at in a certain way. Looked at in another way, the right course of action may be so obvious that the problem no longer exists. -- Edward de Bono % True success is when those who know you the best, love you the most. -- John Maxwell % Honesty is the best policy. If I lose mine honor, I lose myself. -- William Shakespeare % Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful. -- Buddha % It is only as we develop others that we permanently succeed. -- Harvey S. Firestone % Stay is a charming word in a friend's vocabulary. -- Louisa May Alcott % An honest man's word is as good as his bond. -- Miguel de Cervantes % If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. -- Tenzin Gyatso % The relationship between commitment and doubt is by no means an antagonistic one. Commitment is healthiest when it's not without doubt but in spite of doubt. -- Rollo May % True hope is swift, and flies with swallow's wings: Kings it makes gods, and meaner creatures kings. -- William Shakespeare % The World is full of such wondrous things; we should all be as happy as kings. -- Anonymous % Tolerance is the positive and cordial effort to understand another's beliefs, practices, and habits without necessarily sharing or accepting them. -- Joshua Loth Leibman % Have regular hours for work and play; make each day both useful and pleasant, and prove that you understand the worth of time by employing it well. Then youth will be delightful, old age will bring few regrets, and life will become a beautiful success. -- Louisa May Alcott % Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be so. -- Charles De Gaulle % The true essence of humankind is kindness. There are other qualities which come from education or knowledge, but it is essential, if one wishes to be a genuine human being and impart satisfying meaning to one's existence, to have a good heart. -- Tenzin Gyatso % In caring I experience the other as having potentialities and the need to grow. In helping the other grow I do not impose my own direction; rather, I allow the direction of the other's growth to guide what I do, to help determine how I am to respond. -- Milton Mayeroff % Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none. -- William Shakespeare % Much effort, much prosperity. -- Euripides % Laws alone can not secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population. -- Albert Einstein % Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them. -- Charles De Gaulle % Make no judgments where you have no compassion. -- Tenzin Gyatso % Success is dependent on effort. -- Sophocles % Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too. -- Voltaire % I do not choose to be a common man. It is my right to be uncommon -- if I can. I seek opportunity -- not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me. I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed. I refuse to barter incentive for a dole. I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence; the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of utopia. I will not trade freedom for beneficence nor my dignity for a handout. I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat. It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid; to think and act for myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations, and to face the world boldly and say, this I have done. -- Dean Alfange % I shall pass this way but once; any good that I can do or any kindness I can show to any human being; let me do it now. Let me not defer nor neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again. -- Etienne de Grellet % Find the good-and praise it. -- Alex Haley % If you know you are on the right track, if you have this inner knowledge, then nobody can turn you off... Regardless of what they say. -- Barbara McClintock % Thoughts are but dreams till their effects be tried. -- William Shakespeare % If people knew how hard I worked to achieve my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful after all. -- Michelangelo % The capacity for getting along with our neighbor depends to a large extent on the capacity for getting along with ourselves. The self-respecting individual will try to be as tolerant of his neighbor's shortcomings as he is of his own. -- Eric Hoffer % Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth. -- Muhammad Ali [Cassius Clay] % We owe each other truth and courtesy -- though truth is sometimes a real constraint and courtesy inconvenient. -- Max De Pree % Never look down to test the ground before taking your next step; only he who keeps his eye fixed on the far horizon will find the right road. -- Dag Hammarskjold % Opportunity is a bird that never perches. -- Claude McDonald % Be great in act, as you have been in thought. -- William Shakespeare % Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work. -- Aristotle % I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it. -- Voltaire % The love in your heart wasn't put there to stay. Love isn't love 'til you give it away. -- Oscar Hammerstein % Courtesy is a silver lining around the dark clouds of civilization; it is the best part of refinement and in many ways, an art of heroic beauty in the vast gallery of man's cruelty and baseness. -- Bryant H. McGill % How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world. -- William Shakespeare % Life grants nothing to us mortals without hard work. -- Horace % In all human affairs there are efforts, and there are results, and the strength of the effort is the measure of the result. -- James Allen % Making money doesn't oblige people to forfeit their honor or their conscience. -- Baron Guy de Rothschild % If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. It's the hard that makes it great. -- Tom Hanks % It may take courage to embrace the possibilities of your own potential, but once you've flown past the summit of your fears, nothing will seem impossible. -- Michael McKee % The robbed that smiles steals something from the thief. -- William Shakespeare % As surely as the acorn becomes the oak tree, the images in your mind become your reality. % The inability to open up to hope is what blocks trust, and blocked trust is the reason for blighted dreams. -- Elizabeth Gilbert % Jumping at several small opportunities may get us there more quickly than waiting for one big one to come along. -- Hugh Allen % In giving you are throwing a bridge across the chasm of your solitude. -- Antoine de Sainte-Exupery % Don't wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and more successful. -- Mark Victor Hansen % Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do. -- Dr. Benjamin McLane Spock % The greatest oak was once a little nut that held it's ground. -- William Shakespeare % To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved. % Work joyfully and peacefully, knowing that right thoughts and right efforts will inevitably bring about right results. -- James Allen % The one thing that matters is the effort. -- Antoine de Sainte-Exupery % Without trust, words become the hollow sound of a wooden gong. With trust, words become life itself. -- John Harold % Invest in the human soul. Who knows, it might be a diamond in the rough. -- Mary McLeod Bethune % See first that the design is wise and just; that ascertained, pursue it resolutely. -- William Shakespeare % A human being is only interesting if he's in contact with himself. I learned you have to trust yourself, be what you are, and do what you ought to do the way you should do it. You have got to discover you, what you do, and trust it. -- Barbara Streisand % Thankfulness is the beginning of gratitude. Gratitude is the completion of thankfulness. Thankfulness may consist merely of words. Gratitude is shown in acts. -- Henri-Frederic Amiel % There is no hope of joy except in human relations. -- Antoine de Sainte-Exupery % There's no point in burying a hatchet if you're going to put up a marker on the site. -- Sydney Harris % A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding. -- Marshall McLuhan % I know of no great men except those who have rendered great service to the human race. -- William Shakespeare % The best way out is always through. -- Voltaire % There is no respect for others without humility in one's self. -- Robert Frost % Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction. -- Antoine de Sainte-Exupery % The bravest thing you can do when you are not brave is to profess courage and act accordingly. -- Corra Harris % Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world. For, indeed, that's all who ever have. -- Margaret Mead % The liar's punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else. -- George Bernard Shaw % The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons. -- Aristotle % Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first. -- Ernestine Ulmer % Doing easily what others find difficult is talent; doing what is impossible for talent is genius. -- Henri-Frederic Amiel % To be a man is...to be responsible. It is to feel shame at the sight of what seems to be unmerited misery. It is to take pride in a victory won by one's comrades. It is to feel, when setting one's stone, that one is contributing to the building of the world. -- Antoine de Sainte-Exupery % Those who are lifting the world upward and onward are those who encourage more than criticize. -- Elizabeth Harrison % If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place. -- Margaret Mead % Every man is guilty of all the good he didn't do. -- Voltaire % To love deeply in one direction makes us more loving in all others. -- Anne Sophie Swetchine % When you expect things to happen -- strangely enough -- they do happen. -- J.B. Morgan and Ewing Webb % It is only with the heart that one sees rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye. -- Antoine de Sainte-Exupery % No friendly hands constructed and placed for his ambition a ladder upon which he might climb. His own brave hands framed and nailed the cleats upon which he climbed to the heights of public usefulness and fame. -- Benjamin Harrison % We only want that which is given naturally to all peoples of the world, to be masters of our own fate, not of others, and in cooperation and friendship with others. -- Golda Meir % You see things; and you say Why? But I dream things that never were; and I say Why not? -- George Bernard Shaw % An honest heart possesses a kingdom. -- Seneca % Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. -- Muriel Strode % Every fool knows you can't touch the stars, but it doesn't stop a wise man from trying. -- Harry Anderson % Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections, but instantly set about remedying them-every day begin the task anew. -- Saint Francis de Sales % Self-esteem creates natural highs. Knowing that you're lovable helps you to love more. Knowing that you're important helps you to make a difference to to others. Knowing that you are capable empowers you to create more. Knowing that you're valuable and that you have a special place in the universe is a serene spiritual joy in itself. -- Louise Hart % The grand principles of virtue and honor, however they may be distorted by arbitrary codes, are the same the world over: and where these principles are concerned, the right or wrong of any action appears the same to the uncultivated as to the enlightened mind. -- Herman Melville % You can cheat an honest man but not make a fool out of him. -- Confucius % The world is round, and the place which may seem like the end may also be the beginning. -- Ivy Baker Priest % We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color. -- Maya Angelou % Self-esteem is as important to our well-being as legs are to a table. It is essential for physical and mental health and for happiness. -- Richard David De Vos % Let us speak, though we show all our faults and weaknesses -- for it is a sign of strength to be weak, to know it, and out with it. -- Herman Melville % We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future. -- George Bernard Shaw % The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be. -- Socrates % Those who don't know how to weep with their whole heart don't know how to laugh either. -- Golda Meir % A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song. -- Maya Angelou % Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today. -- James Dean % A trying journey can only result in a phenomenal blessing. -- Dawn M. Harvey % Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. -- Henry Louis Mencken % Life at its noblest leaves mere happiness far behind; and indeed cannnot endure it.... Happiness is not the object of life: life has no object: it is an end in itself; and courage consists in the readiness to sacrifice happiness for an intenser quality of life. -- George Bernard Shaw % What you don't see with your eyes, don't witness with your mouth. % Good communication is just as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after. -- Anne Morrow Lindbergh % If one is lucky, a solitary fantasy can totally transform one million realities. -- Maya Angelou % I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination. -- Jimmy Dean % Lying can never save us from another lie. -- Vaclav Havel % I have the greatest weapon, I have hope. -- Sophia Mendoza % If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas. -- George Bernard Shaw % The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold. -- Aristotle % I discovered I always have choices and sometimes it's only a choice of attitude. -- Judith M. Knowlton % I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. -- Maya Angelou % You never lose by loving. You always lose by holding back. -- Barbara DeAngelis % Hope is a state of mind, not of the world. Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good. -- Vaclav Havel % Six essential qualities that are the key to success: Sincerity, personal integrity, humility, courtesy, wisdom, charity. -- Dr. William Claire Menninger % Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it. -- George Bernard Shaw % The greatest loss of time is delay and expectation, which depend upon the future. We let go the present, which we have in our power, and look forward to that which depends upon chance, and so relinquish a certainty for an uncertainty. -- Seneca % Be bold. If you're going to make an error, make a doozey, and don't be afraid to hit the ball. -- Billie Jean King % It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength. -- Maya Angelou % A little kindness from person to person is better than a vast love for all humankind. -- Richard Dehmel % Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. -- Vaclav Havel % Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. The friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward. When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. -- Dr. Karl Augustus Menninger % A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for. -- William G.T. Shedd % Wisdom begins in Wonder. -- Socrates % Love the moment, and the energy of that moment will spread beyond all boundaries. -- Sister Mary Corita Kent % Confrontation should always leave a person's dignity in tact. -- Dr. A. J. Anglin % The person who makes a success of living is the one who sees his goal steadily and aims for it unswervingly. That is dedication. -- Cecil B. DeMille % The vision must be followed by the venture. It is not enough to stare up the steps -- we must step up the stairs. -- Vance Havner % Compassion is the keen awareness of the interdependence of all things. -- Thomas Merton % You have two ears and two eyes and only one mouth. Because you will learn twice as much as what you will ever have to say. -- Jeffrey Shultz % The best way to have the last word is to apologize. % I have heard it said that the first ingredient of success -- the earliest spark in the dreaming youth -- is this: Dream a great dream. -- John A. Appleman % A champion is someone who gets up when he can't. -- Jack Dempsey % No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true. -- Nathaniel Hawthorne % Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries. -- James Michener % Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship. -- Charles Shultz % What really distinguishes this generation in all countries from earlier generations...is its determination to act, its joy in action, the assurance of being able to change things by one's own efforts. -- Buddha % Home is not where, it is whom. -- Christianne Dettmann % Love is the great miracle cure. Loving ourselves works miracles in our lives. -- Louise Hay % Always accept good fortune with grace and humility. -- Mark L. Mika % There are no shortcuts to any place worth going. -- Beverly Sills % The very spring and root of honesty and virtue lie in good education. -- Plutarch % Promises are the uniquely human way of ordering the future, making it predictable and reliable to the extent that this is humanly possible. -- Hannah Arendt % I never could have done what I have done without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one subject at a time. -- Charles Dickens % Personally I do not resort to force -- not even the force of law -- to advance moral reforms. I prefer education, argument, persuasion, and above all the influence of example. -- Rutherford Hayes % True strength lies in submission which permits one to dedicate his life, through devotion, to something beyond himself. -- Henry Miller % Listen to the Musn't's child, Listen to the Don't's. Listen to the Shouldn't's, the Impossibles, the Won't's. Listen to the Never Haves, then Listen close to me. ANYthing can happen, child, ANYthing can Be. -- Shel Silverstein % I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think. -- Socrates % Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 2 or 8. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young. -- Moshe Arens % Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has plenty; not on your past misfortunes of which all men have some. -- Charles Dickens % Our strength is a contented and intelligent community. -- Rutherford Hayes % Go out into the world and do good until there is too much good in the world. -- Larry H. Miller % The tears of faithfulness to your beliefs cleanse your spirit to envision the road ahead. Everything is possible for the person who believes. -- Adlin Sinclair % A man may learn wisdom even from a foe. -- Aristophanes % Trust each other again and again. When the trust level gets high enough, people transcend apparent limits, discovering new and awesome abilities for which they were previously unaware. -- David Armistead % The world is not a dream, but a reality, of which we are the chief part, and in which we must be up and doing something...Come out into the world about you, be it either wide or limited. Sympathize, not in thought only, but in action, with all about you. Make yourself known and felt for something that would be loved and missed, in twenty thousand little ways, if you were to die; then your life will be a happy one, believe me. -- Charles Dickens % The love of fame is almost another name for the love of excellence; or it is the ambition to attain the highest excellence, sanctioned by the highest authority, that of time. -- William Hazlitt % Example moves the world more than doctrine. -- Henry Miller % Life's ups and downs provide windows of opportunity to determine your values and goals. Think of using all obstacles as stepping stones. -- Marsha Sinetar % Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous. -- Confucius % I take nothing for granted. I now have only good days or great days. -- Lance Armstrong % Prejudice is the child of ignorance. -- William Hazlitt % What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such. -- Henry Miller % To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you. -- Lewis B. Smedes % As long as you live, keep learning how to live. -- Segoyewatha [Red Jacket] % I believe every human has a finite number of heartbeats. I don't intend to waste any of mine. -- Neil Armstrong % It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little -- do what you can. -- Robert A. Heinlein % Opinions have greater power than strength of hands. -- John Milton % Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, Make Me Feel Important. Not only will you succeed in sales, you will succeed in life. -- Mary Kay Ash % Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door. -- Emily Dickinson % In order to excel, you must be completely dedicated to your chosen sport. You must also be prepared to work hard and be willing to accept destructive criticism. Without 100% dedication, you won't be able to do this. -- Ernest Hemingway % Moral cowardice that keeps us from speaking our minds is as dangerous as irresponsible talk. The right way is not always the popular and easy way. Standing for right when it is unpopular is a true test of moral character. -- Wilson Mizner % Life is short, the art long, opportunity fleeting, experiment treacherous, judgment difficult. -- Hippocrates % From what we get, we can make a living; what we give, however, makes a life. -- Arthur Ashe % Character -- the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life -- is the source from which self-respect springs. -- Joan Didion % When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace. -- Jimi Hendrix % It is not only for what we do that we are held responsible, but also for what we do not do. -- Jean Baptiste Poquelin Molière % When in doubt, do the courageous thing. -- Jan Smuts % One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying. -- Joan of Arc % True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the courage to surpass others at whatever cost, but the courage to serve others at whatever the cost. -- Arthur Ashe % If I've got correct goals, and if I keep pursuing them the best way I know how, everything else falls into line. If I do the right thing right, I'm going to succeed. -- Dan Dierdorf % Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, it's at the end of your arm. As you get older, remember you have another hand: The first is to help yourself, the second is to help others. -- Audrey Hepburn % Life's a Dance You Learn As You Go! -- John Michael Montgomery % The grateful person, being still the most severe exacter of himself, not only confesses, but proclaims, his debts. -- Robert South % Break the rules, forgive quickly, kiss slowly, love truely, laugh uncontrollably. -- Anonymous % Start by doing what's necessary, then what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible. -- Saint Francis of Assisi % When you have a great and difficult task, something perhaps almost impossible, if you only work a little at a time, every day a little, suddenly the work will finish itself. -- Isak Dinesen [Karen Blixen] % Dreams and actions are not so different as usually thought, as all actions of men are founded upon dreams, and their end -- is a dream too. -- Theodor Herzl % Defeat should never be a source of discouragement, but rather a fresh stimulus. -- Sir Thomas Moore % We cannot wait for the storm to pass over -- we must learn to dance in the rain. -- Robert South % There is not enough darkness in the world to extinguish a single candle flame. % All our dreams can come true; if we have the courage to pursue them. -- Walt Disney % Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success. -- Napoleon Hill % Finding the right work is like discovering your own soul in the world. -- Sir Thomas Moore % The only people with whom you should try to get even are those who have helped you. -- John E. Southard % Don't tell us the sky is the limit when there are footsteps on the moon. % Power is the ability to do good things for others. -- Brooke Astor % It's kind of fun to do the impossible. -- Walt Disney % Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit. -- Napoleon Hill % One kernel is felt in a hogshead; one drop of water helps to swell the ocean; a spark of fire helps to give light to the world. None are too small, too feeble, too poor to be of service. Think of this and act. -- Hannah More % Direction, not intention, determines destination. -- Andy Stanley % Love is all we have, the only way that each can help the other. -- Euripides % To be capable of steady friendship or lasting love, are the two greatest proofs, not only of goodness of heart, but of strength of mind. -- Paul Aubuchon % Nothing can withstand the power of the human will if it is willing to stake its very existence to the extent of its purpose. -- Benjamin Disraeli % Education comes from within; you get it by struggle and effort and thought. -- Napoleon Hill % Do not be conquered by fear of loss or defeat, for without them, success and victory would be meaningless. -- Mathew Morgan % Confidence is the result of hours and days and weeks and years of constant work and dedication. -- Roger Staubach % Civilizations should be measured by the degree of diversity attained and the degree of unity retained. -- W.H. Auden % Patience is a necessary ingredient of genius. -- Benjamin Disraeli % Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve. -- Napoleon Hill % If we hadn't had such a magnificent optimism to carry us through all these things, we wouldn't be here. We have survived it on our optimism. -- Edward Steichen % One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: that word is love. -- Sophocles % Since nothing we intend is ever faultless, and nothing we attempt ever without error, and nothing we achieve without some measure of finitude and fallibility we call humanness, we are saved by forgiveness. -- David Augsburger % Through perseverance many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure. -- Benjamin Disraeli % Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless. -- Eric Hoffer % To keep from getting to far ahead of myself, I can apply to life what I've learned from running in the woods: The step in front of you is the most important one. -- Annie Morris % Love wholeheartedly, be surprised, give thanks and praise -- then you will discover the fullness of your life. -- David Steindl-Rast % Love never says: I have done enough! -- Saint Marie-Eugenie de Jesus % Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart. -- Marcus Aurelius % Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth. -- Benjamin Disraeli % The greatest weariness comes from work not done. -- Eric Hoffer % The peace I am thinking of is the dance of an open mind when it engages another equally open one. -- Toni Morrison % Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning. -- Gloria Steinem % What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others. -- Pericles % Friendship is the finest balm for the pangs of despised love. -- Jane Austen % Man is only truly great when he acts from the passions. -- Benjamin Disraeli % It is not so much the example of others we imitate as the reflection of ourselves in their eyes and the echo of ourselves in their words. -- Eric Hoffer % This was a splendid life. Splendid in its obscurity and humility, splendid in its strength and charity, splendid in its achievements. -- Robert C. Mortimer % ...all true fame...is to be acquired only by noble deeds and high achievements and the establishment of a character founded upon the principles of truth, uprightness, and inflexible integrity. -- Alexander H. Stephens % Love your neighbor as yourself. -- Bible % Nothing is more deceitful than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast. -- Jane Austen % Much unhappiness comes from walking alone. When there are several, it's somewhat different. I must get into the habit of listening to others, for what the others say concerns me, too. -- Alfred Döblin % The remarkable thing is that we really love our neighbor as ourselves: we do unto others as we do unto ourselves. We hate others when we hate ourselves. We are tolerant toward others when we tolerate ourselves. We forgive others when we forgive ourselves. We are prone to sacrifice others when we are ready to sacrifice ourselves. -- Eric Hoffer % Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be. -- Grandma [Anna Mary Robertson] Moses % Silent gratitude isn't much use to anyone. -- G.B. [Gladys Bertha] Stern % If it is to be, it is up to me. % Respect for right conduct is felt by everybody. -- Jane Austen % The artist must be an egotist because, like the spider, he draws all his building material from his own breast. But just the same the artist alone among men knows what true humility means. His reach forever exceeds his grasp. He can never be satisfied with his work. He knows when he has done well, but he knows he has never attained his dream. He knows he never can. -- Rheta Childe Dorr % The past is a guidepost, not a hitching post. -- L. Thomas Holdcroft % To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful. -- Edward R. Murrow % Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute. -- G.B. [Gladys Bertha] Stern % Do, or do not. There is no 'try.' -- Yoda % There is no limit to the amount of good a man can do, as long as he does not care who takes the credit. -- Sunday-Bolorunduro Awoniyi % Every person in this life has something to teach me--and as soon as I accept that, I open myself to truly listening. -- Catherine Doucette % Life is a grindstone. Whether it grinds us down or polishes us up, depends on us. -- L. Thomas Holdcroft % We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open. -- Jawaharlal Nehru % Only the brave know how to forgive; it is the most refined and generous pitch of virtue human nature can arrive at. -- Lawrence Sterne % The symbol in Chinese for crisis is made up of two ideographs: one means danger, the other means opportunity. This symbol is a reminder that we can choose to turn a crisis into an opportunity or into a negative experience. -- Anonymous % When you start to develop your powers of empathy and imagination, the whole world opens up to you. -- Susan Sarandon % Desire is the key to motivation, but it's determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal -- a commitment to excellence -- that will enable you to attain the success you seek. -- Mario Andretti % Every good act is charity. A man's true wealth hereafter is the good that he does in this world to his fellows. -- Jean Baptiste Poquelin Molière % Just living is not enough. One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower. -- Hans Christian Anderson % Time always seems long to the child who is waiting -- for Christmas, for next summer, for becoming a grownup: long also when he surrenders his whole soul to each moment of a happy day. -- Dag Hammarskjold % What is uttered from the heart alone, Will win the hearts of others to your own. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe % To believe in yourself and to follow your dreams, to have goals in life and a drive to succeed, and to surround yourself with the things and the people that make you happy -- this is success! -- Sasha Azevedo % There's no substitute for rolling up your sleeves and working with the people who can make a difference. They get the benefit of your participation and you gain a direct understanding of the real problems and potential solutions, which makes you a more informed giver. -- Michael Milken % You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jellybeans. -- Ronald Reagan % It is better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one than to have an opportunity and not be prepared. -- Whitney M. Young, Jr. % Ambition has one heel nailed in well, though she stretch her fingers to touch the heavens. -- Lao Tzu % Great opportunities to help others seldom come, but small ones come daily. -- Ivy Baker Priest % Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith. -- Henry Ward Beecher % The happiest business in all the world is that of making friends, And no investment on the street pays larger dividends, For life is more than stocks and bonds, and love than rate percent, And he who gives in friendship's name shall reap what he has. -- Anonymous % I simply believe that some part of the human Self or Soul is not subject to the laws of space and time. -- Carl Gustav Jung % Trust your own instinct. Your mistakes might as well be your own, instead of someone else's. -- Billy Wilder % The scholar does not consider gold and jade to be precious treasures, but loyalty and good faith. -- Confucius % In times of great stress or adversity, it's always best to keep busy, to plow your anger and your energy into something positive. -- Lee Iacocca % If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. -- Henry David Thoreau % Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little. -- Edmund Burke % A man sooner or later discovers that he is the master-gardener of his soul, the director of his life. -- James Allen % Everybody laughs the same in every language because laughter is a universal connection. -- Yakov Smirnoff % Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. -- Aristotle % Faith is to believe what you do not yet see; the reward for this faith is to see what you believe. -- Saint Augustine % When I dare to be powerful -- to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid. -- Elisabeth Kübler-Ross % It is the province of knowledge to speak and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen. -- Audre Lorde % The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. % All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days . . .nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin. -- John F. Kennedy % The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live. -- Flora Whittemore % You are the generation about to come into control and must prepare for this responsibility. Do not fill up your leisure with meaningless activity or with causes. Have the courage to stand aside and watch for a little while. It is more important to know where we are going than to get there quickly. Do not mistake activity for achievement. -- Mabel Newcomer % We have not all had the good fortune to be ladies. We have not all been generals, or poets, or statesmen; but when the toast works down to the babies, we stand on common ground -- for we have all been babies. -- Mark Twain % Hard work is painful when life is devoid of purpose. But when you live for something greater than yourself and the gratification of your own ego, then hard work becomes a labor of love. -- Steve Pavlina % A smile is the light in your window that tells others that there is a caring, sharing person inside. -- Dennis Waitley % The friend who holds your hand and says the wrong thing is made of dearer stuff than the one who stays away. -- Barbara Kingsolver % When you are content to be simply yourself and don't compare or compete, everybody will respect you. -- Laozi % Getting what you want is not nearly as important as giving what you have. -- Tom Krause % None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % Once in a young lifetime one should be allowed to have as much sweetness as one can possibly want and hold. -- Judith Olney % Among the qualities of mind and heart which conduce to worldly success, there is one, the importance of which is more real, and which is generally underrated in our day...It is courtesy. -- Herbert Schiffer % Learn to limit yourself; to content yourself with some definite work; dare to be what you are and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not; and to believe in your own individuality. -- Henri-Frederic Amiel % This is the highest wisdom that I own; freedom and life are earned by those alone who conquer them each day anew. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe % You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives. -- Clay P. Bedford % Whatever I am offered in devotion with a pure heart -- a leaf, a flower, fruit, or water - I accept with joy. -- Bhagavad Gita % As you put into practice the qualities of patience, punctuality, sincerity, and solicitude, you will have a better opinion of the world around you. -- Grenville Kleiser % Always hold your head up, but be careful to keep your nose at a friendly level. -- Max L. Forman % I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free. -- Michelangelo % You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. You are the guy who'll decide where to go. -- Theodor Seuss Geisel % If civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships -- the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together, in the same world at peace. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt % Do all the good you can, and make as little fuss about it as possible. -- Charles Dickens % Forgiveness is the answer to the child's dream of a miracle by which what is broken is made whole again, what is soiled is made clean again. -- Dag Hammarskjold % We all have our own life to pursue, our own kind of dream to be weaving, and we all have the power to make wishes come true, as long as we keep believing. -- Louisa May Alcott % One word or a pleasing smile is often enough to raise up a saddened and wounded soul. -- Therese of Lisieux % Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe % Do your little bit of good where you are; its those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world. -- Archbishop Desmond Tutu % There is no better exercise for your heart than reaching down and helping to lift someone up. -- Bernard Meltzer % Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow. -- Melodie Beattie % The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well. -- Charles Dickens % How can we expect our children to know and experience the joy of giving unless we teach them that the greater pleasure in life lies in the art of giving rather than receiving. -- James Cash Penney % How paramount the future is to the present when one is surrounded by children. -- Charles Darwin % Conscience is the root of all true courage; if a man would be brave let him obey his conscience. -- James Freeman Clarke % A good leader inspires others with confidence in him; a great leader inspires them with confidence in themselves. % The only way you can truly control how you are seen is being honest all the time. -- Tom Hanks % A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something. -- Frank Capra % The path to our destination is not always a straight one. We go down the wrong road, we get lost, we turn back. Maybe it doesn't matter which road we embark on. Maybe what matters is that we embark. -- Barbara Hall % What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but scattered along life's pathway, the good they do is inconceivable. -- Joseph Addison % Our very lives depend on the ethics of strangers, and most of us are always strangers to other people. -- Bill Moyers % Our attitude towards what has happened to us in life is the important thing to recognize. Once hopeless, my life is now hope-full, but it did not happen overnight. The last of human freedoms, to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, is to choose one's own way. -- Viktor Frankl % Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give. -- Eleanor Roosevelt % Snowflakes are one of nature's most fragile things, but just look at what they can do when they stick together. % Every piece of the universe, even the tiniest little snow crystal, matters somehow. I have a place in the pattern, and so do you. -- T.A. Barron % Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others, and in their pleasure takes joy, even as though t'were his own. -- D.M. Dellinger % Hope is that thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops... at all. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe % Never get tired of doing little things for others. Sometimes, those little things occupy the biggest part of their hearts. % You can move through life seeing nothing as a miracle, or seeing everything as a miracle. -- Albert Einstein % Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right. -- Oprah Winfrey % Whatever necessity lays upon thee, endure; whatever she commands, do. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe % We must always have old memories and young hopes. -- Arsène Houssaye % Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you'll start having positive results. -- Willie Nelson % I try to avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward. -- Robert Louis Stevenson % Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter which fork you use. -- Charlotte Brontë % Values are like fingerprints. Nobody's are the same, but you leave 'em all over everything you do. -- Elvis Presley % The greatest and most important problems in life are all in a certain sense insoluble. They can never be solved, but only outgrown. -- Carl Gustav Jung % Nobody is bored when he is trying to make something that is beautiful, or to discover something that is true. -- William Inge % There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it. -- Edith Wharton % If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values -- that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control. -- Martin Luther King, Jr. % There is no effect more disproportionate to its cause than the happiness bestowed by a small compliment. -- Robert Brault % Life be not so short but that there is always time for courtesy. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % Treat everyone with politeness, even those who are rude to you -- not because they are nice, but because you are. % It was my Mum who got me into singing properly -- she knew I had to do something with my voice because she knew I was talented. She was the one who pushed me into joining a choir all those years ago, when I was about 12. I remember she told me to start with the choir and just see where it took me. -- Susan Boyle % Don't let the fear of striking out hold you back. -- Babe Ruth % You were meant to be here. This is your time. -- Herbert "Herb" P. Brooks, Jr. % You make each day a special day. You know how, by just your being you. -- Fred Rogers % When you take the time to actually listen, with humility, to what people have to say, it's amazing what you can learn. Especially if the people who are doing the talking also happen to be children. -- Greg Mortenson % First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen, [President George Washington] was second to none in humble and enduring scenes of private life. Pious, just, humane, temperate, and sincere; uniform, dignified, and commanding; his example was edifying to all around him as were the effects of that example everlasting. -- Henry Lee III % My mission is to create a world where we can live in harmony with nature. -- Jane Goodall % I can get sad, I can get frustrated, I can get scared, but I never get depressed -- because there's joy in my life. -- Michel J. Fox % I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me -- all I ask is that you respect me as a human being. -- Jackie Robinson % If I only had three words of advice, they would be, Tell the Truth. If got three more words, I'd add, all the time. -- Randy Pausch % I've been motivated by overcoming challenge and overcoming the hurdles and obstacles that face me. There still is plenty out there to get motivated by. -- Andre Agassi % I don't dwell on my age. It might limit what I can do. As long as I have my mind and health, it's just a number. -- Nola Ochs % You cannot take good care of a child unless you love the child, you must be part of their life. -- Carol Donald % When we got home from that race that night, Rick wrote on the computer, 'Dad, when I run it feels like my disability disappears.' So, that was a very powerful message to me. -- Dick Hoyt % This fork in the road happens over a hundred times a day, and it's the choices that you make that will determine the shape of your life. -- Liz Murray % Somebody has to train these kids. Somebody has to teach them, and if not me, who? If not now, when? We must do it. It's got to be done. -- Oral Lee Brown % There were barriers still, it is true, but barriers that could in time be swept away. -- Helen Keller % That's one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind. -- Neil Armstrong % Never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy. -- Sir Winston Churchill % Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work. -- Mother Teresa % I showed the America I knew and observed to others who might not have noticed. -- Norman Rockwell % Skating takes up 70 percent of my time, school about 25 percent. Having fun and talking to my friends, 5 percent. It's hard. I envy other kids a lot of things, but I get a guilt trip when I'm not training. -- Michelle Kwan % No matter what sort of adversity or challenge you might face, you can always believe that, with hope, it can be conquered and, in the end, you will be stronger for it. -- Brooke Ellison % [Regarding dyslexia] I knew I wasn't stupid, and I knew I wasn't dumb...They knew I wasn't lazy, but what was it? -- Whoopi Goldberg % There never was a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous. -- Benjamin Franklin % I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. -- Thomas Edison % The only person who can really motivate you is you. -- Shaquille "Shaq" O'Neal % I will prepare and some day my chance will come. -- Abraham Lincoln % People can do whatever they want if they just set their heart to it, and just never give up, and just go out there and do it. -- Bethany Hamilton % A small body of determined spirits fired by an unquenchable faith in their mission can alter the course of history. -- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi % Don't worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition. -- Abraham Lincoln % If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success. -- John D. Rockefeller, Sr. % Living in dreams of yesterday, we find ourselves still dreaming of impossible future conquests. -- Charles Lindbergh % Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point. -- C.S. Lewis % Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I am permitted to hold for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations. -- George Bernard Shaw % Keep on beginning and failing. Each time you fail, start all over again, and you will grow stronger until you have accomplished a purpose ... not the one you began with perhaps, but one you'll be glad to remember. -- Anne Sullivan Macy % In moments of discouragement, defeat, or even despair, there are always certain things to cling to. Little things usually: remembered laughter, the face of a sleeping child, a tree in the wind-in fact, any reminder of something deeply felt or dearly loved. No man is so poor as not to have many of these small candles. When they are lighted, darkness goes away-and a touch of wonder remains. -- These Small Candles % Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you. -- Nathaniel Hawthorne % Every morning is a fresh beginning. Every day is the world made new. Today is a new day. Today is my world made new. I have lived all my life up to this moment, to come to this day. This moment...this day...is as good as any moment in all eternity. I shall make of this day...each moment of this day...a heaven on earth. This is my day of opportunity. -- Dan Custer % Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy. -- Guillaume Apollinaire % We are the music-makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams. We are the movers and shakers of the world forever, it seems. -- Arthur O' Shaughnessy % I don't want to get to the end of my life and find that I just lived the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well. -- Diane Ackerman % Real strength is not just a condition of one's muscle, but a tenderness in one's spirit. -- McCallister Dodds % The molecules of your body are the same molecules that make up the nebulae, that burn inside the stars themselves. We are star stuff. -- Minor Myers Jr. % Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end. -- Victor Tenbaum % Great ideas...come into the world as gently as doves...if we listen attentively, we shall hear, amid the uproar...a faint flutter of wings, the gentle stirring of life and hope. % We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future. -- Albert Camus % Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually who are you not to be? You are a child of the universe. You were born to manifest the glory of the universe that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. -- Marianne Williamson % Happiness is not so much in having as sharing. We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give. -- H.M.S % Success is often the result of taking a misstep in the right direction. -- Norman MacEwan % We know the truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart. -- Al Bernstein % Some people try to turn back their odometers. Not me, I want people to know 'why' I look this way. I've traveled a long way and some of the roads weren't paved. -- Will Rogers % Problems can become opportunities when the right people come together. -- Robert Redford % I learned that inspiration does not always come like a bolt, nor is it kinetic, energetic, striving, but it comes into us slowly and quietly and all the time. -- Brenda Ueland % If you want trust, trust others. If you want respect, respect others. If you want help, help others. If you want love and peace in your life, give them away. If you want great friends, be one. That's how it works. -- Dan Zadra % When we do face the difficult times, we need to remember that circumstances don't make a person, they reveal a person. -- Emma Jameson % Some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity... -- Gilda Radner % When you come to the edge of all the light you have, and must take a step into the darkness of the unknown believe that one of two things will happen. Either there will be something solid for you to stand on or you will be taught how to fly. -- Patrick Overton % Let's give the historians something to write about -- Propertius % Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will be in our troubled world. -- Etty Hillesum % While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do. -- Apple Computer Inc. % Promise yourself to be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind. Look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true. Think only of the best, work only for the best, and expect only the best. Forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future. Give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others. Live in the faith that the whole world is on your side so long as you are true to the best that is in you! -- Irish Proverb % What I admire in Columbus is not his having discovered a world, but his having gone to search for it on the faith of his own opinion. -- Albert Einstein % Happiness is not in our circumstances, but in ourselves. It is not something we see, like a rainbow, or feel, like the heat of the fire. Happiness is something we are. -- John B. Sheerin % One must care about a world one will not see. -- Bertrand Russell % There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky; there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul. -- Victor Hugo % It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it. -- Lena Horne % ...it is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful. -- David Steindl-Rast % We can learn nothing except by going from the known to the unknown. -- Claude Bernard % The highest reward for man's toil is not what he gets for it, but what he becomes by it. -- John Ruskin % Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. -- William Faulkner % Fear less, hope more; Eat less, chew more; Whine less, breath more; Talk less, say more; Love more, and all good things will be yours! -- Swedish Proverb % To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, day and night, to make you everybody but yourself-means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight-and never stop fighting. -- e. e. cummings % It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. -- Wendell Berry % To be courageous requires no exceptional qualifications, no magic formula. It's an opportunity that sooner or later is presented to us all and each person must look for that courage in his own soul. -- John F. Kennedy % The real voyage of discovery lies not in seeking new lands, but in seeing with new eyes. -- Marcel Proust % What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail? % We can choose to be affected by the world or we can choose to affect the world. -- Henry David Thoreau % We have enough people who tell it like it is- now we could use a few who tell it like it can be. -- Heidi Wills % Above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you, because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it. -- Robert Orben % You cannot be wimpy out there on the dream-seeking trail. Dare to break through barriers, to find your own path. -- Roald Dahl % Whatever the soul knows how to seek, it cannot fail to obtain. -- Margaret Fuller % Blessed are those who can give without remembering and take without forgetting. -- Elizabeth Bibesco % Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well. -- Josh Billings % You must never be fearful about what you are doing when it is right. -- Rosa Parks % In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on. -- Robert Frost % Fill each day with life and heart. There is no pleasure in the world comparable to the delight and satisfaction that a good person takes in doing good. -- John Tilloston % I will not die an unlived life. I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire. I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise. I choose to risk my significance; to live so that which came to me as a seed goes to the next as a blossom and that which came to me as a blossom, goes on as fruit. -- Dawna Markova, Ph.D % What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what gets you out of bed in the mornings, what you do with your evenings, how you spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you. Fall in love, stay in love, and it will decide everything. -- Pedro Arrupe % The purpose of life is a life of purpose. -- Robert Byrne % When it rains, most birds head for shelter; the Eagle is the only bird that, in order to avoid the rain, starts flying above the cloud. % We should cultivate the ability to say no to activities for which we have no time, no talent, and which we have no interest or real concern. If we learn to say no to many things, then we will be able to say yes to the things that matter most. -- Roy Blauss % Our task must be to widen our circle of compassion, to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. -- Albert Einstein % I am because you are. -- African Proverb % Overcome the notion that you must be regular. It robs you of the chance to be extraordinary. -- Uta Hagen % If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. -- Antoine de Sainte-Exupery % Your journey has molded you for the greater good, and it was exactly what it needed to be. Don't think that you've lost time. It took each and every situation you have encountered to bring you to the now. And now is right on time. -- Asha Tyson % At the heart of each of us, whatever our imperfections, there exists a silent pulse of perfect rhythm, which is absolutely individual and unique, and yet which connects us to everything else. -- George Leonard % What we do today, right now, will have an accumulated effect on all our tomorrows. -- Alexandra Stoddard % If the world is to be healed through human efforts, I am convinced it will be by ordinary people, people whose love for this life is even greater than their fear. -- Joanna Macy % The things which are not measurable are more important than those which are measurable. -- Alexis Carrel % You can't lead a cavalry charge if you think you look funny on a horse. -- John Peers % A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely. -- Roald Dahl % Life is better because you know more, not just because you have more. -- Anonymous % I haven't a clue how my story will end, but that's all right. When you set out on a journey and night covers the road, that's when you discover the stars. -- Nancy Willard % Work and live to serve others, leave the world a little better than you found it and garner for yourself as much peace of mind as you can. This is happiness. -- David Sarnoff % Be sure when you step, step with care and great tact. And remember that life's a great balancing act. And will you succeed? Yes! you will, indeed! (98 and ¾ percent guaranteed). Kid, you'll move mountains. -- Theodor Seuss Geisel % Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in the quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. -- Mary Jean Irion % Nurture your minds with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes. -- Benjamin Disraeli % You see, idealism detached from action is just a dream. But idealism allied with pragmatism, with rolling up your sleeves and making the world bend a bit, is very exciting. It's very real. It's very strong. -- Bono [Paul Hewson] % When being together is more important than what you do, you are with a friend. -- Connie McMartin % Leap and the net will appear. -- Zen Proverb % A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds. -- Sir Francis Bacon % Success is not just the crowning moment, the spiking of the ball in the end zone or the raising of the flag on the summit. It is the whole process of reaching for a goal and, sometimes, it begins with failure. -- Erik Weihenmayer % The mind determines what's possible. The heart surpasses it. -- Pilar Coolinta % My hope still is to leave the world a bit better than when I got here. -- Jim Henson % Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose. -- Helen Keller % It is not given us to live lives of undisrupted calm, boredom, and mediocrity. It is given us to be edge-dwellers. -- Jay Deacon % How lovely to think that no one need wait a moment. We can start now, start slowly, changing the world. How lovely that everyone, great and small, can make a contribution toward introducing justice straightaway. And you can always, always give something, even if it is only kindness! -- Anne Frank % We know what we are, but know not what we may be. -- William Shakespeare % Don't worry about losing. If it is right, it happens - The main thing is not to hurry. Nothing good gets away. -- John Steinbeck % Life doesn't come with an instruction book. That's why we have fathers. -- H. Jackson Brown, Jr. % This I know. This I believe with all my heart. If we want a free and peaceful world, if we want to make deserts bloom and man to grow to greater dignity as a human being we can do it! -- Eleanor Roosevelt % When we face the worst that can happen in any situation, we grow. When circumstances are at their worst, we can find our best. -- Elisabeth Kübler-Ross % For every beauty there is an eye somewhere to see it. For every truth there is an ear somewhere to hear it. For every love there is a heart somewhere to receive it. -- Ivan Panin % I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to what light I might have. -- Abraham Lincoln % I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve. -- Albert Schweitzer % I have never been a millionaire. But I have enjoyed a great meal, a crackling fire, a glorious sunset, a walk with a friend, a hug from a child, a cup of soup, a kiss behind the ear. There are plenty of life's tiny delights for all of us. -- Jack Anthony % There comes a time in the spiritual journey when you start making choices from a very different place. And if a choice lines up so that it supports truth, health, happiness, wisdom and love, it's the right choice. -- Angeles Arrien % Someday all you'll have to light the way will be a single ray of hope, and that will be enough. -- Kobi Yamada % Spirit is like the wind, in that we can't see it but can see its effects, which are profound. -- Jimmy Carter % When you cannot make up your mind which of two evenly balanced courses of action you should take, choose the bolder. -- General W.J. Slim % I try to learn from the finite, the lessons of the infinite. -- Arthur Young % The world breaks everyone and afterward many are stronger in the broken places. -- Ernest Hemingway % I believe that when you realize who you really are, you understand that nothing can stop you from becoming that person. -- Christine Lincoln % Do not fear death so much, but rather the inadequate life. -- Bertolt Brecht % Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search would never have begun. -- C.S. Lewis % Your spark can become a flame and change everything. -- Latin Proverb % Happiness depends more on the inward disposition of mind rather than on outward circumstances. -- E.D. Nixon % The roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation for goodness. -- The 14th Dalai Lama % The young man and woman with sight see things as they are. The young man and woman with insight, see things as they could be. -- Joseph P. Martino % What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear you speak. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % Acknowledging a person for the good that they do is good, but not as good as committing to do that same good yourself. -- Melanie E. Burgos % Life is a great and wondrous mystery, and the only thing we know that we have for sure is what is right here right now. Don't miss it. -- Leo Buscaglia % Every exit is an entry somewhere else. Remember that Columbus was looking for India when he found America. -- Sir Tom Stoppard % When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this: you haven't. -- Thomas Edison % I began to realize how important it was to be an enthusiast in life. He taught me that if you are interested in something, no matter what it is, go at it at full speed ahead. Embrace it with both arms, hug it, love it and above all become passionate about it. Lukewarm is no good. Hot is no good either. White hot and passionate is the only thing to be. -- Roald Dahl % Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius. -- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart % I think the purpose of life is to be useful, responsible, honorable, compassionate. It is, above all, to matter: to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all. -- Leo Rosten % There are those whose lives affect all others around them. Quietly touching one heart, who in turn, touches another. Reaching out to ends further than they would ever know. -- William Bradfield % When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world. -- John Muir % It takes each of us to make a difference for all of us. -- Jackie Mutcheson % There are good ships and wood ships, ships that sail the sea, but the best ships are friendships, may they always be! -- Irish Proverb % The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses. No one to lean on, rely on, or blame. The gift of life is yours; it is an amazing journey; and you alone are responsible for the quality of it. -- Dan Zadra % It takes courage for people to listen to their own goodness and act on it. -- Pablo Casals % We are here to add what we can to, not get what we can from, life. -- Sir William Osler % The happiest people are those who discover that what they should be doing and what they are doing are the same thing. % I have heard there are troubles of more than one kind. Some come from ahead and some come from behind. But I've bought a big bat. I'm all ready you see. Now my troubles are going to have troubles with me! -- Theodor Seuss Geisel % If I had to select one quality, one personal characteristic that I regard as being most highly correlated with success, whatever the field, I would pick the trait of persistence. Determination. The will to endure to the end, to get knocked down seventy times and get up off the floor saying, 'Here comes number seventy-one'! -- Richard DeVos % Service is the rent we pay for being. It is the very purpose of life, and not something you do in your spare time. -- Marian Wright Edelman % Motivation is when your dreams put on work clothes. -- Benjamin Franklin % Nothing is impossible, the word itself says, 'I'm possible'! -- Audrey Hepburn % History provides abundant examples of people whose greatest gift was in redeeming, inspiring, liberating, and nurturing the gifts of others. -- Sonya Rudikoff % Striving for success without hard work is like trying to harvest where you haven't planted. -- David Bly % To be able to look back upon ones life in satisfaction, is to live twice. -- Khalil Gibran % He that embarks on the voyage of life will always wish to advance rather by the impulse of the wind than the strokes of the oar; and many fold in their passage; while they lie waiting for the gale. -- Dr. Samuel Johnson % The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % It is not the years in your life but the life in your years that counts! -- Adlai E. Stevenson % This I do know beyond any reasonable doubt. Regardless of what you are doing, if you pump long enough, hard enough and enthusiastically enough, sooner or later the effort will bring forth the reward. -- Zig Ziglar % Life is 10% of what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. -- John Maxwell % Chance is always powerful. Let your hook be always cast in the pool where you least expect it; there will be a fish. -- Ovid % Delight in the little things. -- Rudyard Kipling % I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing at the seashore, and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. -- Sir Issac Newton % Believe that there's light at the end of the tunnel. Believe that you might be that light for someone else. -- Kobi Yamada % Love and kindness are never wasted. They always make a difference. -- Helen James % My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world. -- Jack Layton % A smile is a curve that sets everything straight. -- Phyllis Diller % If you pay attention at every moment, you form a new relationship to time. In some magical way, by slowing down, you become more efficient, productive, and energetic, focusing without distraction directly on the task in front of you. Not only do you become immersed in the moment, you become that moment. -- Michael Ray % We can live a life full and complete, thinking with our heads but living from our hearts. -- Helen Hunt, M.A. % Real friends are those who, when you've made a fool of yourself, don't feel that you've done a permanent job. -- Erwin T. Randall % Either you decide to stay in the shallow end of the pool or you go out in the ocean. -- Christopher Reeve % Thanks for showing me that even on the darkest, rainiest days the sun is still there, just behind the clouds, waiting to shine again. -- Lisa Harlow % Once we discover how to appreciate the timeless values in our daily experiences, we can enjoy the best things in life. -- Harry Hepner % The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit. -- Nelson Henderson % Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does. -- William James % It may seem absurd to believe that a 'primitive' culture in the Himalaya has anything to teach our industrialized society. But our search for a future that works keeps spiraling back to an ancient connection between ourselves and the earth, an interconnectedness that ancient cultures have never abandoned. -- Helena Norberg-Hodge % Greatness is always built on this foundation: the ability to appear, speak and act, as the most common man. -- Shams-ud-din Muhammed Hafiz % The adventure of life is to learn. The goal of life is to grow. The nature of life is to change. The challenge of life is to overcome. The essence of life is to care. The secret of life is to dare. The beauty of life is to give. The joy of life is to love! -- William Arthur Ward % All endings are beginnings, we just don't know it at the time. -- Mitch Albom % If we all did the things we are capable of doing we would literally astound ourselves. -- Thomas Edison % Find life experiences and swallow them whole. Travel. Meet many people. Go down some dead ends and explore dark alleys. Try everything. Exhaust yourself in the glorious pursuit of life. -- Lawrence K. Fish % The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars... -- Jack Kerouac % Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma- which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. -- Steve Jobs % Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathize with humans whose experiences we have never shared. -- J.K. Rowling % Today we are faced with a challenge that calls for a shift in our thinking, so that humanity stops threatening its life-support system. We are called to assist the Earth to heal her wounds and in the process heal our own -- indeed to embrace the whole of creation in all its diversity, beauty and wonder. Recognizing that sustainable development, democracy and peace are indivisible is an idea whose time has come. -- Wangari Maathai % To be one, to be united is a great thing. But to respect the right to be different is maybe even greater. -- Bono % Nature never repeats herself, and the possibilities of one human soul will never be found in another. -- Elizabeth Cady Stanton % Some things have to be believed to be seen. -- Mark Victor Hansen % Only in love are unity and duality not in conflict. -- Rabindranath Tagore % The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook. -- William James % So act that your principle of action might safely be made law for the whole world. -- Immanuel Kant % Enjoy all you have while pursuing all you want. -- Jim Rohn % Those who make compassion an essential part of their lives find the joy of life. Kindness deepens the spirit and produces rewards that cannot be completely explained in words. It is an experience more powerful than words. To become acquainted with kindness one must be prepared to learn new things and feel new feelings. Kindness is more than a philosophy of the mind. It is a philosophy of the spirit. -- Robert J. Furey % I believe in the essential unity of all that lives. Therefore, I believe that if one person gains spiritually, the whole world gains, and that if one person falls, the whole world falls to that extent. -- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi % To endure is greater than to dare; to tire out the hostile fortune; to be daunted by no difficulty; to keep heart when all have lost it- who can say this is not greatness? -- William Makepeace Thackeray % Strong is the soul, kind, and wise, and beautiful. -- Matthew Arnold % If something comes to life in others because of you, then you have made an approach to immortality. -- Norman Cousins % Willpower is the key to success. Successful people strive no matter what they feel by applying their will to overcome apathy, doubt or fear. -- Dan Millman % No soul that aspires can ever fail to rise; no heart that loves can ever be abandoned. Difficulties exist only that in overcoming them we may grow strong, and they who have suffered are able to save. -- Annie Besant % I don't think about what I have done. I only think of the things I want to do, and I haven't done. -- Martha Graham % It is the soul's duty to be loyal to its own desires. It must abandon itself to its master passion. -- Dame Rebecca West % You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it. -- Maya Angelou % Have the courage of your desire. -- Rudyard Kipling % In the face of uncertainty there is nothing wrong with hope. -- O. Carl Simonton % Happiness is always a by-product. You don't make yourself happy by chasing happiness. You make yourself happy by being a good person. % Be strong, go with your heart, and believe in miracles because anything...anything can happen. -- Marlo Javidando % I am not afraid... I was born to do this. -- Joan of Arc % We must have a pure, honest, and warm-hearted motivation, and on top of that, determination, optimism, hope, and the ability not to be discouraged. The whole of humanity depends on this motivation. -- The 14th Dalai Lama % Follow your instincts. That's where true wisdom manifests itself. -- Oprah Winfrey % To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides. -- David Viscott % Thanksgiving Day is a jewel, to set in the hearts of honest men; but be careful that you do not take the day, and leave out the gratitude. -- E.P. Powell % An open mind is like an open window. It lets the fresh air in. -- Mike Hernacki % To be tested is good. The challenged life may be the best therapist. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. % Carry out a random act of kindness, with no expectation of reward, safe in the knowledge that one day someone might do the same for you. -- Gail Sheehy % Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm. -- Diana Spencer % I want to be everybody, and I want to be everything. One life is not enough. -- Vladimir Sokoloff % Some men give up their designs when they have almost reached the goal; while others, on the contrary, obtain a victory by exerting, at the last moment, more vigorous efforts than before. -- Polybius % Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. -- Thomas Edison % The most thoroughly wasted of all days is that on which one has not laughed. -- Nicolas Chamfort % You can do anything if you have enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is the yeast that makes your hopes rise to the stars. With it, there is accomplishment. Without it there are only alibis. -- Henry Ford % Life is not the way it is supposed to be. It is the way it is. The way you cope with it is what makes the difference. -- Virginia Satir % We have two ears and only one tongue in order that we may hear more and speak less. -- Diogenes Laertius % Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought. -- Dr. Albert Szent-Gyorgyi % People create their own questions because they are afraid to look straight. All you have to do is look straight and see the road, and when you see it, don't sit looking at it-walk. -- Ayn Rand % Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong. -- Ella Jane Fitzgerald % Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home. -- Dame Edith Sitwell % As we struggle with shopping lists and invitations, compounded by December's bad weather, it is good to be reminded that there are people in our lives who are worth this aggravation, and people to whom we are worth the same. -- Donald Westlake % Peace is always beautiful. -- Walt Whitman % And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more. -- Theodor Seuss Geisel % May your walls know joy, may every room hold laughter, and every window open to great possibility. -- Mary Anne Radmacher % One kind word can warm three winter months. -- Japanese Proverb % People are partying, songs are being sung, Sugarplums are dancing, all in holiday fun. Presents are under the tree, reindeer fly high above, peace on earth, goodwill to all, sending joy and love! -- D.M. Dellinger % Scatter confetti over the floor, sweep an old year out the door! -- Myra Conn Livingston % May the spirit of the season be with you today and throughout the new year! -- Edith Lovejoy Pierce % We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day. -- Edith Lovejoy Pierce % Tact is the art of building a fire under people without making their blood boil. -- Franklin P. Jones % Little drops of water wear down big stones. -- Russian Proverb % As is our confidence, so is our capacity. -- William Hazlitt % Keep on going and the chances are you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I have never heard of anyone stumbling on something sitting down. -- Charles F. Kettering % Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off the goal. -- Hannah More % Don't wait for extraordinary circumstance to do good; try to use ordinary situations. -- Charles Richter % Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly. -- Robert F. Kennedy % Never, never be afraid to do what's right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society's punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way. -- Martin Luther King, Jr. % The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence, but in the mastery, of his passions. -- Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson % It is not beauty that endears, it's love that makes us see beauty. -- Leo Tolstoy % Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen. -- Sir Winston Churchill % It is better to fail in a cause that will ultimately succeed than to succeed in a cause that will ultimately fail. -- Peter Marshall % I don't know anything about luck. I've never banked on it, and I'm afraid of people who do. Luck to me is something else; hard work and realizing what is opportunity and what isn't. -- Lucille Ball % It sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents. -- Eric Hoffer % Ask the experienced rather than the learned. -- Arabic Proverb % I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself. -- Aldous Huxley % Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up wrinkles the soul. -- Douglas MacArthur % A man too busy to take care of his health is like a mechanic too busy to take care of his tools. -- Spanish Proverb % Rivers know this: There is no hurry. We shall get there. -- A. A. Milne % It's not the will to win that matters-everyone has that. It's the will to prepare to win that matters. -- Paul "Bear" Bryant % It is always in the midst, in the epicenter, of your troubles that you find serenity. -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery % As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the one thing left to us in a bad time. -- E. B. White % No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave. -- Calvin Coolidge % So with imagination, ingenuity and audacity, explore, discover, change the world. And have fun while you're at it. Always take time out to love and to live. You're going to be busy, but never forget family and friends. -- Daniel S. Goldin % At 211 degrees, water is hot. At 212 degrees, it boils. And with boiling water, comes steam. And with steam, you can power a train. -- S.L. Parker % Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is. -- Ernest Hemingway % There are only two options regarding commitment. You're either in or out. There's no such thing as a life in-between. -- Pat Riley % There's something about love that people just have to respond to. -- Howard Melchin % College is something you complete. Life is something you experience. So don't worry about your grade, or the results or success. Success is defined in myriad ways, and you will find it, and people will no longer be grading you, but it will come from your own internal sense of decency. -- Jon Stewart % Ask yourself: Have you been kind today? Make kindness your modus operandi and change your world. -- Annie Lennox % I have yet to find the man, however exalted his station, who did not do better work and put forth greater effort under a spirit of approval than under a spirit of criticism. -- Charles Schwab % Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don't interfere. -- Ronald Reagan % To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness. -- Bertrand Russell % The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were. -- John F. Kennedy % Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little coarse, and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice. Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % Listen with an open heart and an open mind to those who love you the most. You may hear a grain of truth that will later become the foundation of your entire belief system. -- Callie Khouri % Giving is a universal opportunity. Regardless of your age, profession, religion, income bracket, and background, you have the capacity to create change. -- Carl Sandburg % Never forget that you are one of a kind. Never forget that if there weren't any need for you in all your uniqueness to be on this earth, you wouldn't be here in the first place. And never forget, no matter how overwhelming life's challenges and problems seem to be, that one person can make a difference in the world. In fact, it is always because of one person that all the changes that matter in the world come about. So be that one person. -- Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen % Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever. -- R. Buckminster Fuller % No one should negotiate their dreams. Dreams must be free to fly high. No government, no legislature, has a right to limit your dreams. You should never agree to surrender your dreams. -- Lance Armstrong % You are educated. Your certification is in your degree. You may think of it as the ticket to the good life. Let me ask you to think of an alternative. Think of it as your ticket to change the world. -- Tom Brokaw % Create the highest, grandest vision possible for your life because you become what you believe. -- Oprah Winfrey % Aim for success, not perfection. Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life. -- Dr. David M. Burns % Ideas are like stars; you will not succeed in touching them with your hands. But like the seafaring man on the desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them you will reach your destiny. -- Carl Schurz % One of the greatest victories you can gain over someone is to beat him at politeness. -- Josh Billings % To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance. -- Oscar Wilde % Happiness is a how, not a what; a talent, not an object. -- Hermann Hesse % Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul? -- John Keats % When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom. -- George S. Patton % Draw strength from the knowledge that education will break the backs of poverty, disenfranchisement, and violence; that war is never inevitable but only a terrible failure of the imagination; and that love is stronger than hatred. -- Wally Lamb % Contrary to the cliché, genuinely nice guys most often finish first or very near it. -- Malcolm S. Forbes % Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate. -- Albert Schweitzer % An ant on the move does more than a dozing ox. -- Lao Tzu % One of the most difficult things everyone has to learn is that for your entire life you must keep fighting and adjusting if you hope to survive. No matter who you are or what your position is you must keep fighting for whatever it is you desire to achieve. -- George Allen % Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest. -- Mark Twain % Ability is what you are capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it. -- Louis "Lou" Holtz % Dreams are the touchstones of our characters. -- Henry David Thoreau % The future turns out to be something that you make instead of find. It isn't waiting for your arrival, either with an arrest warrant or a band, nor is it any further away than the next sentence, the next best guess, the next sketch for the painting of a life portrait that might become a masterpiece. The future is an empty canvas or a blank sheet of paper, and if you have the courage of your own thought and your own observation, you can make of it what you will. -- Lewis Lapham % Pride slays thanksgiving, but a humble mind is the soil out of which thanks naturally grow. A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves. -- Henry Ward Beecher % It takes tremendous discipline to control the influence, the power you have over other people's lives. -- Clint Eastwood % Over every mountain there is a path, although it may not be seen from the valley. -- James Rogers % The friend in my adversity I shall always cherish most. I can better trust those who helped to relieve the gloom of my dark hours than those who are so ready to enjoy with me the sunshine of my prosperity. -- Ulysses S. Grant % Patience will achieve more than force. -- Edmund Burke % Often the difference between a successful person and a failure is not one's better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on one's ideas, to take a calculated risk- and to act. -- André Malraux % Nothing happens to any man that he is not formed by nature to bear. -- Marcus Aurelius % We do not inherit the land from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children. -- Native American Proverb % Mix a little foolishness with your prudence: It's good to be silly at the right moment. -- Horace % When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. -- Viktor Frankl % Never let a problem to be solved become more important than the person to be loved. -- Barbara Johnson % Peace. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart. % If your success is not on your own terms, if it looks good to the world but does not feel good in your heart, it is not success at all. -- Anna Quindlen % Fires can't be made with dead embers, nor can enthusiasm be stirred by spiritless men. Enthusiasm in our daily work lightens effort and turns even labor into pleasant tasks. -- James Baldwin % Millions of men have lived to fight, build palaces and boundaries, shape destinies and societies; but the compelling force of all times has been the force of originality and creation profoundly affecting the roots of human spirit. -- Ansel Adams % Happiness is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong. The amount of work is the same. -- Francesca Reigler % No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another. -- Charles Dickens % The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows. -- Sydney Harris % The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own. -- Benjamin Disraeli % Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose- a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye. -- Mary Shelley % Light yourself on fire with passion and people will come from miles to watch you burn. -- John Wesley % It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see. -- Henry David Thoreau % Excellence is never an accident; it is the result of high intention, sincere effort, intelligent direction, skillful execution and the vision to see obstacles as opportunities. -- Anonymous % A desire presupposes the possibility of action to achieve it; action presupposes a goal which is worth achieving. -- Ayn Rand % You know, I used to think the future was solid or fixed, something you inherited like an old building that you move into when the previous generation moves out or gets chased out. But it's not. The future is not fixed; it's fluid. You can build your own building, or hut or condo...the world is more malleable than you think and it's waiting for you to hammer it into shape. -- Bono % To finish first, you must first finish. -- Rick Mears % In matters of principle, stand like a rock; in matters of taste, swim with the current. -- Thomas Jefferson % That's all a man can hope for during his lifetime- to set an example- and when he is dead, to be an inspiration for history. -- William McKinley % Things that matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe % It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure. -- Joseph Campbell % I have found no greater satisfaction than achieving success through honest dealing and strict adherence to the view that, for you to gain, those you deal with should gain as well. -- Alan Greenspan % Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray. -- Dr. Wayne Dyer % Be practical as well as generous in your ideals. Keep your eyes on the stars, but remember to keep your feet on the ground. -- Jalal ad-Din Rumi % Our lives are defined by opportunities, even the ones we miss. -- Theodore Roosevelt % We lose ourselves in the things we love. We find ourselves there, too. -- Kristin Martz % Every time you are tempted to react in the same old way, ask if you want to be a prisoner of the past or a pioneer of the future. -- Deepak K. Chopra % I think you should take your job seriously, but not yourself- that is the best combination. -- Dame Judy Dench % Mistakes are the portals of discovery. -- James Joyce % Getting ahead in a difficult profession requires avid faith in yourself. That is why some people with mediocre talent, but with great inner drive, go much further than people with vastly superior talent. -- Sophia Loren % I've never been poor, only broke. Being poor is a frame of mind. Being broke is only a temporary situation. -- Mike Todd % When heaven is about to confer a great responsibility on any man, it will exercise his mind with suffering, subject his sinews and bones to hard work, expose his body to hunger, put him to poverty, place obstacles in the paths of his deeds, so as to stimulate his mind, harden his nature, and improve wherever he is incompetent. -- Meng Tzu % Each person has an ideal, a hope, a dream which represents the soul. We must give to it the warmth of love, the light of understanding and the essence of encouragement. -- Colby Dorr Dam % Most people are like you and me, or the people across the street or around the world from you and me. Just like you and me, their hearts tell them that somewhere, somehow, they can make a positive difference in the world. -- William Baker % There is not enough darkness in all the world to put out the light of even one small candle. -- Robert Alden % The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining. -- John F. Kennedy % No man ever listened himself out of a job. -- Calvin Coolidge % Patience is not passive; on the contrary, it is active; it is concentrated strength. -- Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton % Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure. -- William Saroyan % All men by nature desire to know. -- Aristotle % It is quality rather than quantity that matters. -- Seneca % Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the life-long attempt to acquire it. -- Albert Einstein % Great Teachers can lead you to the doors of understanding, but it is up to you to enter. -- Lao Tzu % I'd rather regret the things I've done than regret the things I haven't done. -- Lucille Ball % You'll never find a rainbow if you're looking down. -- Charlie Chaplin % Confidence comes not from always being right, but from not fearing to be wrong. -- Peter McIntyre % Wealth is the slave of a wise man. The master of a fool. -- Seneca % ... the educated person is not the person who can answer the questions, but the person who can question the answers. -- Theodore Schick Jr., in "The Skeptical Inquirer", March/April, 1997 % A little fire, Scarecrow? % A programmer is a person who passes as an exacting expert on the basis of being able to turn out, after innumerable punching, an infinite series of incomprehensive answers calculated with micrometric precisions from vague assumptions based on debatable figures taken from inconclusive documents and carried out on instruments of problematical accuracy by persons of dubious reliability and questionable mentality for the avowed purpose of annoying and confounding a hopelessly defenseless department that was unfortunate enough to ask for the information in the first place. -- IEEE Grid newsmagazine % Acting is an art which consists of keeping the audience from coughing. % Anchovies? You've got the wrong man! I spell my name DANGER! (click) % Benson, you are so free of the ravages of intelligence. -- Time Bandits % "Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before," Bokonon tells us. "He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way." -- Kurt Vonnegut, "Cat's Cradle" % But I don't like Spam! % But this has taken us far afield from interface, which is not a bad place to be, since I particularly want to move ahead to the kludge. Why do people have so much trouble understanding the kludge? What is a kludge, after all, but not enough Ks, not enough ROMs, not enough RAMs, poor quality interface and too few bytes to go around? Have I explained yet about the bytes? % Calvin Coolidge looks as if he had been weaned on a pickle. -- Alice Roosevelt Longworth % "Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic!" -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass" % "Creation science" has not entered the curriculum for a reason so simple and so basic that we often forget to mention it: because it is false, and because good teachers understand exactly why it is false. What could be more destructive of that most fragile yet most precious commodity in our entire intellectual heritage -- good teaching -- than a bill forcing honorable teachers to sully their sacred trust by granting equal treatment to a doctrine not only known to be false, but calculated to undermine any general understanding of science as an enterprise? -- Stephen Jay Gould, "The Skeptical Inquirer", Vol. 12, page 186 % "Deep" is a word like "theory" or "semantic" -- it implies all sorts of marvelous things. It's one thing to be able to say "I've got a theory", quite another to say "I've got a semantic theory", but, ah, those who can claim "I've got a deep semantic theory", they are truly blessed. -- Randy Davis % Deliver yesterday, code today, think tomorrow. % Die? I should say not, dear fellow. No Barrymore would allow such a conventional thing to happen to him. -- John Barrymore's dying words % "Do not stop to ask what is it; Let us go and make our visit." -- T. S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" % Do you have blacks, too? -- George W. Bush, to Brazilian president Fernando Cardoso; Washington, D.C., November 8, 2001 % Don't let your mouth write no check that your tail can't cash. -- Bo Diddley % Don't say yes until I finish talking. -- Darryl F. Zanuck % Drawing on my fine command of language, I said nothing. % Earth is a great, big funhouse without the fun. -- Jeff Berner % Even the best of friends cannot attend each other's funeral. -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" % Every time I think I know where it's at, they move it. % Grub first, then ethics. -- Bertolt Brecht % He didn't say that. He was reading what was given to him in a speech. -- Richard Darman, director of OMB, explaining why President Bush wasn't following up on his campaign pledge that there would be no loss of wetlands % He was so narrow minded he could see through a keyhole with both eyes... % He's the kind of man for the times that need the kind of man he is ... % His mind is like a steel trap -- full of mice. -- Foghorn Leghorn % Humor is a drug which it's the fashion to abuse. -- William Gilbert % I am not an Economist. I am an honest man! -- Paul McCracken % I am not sure what this is, but an `F' would only dignify it. -- English Professor % I didn't accept it. I received it. -- Richard Allen, National Security Advisor to President Reagan, explaining the $1000 in cash and two watches he was given by two Japanese journalists after he helped arrange a private interview for them with First Lady Nancy Reagan. % I don't care who does the electing as long as I get to do the nominating. -- Boss Tweed % I don't have any solution but I certainly admire the problem. -- Ashleigh Brilliant % I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when looked at in the right way, did not become still more complicated. -- Paul Anderson % I just need enough to tide me over until I need more. -- Bill Hoest % I may not be totally perfect, but parts of me are excellent. -- Ashleigh Brilliant % I support efforts to limit the terms of members of Congress, especially members of the House and members of the Senate. -- former Vice-President Dan Quayle % I was under medication when I made the decision not to burn the tapes. -- President Richard Nixon % I'd give my right arm to be ambidextrous. % If dolphins are so smart, why did Flipper work for television? % If the King's English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me! -- "Ma" Ferguson, Governor of Texas (circa 1920) % If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars. -- J. Paul Getty % If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is make the rubble bounce. -- Winston Churchill % In defeat, unbeatable; in victory, unbearable. -- Winston Churchill, of Montgomery % "It depends on your definition of asleep. They were not stretched out. They had their eyes closed. They were seated at their desks with their heads in a nodding position." -- John Hogan, Commonwealth Edison Supervisor of News Information, responding to a charge by a Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspector that two Dresden Nuclear Plant operators were sleeping on the job. % It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased. -- Kehlog Albran, "The Profit" % "It was hell," recalls former child. -- caption to a B. Kliban cartoon % It's bad luck to be superstitious. -- Andrew W. Mathis % It's not Camelot, but it's not Cleveland, either. -- Kevin White, mayor of Boston % Just once, I wish we would encounter an alien menace that wasn't immune to bullets -- The Brigader, "Dr. Who" % Laughter is the closest distance between two people. -- Victor Borge % MacDonald has the gift on compressing the largest amount of words into the smallest amount of thoughts. -- Winston Churchill % Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain. -- Lily Tomlin % Mate, this parrot wouldn't VOOM if you put four million volts through it! % Might as well be frank, monsieur. It would take a miracle to get you out of Casablanca and the Germans have outlawed miracles. % Nondeterminism means never having to say you are wrong. % Of COURSE it's the murder weapon. Who would frame someone with a fake? % One planet is all you get. % She is descended from a long line that her mother listened to. -- Gypsy Rose Lee % Sherry [Thomas Sheridan] is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity, sir, is not in Nature. -- Samuel Johnson % Stealing a rhinoceros should not be attempted lightly. % Sure, it's going to kill a lot of people, but they may be dying of something else anyway. -- Othal Brand, member of a Texas pesticide review board, on chlordane % Text processing has made it possible to right-justify any idea, even one which cannot be justified on any other grounds. -- J. Finnegan, USC. % That must be wonderful! I don't understand it at all. % The C Programming Language: A language which combines the flexibility of assembly language with the power of assembly language. % The Lord gave us farmers two strong hands so we could grab as much as we could with both of them. -- Joseph Heller, "Catch-22" % The bland leadeth the bland and they both shall fall into the kitsch. % The difference between a misfortune and a calamity? If Gladstone fell into the Thames, it would be a misfortune. But if someone dragged him out again, it would be a calamity. -- Benjamin Disraeli % The brain is a beautifully engineered get-out-of-the-way machine that constantly scans the environment for things out of whose way it should right now get. That's what brains did for several hundred million years -- and then, just a few million years ago, the mammalian brain learned a new trick: to predict the timing and location of dangers before they actually happened. Our ability to duck that which is not yet coming is one of the brain's most stunning innovations, and we wouldn't have dental floss or 401(k) plans without it. But this innovation is in the early stages of development. The application that allows us to respond to visible baseballs is ancient and reliable, but the add-on utility that allows us to respond to threats that loom in an unseen future is still in beta testing. -- Daniel Gilbert, professor of psychology at Harvard University, in an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times; 6 July, 2006 % The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a bit longer. -- Henry Kissinger % The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exaulted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy ... neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water. % The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up! % The streets are safe in Philadelphia. It's only the people who make them unsafe. -- the late Frank Rizzo, ex-police chief and ex- mayor of Philadelphia % The voters have spoken, the bastards... % The warning message we sent the Russians was a calculated ambiguity that would be clearly understood. -- Alexander Haig % The way to make a small fortune in the commodities market is to start with a large fortune. % There are three possibilities: Pioneer's solar panel has turned away from the sun; there's a large meteor blocking transmission; or someone loaded Star Trek 3.2 into our video processor. % There are two ways of disliking poetry; one way is to dislike it, the other is to read Pope. -- Oscar Wilde % There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. -- C. S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia % They gave me a book of checks. They didn't ask for any deposits. -- Congressman Joe Early (D-Mass) at a press conference to answer questions about the House Bank scandal. % This is a country where people are free to practice their religion, regardless of race, creed, color, obesity, or number of dangling keys... % To YOU I'm an atheist; to God, I'm the Loyal Opposition. -- Woody Allen % To vacillate or not to vacillate, that is the question ... or is it? % Tom Hayden is the kind of politician who gives opportunism a bad name. -- Gore Vidal % Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under Communism, it's just the opposite. -- John Kenneth Galbraith % We don't care. We don't have to. We're the Phone Company. % We don't have to protect the environment -- the Second Coming is at hand. -- James Watt % We have reason to believe that man first walked upright to free his hands for masturbation. -- Lily Tomlin % We'll cross out that bridge when we come back to it later. % Well, if you can't believe what you read in a comic book, what CAN you believe?! -- Bullwinkle J. Moose [Jay Ward] % What is the robbing of a bank compared to the FOUNDING of a bank? -- Bertold Brecht % When the going gets tough, the tough get empirical. -- Jon Carroll % When you have to kill a man it costs nothing to be polite. -- Winston Churchill, on formal declarations of war % "Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?" he asked. "Begin at the beginning," the King said, gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop." -- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll % Why be a man, when you can be a success? -- Bertold Brecht % Why isn't there a special name for the tops of your feet? -- Lily Tomlin % Why was I born with such contemporaries? -- Oscar Wilde % Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here? "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat. -- Lewis Carrol % "Yacc" owes much to a most stimulating collection of users, who have goaded me beyond my inclination, and frequently beyond my ability in their endless search for "one more feature". Their irritating unwillingness to learn how to do things my way has usually led to my doing things their way; most of the time, they have been right. -- S. C. Johnson, "Yacc guide acknowledgements" % Yes, that was Richard Nixon. He used to be President. When he left the White House, the Secret Service would count the silverware. -- Woody Allen, "Sleeper" % Yes, well, that's just the sort of blinkered, Philistine pig-ignorance I've come to expect from you non-creative garbage. You sit there on your loathsome spotty behinds squeezing blackheads, not caring a tinker's cuss for the struggling artist, you excrement! You whining, hypocritical toadies with your Tony Jacklin golf clubs, your colour TVs and your bleedin' Masonic handshakes! You wouldn't let me join, would you, you blackballing bastards?! WELL I WOULDN'T BECOME A FREEMASON NOW IF YOU GOT DOWN ON YOUR LOUSY STINKING KNEES AND BEGGED ME! % You can't teach people to be lazy -- either they have it, or they don't. -- Dagwood Bumstead % You'll never be the man your mother was! % $100 invested at 7% interest for 100 years will become $100,000, at which time it will be worth absolutely nothing. -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" % 'Martyrdom' is the only way a person can become famous without ability. -- George Bernard Shaw % 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. -- Alfred, Lord Tennyson % [Humanity] is the measure of all things. -- Protagoras % ... And malt does more than Milton can/To justify God's ways to man -- A. E. Housman % An infinite number of mathematicians walk into a bar. The first one orders a beer. The second orders half a beer. The third, a quarter of a beer. The bartender says "You're all idiots", and pours two beers. % Any code of your own that you haven't looked at for six or more months might as well have been written by someone else. -- Eagleson's Law % Any resemblance between the above and my own views is non-deterministic. % ... But if we laugh with derision, we will never understand. Human intellectual capacity has not altered for thousands of years so far as we can tell. If intelligent people invested intense energy in issues that now seem foolish to us, then the failure lies in our understanding of their world, not in their distorted perceptions. Even the standard example of ancient nonsense -- the debate about angels on pinheads -- makes sense once you realize that theologians were not discussing whether five or eighteen would fit, but whether a pin could house a finite or an infinite number. -- S. J. Gould, "Wide Hats and Narrow Minds" % ... Fortunately, the responsibility for providing evidence is on the part of the person making the claim, not the critic. It is not the responsibility of UFO skeptics to prove that a UFO has never existed, nor is it the responsibility of paranormal-health-claims skeptics to prove that crystals or colored lights never healed anyone. The skeptic's role is to point out claims that are not adequately supported by acceptable evidence and to provide plausible alternative explanations that are more in keeping with the accepted body of scientific evidence. ... -- Thomas L. Creed, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2, pg. 215 % ... Had this been an actual emergency, we would have fled in terror, and you would not have been informed. % ... The book is worth attention for only two reasons: (1) it attacks attempts to expose sham paranormal studies; and (2) it is very well and plausibly written and so rather harder to dismiss or refute by simple jeering. -- Harry Eagar, reviewing "Beyond the Quantum" by Michael Talbot, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2, ppg. 200-201 % The first principle is that you must not fool yourself -- and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you've not fooled yourself, it's easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that. -- R. P. Feynman, "Cargo Cult Science" % ... at least I thought I was dancing, 'til somebody stepped on my hand. -- J. B. White % ... if the church put in half the time on covetousness that it does on lust, this would be a better world. -- Garrison Keillor, "Lake Wobegon Days" % ... the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost would never throw the Devil out of Heaven as long as they still need him as a fourth for bridge. -- Letter in NEW LIBERTARIAN NOTES #19 % ... they [the Indians] are not running but are coming on. -- note sent from Lt. Col Custer to other officers of the 7th Regiment at the Little Bighorn % ...I would go so far as to suggest that, were it not for our ego and concern to be different, the African apes would be included in our family, the Hominidae. -- Richard Leakey % ... It is sad to find him belaboring the science community for its united opposition to ignorant creationists who want teachers and textbooks to give equal time to crank arguments that have advanced not a step beyond the flyblown rhetoric of Bishop Wilberforce and William Jennings Bryan. -- Martin Gardner, "Irving Kristol and the Facts of Life", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2, ppg. 128-131 % ...computer hardware progress is so fast. No other technology since civilization began has seen six orders of magnitude in performance-price gain in 30 years. -- Fred Brooks, Jr. % ...difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a common censor morum over each other. Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. -- Thomas Jefferson, "Notes on Virginia" % ...it still remains true that as a set of cognitive beliefs about the existence of God in any recognizable sense continuous with the great systems of the past, religious doctrines constitute a speculative hypothesis of an extremely low order of probability. -- Sidney Hook % ...skill such as yours is evidence of a misspent youth. -- Herbert Spencer % ...the increased productivity fostered by a friendly environment and quality tools is essential to meet ever increasing demands for software. -- M. D. McIlroy, E. N. Pinson and B. A. Tague % ...there can be no public or private virtue unless the foundation of action is the practice of truth. -- George Jacob Holyoake % ...this is an awesome sight. The entire rebel resistance buried under six million hardbound copies of "The Naked Lunch". -- The Firesign Theater % ...though his invention worked superbly -- his theory was a crock of sewage from beginning to end. -- Vernor Vinge, "The Peace War" % ...when fits of creativity run strong, more than one programmer or writer has been known to abandon the desktop for the more spacious floor. -- Fred Brooks, Jr. % /earth is 98% full ... please delete anyone you can. % 10.0 times 0.1 is hardly ever 1.0. % 36 percent of the American public believes that boiling radioactive milk makes it safe to drink. -- results of a survey by Jon Miller at Northern Illinois University % 43rd Law of Computing: Anything that can go wr fortune: Segmentation fault -- core dumped % 80 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot, including this one. % 99% of all guys are within one standard deviation of your mom. % A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing. % A bore is a man you deprives you of solitude without providing you with company. -- Gian Vincenzo Gravina % A Nixon [is preferable to] a Dean Rusk -- who will be passionately wrong with a high sense of consistency. -- J. K. Galbraith % A Puritan is someone who is deathly afraid that someone somewhere is having fun. % A baby is an alimentary canal with a loud voice at one end and no responsibility at the other. % A bachelor is a selfish, undeserving guy who has cheated some woman out of a divorce. -- Don Quinn % A billion here, a billion there, sooner or later it adds up to real money. -- Everett Dirksen % A bore is someone who persists in holding his own views after we have enlightened him with ours. % A budget is just a method of worrying before you spend money, as well as afterward. % A candidate is a person who gets money from the rich and votes from the poor to protect them from each other. % A celebrity is a person who is known for his well-knownness. % A child's education should begin at least 100 years before he is born. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes % A city is a large community where people are lonesome together. -- Herbert Prochnow % A clash of doctrine is not a disaster -- it is an opportunity. % A closed mouth gathers no foot. % A conclusion is simply the place where someone got tired of thinking. % A conference is a gathering of important people who singly can do nothing, but together can decide that nothing can be done. -- Fred Allen % A conservative is a man who believes that nothing should be done for the first time. -- Alfred E. Wiggam % A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who has never learned to walk. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt % A conservative is one who is too cowardly to fight and too fat to run. % A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats. -- Ben Franklin % A critic is a legless man who teaches running. -- Channing Pollock % A day without sunshine is like night. % A decision occurs when one abandons the obvious for the possible. -- P. Taylor % A diplomat is a man who can convince his wife she'd look stout in a fur coat. % A diplomat is someone who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you will look forward to the trip. -- Caskie Stinnett % A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never her age. -- Robert Frost % A diva who specializes in risque arias is an off-coloratura soprano ... % A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of. -- Ogden Nash % A famous Lisp Hacker noticed an Undergraduate sitting in front of a Xerox 1108, trying to edit a complex Klone network via a browser. Wanting to help, the Hacker clicked one of the nodes in the network with the mouse, and asked "what do you see?" Very earnestly, the Undergraduate replied "I see a cursor." The Hacker then quickly pressed the boot toggle at the back of the keyboard, while simultaneously hitting the Undergraduate over the head with a thick Interlisp Manual. The Undergraduate was then Enlightened. % A fanatic is a person who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. -- Winston Churchill % A fool must now and then be right by chance. % A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education. -- G. B. Shaw % A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. -- Samuel Johnson % A formal parsing algorithm should not always be used. -- D. Gries % A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he knows something. -- Wilson Mizner % A good memory does not equal pale ink. % A good workman is known by his tools. % A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -- William James % A handful of friends is worth more than a wagon of gold. % A healthy male adult bore consumes each year one and a half times his weight in other people's patience. -- John Updike % A hermit is a deserter from the army of humanity. % A journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance. % A king's castle is his home. % A lack of leadership is no substitute for inaction. % A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing. % A language that doesn't have everything is actually easier to program in than some that do. -- Dennis M. Ritchie % A large number of installed systems work by fiat. That is, they work by being declared to work. -- Anatol Holt % A learning experience is one of those things that says, "You know that thing you just did? Don't do that." -- attributed to Douglas Adams % A little caution outflanks a large cavalry. -- Bismarck % A little retrospection shows that although many fine, useful software systems have been designed by committees and built as part of multipart projects, those software systems that have excited passionate fans are those that are the products of one or a few designing minds, great designers. Consider Unix, APL, Pascal, Modula, the Smalltalk interface, even Fortran; and contrast them with Cobol, PL/I, Algol, MVS/370, and MS-DOS. -- Fred Brooks, Jr. % A lot of people I know believe in positive thinking, and so do I. I believe everything positively stinks. -- Lew Col % A man forgives only when he is in the wrong. % A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams. -- John Barrymore % A man paints with his brains and not with his hands. % A man said to the Universe: "Sir, I exist!" "However," replied the Universe, "the fact has not created in me a sense of obligation." -- Stephen Crane % A man shall never be enriched by envy. -- Thomas Draxe % A man who fishes for marlin in ponds will put his money in Etruscan bonds. % A man who turns green has eschewed protein. % A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small package. % A manager would rather live with a problem that he cannot solve than accept a solution that he does not understand. -- G. Woolsey % A mathematician is a machine for converting coffee into theorems. % A mathematician named Hall Has a hexahedronical ball, And the cube of its weight Times his pecker's, plus eight Is his phone number -- give him a call. % A model is an artifice for helping you convince yourself that you understand more about a system than you do. % A moose once bit my sister. % A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable. -- Thomas Jefferson % A nuclear war can ruin your whole day. % A nymph hits you and steals your virginity. % A penny saved is ridiculous. % A person is just about as big as the things that make them angry. % A person who knows only one side of a question knows little of that. % A person with one watch knows what time it is; a person with two watches is never sure. Proverb % A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms. -- George Wald % A plucked goose doesn't lay golden eggs. % A professor is one who talks in someone else's sleep. % A psychiatrist is a person who will give you expensive answers that your wife will give you for free. % A quarrel is quickly settled when deserted by one party; there is no battle unless there be two. -- Seneca % A real patriot is the fellow who gets a parking ticket and rejoices that the system works. % A real person has two reasons for doing anything ... a good reason and the real reason. % A recent study has found that concentrating on difficult off-screen objects, such as the faces of loved ones, causes eye strain in computer scientists. Researchers into the phenomenon cite the added concentration needed to "make sense" of such unnatural three dimensional objects ... % A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you. -- Ramsey Clark % A scout troop consists of twelve little kids dressed like schmucks following a big schmuck dressed like a kid. -- Jack Benny % A second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience. -- Samuel Johnson % A sine curve goes off into infinity or at least to the end of the blackboard. % A smile is the shortest distance between two people. -- Victor Borge % A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows. -- O'Henry % A student who changes the course of history is probably taking an exam. % A successful tool is one that was used to do something undreamed of by its author. -- S. C. Johnson % A thing is worth precisely what it can do for you, not what you choose to pay for it. -- John Ruskin % A total abstainer is one who abstains from everything but abstention, and especially from inactivity in the affairs of others. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % A truly wise man never plays leapfrog with a unicorn. % A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students. -- John Ciardi % A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with. -- Tenessee Williams % A visit to a fresh place will bring strange work. % A visit to a strange place will bring fresh work. % A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous. % A well-known friend is a treasure. % A witty saying proves nothing. -- Voltaire % A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle. % A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God. % Ada, n.: Something you need only know the name of to be an Expert in computing. Useful in sentences like, "We had better develop an Ada awareness." % Abandon hope, all ye who press "ENTER" here. % Ability is useless unless it is used. -- Robert Half % About all some men accomplish in life is to send a son to Harvard. % About the only thing on a farm that has an easy time is the dog. % About the time we think we can make ends meet, somebody moves the ends. -- Herbert Hoover % Above all things, reverence yourself. % Abstention makes the heart grow fonder. % Absurdity, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Accident, n.: A condition in which presence of mind is good, but absence of body is better. % According to my best recollection, I don't remember. -- Vincent "Jimmy Blue Eyes" Alo % According to the latest official figures, 43% of all statistics are totally worthless. % According to my scuba instructor, if a shark attacks, you're supposed to poke it in the eye with your finger. After that, I suppose you should hit it in the face with a cream pie, or maybe hose it down with a seltzer bottle. -- Jerry L. Embry % Accordion: A bagpipe with pleats. % Accuracy: The vice of being right. % Acquaintance, n.: A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Activity makes more men's fortunes than cautiousness. -- Marquis de Vauvenargues % Actors will happen in the best-regulated families. % Ada is the work of an architect, not a computer scientist. -- Jean Ichbiah, inventor of Ada, weenie % Adapt. Enjoy. Survive. % Adde parvum parvo magnus acervus erit. [Add little to little and there will be a big pile.] -- Ovid % Admiration, n.: Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Adolescence: The stage between puberty and adultery. % Adore, v.: To venerate expectantly. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Adult: One old enough to know better. % Adversity makes men, prosperity monsters. -- French Proverb % Advertisement: The most truthful part of a newspaper. -- Thomas Jefferson % Advertising: The science of arresting the human intelligence long enough to get money from it. -- Stephen Leacock % After Goliath's defeat, giants ceased to command respect. -- Freeman Dyson % After a number of decimal places, nobody gives a damn. % After all is said and done, a lot more has been said than done. % After all, what is your hosts' purpose in having a party? Surely not for you to enjoy yourself; if that were their sole purpose, they'd have simply sent champagne and women over to your place by taxi. -- P. J. O'Rourke % After any machine or unit has been assembled, extra components will be found on the bench. -- "Industry at Work," Oilways, n2., 1972, pp. 16-17. Humble Oil & Refining Company., Houston, TX % After the last of 16 mounting screws has been removed from an access cover, it will be discovered that the wrong access cover has been removed. % After winning the pennant one year, Casey Stengel commented, "I couldn'ta done it without my players." % Air is water with holes in it. % Alas, I am dying beyond my means. -- Oscar Wilde, as he sipped champagne on his deathbed % Albert Einstein, when asked to describe radio, replied: "You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat." % Alexander Graham Bell is alive and well in New York, and still waiting for a dial tone. % Alimony and bribes will engage a large share of your wealth. % Alimony is a system by which, when two people make a mistake, one of them keeps paying for it. -- Peggy Joyce % All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy. % All I ask of life is a constant and exaggerated sense of my own importance. % All I kin say is when you finds yo'self wanderin' in a peach orchard, ya don't go lookin' for rutabagas. -- Kingfish % All a hacker needs is a tight PUSHJ, a loose pair of UUOs, and a warm place to shift. % All great ideas are controversial, or have been at one time. % All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy in its own way. -- Tolstoy % All in all it's just another brick in the wall. % All my life I wanted to be someone; I guess I should have been more specific. -- Jane Wagner % All programmers are optimists. Perhaps this modern sorcery especially attracts those who believe in happy endings and fairy godmothers. Perhaps the hundreds of nitty frustrations drive away all but those who habitually focus on the end goal. Perhaps it is merely that computers are young, programmers are younger, and the young are always optimists. But however the selection process works, the result is indisputable: "This time it will surely run," or "I just found the last bug." -- Frederick Brooks, Jr., The Mythical Man Month % All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors. % All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every organism to live beyond its income. -- Samuel Butler % All science is either physics or stamp collecting. -- E. Rutherford % All that glitters has a high refractive index. % All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed. -- Sean O'Casey % All things are possible except skiing through a revolving door. % All through human history, tyrannies have tried to enforce obedience by prohibiting disrespect for the symbols of their power. The swastika is only one example of many in recent history. -- American Bar Association task force on flag burning % All true wisdom is found on T-shirts. % All wise men share one trait in common: the ability to listen. % Allen's Axiom: When all else fails, read the instructions. % Alliance, n.: In international politics, the union of two thieves who have their hands so deeply inserted in each other's pocket that they cannot separately plunder a third. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Although every American has a sense of humor -- it is his birthright and encoded somewhere in the Constitution -- few Americans have never been able to cope with wit or irony, and even the simplest jokes often cause unease, especially today when every phrase must be examined for covert sexism, racism, ageism. -- Gore Vidal, "The Essential Mencken," The Nation, August 26/September 2, 1991. % Always borrow money from a pessimist; he doesn't expect to be paid back. % Always make the audience suffer as much as possible. -- Alfred Hitchcock % Ambidextrous, adj.: Able to pick with equal skill a right-hand pocket or a left. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy. -- Charlie McCarthy % America had often been discovered before Columbus; it had just been hushed up. -- Oscar Wilde % America's best buy for a quarter is a telephone call to the right man. % America, how can I write a holy litany in your silly mood? -- Allen Ginsberg % American Non Sequitur Society: We don't make sense. We like pizza. % Amnesia used to be my favorite word, but then I forgot it. % Among the chosen, you are the lucky one. % Among the lucky, you are the chosen one. % An American's a person who isn't afraid to criticize the President but is always polite to traffic cops. % An Army travels on its stomach. % An Englishman never enjoys himself, except for a noble purpose. -- A. P. Herbert % An economist is a man who states the obvious in terms of the incomprehensible. -- Alfred A. Knopf % An effective way to deal with predators is to taste terrible. % An elephant is a mouse with an operating system. % An idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it. % An idle mind is worth two in the bush. % An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. -- Albert Camus % An NT server can be run by an idiot, and usually is. -- Tom Holub (Posted to comp.infosystems.www.servers.unix on 03 Sep 1997) % An object never serves the same function as its image -- or its name. -- Rene Magritte % An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. -- Benjamin Franklin % Anarchy may not be the best form of government, but it's better than no government at all. % Anarchy: It's not the law, it's just a good idea. % And I alone am returned to wag the tail. % And now for something completely different. % And now that the legislators and the do-gooders have so futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they end up where they should have begun: may they reject all systems, and try liberty... -- Frederic Bastiat % And on the seventh day, He exited from append mode. % And the Lord God said unto Moses -- and correctly, I believe ... -- Field Marshal Montgomery, opening a chapel service % And the crowd was stilled. One elderly man, wondering at the sudden silence, turned to the Child and asked him to repeat what he had said. Wide-eyed, the Child raised his voice and said once again, "Why, the Emperor has no clothes! He is naked!" -- "The Emperor's New Clothes" % And there's hamburger all over the highway in Mystic, Connecticut. % And they told us, what they wanted... Was a sound that could kill some-one, from a distance. -- Kate Bush % And this is a table ma'am. What in essence it consists of is a horizontal rectilinear plane surface maintained by four vertical columnar supports, which we call legs. The tables in this laboratory, ma'am, are as advanced in design as one will find anywhere in the world. -- Michael Frayn, "The Tin Men" % And thou shalt eat it as barley cakes, and thou shalt bake it with dung that cometh out of man, in their sight...Then he [the Lord!] said unto me, Lo, I have given thee cow's dung for man's dung, and thou shalt prepare thy bread therewith. -- Ezek. 4:12-15 (KJV) % Anger is a prelude to courage. -- Eric Hoffer % Angular momentum makes the world go round. % Ankh if you love Isis. % Anoint, v.: To grease a king or other great functionary already sufficiently slippery. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Another good night not to sleep in a eucalyptus tree. % Another one bites the dust. % Anthony's Law of Force: Do not force it; get a larger hammer. % Anthony's Law of the Workshop: Any tool when dropped, will roll into the least accessible corner of the workshop. Corollary: On the way to the corner, any dropped tool will first strike your toes. % Antimatter doesn't matter as a matter of fact. -- Piggins % Antiquis temporibus, nati tibi similes in rupibus ventosissimis exponebantur ad necem. (In the good old days, children like you were left to perish on windswept crags.) % Antonym, n.: The opposite of the word you're trying to think of. % Any clod can have the facts, but having opinions is an art. -- Charles McCabe % Any excuse will serve a tyrant. -- Aesop % Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a wise man to be able to sell it. % Any fool can paint a picture, but it takes a wise person to be able to sell it. % Any given program, when running correctly, is obsolete. % Any job worth quitting is worth sticking around long enough until they fire you. -- Tim Wirth % Any medium powerful enough to extend man's reach is powerful enough to topple his world. To get the medium's magic to work for one's aims rather than against them is to attain literacy. -- Alan Kay, "Computer Software", Scientific American, September 1984 % Any shrine is better than self-worship. % Any small object that is accidentally dropped will hide under a larger object. % Any small object when dropped will hide under a larger object. % Any smoothly functioning technology will have the appearance of magic. -- Arthur C. Clarke % Any sufficiently advanced bureaucracy is indistinguishable from molasses. % Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice. -- Paul Chvostek by way of Arthur C. Clarke (via John Ripley) % Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo. -- Andy Finkel, computer guy % Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. -- Arthur C. Clarke % Any two philosophers can tell each other all they know in two hours. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. % Anybody with money to burn will easily find someone to tend the fire. % Anyone can hold the helm when the sea is calm. -- Publilius Syrus % Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe and not make messes in the house. -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" % Anyone who knows history, particularly the history of Europe, will, I think, recognize that the domination of education or of government by any one particular religious faith is never a happy arrangement for the people. -- Eleanor Roosevelt % Anyone who wants to be paid for writing software is a fascist asshole. -- Richard M. Stallman, founder, Free Software Foundation % Anything anybody can say about America is true. -- Emmett Grogan % Anything free is worth what you pay for it. % Anything is possible if you don't know what you're talking about. % Anything labeled "NEW" and/or "IMPROVED" isn't. The label means the price went up. The label "ALL NEW", "COMPLETELY NEW", or "GREAT NEW" means the price went way up. % Anything worth doing is worth overdoing % Anytime things appear to be going better, you have overlooked something. % Arbolist . . . Look up the word. I don't know, maybe I made it up. Anyway, it's an arbo-tree-ist, somebody who knows about trees. -- George W. Bush, quoted in USA Today; August 21, 2001 % Are we not men? % Are you a turtle? % Arithmetic is being able to count up to twenty without taking off your shoes. -- Mickey Mouse % Armadillo: To provide weapons to a Spanish pickle % Army, n.: A body of men assembled to rectify the mistakes of the diplomats. -- Josephus Daniels % Army Axiom: An order that can be misunderstood will be misunderstood. % Arnold's Laws of Documentation: (1) If it should exist, it doesn't. (2) If it does exist, it's out of date. (3) Only documentation for useless programs transcends the first two laws. % Art is parasitic on life, just as criticism is parasitic on art. -- Harry S Truman (one of his more ridiculous comments) % As Will Rogers would have said, "There is no such things as a free variable." % As Zeus said to Narcissus, "Watch yourself." % As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error. -- Weisert % As goatherd learns his trade by goat, so writer learns his trade by wrote. % As long as the answer is right, who cares if the question is wrong? % As long as war is regarded as wicked, it will always have its fascination. When it is looked upon as vulgar, it will cease to be popular. -- Oscar Wilde % As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active power of the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of a woman comes from defect in the active power. -- Thomas Aquinas, prominent historical misogynist % As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it wasn't as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging had to be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I realized that a large part of my life from then on was going to be spent in finding mistakes in my own programs. -- Maurice Wilkes discovers debugging, 1949 % As the poet said, "Only God can make a tree" -- probably because it's so hard to figure out how to get the bark on. -- Woody Allen % As the system comes up, the component builders will from time to time appear, bearing hot new versions of their pieces -- faster, smaller, more complete, or putatively less buggy. The replacement of a working component by a new version requires the same systematic testing procedure that adding a new component does, although it should require less time, for more complete and efficient test cases will usually be available. -- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month" % As the trials of life continue to take their toll, remember that there is always a future in Computer Maintenance. -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorada" % As to Jesus of Nazareth...I think the system of Morals and his Religion, as he left them to us, the best the World ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting Changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity. -- Benjamin Franklin % As with most fine things, chocolate has its season. There is a simple memory aid that you can use to determine whether it is the correct time to order chocolate dishes: any month whose name contains the letter A, E, or U is the proper time for chocolate. -- Sandra Boynton, "Chocolate: The Consuming Passion" % As you read the scroll it vanishes, and you hear maniacal laughter in the distance. % Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, If God won't have you, the devil must. % Ask not for whom the telephone bell tolls ... if thou art in the bathtub, it tolls for thee. % Ask your boss to reconsider -- it's so difficult to take "Go to hell" for an answer. % Assuming that either the left wing or the right wing gained control of the country, it would probably fly around in circles. -- Pat Paulsen % At Group L, Stoffel oversees six first-rate programmers, a managerial challenge roughly comparable to herding cats. -- The Washington Post Magazine, June 9, 1985 % At a recent meeting in Snowmass, Colorado, a participant from Los Angeles fainted from hyperoxygenation, and we had to hold his head under the exhaust of a bus until he revived. % At first sight, the idea of any rules or principles being superimposed on the creative mind seems more likely to hinder than to help, but this is quite untrue in practice. Disciplined thinking focuses inspiration rather than blinkers it. -- G. L. Glegg, The Design of Design % At the heart of science is an essential tension between two seemingly contradictory attitudes -- an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense. Of course, scientists make mistakes in trying to understand the world, but there is a built-in error-correcting mechanism: The collective enterprise of creative thinking and skeptical thinking together keeps the field on track. -- Carl Sagan, "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection," Parade, February 1, 1987 % At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer you will find at least two human errors, including the error of blaming it on the computer. % Athens built the Acropolis. Corinth was a commercial city, interested in purely materialistic things. Today we admire Athens, visit it, preserve the old temples, yet we hardly ever set foot in Corinth. -- Dr. Harold Urey, Nobel Laureate in chemistry % Atlee is a very modest man. And with reason. -- Winston Churchill % Auribus teneo lupum. (I hold a wolf by the ears.) % Automobile, n.: A four-wheeled vehicle that runs up hills and down pedestrians. % Automobile: A four-wheeled vehicle that runs up hills and down pedestrians. % Average managers are concerned with methods, opinions, precedents. Good managers are concerned with solving problems. % Avoid Quiet and Placid persons unless you are in Need of Sleep. -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorada" % Avoid letting temper block progress; keep cool. -- William Feather % Back off, man. I'm a scientist. % Badges? We don't need no stinking badges. % Bagdikian's Observation: Trying to be a first-rate reporter on the average American newspaper is like trying to play Bach's "St. Matthew Passion" on a ukelele. % Bad sneakers and a piña colada, my friend Stompin' down the avenue by Radio City With a transistor and a large sum of money to spend. -- Steely Dan % Baker's First Law of Federal Geometry: A block grant is a solid mass of money surrounded on all sides by governors. % Barth's Distinction: There are two types of people: those who divide people into two types, and those who don't. % Basic, n.: A programming language. Related to certain social diseases in that those who have it will not admit it in polite company. % Be assured that a walk through the ocean of most Souls would scarcely get your Feet wet. Fall not in Love, therefore: it will stick to your face. -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorada" % Be careful when a loop exits to the same place from side and bottom. % Be different: conform. % Be regular and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and original in your work. -- Gustave Flaubert % Be seeing you. % Beauty and harmony are as necessary to you as the very breath of life. % Beauty is only skin deep, but Ugly goes straight to the bone. % Bees are not as busy as we think they are; they just cannot buzz any slower. -- Abe Martin % Behind every argument is someone's ignorance. -- Louis Brandeis % Behold the warranty: The bold print giveth and the fine print taketh away. % Beifeld's Principle: The probability of a young man meeting a desirable and receptive young female increases by pyramidal progression when he is already in the company of: (1) a date, (2) his wife, (3) a better looking and richer male friend. % Being stoned on marijuana isn't very different from being stoned on gin. -- Ralph Nader % Berkeley's First Law of Mistakes: The moment you have worked out an answer, start checking it -- it probably isn't right. % Corollary 1 to Berkeley's First Law of Mistakes: Always let an answer cool off for awhile -- it should not be used while hot. % Corollary 2 to Berkeley's First Law of Mistakes: Check the answer you have worked out once more -- before you tell it to anybody. % Berkeley's Second Law of Mistakes: If there is an opportunity to make a mistake, sooner or later, the mistake will be made. % Better living a beggar than buried an emperor. % Between the choice of two evils, I always pick the one I've never tried before. -- Mae West % Between the legs of the women walking by, the dadaists imagined a monkey wrench and the surrealists a crystal cup. That's lost. -- Ivan Chtcheglov % Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it. -- Donald Knuth % Beware of Geeks bearing grifts. % Beware of Programmers who carry screwdrivers. -- Leonard Brandwein % Beware of a dark-haired man with a loud tie. % Beware of a tall dark man with a spoon up his nose. % Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes. % Beware of friends who are false and deceitful. % Beware of low-flying butterflies. % Beware of the Turing Tar-pit in which everything is possible but nothing of interest is easy. % Beware the new TTY code! % Biggest security gap -- an open mouth. % Bingo, gas station, hamburger with a side order of airplane noise, and you'll be Gary, Indiana. -- Jessie in the movie "Greaser's Palace" % Biography is the fallacy of intention. -- Peter Taylor % Biology ... it grows on you. % Birth, n.: The first and direst of all disasters. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Bizarreness is the essence of the exotic % Black holes are where God is dividing by zero. % Blah. % Bleeding into a new computer is always a good thing; it's an ancient geek voodoo magic to ensure its long life and reliability. -- from Mike Taht's blog, http://the-edge.blogspot.com/ % Blessed are the meek for they shall inhibit the earth. % Blessed are they who Go Around in Circles, for they Shall be Known as Wheels. % Blessed is the man who is too busy to worry in the daytime and too sleepy to worry at night. -- Leo Aikman % Blood is thicker than water, and much tastier. % Board the windows, up your car insurance, and don't leave any booze in plain sight. It's St. Patrick's day in Chicago again. The legend has it that St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland. In fact, he was arrested for drunk driving. The snakes left because people kept throwing up on them. % Boling's postulate: If you're feeling good, don't worry. You'll get over it. % Bolub's Fourth Law of Computerdom: Project teams detest weekly progress reporting because it so vividly manifests their lack of progress. % Bombeck's Rule of Medicine: Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died. % Bond reflected that good Americans were fine people and that most of them seemed to come from Texas. -- Ian Fleming, "Casino Royale" % Boob's Law: You always find something in the last place you look. % Bore, n.: A person who talks when you wish him to listen. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Boren's Laws: (1) When in charge, ponder. (2) When in trouble, delegate. (3) When in doubt, mumble. % Boss, n.: According to the Oxford English Dictionary, in the Middle Ages the words "boss" and "botch" were largely synonymous, except that boss, in addition to meaning "a supervisor of workers" also meant "an ornamental stud". % Boston, n.: Ludwig van Beethoven being jeered by 50,000 sports fans for finishing second in the Irish jig competition. % Boy, n.: A noise with dirt on it. % Bradley's Bromide: If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a committee. That will do them in. % Brady's First Law of Problem Solving: When confronted by a difficult problem, you can solve it more easily by reducing it to the question, "How would the Lone Ranger have handled this?" % Brain fried -- core dumped % Brain, n.: The apparatus with which we think that we think. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Brain, v. [as in "to brain"]: To rebuke bluntly, but not pointedly; to dispel a source of error in an opponent. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Bride, n.: A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Bride: A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her. % Bringing computers into the home won't change either one, but may revitalize the corner saloon. % Broad-mindedness: The result of flattening high-mindedness out. % Brook's Law: Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. % Brooke's Law: Whenever a system becomes completely defined, some damn fool discovers something which either abolishes the system or expands it beyond recognition. % Bubble Memory, n.: A derogatory term, usually referring to a person's intelligence. See also "vacuum tube". % Bucy's Law: Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man. % Bug: Small living things that small living boys throw on small living girls. % Bumper Sticker: Insanity is hereditary; you get it from your children. % Bumper sticker on nuclear war: if you have seen one, you have seen them all. % Bunk Carter's Law: At any given moment there are more important people in the world than important jobs to contain them. % Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies. -- Balzac % Bureaucrat, n.: A politician who has tenure. % Bureaucrats cut read tape -- length-wise. % Burnt Sienna: That's the best thing that ever happened to Crayolas. -- Ken Weaver % Business will be either better or worse. -- Calvin Coolidge % But in our enthusiasm, we could not resist a radical overhaul of the system, in which all of its major weaknesses have been exposed, analyzed, and replaced with new weaknesses. -- Bruce Leverett, "Register Allocation in Optimizing Compilers" % By doing just a little every day, I can gradually let the task completely overwhelm me. -- Ashleigh Brilliant % By doing just a little every day, you can gradually let the task completely overwhelm you. % By long-standing tradition, I take this opportunity to savage other designers in the thin disguise of good, clean fun. -- P. J. Plauger, from his April Fool's column in the April 1988 issue of "Computer Language" % By one count there are some 700 scientists with respectable academic credentials (out of a total of 480,000 U.S. earth and life scientists) who give credence to creation-science, the general theory that complex life forms did not evolve but appeared "abruptly". -- Newsweek, June 29, 1987, pg. 23 % C, n.: A programming language that is sort of like Pascal except more like assembly except that it isn't very much like either one, or anything else. It is either the best language available to the art today, or it isn't. -- Ray Simard % C++ : Where friends have access to your private members. -- Gavin Russell Baker % CChheecckk yyoouurr dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh.. -- Randall Garrett % Cabbage, n.: A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Cabbage: A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head. % Caeca invidia est. (Envy is blind.) -- Livy % Cahn's Axiom: When all else fails, read the instructions. % California is a fine place to live -- if you happen to be an orange. -- Fred Allen % California is the ghost of Christmas future for the rest of America. -- anonymous post to an Internet forum % California is the land of perpetual pubescence, where cultural lag is mistaken for renaissance. -- Ashley Montagu % Call on God, but row away from the rocks. -- Indian proverb % Can anyone remember when the times were not hard, and money not scarce? % Can anything be sadder than work left unfinished? Yes, work never begun. % Cannot fork -- try again. % Cannot fortune open database. % Captain Penny's Law: You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool Mom. % Carelessly planned projects take three times longer to complete than expected. Carefully planned projects take four times longer to complete than expected, mostly because the planners expect their planning to reduce the time it takes. % Carperpetuation (kar' pur pet u a shun), n.: The act, when vacuuming, of running over a string at least a dozen times, reaching over and picking it up, examining it, then putting it back down to give the vacuum one more chance. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" % Catch a wave and you're sitting on top of the world. % Certain old men prefer to rise at dawn, taking a cold bath and a long walk with an empty stomach and otherwise mortifying the flesh. They then point with pride to these practices as the cause of their sturdy health and ripe years; the truth being that they are hearty and old, not because of their habits, but in spite of them. The reason we find only robust persons doing this thing is that it has killed all the others who have tried it. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Change is what people fear most. -- Dostoevski % Change your thoughts and you change your world. % Character Density: the number of very weird people in the office. % Character is the ligament holding together all other qualities. -- Arnold Glasow % Chemicals, n.: Noxious substances from which modern foods are made. % Chicken Little was right. % Children are natural mimics who act like their parents despite every effort to teach them good manners. % Children aren't happy without something to ignore, And that's what parents were created for. -- Ogden Nash % Children begin by loving their parents. After a time they judge them. Rarely, if ever, do they forgive them. -- Oscar Wilde % Children have more need of models than of critics. % Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn't have said. % Chism's Law of Completion: The amount of time required to complete a government project is precisely equal to the length of time already spent on it. % Chisolm's First Corollary to Murphy's Second Law: When things just can't possibly get any worse, they will. % Civilisation is the art of living in towns of such size that everyone does not know everyone else. -- Julian Jaynes % Civilization Law #1: Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations one can do without thinking about them. % Civilization is a movement, not a condition; it is a voyage, not a harbor. -- Toynbee % Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. -- Howard Roark, in Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead" % [Classical music] would be a lot more popular if they gave the pieces titles like "Kill the Wabbit." -- Mark Fetherolf. % Classified material requires proper storage. % Cleanliness is next to impossible. % Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum -- I think that I think, therefore I think that I am. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Cogito ergo doleo. (I think, therefore I am depressed.) % Cogito ergo sum. % Cohen's Law: Everyone knows that the name of the game is what label you succeed in imposing on the facts. % Collaboration, n.: A literary partnership based on the false assumption that the other fellow can spell. % College isn't the place to go for ideas. -- Hellen Keller % Colorless green ideas sleep furiously. % Come to think of it, there are already a million monkeys on a million typewriters, and Usenet is nothing like Shakespeare. -- Blair Houghton % Commitment, n.: Commitment can be illustrated by a breakfast of ham and eggs. The chicken was involved, the pig was committed. % Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom. -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge % Complacency is the enemy of progress. -- Dave Stutman % Computer Science is merely the post-Turing decline in formal systems theory. % Computer Science: the boring art of coping with a large number of trivialities. -- The Devil's DP Dictionary % Computer literacy is a contact with the activity of computing deep enough to make the computational equivalent of reading and writing fluent and enjoyable. As in all the arts, a romance with the material must be well under way. If we value the lifelong learning of arts and letters as a springboard for personal and societal growth, should any less effort be spent to make computing a part of our lives? -- Alan Kay, "Computer Software", Scientific American, September 1984 % Conceit causes more conversation than wit. -- LaRouchefoucauld % Concept, n.: Any "idea" for which an outside consultant billed you more than $25,000. % Conceptual integrity in turn dictates that the design must proceed from one mind, or from a very small number of agreeing resonant minds. -- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month" % Confession is good for the soul only in the sense that a tweed coat is good for dandruff. -- Peter de Vries % Confidence is the feeling you have before you understand the situation. % Confound these ancestors.... They've stolen our best ideas! -- Ben Jonson % Confusticate and bebother these dwarves! % Conscience is what hurts when everything else feels so good. % Conservative, n.: One who admires radicals centuries after they're dead. -- Leo C. Rosten % Consultants are mystical people who ask a company for a number and then give it back to them. % Controlling complexity is the essence of computer programming. -- Brian W. Kernighan % Conversation, n.: A vocal competition in which the one who is catching his breath is called the listener. % Conway's Law: Any piece of software reflects the organizational structure that produced it. % Coronation, n.: The ceremony of investing a sovereign with the outward and visible signs of his divine right to be blown sky-high with a dynamite bomb. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Corripe Cervisiam! % Corrupt, adj.: In politics, holding an office of trust or profit. % Corruption is not the #1 priority of the Police Commissioner. His job is to enforce the law and fight crime. -- P.B.A. President E. J. Kiernan % Courage is grace under pressure. % Coward, n.: One who in a perilous emergency thinks with his legs. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Crash programs fail because they are based on the theory that, with nine women pregnant, you can get a baby a month. -- Wernher von Braun % Creativity cannot be diminished by the medium of expression. -- Mitch Allen % Creationists make it sound as though a "theory" is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. -- Isaac Asimov % Creditors have better memories than debtors. -- Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack (1758) % Crime does not pay ... as well as politics. -- A. E. Newman % Criminal: A person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation. -- Howard Scott % Critic, n.: A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries to please him. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull ass will not mend his pace with beating. -- Hamlet, Act 5, Scene 1 % Culture is the habit of being pleased with the best and knowing why. % Cynic, n.: A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be. Hence the custom among the Scythians of plucking out a cynic's eyes to improve his vision. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Cynic, n.: One who looks through rose-colored glasses with a jaundiced eye. % Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward, they may be beaten, but they may start a winning game. -- J. W. von Goethe % Dawn, n.: The time when men of reason go to bed. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % De Borglie rules the wave, but Heisenberg waived the rules. -- Piggins % 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. % Death is God's way of telling you not to be such a wise guy. % Death is Nature's way of recycling human beings. % Death is Nature's way of saying, "slow down". % Death is life's way of telling you you've been fired. -- R. Geis % Death: to stop sinning suddenly. % Debugging is anticipated with distaste, performed with reluctance, and bragged about forever. -- button at the Boston Computer Museum % Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are -- by definition -- not smart enough to debug it. -- Brian Kernighan % Decisionmaker, n.: The person in your office who was unable to form a task force before the music stopped. % Decisions of the judges will be final unless shouted down by a really overwhelming majority of the crowd present. Abusive and obscene language may not be used by contestants when addressing members of the judging panel, or, conversely, by members of the judging panel when addressing contestants (unless struck by a boomerang). -- Mudgeeraba Creek Emu-Riding and Boomerang-Throwing Association % Decisions terminate panic. % Deliberation, n.: The act of examining one's bread to determine which side it is buttered on. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Democracy is a form of government in which it is permitted to wonder aloud what the country could do under first-class management. -- Senator Soaper % Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few. -- G. B. Shaw % Democracy is four wolves and a lamb, voting on what to have for lunch. % Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time. -- E. B. White % Denniston's Law: Virtue is its own punishment. % Deprive a mirror of its silver, and even the Czar won't see his face. % Der Unterschied zwischen Genie und Wahnsinn liegt nur im Erfolg. [The only difference between genius and insanity is the success.] % Did I forget to mention, forget to mention Memphis? Home of Elvis and the ancient Greeks. Do I smell? I smell home cooking. It's only the river, it's only the river. -- Talking Heads (Cities) % Did you know gullible is not in the dictionary? % Different all twisty a of in maze are you, passages little. % Digital computers are themselves more complex than most things people build: They have very large numbers of states. This makes conceiving, describing, and testing them hard. Software systems have orders-of-magnitude more states than computers do. -- Fred Brooks, Jr. % Dimensions will always be expressed in the least usable term. Velocity, for example, will be expressed in furlongs per fortnight. % Diplomacy is the art of extricating oneself from a situation that tact would have prevented in the first place. % Diplomacy is the art of saying "nice doggy" until you can find a rock. % Disc space -- the final frontier! % Disco is to music what Etch-A-Sketch is to art. % Discovery consists in seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what no one else has thought. -- Albert Szent-Gyorgi % Distress, n.: A disease incurred by exposure to the prosperity of a friend. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Do not allow this language (Ada) in its present state to be used in applications where reliability is critical, i.e., nuclear power stations, cruise missiles, early warning systems, anti-ballistic missle defense systems. The next rocket to go astray as a result of a programming language error may not be an exploratory space rocket on a harmless trip to Venus: It may be a nuclear warhead exploding over one of our cities. An unreliable programming language generating unreliable programs constitutes a far greater risk to our environment and to our society than unsafe cars, toxic pesticides, or accidents at nuclear power stations. -- C. A. R. Hoare % Do not merely believe in miracles, rely on them. % Do not clog intellect's sluices with bits of knowledge of questionable uses. % Do not compromise yourself; you are all you have got. -- Janis Joplin % Do not take life too seriously; you will never get out of it alive. % Do not try to solve all life's problems at once -- learn to dread each day as it comes. -- Donald Kaul % Do not underestimate the value of print statements for debugging. Don't have aesthetic convulsions when using them, either. % Do you realize how many holes there could be if people would just take the time to take the dirt out of them? % Documentation is like sex: when it is good, it is very, very good; and when it is bad, it is better than nothing. -- Dick Brandon % Documentation is the castor oil of programming. Managers know it must be good because the programmers hate it so much. % Don't be overly suspicious where it's not warranted. % Don't believe everything you hear or anything you say. % Don't comment bad code: rewrite it. % Don't compare floating point numbers solely for equality. % Don't crush that dwarf, hand me the pliers. % Don't diddle code to make it faster, find a better algorithm. % Dobbin's Law: When in doubt, use a bigger hammer. % Don't get suckered in by the comments -- they can be terribly misleading. Debug only code. -- Dave Storer % Don't knock President Fillmore. He kept us out of Vietnam. % Don't learn the tricks of the trade, learn the trade. % Don't look back, the lemmings are gaining on you. % Don't put off for tomorrow what you can do today, because if you enjoy it today you can do it again tomorrow. % Don't tell me how hard you work. Tell me how much you get done. -- James J. Ling % Don't try to outweird me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you free with my breakfast cereal. -- Zaphod Beeblebrox % Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia. -- Charles Schultz % Don't worry about things that you have no control over, because you have no control over them. Don't worry about things that you have control over, because you have control over them. -- Mickey Rivers % Don't worry about what other people are thinking about you. They're too busy worrying about what you are thinking about them. % Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. -- Voltaire % Doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith. -- Paul Tillich, German theologian and historian % Doubts and jealousies often beget the facts they fear. -- Thomas Jefferson % Down with categorical imperative! % Ducharme's Axiom: If you view your problem closely enough you will recognize yourself as part of the problem. % Ducharme's Precept: Opportunity always knocks at the least opportune moment. % Duct tape is like the force. It has a light side, and a dark side, and it holds the universe together ... -- Carl Zwanzig % Due to a shortage of devoted followers, the production of great leaders has been discontinued. % Due to circumstances beyond your control, you are master of your fate and captain of your soul. % Dum excusare credis, accusas. (When you believe you are excusing yourself, you are accusing yourself.) -- St. Jerome % Dunne's Law: The territory behind rhetoric is too often mined with equivocation. % During almost fifteen centuries the legal establishment of Christianity has been upon trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution. -- James Madison % Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it. -- W. Somerset Maughm % E Pluribus Unix % Each honest calling, each walk of life, has its own elite, its own aristocracy based on excellence of performance. -- James Bryant Conant % Each team building another component has been using the most recent tested version of the integrated system as a test bed for debugging its piece. Their work will be set back by having that test bed change under them. Of course it must. But the changes need to be quantized. Then each user has periods of productive stability, interrupted by bursts of test-bed change. This seems to be much less disruptive than a constant rippling and trembling. -- Frederick Brooks Jr., "The Mythical Man Month" % Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists. -- John Kenneth Galbraith % Economics, n.: Economics is the study of the value and meaning of J. K. Galbraith ... -- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac" % Economy makes men independent. % Education has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading. -- G. M. Trevelyan % Education helps earning capacity. Ask any college professor. % Een schip op het strand is een baken in zee. [A ship on the beach is a lighthouse to the sea.] -- Dutch Proverb % Eeny Meeny, Jelly Beanie, the spirits are about to speak. -- Bullwinkle Moose % Eggheads unite! You have nothing to lose but your yolks. -- Adlai Stevenson % Egotism is the anesthetic given by a kindly nature to relieve the pain of being a damned fool. -- Bellamy Brooks % Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity. -- Frank Leahy % Egotist, n.: A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Ehrman's Commentary: 1. Things will get worse before they get better. 2. Who said things would get better? % Eighty percent of air pollution comes from plants and trees. -- Ronald Reagan, famous movie star % Einstein argued that there must be simplified explanations of nature, because God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer. -- Fred Brooks, Jr. % Either do not attempt at all, or go through with it. -- Ovid % Either that wallpaper goes, or I do. -- Oscar Wilde's last words % Electrocution: Burning at the stake with all the modern improvements. % Elevators smell different to midgets % Eloquence is vehement simplicity. -- Cecil % Emersons' Law of Contrariness: Our chief want in life is somebody who shall make us do what we can. Having found them, we shall then hate them for it. % Endless Loop: n., see Loop, Endless. Loop, Endless: n., see Endless Loop. -- Random Shack Data Processing Dictionary % Enjoy your life; be pleasant and gay, like the birds in May. % Entropy isn't what it used to be. % Envy always implies conscious inferiority wherever it resides. -- Pliny % Enzymes are things invented by biologists that explain things which otherwise require harder thinking. -- Jerome Lettvin % Equal bytes for women. % Eschew obfuscatory digressiveness. -- Barry Dancis (1983) % Eternal nothingness is fine if you happen to be dressed for it. -- Woody Allen % Ettore's observation: the other line moves faster. % Etymology, n.: Some early etymological scholars came up with derivations that were hard for the public to believe. The term "etymology" was formed from the Latin "etus" ("eaten"), the root "mal" ("bad"), and "logy" ("study of"). It meant "the study of things that are hard to swallow". -- Mike Kellen % Even a cabbage may look at a king. % Even a hawk is an eagle among crows. % Even if you can deceive people about a product through misleading statements, sooner or later the product will speak for itself. -- Hajime Karatsu % Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak it to? -- Clarence Darrow % Even the boldest zebra fears the hungry lion. % Even the future comes one day at a time. -- W. Woodhouse % Even the smallest candle burns brighter in the dark. % Even though they raised the rate for first class mail in the United States we really shouldn't complain -- it's still only 2 cents a day. % Ever notice that even the busiest people are never too busy to tell you just how busy they are. % Ever wander around the web, look at discussions, totally agree with one of the points of view, and then notice it was posted under one of your web aliases 5 years ago? -- Larry Weber % Every 4 seconds a woman has a baby. Our problem is to find this woman and stop her. % Every Horse has an Infinite Number of Legs (proof by intimidation): Horses have an even number of legs. Behind they have two legs, and in front they have fore-legs. This makes six legs, which is certainly an odd number of legs for a horse. But the only number that is both even and odd is infinity. Therefore, horses have an infinite number of legs. Now to show this for the general case, suppose that somewhere, there is a horse that has a finite number of legs. But that is a horse of another color, and by the [above] lemma ["All horses are the same color"], that does not exist. % Every Solidarity center had piles and piles of paper .... everyone was eating paper and a policeman was at the door. Now all you have to do is bend a disk. -- an anonymous member of the outlawed Polish trade union, Solidarity, commenting on the benefits of using computers in support of their movement % Every absurdity has a champion to defend it. % Every creature has within him the wild, uncontrollable urge to punt. % Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron. -- Dwight Eisenhower, April 16, 1953 % Every institution I've ever been associated with has tried to screw me. -- Stephen Wolfram % Every little picofarad has a nanohenry all its own. -- Don Vonada % Every man is as God made him, ay, and often worse. -- Miguel de Cervantes % Every program has at least one bug and can be shortened by at least one instruction -- from which, by induction, one can deduce that every program can be reduced to one instruction which doesn't work. % Every program has two purposes -- one for which it was written and another for which it wasn't. % Every program is a part of some other program, and rarely fits. % Every purchase has its price. % Every silver lining has a cloud around it. % Every solution breeds new problems. % Every successful person has had failures, but repeated failure is no guarantee of eventual success. % Every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness. -- Beckett % Everything is better with no people. -- Bob "Biff" Rendar % Dykstra's Law: Everybody is somebody else's weirdo. % Everything is controlled by a small evil group to which, unfortunately, no one we know belongs. % Everything to excess! Moderation is for monks. -- Lazarus Long % Everything you know is wrong. -- The Firesign Theater % Everything you've learned in school as "obvious" becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe. For example, there are no solids in the universe. There's not even a suggestion of a solid. There are no absolute continuums. There are no surfaces. There are no straight lines. -- R. Buckminster Fuller % Everything should be built top-down, except the first time. % Evolution is a bankrupt speculative philosophy, not a scientific fact. Only a spiritually bankrupt society could ever believe it. ... Only atheists could accept this Satanic theory. -- Rev. Jimmy Swaggart, "The Pre-Adamic Creation and Evolution" % Evolution does not require the nonexistence of God, it merely allows for it. That alone is enough to evoke condemnation from those who fear the nonexistence of God more than they fear God Himself. -- Keith Doyle, in talk.origins % Evolution is both fact and theory. Creationism is neither. -- Anonymous % Exactitude in small matters is the essence of discipline. % Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other. % Excellent day to have a rotten day. % Excellent time to become a missing person. % Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit. -- W. Somerset Maugham % Excessive login or logout messages are a sure sign of senility. % Excuse me while I change into something more formidable. % Executive ability is prominent in your make-up. % Expense Accounts, n.: Corporate food stamps. % Experience is a dear teacher, but fools will learn at no other. -- Poor Richard's Almanac % Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it. -- Olivier % Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a mistake when you make it again. -- Franklin P. Jones % Experience is the worst teacher. It always gives the test first and the instructions afterward. % Experience is what causes a person to make new mistakes instead of old ones. % Experience is what you get when you were expecting something else. % Extreme good-naturedness borders on weakness of character. Avoid it. % Extremes of fortune are fatal to folks of small dimensions. -- Arnold Glasow % FLASH! Intelligence of mankind decreasing. Details at ... uh, when the little hand is on the .... % Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. % Facts are simple and facts are straight / Facts are lazy and facts are late. Facts all come with points of view / Facts don't do what I want them to. Facts just twist the truth around / Facts are living turned inside out. Facts are getting the best of them / Facts are nothing on the face of things. Facts don't stain the furniture / Facts go out and slam the door. Facts are written all over your face / Facts continue to change their shape. -- Talking Heads % Failing to get them to do it your way might mean they're stupid, but it also means you failed to get them to do it your way. -- Cal Keegan % Failure is more frequently from want of energy than want of capital. % Failure is not an option. It comes bundled with your Microsoft product. -- Ferenc Mantfeld % Faire de la bonne cuisine demande un certain temps. Si on vous fait attendre, c'est pour mieux vous servir, et vous plaire. [Good cooking takes time. If you are made to wait, it is to serve you better, and to please you.] -- Menu of Restaurant Antoine, New Orleans [Also, what we're going to be telling our customers] % Fairy Tale: A horror story to prepare children for the newspapers. % Falling in love makes smoking pot all day look like the ultimate in restraint. -- Dave Sim, author of "Cerberus the Aardvark" % Familiarity breeds attempt % Familiarity breeds children. % Familiarity breeds contempt. % Families, when a child is born / Want it to be intelligent. I, through intelligence, / Having wrecked my whole life, Only hope the baby will prove / Ignorant and stupid. Then he will crown a tranquil life / By becoming a Cabinet Minister -- Su Tung-p'o % Fanaticism consists of redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim. -- Santayana % Fantasy, abandoned by reason, produces impossible monsters; united with it, she is the mother of the arts and the origin of marvels. -- Goya % Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory or defeat. -- Theodore Roosevelt % Far duller than a serpent's tooth it is to spend a quiet youth. % Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months. -- Oscar Wilde % Felson's Law: To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research. % Fidelity: A virtue peculiar to those who are about to be betrayed. % Field theories, unite! % Finagle's Creed: Science is true. Don't be misled by facts. % Finagle's First Law: If an experiment works, something has gone wrong. % Finagle's Second Law: Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it only makes it worse. % Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication and courage. But if we don't practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us -- and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along. -- Carl Sagan, "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection," Parade, February 1, 1987 % Fine, Java MIGHT be a good example of what a programming language should be like. But Java applications are good examples of what applications SHOULDN'T be like. -- pixadel % Fine day to throw a party. Throw him as far as you can. % Fine day to work off excess energy. Steal something heavy. % Finster's Law: A closed mouth gathers no feet. % First Law of Procrastination: Procrastination shortens the job and places the responsibility for its termination on someone else (i.e., the authority who imposed the deadline). % First Law of Socio-Genetics: Celibacy is not hereditary. % First Rule of History: History doesn't repeat itself, historians merely repeat each other. % Flee at once: All is discovered. % Flon's Law: There is not now, and never will be, a language in which it is the least bit difficult to write bad programs. % Flugg's Law: When you need to knock on wood is when you realize that the world is composed of vinyl, naugahyde and aluminum. % Follow the river and you will eventually find the sea. % Football combines the two worst features of American life: violence and committee meetings. -- George Will % For a really sweet time, call C6H12O6. % For a while there I was worried that my tin foil beanie was blocking the TopFive.com website. Luckily it turned out to be a router problem. -- Attributed to "wubwub", quoted on www.ruminate.com (2004) % For an idea to be fashionable is ominous, since it must afterwards be always old-fashioned. % For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism. % For every credibility gap, there is a gullibility fill. -- R. Clopton % For some reason a glaze passes over people's faces when you say "Canada". Maybe we should invade South Dakota or something. -- Sandra Gotlieb, wife of the Canadian ambassador to the U.S. % For some reason, this fortune reminds everyone of Marvin Zelkowitz. % For the politicians this was never about how efficient they could make things happen or how to solve a problem, it is about the *appearance* of efficiency, or problem solving. My observation is that most politicians think more like sales people than technicians, and are about as clueful. Which means, unless the politicians change the way they think, discussion about how to use *them* to go about really solving these problems would be like asking a booth babe to write a kernel module. -- Rich Costine % For those who like this sort of thing, this is the sort of thing they like. -- Abraham Lincoln % Forgetfulness, n.: A gift of God bestowed upon debtors in compensation for their destitution of conscience. % Fourth Law of Revision: It is usually impractical to worry beforehand about interferences -- if you have none, someone will make one for you. % Fourth Law of Thermodymanics: If the probability of success is not almost one, then it is damn near zero. -- David Ellis % Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn. % Fresco's Discovery: If you knew what you were doing you'd probably be bored. % Friends: people who borrow my books and set wet glasses on them. % Frisbeetarianism, n.: The belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck. % Frobnicate, v.: To manipulate or adjust, to tweak. Derived from FROBNITZ. Usually abbreviated to FROB. Thus one has the saying "to frob a frob". See TWEAK and TWIDDLE. Usage: FROB, TWIDDLE, and TWEAK sometimes connote points along a continuum. FROB connotes aimless manipulation; TWIDDLE connotes gross manipulation, often a coarse search for a proper setting; TWEAK connotes fine-tuning. If someone is turning a knob on an oscilloscope, then if he's carefully adjusting it he is probably tweaking it; if he is just turning it but looking at the screen he is probably twiddling it; but if he's just doing it because turning a knob is fun, he's frobbing it. % From the ice-age to the dole-age there is but one concern and I have just discovered: some girls are bigger than others some girls are bigger than others some girls are bigger than other girls' mothers. -- The Smiths % From too much love of living/From hope and fear set free, We thank with brief thanksgiving/Whatever gods may be, That no life lives forever/That dead men rise up never, That even the weariest river winds somewhere safe to sea. -- Swinburne % Froud's Law: A transistor protected by a fast acting fuse will protect the fuse by blowing first. % Fudd's First Law of Opposition: Push something hard enough and it will fall over. % Furbling, v.: Having to wander through a maze of ropes at an airport or bank even when you are the only person in line. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" % Furious activity is no substitute for understanding. -- H. H. Williams % Gadji beri bimba clandridi/Lauli lonni cadori gadjam A bim beri glassala glandride/E glassala tuffm I Zimbra. -- Talking Heads (I Zimbra) % G. B. Shaw to William Douglas Home: "Go on writing plays, my boy. One of these days a London producer will go into his office and say to his secretary, `Is there a play from Shaw this morning?' and when she says `No,' he will say, `Well, then we'll have to start on the rubbish.' And that's your chance, my boy." % Garbage In -- Gospel Out. % Garter, n.: An elastic band intended to keep a woman from coming out of her stockings and desolating the country. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Genderplex, n.: The predicament of a person in a restaurant who is unable to determine his or her designated restroom (e.g., turtles and tortoises). -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" % Gene Police: YOU! Out of the pool! % Generosity and perfection are your everlasting goals. % Genetics explains why you look like your father, and if you don't, why you should. % Genius is the talent of a man who is dead. % Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped. -- Elbert Hubbard % Genius: A chemist who discovers a laundry additive that rhymes with "bright". % Genuinely skillful use of obscenities is uniformly absent on the Internet. -- Karl Kleinpaste % Geology shows that fossils are of different ages. Paleontology shows a fossil sequence, the list of species represented changes through time. Taxonomy shows biological relationships among species. Evolution is the explanation that threads it all together. Creationism is the practice of squeeezing one's eyes shut and wailing, "Does not!" -- Dr.Pepper [AT] f241.n103.z1.fidonet.org % George Orwell was an optimist. % Get forgiveness now -- tomorrow you may no longer feel guilty. % Get hold of portable property. -- Charles Dickens, "Great Expectations" % Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll invite himself over for dinner. -- Calvin Keegan % Give a small boy a hammer and he will find that everything he encounters needs pounding. -- Abraham Kaplan % Give big space to the festive dog that shall sport in the roadway. % Give me a plumber's friend the size of the Pittsburgh Dome, and a place to stand, and I will drain the world. % Give up. % Giving advice is not as risky as people say; few ever take it anyway. % Glib's Fourth Law of Unreliability: Investment in reliability will increase until it exceeds the probable cost of errors, or until someone insists on getting some useful work done. % Go placidly amid the noise and waste, and remember what value there may be in owning a piece thereof. -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorada" % Go soothingly in the grease mud, as there lurks the skid demon. % Go west young, man. % God did not create the world in 7 days; he screwed around for 6 days and then pulled an all-nighter. % God does not play dice with the universe. % God gives us relatives; thank goodness we can choose our friends. % God has intended the great to be great and the little to be little ... The trade unions, under the European system, destroy liberty ... I do not mean to say that a dollar a day is enough to support a workingman ... not enough to support a man and five children if he insists on smoking and drinking beer. But the man who cannot live on bread and water is not fit to live! A family may live on good bread and water in the morning, water and bread at midday, and good bread and water at night! -- Rev. Henry Ward Beecher % God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh. -- Voltaire % God is a polytheist. % God is a verb, not a noun. % God is an atheist. % God is playing a comic to an audience that's afraid to laugh. % God is real, unless declared integer. % God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style, He just goes on trying other things. -- Pablo Picasso % God is the tangential point between zero and infinity. -- Alfred Jarry % God made machine language; all the rest is the work of man. % God made the integers; all else is the work of Man. -- Kronecker % God made the world in six days, and was arrested on the seventh. % God requireth not a uniformity of religion. -- Roger Williams % God runs electromagnetics by wave theory on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and the Devil runs them by quantum theory on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. -- William Bragg % Godwin's Law: As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one. % Going the speed of light is bad for your age. % Going to church does not make a person religious, nor does going to school make a person educated, any more than going to a garage makes a person a car. % Goldenstern's Rules: 1. Always hire a rich attorney. 2. Never buy from a rich salesman. % Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example. -- La Rouchefoucauld % Good leaders being scarce, following yourself is allowed. % Good-bye. I am leaving because I am bored. -- George Saunders' dying words % Got Mole problems? Call Avogadro, 6.02 E23. % Goto, n.: A programming tool that exists to allow structured programmers to complain about unstructured programmers. -- Ray Simard % Government expands to absorb all revenue and then some. % Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us. -- Tolstoy % Government sucks. -- Ben Olson % Grabel's Law: 2 is not equal to 3 -- not even for large values of 2. % Graduate life -- it's not just a job, it's an indenture. % Grain grows best in shit. -- Ursula K. LeGuin % Grandpa Charnock's Law: You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive. % Granholm's Definition of the Kludge: An ill-assorted collection of poorly matching parts forming a distressing whole. -- Jackson W. Granholm, "How to Design a Kludge"; Datamation, Feb. 1962 % Gray's Law of Programming: `N+1' trivial tasks are expected to be accomplished in the same time as `N' tasks. Logg's Rebuttal to Gray's Law: `N+1' trivial tasks take twice as long as `N' trivial tasks. % Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about things, and small people talk about wine. -- Fran Lebowitz % Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. % Greener's Law: Never argue with a man who buys ink by the barrel. % Grelb's Reminder: Eighty percent of all people consider themselves to be above average drivers. % Hacker's Law: The belief that enhanced understanding will necessarily stir a nation to action is one of mankind's oldest illusions. -- Andrew Hacker, The End of the American Era (1970) % Haggis is a kind of stuffed black pudding eaten by the Scots and considered by them to be not only a delicacy but fit for human consumption. The minced heart, liver and lungs of a sheep, calf or other animal's inner organs are mixed with oatmeal, sealed and boiled in maw in the sheep's intestinal stomach-bag and ... Excuse me a minute ... % Half of one, six dozen of the other. % Half the things that people do not succeed in are through fear of making the attempt. % Hand, n.: A singular instrument worn at the end of a human arm and commonly thrust into somebody's pocket. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. % Hanson's Treatment of Time: There are never enough hours in a day, but always too many days before Saturday. % Happiness adds and multiplies as we divide it with others. % Happiness comes and goes and is short on staying power. -- Frank Tyger % Happiness is having a scratch for every itch. -- Ogden Nash % Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember. -- Oscar Levant % Happiness, n.: An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Happiness: An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another. % Hardware, n.: The parts of a computer system that can be kicked. % Harris' Lament: All the good ones are taken. % Harris's Lament: All the good ones are taken. % Harrisberger's Second Law of the Lab: No matter what result it anticipated, there is always someone willing to fake it. % Harrisberger's Third Law of the Lab: Experiments should be reproducive. They should all fail in the same way. % Harrisberger's Fourth Law of the Lab: Experience is directly proportional to the amount of equipment ruined. % Harrison's Postulate: For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism. % Hartley's First Law: You can lead a horse to water, but if you can get him to float on his back, you've got something. % Hartley's Second Law: Never sleep with anyone crazier than yourself. % Harvard Law: Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure, temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables, the organism will do as it damn well pleases. % Has everyone noticed that all the letters of the word "database" are typed with the left hand? Now the layout of the QWERTYUIOP typewriter keyboard was designed, among other things, to facilitate the even use of both hands. It follows, therefore, that writing about databases is not only unnatural, but a lot harder than it appears. % Hatred, n.: A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's superiority. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Have you ever noticed that the people who are always trying to tell you, "There's a time for work and a time for play," never find the time for play? % Have you locked your file cabinet? % Have you noticed that all you need to grow healthy, vigorous grass is a crack in your sidewalk? % He had that rare weird electricity about him -- that extremely wild and heavy presence that you only see in a person who has abandoned all hope of ever behaving "normally". -- Hunter S. Thompson, "Fear and Loathing '72" % He hadn't a single redeeming vice. -- Oscar Wilde % He hated to mend, so young Ned Called in a cute neighbor instead. Her husband said, "Vi, when you stitched up his torn fly, did you have to bite off the thread?" % He is considered the most graceful speaker who can say nothing in most words. % He is truly wise who gains wisdom from another's mishap. % He launched a massive attack on everything this country held inviolate, on most of what it held self-evident. He showed how our politics was dominated by time-servers and demagogues, our religion by bigots, our culture by puritans. He showed how the average citizen, both in himself and in the way he let himself be pulled around by the nose, was a boob. -- Louis Kronenberger, "H.L. Mencken," in Malcolm Cowley, ed., After the Genteel Tradition, 1964. % He looked at me as if I was a side dish he hadn't ordered. % He played the king as if afraid someone else would play the ace. -- John Mason Brown, drama critic % He that labors and thrives spins gold. -- George Herbert % He that would govern others, first should be the master of himself. % He thinks by infection, catching an opinion like a cold. % He walks as if balancing the family tree on his nose. % He was so narrow-minded he could see through a keyhole with both eyes. % He wasn't much of an actor, he wasn't much of a Governor -- Hell, they HAD to make him President of the United States. It's the only job he's qualified for! -- Michael Cain % He who Laughs, Lasts. % He who attacks the fundamentals of the American broadcasting industry attacks democracy itself. -- William S. Paley, chairman of CBS % He who has a shady past knows that nice guys finish last. % He who has imagination without learning has wings but no feet. % He who hates vices hates mankind. % He who hesitates is sometimes saved. % He who invents adages for others to peruse takes along rowboat when going on cruise. % He who lives without folly is less wise than he believes. % He who shits on the road will meet flies on his return. -- South African Saying % He who sneezes without a handkerchief takes matters into his own hands. % He who spends a storm beneath a tree takes life with a grain of TNT. % He who wonders discovers that this in itself is wonder. -- M. C. Escher % He'll sit here and he'll say, "Do this! Do that!" And nothing will happen. -- Harry S. Truman, on presidential power % He's dead, Jim. % He's the kind of guy, that, well, if you were ever in a jam he'd be there ... with two slices of bread and some chunky peanut butter. % Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die. % Heaven, n.: A place where the wicked cease from troubling you with talk of their personal affairs, and the good listen with attention while you expound your own. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Heavy, adj.: Seduced by the chocolate side of the force. % Hedonist for hire: no job too easy. % Heisenberg may have slept here. % Hell hath no fury like a bureaucrat scorned. -- Milton Friedman % Heller's Law: The first myth of management is that it exists. Johnson's Corollary: Nobody really knows what is going on anywhere within the organization. % Hello. My name is Batman. You killed my father. Prepare to die. % Help a swallow land at Capistrano. % Help stamp out, remove and abolish redundancy. % Her life was saved by rock and roll. -- Lou Reed % Herblock's Law: if it is good, they will stop making it. % Here I am, fifty-eight, and I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. -- Peter Drucker % Here at Controls, we have one chief for every Indian. % Heuristics are bug ridden by definition. If they didn't have bugs, then they'd be algorithms. % Hey what? Where? When? (Are you confused as I am?) % Hi there! This is just a note from me, to you, to tell you, the person reading this note, that I can't think up any more famous quotes, jokes, nor bizarre stories, so you may as well go home. % Hidden talent counts for nothing. -- Nero % Hindsight is an exact science. % Hippogriff, n.: An animal (now extinct) which was half horse and half griffin. The griffin was itself a compound creature, half lion and half eagle. The hippogriff was actually, therefore, only one quarter eagle, which is two dollars and fifty cents in gold. The study of zoology is full of surprises. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Hire the morally handicapped. % His heart was yours from the first moment that you met. % History does not repeat itself; historians merely repeat each other. % History has the relation to truth that theology has to religion -- i.e., none to speak of. -- Lazarus Long % History repeats itself. That's one thing wrong with history. % History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance, of which their political as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purpose. -- Thomas Jefferson, to Baron von Humboldt, 1813 % History shows that the human mind, fed by constant accessions of knowledge, periodically grows too large for its theoretical coverings, and bursts them asunder to appear in new habiliments, as the feeding and growing grub, at intervals, casts its too narrow skin and assumes another... Truly the imago state of Man seems to be terribly distant, but every moult is a step gained. -- Charles Darwin, from "Origin of the Species" % Hlade's Law: If you have a difficult task, give it to a lazy person -- they will find an easier way to do it. % Hoare's Law of Large Problems: Inside every large problem is a small problem struggling to get out. % Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take Hofstadter's Law into account. % Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side. -- Han Solo % Hollywood is where if you don't have happiness you send out for it. -- Rex Reed % Holy Smoke, Batman, it's the Joker! % Honesty pays, but it doesn't seem to pay enough to suit some people. -- F. M. Hubbard % Honi soit la vache qui rit. % Honorable, adj.: Afflicted with an impediment in one's reach. In legislative bodies, it is customary to mention all members as honorable; as, "the honorable gentleman is a scurvy cur". -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Horngren's Observation: Among economists, the real world is often a special case. % Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people. -- W. C. Fields % How about a little fire, scarecrow? % How can you be in two places at once when you're not anywhere at all? % How can you be two places at once when you're not anywhere at all? -- Firesign Theater % How come only your friends step on your new white sneakers? % How does a project get to be a year late? ... One day at a time. -- Frederick Brooks, Jr., The Mythical Man Month % Q. How long does it take a DEC field service engineer to change a lightbulb? A. It depends on how many bad ones he brought with him. % Q. How many Bavarian Illuminati does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A. Three: one to screw it in, and one to confuse the issue. % Q. How many NASA managers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A. That's a known problem... don't worry about it. % Q. How many QA engineers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A. Three: one to screw it in and two to say "I told you so" when it doesn't work. % Q. How many WASPs does it take to change a light bulb? A. Two. One to change the bulb and one to mix the drinks. % Q. How many Zen masters does it take to screw in a light bulb? A. None. The Universe spins the bulb, and the Zen master stays out of the way. % Q. How many hardware guys does it take to change a light bulb? A. Well the diagnostics say it's fine buddy, so it's a software problem. % Q. How many programmers does it take to change a light bulb? A. None. It's a hardware problem. % Q. How many Vietnam vets does it take to screw in a light bulb? A. You don't know, man. You don't KNOW. Cause you weren't THERE. -- http://bash.org/?255991 % Q. How was Thomas J. Watson buried? A. 9 edge down. % Howe's Law: Everyone has a scheme that will not work. % However, never daunted, I will cope with adversity in my traditional manner ... sulking and nausea. -- Tom K. Ryan % Human beings were created by water to transport it uphill. % Human cardiac catheterization was introduced by Werner Forssman in 1929. Ignoring his department chief, and tying his assistant to an operating table to prevent his interference, he placed a uretheral catheter into a vein in his arm, advanced it to the right atrium [of his heart], and walked upstairs to the x-ray department where he took the confirmatory x-ray film. In 1956, Dr. Forssman was awarded the Nobel Prize. % Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition. -- Isaac Asimov % Hurewitz's Memory Principle: The chance of forgetting something is directly proportional to ..... to ........ uh .............. % I always distrust people who know so much about what God wants them to do to their fellows. -- Susan B. Anthony % I HATE arbitrary limits, especially when they're small. -- Stephen Savitzky % I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life, I absented myself from Christian assemblies. -- Benjamin Franklin % I have had interactions with developers who are convinced that everything in .Net was created solely by MS for open source usage. But that could be another result of vaccination preservatives. -- Larry Weber % I think all right-thinking people in this country are sick and tired of being told that ordinary, decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I'm certainly not! And I'm sick and tired of being told that I am. -- Monty Python % I would defend the liberty of concenting adult creationists to practice whatever intellectual perversions they like in the privacy of their own homes; but it is also necessary to protect the young and innocent. -- Arthur C. Clarke % I would not dare to so dishonor my Creator God by attaching His name to that book [the Bible]. -- Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason, Part 1, Section 5 % I'm also not very analytical. You know, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about myself, about why I do things. -- George W. Bush, aboard Air Force One; June 4, 2003 % I'm an evolutionist because I judge the evidence for the unity of life by common descent over billions of years to be overwhelming, not so that I can cheat on my wife or kick the cat with impunity. I live in no hope of heaven or fear of hell, but like most of my fellow Americans of all religious persuasions, I try to live a decent life. Folks like Tom DeLay just can't get it through their heads that a person can choose to live ethically because civilized life requires doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. -- Chet Raymo, science columnist for The Boston Globe, in a 5 Sep, 1999, article on the anti-evolution decision by Kansas School Board % I am a member of a party of one, and I live in an age of fear. Nothing lately has unsettled my party and raised my fears so much as your editorial, on Thanksgiving Day, suggesting that employees should be required to state their beliefs in order to hold their jobs. The idea is inconsistent with our constitutional theory and has been stubbornly opposed by watchful men since the early days of the Republic. -- E.B. White, in a letter to the New York Herald Tribune, November 29, 1947 % I am always with myself, and it is I who am my tormenter. -- Leo Tolstoy % I am astounded ... at the wonderful power you have developed -- and terrified at the thought that so much hideous and bad music may be put on record forever. -- Arthur Sullivan, on seeing a demonstration of Edison's new talking machine in 1888 % I am not now, and never have been, a girl friend of Henry Kissinger. -- Gloria Steinem % I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter. -- Winston Churchill % I am the mother of all things, and all things should wear a sweater. % I am, in point of fact, a particularly haughty and exclusive person, of pre-Adamite ancestral descent. You will understand this when I tell you that I can trace my ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial atomic globule. Consequently, my family pride is something inconceivable. I can't help it. I was born sneering. -- Pooh-Bah, "The Mikado", Gilbert & Sullivan % I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean. -- G. K. Chesterton % I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat. -- Will Rogers % I'll bet the human brain is a kludge. -- Marvin Minsky % I can call spirits from the vasty deep. Why so can I, or so can any man; but will they come when you do call for them? -- Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part I % I can't complain, but sometimes I still do. -- Joe Walsh % I cannot affirm God if I fail to affirm man. Therefore, I affirm both. Without a belief in human unity I am hungry and incomplete. Human unity is the fulfillment of diversity. It is the harmony of opposites. It is a many-stranded texture, with color and depth. -- Norman Cousins % I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions. -- Lillian Hellman % 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. -- Steven Roberts % I could prove God statistically. -- George Gallup % I didn't claw my way to the top of the food chain to eat veggies. % I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any Church that I know of. My own mind is my own church. -- Thomas Paine % I do not believe that this generation of Americans is willing to resign itself to going to bed each night by the light of a Communist moon... -- Lyndon B. Johnson % I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them. -- Isaac Asimov % 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. -- Galileo Galilei % I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature. -- Thomas Jefferson % I do not know myself, and God forbid that I should. -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe % I do not mind what language an opera is sung in so long as it is a language I don't understand. -- Sir Edware Appleton % I don't believe in astrology. But then I'm an Aquarius, and Aquarians don't believe in astrology. -- James R. F. Quirk % I don't care if I'm a lemming. I'm not going. % I don't care if it works on your machine! We are not shipping your machine! -- Vidiu Platon % I don't have any solution, but I certainly admire the problem. -- Ashleigh Brilliant % I don't like spreading rumors, but what else can you do with them? % I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one's business on earth, like the male spider, who is killed by the female the moment he has succeeded in his courtship. I like a state of continual becoming, with a goal in front and not behind. -- George Bernard Shaw % I dream of a better tomorrow, where chickens can cross the road and not be questioned about their motives. -- Leray Scifres % I either want less corruption, or more chance to participate in it. -- Ashleigh Brilliant % I fart in your general direction, tiny-brained wiper of other people's bottoms. % I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it. -- Mae West % I get the feeling that as soon as something appears in the paper, it ceases to be true. -- T-Bone Burnett % I glance at the headlines just to kind of get a flavor for what's moving. I rarely read the stories, and get briefed by people who are probably read the news themselves. -- George W. Bush, Washington, D.C.; September 21, 2003 % I go to seek a great perhaps. -- Francois Rabelais % I had a great idea this morning but I did not like it. -- Anon % I had a monumental idea this morning, but I didn't like it. -- Samuel Goldwyn % I hate quotations. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson % I have a simple philosophy: Fill what's empty. Empty what's full. Scratch where it itches. -- A. R. Longworth % I have discovered the heart of bushido: to die! -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo % I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure. -- Clarence Darrow % I haven't lost my mind -- it's backed up on tape somewhere. % I haven't lost my mind; I know exactly where I left it. % I judge a religion as being good or bad based on whether its adherents become better people as a result of practicing it. -- Joe Mullally, computer salesman % I just thought of something funny...your mother. -- Cheech Marin % I like a man who grins when he fights. -- Winston Churchill % I like being single. I'm always there when I need me. -- Art Leo % I like the future, I'm in it. % I maintain there is much more wonder in science than in pseudoscience. And in addition, to whatever measure this term has any meaning, science has the additional virtue, and it is not an inconsiderable one, of being true. -- Carl Sagan, The Burden Of Skepticism, The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 12, Fall 87 % I must have slipped a disk; my pack hurts. % I never fail to convince an audience that the best thing they could do was to go away. % I never met a piece of chocolate I didn't like. % I profoundly believe it takes a lot of practice to become a moral slob. -- William F. Buckley % I program, therefore I am. % I put the shotgun in an Adidas bag and padded it out with four pairs of tennis socks, not my style at all, but that was what I was aiming for: If they think you're crude, go technical; if they think you're technical, go crude. I'm a very technical boy. So I decided to get as crude as possible. These days, though, you have to be pretty technical before you can even aspire to crudeness. -- Johnny Mnemonic, by William Gibson % I regret to say that we of the F.B.I. are powerless to act in cases of oral-genital intimacy, unless it has in some way obstructed interstate commerce. -- J. Edgar Hoover % I regret to say that we of the FBI are powerless to act in cases of oral-genital intimacy, unless it has in some way obstructed interstate commerce. -- J. Edgar Hoover % I sat through it. Why shouldn't you? -- David Letterman, it a spot promoting one of his shows % I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's. % I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, Straining upon the start. The game's afoot. -- King Henry V, "Henry V", Act III, Scene 1 % I simply try to aid in letting the light of historical truth into that decaying mass of outworn thought which attaches the modern world to medieval conceptions of Christianity, and which still lingers among us -- a most serious barrier to religion and morals, and a menace to the whole normal evolution of society. -- Andrew D. White, author, first president of Cornell University, 1896 % I support everyone's right to be an idiot. I may need it someday. % I think every good Christian ought to kick Falwell's ass. -- Senator Barry Goldwater, when asked what he thought of Jerry Falwell's suggestion that all good Christians should be against Sandra Day O'Connor's nomination to the Supreme Court % I think Microsoft named .NET so it wouldn't show up in a Unix directory listing. -- Oktal % I think people are reacting to what they perceive to be your simplistic and fetishistic understanding of the economy, which is becoming more and more pronouncedly so in its outward manifestations as you react to your misunderstanding of people's reactions to your reaction to what you perceived as Sam's simplistic and fetishistic understanding of the economy. -- Gordan Todorovac % I think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability. -- Oscar Wilde % I think time is crucial to anything. For example, if you lock an infinite number of monkeys in a room with those typewriters, but you limit the amount of time they have to write, the best you'll get out of them is the pilot to The Dukes of Hazzard. -- Doug Sykes % I think trash is the most important manifestation of culture we have in my lifetime. -- Johnny Legend % I think we're all Bozos on this bus. % I think you ought to know I'm feeling very depressed. -- Marvin % I tried being reasonable once. I didn't like it. % I use not only all the brains I have but all that I can borrow. -- Woodrow Wilson % I used to be indecisive; now I'm not sure. -- Graffiti % I used to get high on life but lately I've built up a resistance. % I used to think I was indecisive, but now I'm not so sure. % I was brought up in the other service; but I knew from the first that the Devil was my natural master and captain and friend. I saw that he was in the right, and that the world cringed to his conqueror only from fear. -- Shaw, "The Devil's Disciple" % I was in this prematurely air conditioned supermarket and there were all these aisles and there were these bathing caps you could buy that had these kind of Fourth of July plumes on them that were red and yellow and blue and I wasn't tempted to buy one but I was reminded of the fact that I had been avoiding the beach. -- Lucinda Childs (Philip Glass: Einstein On The Beach) % I went on to test the program in every way I could devise. I strained it to expose its weaknesses. I ran it for high-mass stars and low-mass stars, for stars born exceedingly hot and those born relatively cold. I ran it assuming the superfluid currents beneath the crust to be absent -- not because I wanted to know the answer, but because I had developed an intuitive feel for the answer in this particular case. Finally I got a run in which the computer showed the pulsar's temperature to be less than absolute zero. I had found an error. I chased down the error and fixed it. Now I had improved the program to the point where it would not run at all. -- George Greenstein, "Frozen Star: Of Pulsars, Black Holes and the Fate of Stars" % I will never use biometrics. I'm afraid they'll make me change my password. -- Drew Sudell % Few companies really work like the Borg. Most work a lot more like the Holy Roman Empire. News often takes weeks to travel from castle to castle by minstrel. -- Drew Sudell % [The Ramones'] "I Wanna Be Sedated" should be played loud, poorly, and in some dingy club where you'd get grounded if your folks found out you were there, not quietly while strolling down the freezer aisle. -- Drew Sudell % I will contend that conceptual integrity is *the* most important consideration in system design. -- Frederick Brooks, Jr., "The Mythical Man Month" % I wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence. There's a knob called "brightness", but it doesn't work. -- Gallagher % I wish they all could be California girls. % I wish you humans would leave me alone. % I would defend the liberty of consenting adult creationists to practice whatever intellectual perversions they like in the privacy of their own homes; but it is also necessary to protect the young and innocent. -- Arthur C. Clarke % I would have promised those terrorists a trip to Disneyland if it would have gotten the hostages released. I thank God they were satisfied with the missiles and we didn't have to go to that extreme. -- Oliver North % I wouldn't mind dying -- it's that business of having to stay dead that scares the shit out of me. -- R. Geis % I'll tell you what kind of guy I was. If you ordered a boxcar full of sons-of-bitches and opened the door and only found me inside, you could consider the order filled. -- Robert Mitchum % I'm a misanthrope. What's your fucking problem? % I'm growing older, but not up. -- Jimmy Buffett % I'm in Pittsburgh. Why am I here? -- Harold Urey, Nobel Laureate % I'm mad, and that's a fact./I found out animals don't help. Animals think they're pretty smart./Shit on the ground, see in the dark. -- Talking Heads (Fear of Music) % I'm not breaking the rules. I'm just testing their elasticity. % I'm not expendable, I'm not stupid, and I'm not going. % I've got a bad feeling about this. % I've had fun before. This isn't it. % I've seen many politicians paralyzed in the legs as myself, but I've seen more of them who were paralyzed in the head. -- George Wallace % Idiot Box, n.: The part of the envelope that tells a person where to place the stamp when they can't quite figure it out for themselves. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" % Idiot, n.: A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % If A = B and B = C, then A = C, except where void or prohibited by law. -- Roy Santoro % If God lived on Earth, people would knock out all His windows. -- Yiddish saying % If God is perfect, why did He create discontinuous functions? % If I had a hammer, I'd use it on Peter, Paul and Mary. -- Howard Rosenberg % If I had any humility I would be perfect. -- Ted Turner % If Java had true garbage collection, most programs would delete themselves upon execution. -- Robert Sewell % If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not even crucify him. They would ask him to dinner, and hear what he had to say, and make fun of it. -- Thomas Carlyle % If Murphy's Law were true, every time you tried to take a breath, all the air would be on the other side of the room. % If a President doesn't do it to his wife, he'll do it to his country. % If a group of N persons implements a COBOL compiler, there will be N-1 passes. Someone in the group has to be the manager. -- T. Cheatham % If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him up. % If a person (a) is poorly, (b) receives treatment intended to make him better, and (c) gets better, then no power of reasoning known to medical science can convince him that it may not have been the treatment that restored his health. -- Sir Peter Medawar, The Art of the Soluble % If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error. -- John Kenneth Galbraith % If all the philosophers in the world were laid end to end, they wouldn't reach a conclusion. % If all the salmon caught in Canada in one year were laid end to end across the Sahara Desert, the smell would be absolutely awful. % If all the world's a stage, I want to operate the trap door. -- Paul Beatty % If all the world's economists were laid end to end, we wouldn't reach a conclusion. -- William Baumol % If an idea can survive a bureaucratic review and be implemented it isn't worth the effort. % If anything can go wrong, it will. % If at first you don't succeed, give up, no use being a damn fool. % If at first you don't succeed, quit; don't be a nut about success. % If at first you don't succeed, redefine success. % If atheism is to be used to express the state of mind in which God is identified with the unknowable, and theology is pronounced to be a collection of meaningless words about unintelligible chimeras, then I have no doubt, and I think few people doubt, that atheists are as plentiful as blackberries... -- Leslie Stephen (1832-1904), literary essayist, author % If bankers can count, how come they have eight windows and only four tellers? % If entropy is increasing, where is it coming from? % If everything is coming your way then you're in the wrong lane. % If guns are outlawed, how will we shoot the liberals? % If I was a religious person, I would consider creationism nothing less than blasphemy. Do its adherents imagine that God is a cosmic hoaxer who has created that whole vast fossil record for the sole purpose of misleading mankind? -- Arthur C. Clarke, June 5, 1998, in the essay "Presidents, Experts, and Asteroids" % If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people? % If imprinted foil seal under cap is broken or missing when purchased, do not use. % If it ain't broke, don't fix it. -- Bert Lantz % If it doesn't come from you, shouldn't it come from Gerber? -- Bristol Meyers baby formula ad % If it has syntax, it isn't user friendly. % If it pours before seven, it has rained by eleven. % If it weren't for Newton, we wouldn't have to eat bruised apples. % If it's Tuesday, this must be someone else's fortune. % If it's working, the diagnostics say it's fine. If it's not working, the diagnostics say it's fine. -- A proposed addition to rules for realtime programming % If life is a stage, I want some better lighting. % If mathematically you end up with the wrong answer, try multiplying by the page number. % If money can't buy happiness, I guess you'll just have to rent it. % If not controlled, work will flow to the competent man until he submerges. % If one year is seven dog years, then one day is a dog week. % If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss Bank. -- Woody Allen % If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss bank. -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" % If only I could be respected without having to be respectable. % If only one could get that wonderful feeling of accomplishment without having to accomplish anything. % If people were required to know the law rather than obey it, the government would be overthrown the very next day. % If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes of arithmetic, we should not get very far in our understanding of the physical world. One might as well attempt to grasp the game of poker entirely by the use of the mathematics of probability. -- Vannevar Bush % If someone gives you a lemon, make lemonade. -- D. Woodhouse % If someone had told me I would be Pope one day, I would have studied harder. -- Pope John Paul I % If someone were to ask me for a short cut to sensuality, I would suggest he go shopping for a used 427 Shelby-Cobra. But it is only fair to warn you that of the 300 guys who switched to them in 1966, only two went back to women. -- Mort Sahl % If something's not worth doing, it's not worth doing well. % If the aborigine drafted an IQ test, all of Western civilization would presumably flunk it. -- Stanley Garn % If the bulk of American SF can be said to be written by robots, about robots, for robots, then the bulk of English fantasy seems to be written by rabbits, about rabbits and for rabbits. -- Michael Moorcock % If the code and the comments disagree, then both are probably wrong. -- Norm Schryer % If the experiment works, you must be using the wrong equipment. % If the odds are a million to one against something occurring, chances are 50-50 it will. % If the presence of electricity can be made visible in any part of a circuit, I see no reason why intelligence may not be transmitted instantaneously by electricity. -- Samuel F. B. Morse % If the weather is extremely bad, church attendance will be down. If the weather is extremely good, church attendance will be down. If the bulletin covers are in short supply, however, church attendance will exceed all expectations. -- Reverend Chichester % If there are epigrams, there must be meta-epigrams. % If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will cause the most damage will be the one to go wrong. % If there is no God, who pops up the next Kleenex? -- Art Hoppe % If this country is worth saving, it's worth saving at a profit. -- H. L. Hunt % If this fortune didn't exist, somebody would have invented it. % If time heals all wounds, how come the belly button stays the same? % If two men agree on everything, you may be sure that one of them is doing the thinking. -- Lyndon Baines Johnson % If voting could really change the system, it would be against the law. % If we do not change our direction we are likely to end up where we are headed. % If we do not change our direction, we might end up were we are headed. % If we make peaceful revolution impossible, we make violent revolution inevitiable. -- John F. Kennedy % If you always postpone pleasure you will never have it. Quit work and play for awhile. % If you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem. % If you are willing to die, you can do anything. % If you build something a fool can use, only a fool will want it. % If you can lead it to water and force it to drink, it isn't a horse. % If you can survive death, you can probably survive anything. % If you can't learn to do it well, learn to enjoy doing it badly. -- Ashleigh Brilliant % If you can't say something nice, say something surrealistic. % If you cannot convince them, confuse them. -- Harry S Truman % If you cannot take a bird of paradise, better take a wet hen. -- Nikita Khrushchev % If you don't care where you are, then you ain't lost. % If you explain so clearly that nobody can misunderstand, somebody will. % If you give Congress a chance to vote on both sides of an issue, it will always do it. -- Les Aspin, D., Wisconsin % If you had any brains, you'd be dangerous. % If you have to push so hard that you break your penis, you are doing something wrong. -- Frank McLaughlin % If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some. % If you live in a country run by committee, be on the committee. -- Graham Summer % If you make a mistake, you right it immediately to the best of your ability. % If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think they'll hate you. % If you meet somebody who tells you that he loves you more than anybody in the whole wide world, don't trust him. It means he experiments. % If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. -- Maslow % If you perceive that there are four possible ways in which a procedure can go wrong, and circumvent these, then a fifth way will promptly develop. % If you push the "extra ice" button on the soft drink vending machine, you won't get any ice. If you push the "no ice" button, you'll get ice, but no cup. % If you put garbage in a computer nothing comes out but garbage. But this garbage, having passed through a very expensive machine, is somehow ennobled and none dare criticize it. % If you see someone without a smile, give them yours. -- Anonymous % If you substitute other kinds of intellectual property into the GNU manifesto, it quickly becomes absurd. -- Cal Keegan % If you suspect a man, don't employ him. % If you think before you speak, the other guy gets his joke in first. % If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard % If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments. -- Earl Wilson % If you think the United States has stood still, who built the largest shopping center in the world? -- Richard M. Nixon % If you want to eat hippopotamus, you've got to pay the freight. -- some IBM guy % If you work hard and do your homework, you can grow up and get a job doing homework. -- former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer % If you'll excuse me a minute, I'm going to have a cup of coffee. -- broadcast from Apollo 11's LEM, "Eagle", to Johnson Space Center, Houston, July 20, 1969, 7:27 P.M. % If you're going to do something tonight that you'll be sorry for tomorrow morning, sleep late. -- Henny Youngman % If you're happy, you're successful. % If you're not careful, you're going to catch something. % If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate. % If you're not very clever you should be conciliatory. -- Benjamin Disraeli % If you've done six impossible things before breakfast, why not round it off with dinner at Milliway's, the restaurant at the end of the universe? % If you've seen one Grand Canyon, you've seen them all. -- a member of the Monkey Wrench Gang % If you've seen one city slum, you've seen them all. -- Spiro Agnew % If you've seen one redwood, you've seen them all. -- Ronald Reagan % If your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. % Ignorance is the Mother of Devotion. -- Robert Burton % Ignorance is when you don't know anything and somebody finds it out. % Ignore previous fortune. % I'll play with it first and tell you what it is later. -- Miles Davis % Illinois isn't exactly the land that God forgot -- it's more like the land He's trying to ignore. % Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality. -- Jules de Gaultier % Imitation is the sincerest form of plagiarism. % Imitation is the sincerest form of television. -- Fred Allen % Immortality -- a fate worse than death. -- Edgar A. Shoaff % Impartial, adj.: Unable to perceive any promise of personal advantage from espousing either side of a controversy or adopting either of two conflicting opinions. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Important letters which contain no errors will develop errors in the mail. Corresponding errors will show up in the duplicate while the Boss is reading it. % In America, any boy may become president and I suppose that's just one of the risks he takes. -- Adlai Stevenson % In English, every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages. % In a five year period we can get one superb programming language. Only, we can't control when the five year period will begin. % In an organization, each person rises to the level of his own incompetence. -- The Peter Principle % In any formula, constants (especially those obtained from handbooks) are to be treated as variables. % In arguing that current theories of brain function cast suspicion on ESP, psychokinesis, reincarnation, and so on, I am frequently challenged with the most popular of all neuro-mythologies -- the notion that we ordinarily use only 10 percent of our brains... This "cerebral spare tire" concept continues to nourish the clientele of "pop psychologists" and their many recycling self-improvement schemes. As a metaphor for the fact that few of us fully exploit our talents, who could deny it? As a refuge for occultists seeking a neural basis of the miraculous, it leaves much to be desired. -- Barry L. Beyerstein, "The Brain and Conciousness: Implications for Psi Phenomena", The Skeptical Enquirer, Vol. XII, No. 2, pg. 171 % In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to Liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot. -- Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to Horatio G. Spafford, 1814 % In general, it is best to assume that the network is filled with malevolent entities that will send in packets designed to have the worst possible effect. -- the draft "Requirements for Internet Hosts" RFC % In marriage, as in war, it is permitted to take every advantage of the enemy. % In order to succeed in any enterprise, one must be persistent and patient. Even if one has to run some risks, one must be brave and strong enough to meet and overcome vexing challenges to maintain a successful business in the long run. I cannot help saying that Americans lack this necessary challenging spirit today. -- Hajime Karatsu % In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % In software, we rarely have meaningful requirements. Even if we do, the only measure of success that matters is whether our solution solves the customer's shifting idea of what their problem is. -- Jeff Atwood % In the Top 40, half the songs are secret messages to the teen world to drop out, turn on, and groove with the chemicals and light shows at discotheques. -- Art Linkletter % In the beginning I was made. I didn't ask to me made. No one consulted me or considered my feelings in this matter. But if it brought some passing fancy to some lowly humans as they haphazardly pranced their way through life's mournful jungle then so be it. -- Marvin the Paranoid Android % In the face of entropy and nothingness, you kind of have to pretend it's not there if you want to keep writing good code. -- Karl % In the field of observation, chance favors only the prepared minds. -- L. Pasteur % In the force if Yoda's so strong, construct a sentence with words in the proper order then why can't he? % [In the future], people like me will be underground and hunted. -- Chuck Murcko, 1995, at an employer-sponsored brainstorming session % In Sedona, "Namaste" means "What can I sell you?" -- Chuck Murcko % In the future, you're going to get computers as prizes in breakfast cereals. You'll throw them out because your house will be littered with them. -- Robert Lucky % In the land of the dark, the Ship of the Sun is driven by the Grateful Dead. -- Egyptian Book of the Dead % In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble. -- Alan Perlis % In the market, there can be no such thing as exploitation. -- Murray Rothbard % In the pitiful, multipage, connection-boxed form to which the flowchart has today been elaborated, it has proved to be useless as a design tool -- programmers draw flowcharts after, not before, writing the programs they describe. -- Fred Brooks, Jr. % In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true either is true or becomes true. -- John Lilly % In the realm of scientific observation, luck is granted only to those who are prepared. -- Louis Pasteur % In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they're different. -- Albert Einstein % In this world, Truth can wait; she's used to it. % Incest, n.: Sibling revelry. % Information Center, n.: A room staffed by professional computer people whose job it is to tell you why you cannot have the information you require. % Ingrate, n.: A man who bites the hand that feeds him, and then complains of indigestion. % Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. -- Martin Luther King, Jr. % Innovation is hard to schedule. -- Dan Fylstra % Insanity is hereditary. You can catch it from your kids. -- Erma Bombeck % Insanity is hereditary. You get it from your kids. % Insanity is the final defense ... It's hard to get a refund when the salesman is sniffing your crotch and baying at the moon. % Inside every large problem is a small problem struggling to get out. % Integrity has no need for rules. % Interpreter, n.: One who enables two persons of different languages to understand each other by repeating to each what it would have been to the interpreter's advantage for the other to have said. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Intense feeling too often obscures the truth. -- Harry S Truman % Iron Law of Distribution: Them that has, gets. % Is it not strange that the descendants of those Pilgrim Fathers who crossed the Atlantic to preserve their own freedom have always proved the most intolerant of the spiritual liberty of others? -- Robert E. Lee, in a letter to President Franklin Pierce % Is it possible that software is not like anything else, that it is meant to be discarded: that the whole point is to always see it as a soap bubble? % Is life worth living? It depends on the liver. -- Herbert Beerbohm Tree % Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and such as are out wish to get in? -- Ralph Emerson % Isn't it strange that the same people that laugh at gypsy fortune tellers take economists seriously? % Issawi's Laws of Progress: 1. The Course of Progress: Most things get steadily worse. 2. The Path of Progress: A shortcut is the longest distance between two points. % It could be worse, you could be in Cleveland. % It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. -- Thomas Jefferson % It has been observed that one's nose is never so happy as when it is thrust into the affairs of another, from which some physiologists have drawn the inference that the nose is devoid of the sense of smell. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % It has been said that the great scientific disciplines are examples of giants standing on the shoulders of other giants. It has also been said that the software industry is an example of midgets standing on the toes of other midgets. -- Alan Cooper % It has just been discovered that research causes cancer in rats. % It is Fortune, not wisdom that rules man's life. % It is a poor judge who cannot award a prize. % It is a rather pleasant experience to be alone in a bank at night. -- Willie Sutton % It is against the grain of modern education to teach children to program. What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail, and learning to be self-critical? -- Alan Perlis % It is amusing that a virtue is made of the vice of chastity; and it's a pretty odd sort of chastity at that, which leads men straight into the sin of Onan, and girls to the waning of their color. -- Voltaire % It is bad luck to be superstitious. -- Andrew W. Mathis % It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees. % It is clear that the individual who persecutes a man, his brother, because he is not of the same opinion, is a monster. -- Voltaire % It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt % It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper. -- R. Serling % It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper. -- Rod Serling % It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa. % It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them. % It is easier to get forgiveness than permission. % It is easier to run down a hill than up one. % It is easier to write an incorrect program than understand a correct one. % It is generally agreed that "Hello" is an appropriate greeting because if you entered a room and said "Goodbye," it could confuse a lot of people. -- Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot" % It is happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust. -- S. Johnson % It is important to note that probably no large operating system using current design technology can withstand a determined and well-coordinated attack, and that most such documented penetrations have been remarkably easy. -- B. Hebbard, "A Penetration Analysis of the Michigan Terminal System", Operating Systems Review, Vol. 14, No. 1, June 1980, pp. 7-20 % It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious. -- "Industry at Work," Oilways, n2., 1972, pp. 16-17. Humble Oil & Refining Company., Houston, TX % It is impossible to travel faster than light, and certainly not desirable, as one's hat keeps blowing off. -- Woody Allen % It is inconceivable that a judicious observer from another solar system would see in our species -- which has tended to be cruel, destructive, wasteful, and irrational -- the crown and apex of cosmic evolution. Viewing us as the culmination of *anything* is grotesque; viewing us as a transitional species makes more sense -- and gives us more hope. -- Betty McCollister, "Our Transitional Species", Free Inquiry magazine, Vol. 8, No. 1 % It is much easier to suggest solutions when you know nothing about the problem. % It is necessary for me to establish a winner image. Therefore, I have to beat somebody. -- Richard M. Nixon % It is not best to swap horses while crossing the river. -- Abraham Lincoln % It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail. -- Gore Vidal % It is not true that life is one damn thing after another -- it's one damn thing over and over. -- Edna St. Vincent Millay % It is not well to be thought of as one who meekly submits to insolence and intimidation. % It is now 10 p.m. Do you know where Henry Kissinger is? -- Elizabeth Carpenter % It is now pitch dark. If you proceed, you will likely fall into a pit. % It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue. -- Voltaire % It is pitch dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue. % It is said that the lonely eagle flies to the mountain peaks while the lowly ant crawls the ground, but cannot the soul of the ant soar as high as the eagle? % It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. -- Henry David Thoreau, "Where I Live" % It is surely a great calamity for a human being to have no obsessions. -- Robert Bly % It is the business of little minds to shrink. -- Carl Sandburg % It is the business of the future to be dangerous. -- Hawkwind % It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt. -- John Philpot Curran: Speech upon the Right of Election, 1790. (Speeches. Dublin, 1808.) % It is the quality rather than the quantity that matters. -- Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 B.C. - A.D. 65) % It is the wise bird who builds his nest in a tree. % It is wrong always, everywhere and for everyone to believe anything upon insufficient evidence. -- W. K. Clifford, British philosopher, circa 1876 % It is your destiny. -- Darth Vader % It just goes to show what you can do if you're a total psychotic. -- Woody Allen % It looks like blind screaming hedonism won out. % It may be that your whole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others. % It may soon be time for you to look for a new line of work. % It often works better if you plug it in. % It seems like the less a statesman amounts to, the more he loves the flag. % It seems to make an auto driver mad if he misses you. % It takes a long time to understand nothing. -- Edward Dahlberg % It turned out that the worm exploited three or four different holes in the system. From this, and the fact that we were able to capture and examine some of the source code, we realized that we were dealing with someone very sharp, probably not someone here on campus. -- Dr. Richard LeBlanc, associate professor of ICS, quoted in "The Technique," Georgia Tech's newspaper, after the computer worm hit the Internet % It was a book to kill time for those who liked it better dead. % It was always thus; and even if 'twere not, 'twould inevitably have been always thus. -- Dean Lattimer % It was the Law of the Sea, they said. Civilization ends at the waterline. Beyond that, we all enter the food chain, and not always right at the top. -- Hunter S. Thompson % It will be advantageous to cross the great stream ... the Dragon is on the wing in the Sky ... the Great Man rouses himself to his Work. % It works better if you plug it in. % It's a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word. -- Andrew Jackson % It's a fine day to throw a party. Throw him as far as you can. % It's a poor workman who blames his tools. % It's all in the mind, ya know. % It's better to burn out than it is to rust. % It's better to burn out than to fade away. % It's currently a problem of access to gigabits through punybaud. -- J. C. R. Licklider % It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them. % It's easier to get forgiveness for being wrong than forgiveness for being right. % It's hard to get ivory in Africa, but in Alabama the Tuscaloosa. % It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it is. If you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It isn't our's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs. -- Oxford University Press, Edpress News % It's later than you think. % It's like deja vu all over again. -- Yogi Berra % It's lucky you're going so slowly, because you're going in the wrong direction. % It's not an optical illusion, it just looks like one. -- Phil White % It's not enough to be Hungarian; you must have talent too. -- Alexander Korda % It's not hard to meet expenses; they're everywhere. % It's not often that you get so much class entertainment outside your bedroom window or outside your bedroom, period. -- Groucho Marx % It's not our job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world. It's our job to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless. -- L.R. Knost % It's not reality that's important, but how you perceive things. % It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens. -- Woody Allen % It's not the fall that kills you, it's the sudden stop. % It's not what we don't know that gets us into trouble, it's what we know that ain't so. -- Will Rogers % It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles. % It's smart to pick your friends -- but not to pieces. % It's so humid, you could poach an egg on the sidewalk. % Jacquin's Postulate on Democratic Government: No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session. % Jay's First Law: The classic hierarchy consists of one man at the top with three below him, each of who has three below him, and so on with fearful symmetry unto the seventh generation, by which stage there is a row of 729 managers. -- Antony Jay, Management and Machiavelli, 1967 % Jenkinson's Law: It won't work. % Jesus may love you, but I think you're garbage wrapped in skin. -- Michael O'Donoghue % Jesus was killed by a Moral Majority. % Jizz changes everything. It's science! -- Jim Chapman % John Birch Society -- that pathetic manifestation of organized apoplexy. -- Edward P. Morgan % Johnson's First Law: When any mechanical contrivance fails, it will do so at the most inconvenient possible time. % Jones' Law: The man who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone to blame it on. % Jones' Law of Hierarchical Limits: As an administrator, you need to give ten pats on the head for each kick in the butt. This is the reason for keeping the number of people reporting to you a fairly small number. Otherwise, you will run out of hands, but still have an overcapacity in feet. % Jones' Motto: Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate. % Jones's First Law: Anyone who makes a significant contribution to any field of endeavor, and stays in that field long enough, becomes an obstruction to its progress -- in direct proportion to the importance of their original contribution. % Journalism will kill you, but it will keep you alive while you're at it. % Jury -- Twelve people who determine which client has the better lawyer. % Just because everything is different doesn't mean anything has changed. -- Southern California Oracle % Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they AREN'T after you. % Just because your doctor has a name for your condition doesn't mean he knows what it is. % Just give Alice some pencils and she will stay busy for hours. -- B. Kliban % Just once I'd like to meet an alien menace that isn't immune to bullets. -- The Brigadier, Dr. Who. % Just remember: when you go to court, you are trusting your fate to twelve people that weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty! % Just remember: you're not a "dummy," no matter what those computer books claim. The real dummies are the people who -- though technically expert -- couldn't design hardware and software that's usable by normal consumers if their lives depended upon it. -- Walter Mossberg % Justice is incidental to law and order. -- J. Edgar Hoover % Justice, like lightning, should ever appear To some men hope, to other men fear. -- Jefferson Pierce % Justice: A decision in your favor. % Karl's version of Parkinson's Law: Work expands to exceed the time allotted it. % Katz' Law: Man and nations will act rationally when all other possibilities have been exhausted. % Keep emotionally active. Cater to your favorite neurosis. % Keep in mind always the two constant Laws of Frisbee: 1. The most powerful force in the world is that of a disc straining to land under a car, just out of reach. (This force is technically termed "car suck".) 2. Never precede any maneuver by a comment more predictive than "Watch this!" % Ken Thompson has an automobile which he helped design. Unlike most automobiles, it has neither speedometer, nor gas gage, nor any of the numerous idiot lights which plague the modern driver. Rather, if the driver makes any mistake, a giant "?" lights up in the center of the dashboard. "The experienced driver", he says, "will usually know what's wrong." % Ketterling's Law: Logic is an organized way of going wrong with confidence. % Kinkler's First Law: Responsibility always exceeds authority. Kinkler's Second Law: All the easy problems have been solved. % Klein bottle for rent, apply within. % Know what I hate most? Rhetorical questions. -- Henry N. Camp % L'extension des privileges des femmes est le principe general de tous progres sociaux. -- Charles Fourier, 1808 % Labor, n.: One of the processes by which A acquires property for B. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Lack of skill dictates economy of style. -- Joey Ramone % Lactomangulation, n.: Manhandling the "open here" spout on a milk carton so badly that one has to resort to using the "illegal" side. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" % Laissez Faire Economics is the theory that if each acts like a vulture, all will end as doves. % Largely because it is so tangible and exciting a program and as such will serve to keep alive the interest and enthusiasm of the whole spectrum of society...It is justified because...the program can give a sense of shared adventure and achievement to the society at large. -- Dr. Colin S. Pittendrigh, in "The History of Manned Space Flight" % Larkinson's Law: All laws are basically false. % Laugh, and the world ignores you. Crying doesn't help either. % Law of Communications: The inevitable result of improved and enlarged communications between different levels in a hierarchy is a vastly increased area of misunderstanding. % Law of Computability Applied to Social Sciences: If at first you don't succeed, transform your data set. % Law of Probable Dispersal: Whatever it is that hits the fan will not be evenly distributed. % Law of Selective Gravity: An object will fall so as to do the most damage. % Lawrence's Axiom: Anger is one letter short of danger. % Laws of Computer Programming: (1) Any given program, when running, is obsolete. (2) Any given program costs more and takes longer. (3) If a program is useful, it will have to be changed. (4) If a program is useless, it will have to be documented. (5) Any given program will expand to fill all available memory. (6) The value of a program is proportional to the weight of its output. (7) Program complexity grows until it exceeds the capability of the programmer who must maintain it. (8) Make it possible for programmers to write programs in English, and you will find that programmers cannot write in English. -- SIGPLAN Notices, Vol. 2, No. 2 % Lazlo's Chinese Relativity Axiom: No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats -- approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less. % Lead, follow, or get out of the way. -- Anon % Learned men are the cisterns of knowledge, not the fountainheads. % Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse. % Leisure can be justified. Recreation maximizes productive stamina. Play is not the opposite of work. Idleness consolidates thought. -- Thomas "Sam" Frantz % Lend money to a bad debtor and he will hate you. % Let He who taketh the Plunge Remember to return it by Tuesday. % Let a fool hold his tongue and he will pass for a sage. % Let me play with it first and I'll tell you what it is later. -- Miles Davis % Let me tell you the truth: The truth is what is. And what should be is a fantasy, a terrible, terrible lie somebody gave the people long ago. -- Lenny Bruce % Let not the sands of time get in your lunch. % Let the machine do the dirty work. % Let us, then, fellow citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of a bitter and bloody persecutions. -- Thomas Jefferson % Let's give discredit where discredit is due. -- Karl Lehenbauer % Lewis's Law of Travel: The first piece of luggage out of the chute doesn't belong to anyone, ever. % Liar, n.: A lawyer with a roving commission. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Liar: One who tells an unpleasant truth. % Liberty is the mother not the daughter of order. -- Proudhon % Lie: A very poor substitute for the truth, but the only one discovered to date. % Lieberman's Law: Everybody lies, but it doesn't matter since nobody listens. % Lies written in ink can never disguise facts written in blood. Blood debts must be repaid in kind. The longer the delay, the greater the interest. -- Chinese author Lu Xun, 1926 % Life in a free society is friendly, prosperous, pleasant, cultured, and ever-longer. -- Jeff Daiell, 1989, in counterpoint to Hobbes % Life in the state of nature is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. -- Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan % Life is a pinball machine. You bounce around for a while, and then you drain. -- Joe Bak % Life is a whim of several billion cells to be you for a while. % Life is full of surprises when you're up th' stream of consciousness without a paddle... -- Zippy the Pinhead % Life is like an onion: you peel off layer after layer, then you find there is nothing in it. % Life is not one thing after another, it's the same damned thing over and over. % Life is the application of noble and profound ideas to life. -- Matthew Arnold % Life is tough, but it's tougher when you're stupid. -- John Wayne % Life is wasted on the living. -- Zaphod Beeblebrox IV % Life is what happens to you while you are planning to do something else. % Life's greatest gift is natural talent. -- P. K. Thomajan % Life. Don't talk to me about life. -- Marvin the Paranoid Anroid % Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops. -- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. % Like the ski resort of girls looking for husbands and husbands looking for girls, the situation is not as symmetrical as it might seem. -- Alan McKay % Like winter snow on summer lawn, time past is time gone. % Line Printer paper is strongest at the perforations. % listen: there's a hell of a good universe next door; let's go. -- ee cummings % Live every day like it's your last because someday you'll be right. % Live free or die. % Living on Earth may be expensive, but it includes an annual free trip around the Sun. % Living your life is a task so difficult, it has never been attempted before. % Logic is a little bird, sitting in a tree, that smells awful. % Long computations which yield 0 (zero) are probably all for naught. % Long distance runners break into more pants. % Long life is in store for you. % Look under the sofa cushion; you will be surprised at what you find. % Look, let me explain something to you. I'm not Mr. Lebowski. You're Mr. Lebowski. I'm the Dude. So that's what you call me. That, or His Dudeness … Duder … or El Duderino, if, you know, you're not into the whole brevity thing. -- The Dude ("The Big Lebowski") % Lord, defend me from my friends; I can account for my enemies. -- D'Hericault % Los Angeles is a geometropolitan predicament rather than a city. You can no more administer it than you could administer the solar system. -- Jonathan Miller % Lots of folks confuse bad management with destiny. -- Elbert Hubbard % Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea. % Love means never having to say, "Put down that meat cleaver." % Love your enemies: they'll go crazy trying to figure out what you're up to. % Lowery's Law: If it jams -- force it. If it breaks, it needed replacing anyway. % Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology: There's always one more bug. % Luck is probability taken personally. -- Chip Denman % Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. -- E. Letterman % Lunatic Asylum: The place where optimism most flourishes. % Lynch's Law: When the going gets tough, everyone leaves. % Machines take me by surprise with great frequency. -- Alan Turing % Mad, adj.: Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence ... -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Main's Law: For every action there is an equal and opposite government program. % Maintainer's Motto: If we can't fix it, it ain't broke. % Majority: That quality that distinguishes a crime from a law. % Make a wish: it might come true. % Make input easy to proofread % Make it possible for programmers to write in English and you will find the programmers cannot write in English. % Make it right before you make it faster. % Make no little plans. They have no Magic to stir Men's blood. -- D. B. Hudson % Make sure all variables are initialized before use. % Make sure comments and code agree. % Make sure your code "does nothing" gracefully. % Making files is easy under the UNIX operating system. Therefore, users tend to create numerous files using large amounts of file space. It has been said that the only standard thing about all UNIX systems is the message-of-the-day telling users to clean up their files. -- System V.2 administrator's guide % Malek's Law: Any simple idea will be worded in the most complicated way. % Man is a Generalist. Specialization is for insects. -- Lazarus Long % Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason. -- Oscar Wilde % Man is a rationalizing animal, not a rational animal. -- R. A. Heinlein % Man is the best computer we can put aboard a spacecraft ... and the only one that can be mass produced with unskilled labor. -- Wernher von Braun % Man rarely reads the handwriting on the wall until he has his back to it. % Man who falls in blast furnace is certain to feel overwrought. % Man who falls in vat of molten optical glass makes spectacle of self. % Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most times he will pick himself up and carry on... -- Winston Churchill % Man's horizons are bounded by his vision. % Mankind has yet to devise a rule that never requires exceptions. -- Wayne Dyer % Manual, n.: A unit of documentation. There are always three or more on a given item. One is on the shelf; someone has the others. The information you need is in the others. -- Ray Simard % Many an optimist has become rich by buying out a pessimist. % Many are called, few are chosen. Fewer still get to do the choosing. % Many are called, few volunteer. % Many are cold, but few are frozen. % Many are the wonders of the Universe, and none so wonderful as Mankind! -- Sophocles % Many changes of mind and mood; do not hesitate too long. % Many pages make a thick book. % Many receive advice, few profit from it. % Many years ago in a period commonly know as Next Friday Afternoon, there lived a King who was very Gloomy on Tuesday mornings because he was so Sad thinking about how Unhappy he had been on Monday and how completely Mournful he would be on Wednesday ... -- Walt Kelly % Mark's Dental-Chair Discovery: Dentists are incapable of asking questions that require a simple yes or no answer. % Marriage is the only adventure open to the cowardly. -- Voltaire % Marshall's generalized iceberg theorem: 7/8ths of everything cannot be seen. % Martin's Law of Communication: The inevitable result of improved and enlarged communication between different levels in a hierarchy is a vastly increased area of misunderstanding. % Matter cannot be created or destroyed, nor can it be returned without a receipt. % Maturity is only a short break in adolescence. -- Jules Feiffer % Maybe Computer Science should be in the College of Theology. -- R. S. Barton % McGowan's Madison Avenue Axiom: If an item is advertised as "under $50", you can bet it's not $19.95. % Meader's Law: Whatever happens to you, it will previously have happened to everyone you know, only more so. % Measure with a micrometer. Mark with chalk. Cut with an axe. % Mediocrity thrives on standardization. -- Wayne Dyer % Meditation is not what you think. % Meeting, n.: An assembly of people coming together to decide what person or department not represented in the room must solve a problem. % Memories of you remind me of you. -- Karl % Memory should be the starting point of the present. % Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of science. % Men ought to know that from the brain and from the brain only arise our pleasures, joys, laughter, and jests as well as our sorrows, pains, griefs and tears. ... It is the same thing which makes us mad or delirious, inspires us with dread and fear, whether by night or by day, brings us sleeplessness, inopportune mistakes, aimless anxieties, absent-mindedness and acts that are contrary to habit... -- Hippocrates (c. 460-c. 377 B.C.), The Sacred Disease % Mencken and Nathan's Fifteenth Law of The Average American: The worst actress in the company is always the manager's wife. % Mencken and Nathan's Second Law of The Average American: All the postmasters in small towns read all the postcards. % Menu: A list of dishes which the restaurant has just run out of. % Meskimen's Law: There's never time to do it right, but there's always time to do it over. % Might as well be frank, monsieur. It would take a miracle to get you out of Casablanca. % Miksch's Law: If a string has one end, then it has another end. % Mile's Law: Where you stand depends on where you sit. % Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms. -- Groucho Marx % Military justice is to justice what military music is to music. -- Groucho Marx % Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz % Millions of sensible people are too high-minded to concede that politics is almost always the choice of the lesser evil. "Tweedledum and Tweedledee," they say, "I will not vote." Having abstained, they are presented with a President who appoints the people who are going to rummage around in their lives for the next four years. Consider all the people who sat home in a stew in 1968 rather than vote for Hubert Humphrey. They showed Humphrey. Those people who taught Hubert Humphrey a lesson will still be enjoying the Nixon Supreme Court when Tricia and Julie begin to find silver threads among the gold and the black. -- Russel Baker, "Ford without Flummery" % Mirrors should reflect a little before throwing back images. -- Jean Cocteau % Misery loves company, but company does not reciprocate. % Miss Wormwood: What state do you live in? Calvin: Denial. Miss Wormwood: I don't suppose I can argue with that... % Mistakes are often the stepping stones to utter failure. % Mister Ranger isn't gonna like it, Yogi. % Mitchell's Law of Committees: Any simple problem can be made insoluble if enough meetings are held to discuss it. % Modern man is the missing link between the apes and humans. % Modesty is an ornament, but you go further without it. -- German Proverb % Modesty is of no use to a beggar. -- Homer % Mollison's Bureaucracy Hypothesis: If an idea can survive a bureaucratic review and be implemented it wasn't worth doing. % Money is like a sixth sense, and you can't use the other five without it. % Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations. -- Thomas Jefferson % Morality is one thing. Ratings are everything. -- A Network 23 executive on "Max Headroom" % More than any time in history, mankind now faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly. -- Woody Allen % Moses supposes his toeses are roses, but Moses supposes erroneously. % Mosher's Law of Software Engineering: Don't worry if it doesn't work right. If everything did, you'd be out of a job. % Most legislators are so dumb that they couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were printed on the heel. % Most of you are familiar with the virtues of a programmer. There are three, of course: laziness, impatience, and hubris. -- Larry Wall % Mother told me to be good, but she's been wrong before. % Mr. Cole's Axiom: The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the population is growing. % Mr. Ranger isn't gonna like it, Yogi. % Mrs Podgorny: Angus how are y'going to get 48,000,000 kilts into the van? Angus: I'll have t'do it in two goes. % Muddy water let stand will clear. -- Chinese Proverb % Murphy's Law is recursive. Washing your car to make it rain doesn't work. % Murphy's Law of Research: Enough research will tend to support your theory. % My answer is, bring them on. -- George W. Bush, on Iraqi militants attacking U.S. forces; Washington, D.C.; July 3, 2003 % My grandson has learned how to hold and carry the cat. He has also learned how to flush the toilet. I can't help but believe that in the not-too-distant future there will be another lesson in store for him. -- Dave Henry % My head is bloodied, but unbowed. -- From the poem "Invictus" % My life is so fucking miserable that I don't know whether I was born or if Morrissey just sang me into existence. -- R.K. Milholland % My mother is a fish. -- William Faulkner % My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right. % My own life has been spent chronicling the rise and fall of human systems, and I am convinced that we are terribly vulnerable.... We should be reluctant to turn back upon the frontier of this epoch. Space is indifferent to what we do; it has no feeling, no design, no interest in whether or not we grapple with it. But we cannot be indifferent to space, because the grand, slow march of intelligence has brought us, in our generation, to a point from which we can explore and understand and utilize it. To turn back now would be to deny our history, our capabilities. -- James A. Michener % My past is my own. -- The Shadow (DC Comics) % Naeser's Law: You can make it foolproof, but you can't make it damnfoolproof. % Natural gas is hemispheric. I like to call it hemispheric in nature, because it is a product what we can find in our neighborhoods. -- George W. Bush, Austin, Texas; December 20, 2000 % Natural selection won't matter soon, not anywhere as much as concious selection. We will civilize and alter ourselves to suit our ideas of what we can be. Within one more human lifespan, we will have changed ourselves unrecognizably. -- Greg Bear % Necessity is a mother. % Neil Armstrong to Walter Cronkite: "Well, Walter, I believe that the Good Lord gave us a finite number of heartbeats and I'm damned if I'm going to use up mine running up and down a street." % Neil Armstrong tripped. % Never be led astray onto the path of virtue. % Never call a man a fool; borrow from him. % Never count your chickens before they rip your lips off. % Never drink Coke in a moving elevator. The elevator's motion coupled with the chemicals in coke produce hallucinations. People tend to change into lizards and attack without warning, and large bats usually fly in the window. Additionally, you begin to believe that elevators have windows. % Never insult an alligator until you have crossed the river. % Never invest your money in anything that eats or needs painting. -- Billy Rose % Never lick a gift horse in the mouth. % Never put off until tomorrow what you can avoid altogether. % Never say you know a man until you have divided an inheritance with him. % Never throw a bird at a dragon. % Never count your chickens until they rip your lips off. % New Year's Eve is the time of year when a man most feels his age, and his wife most often reminds him to act it. -- Webster's Unafraid Dictionary % New York... when civilization falls apart, remember, we were way ahead of you. -- David Letterman % New boots, big steps. -- Chinese Proverb % New systems generate new problems. % Newlan's Truism: An "acceptable" level of unemployment means that the government economist to whom it is acceptable still has a job. % Newton's Fourth Law: Every action has an equal and opposite satisfaction. % Newton's Little-Known Seventh Law: A bird in the hand is safer than one overhead. % Next Friday will not be your lucky day. As a matter of fact, you don't have a lucky day this year. % Next Wednesday you will be presented with a great opportunity. % Next to being shot at and missed, nothing is really quite as satisfying as an income tax refund. -- F. J. Raymond % Nihil tam munitum quod non expugnari pecunia possit. (No fort is so strong that it cannot be taken with money.) -- Cicero % Nihilism should commence with oneself. % No amount of genius can overcome a preoccupation with detail. % No guts, no glory. % No man was ever taken to hell by a woman unless he already had a ticket in his pocket, or at least had been fooling around with timetables. -- Archie Goodwin % No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the Legislature is in session. -- Lysander Spooner % No matter how cynical you get, it's impossible to keep up. % No matter where you go, there you are. -- Buckaroo Banzai % No one can feel as helpless as the owner of a sick goldfish. % No one is fit to be trusted with power. ... No one. ... Any man who has lived at all knows the follies and wickedness he's capable of. ... And if he does know it, he knows also that neither he nor any man ought to be allowed to decide a single human fate. -- C. P. Snow, The Light and the Dark % No one is talking behind your back as far as you know. % No one who accepts the sovereignty of truth can be a foot soldier in a party or movement. He will always find himself out of step. -- Sidney Hook % No one's happiness but my own is in my power to achieve or to destroy. -- Ayn Rand % No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances. % No problem is so formidable that you can't just walk away from it. % No problem is so large it can't be fit in somewhere. % No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve: ask for me to-morrow, and you shall find me a grave man. -- Mercutio, Romeo and Juliet, Act III, Scene 1 % No user-serviceable parts inside. Refer to qualified service personnel. % Nobody can be as agreeable as an uninvited guest. % Nobody can be exactly like me. Even I have trouble doing it. -- Tallulah Bankhead % Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. % Nobody wants constructive criticism. It's all we can do to put up with constructive praise. % Non-Reciprocal Laws of Expectations: Negative expectations yield negative results. Positive expectations yield negative results. % None love the bearer of bad news. -- Sophocles % Nostalgia isn't what it used to be. % Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing. % Nothing cures insomnia like the realization that it's time to get up. % Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced -- even a proverb is no proverb to you till your life has illustrated it. -- John Keats % Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. % Nothing in progression can rest on its original plan. We may as well think of rocking a grown man in the cradle of an infant. -- Edmund Burke % Nothing is as repulsive as phoniness; conversely, nothing is as magnetic as reality. -- Howard Henrichs % Nothing is done until nothing is done. % Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him. -- Fyodor Dostoevski % Nothing is illegal if one hundred businessmen decide to do it. -- Andrew Young % Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm: It moves stones, and it charms brutes. % Nothing recedes like success. -- Walt Kelly % Now and then an innocent man is sent to the Legislature. % Numeric stability is probably not all that important when you're guessing. % O'Riordan's Theorem: Brains x Beauty = Constant. Purmal's Corollary: As the limit of (Brains x Beauty) goes to infinity, availability goes to zero. % O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Law: Murphy was an optimist. % Objects on your screen are closer than they appear. % Obviously, a man's judgement cannot be better than the information on which he has based it. Give him the truth and he may still go wrong when he has the chance to be right, but give him no news or present him only with distorted and incomplete data, with ignorant, sloppy or biased reporting, with propaganda and deliberate falsehoods, and you destroy his whole reasoning processes, and make him something less than a man. -- Arthur Hays Sulzberger % Ocean, n.: A body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man -- who has no gills. % Of all the animals, the boy is the most unmanageable. -- Plato % Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst. -- Thomas Paine % Of course there's no reason for it, it's just our policy. % Of course, someone who knows more about this will correct me if I'm wrong, and someone who knows less will correct me if I'm right. -- David Palmer (palmer [AT] tybalt.caltech.edu) % Ogden's Law: The sooner you fall behind, the more time you have to catch up. % Oh dear, I think you'll find reality's on the blink again. -- Marvin the Paranoid Android % Oh, well, I guess this is just going to be one of those lifetimes. % Old MacDonald had an agricultural real estate tax abatement. % Old age is the most unexpected of things that can happen to a man. -- Trotsky % Old programmers never die. They just branch to a new address. % Oliver's First Law of Computing: Computers are much too complex; they'll never work. -- Robert Oliver (circa 1982) % On a clear disk you can seek forever. % On our campus the UNIX system has proved to be not only an effective software tool, but an agent of technical and social change within the University. -- John Lions (U. of Toronto (?)) % Once ... in the wilds of Afghanistan, I lost my corkscrew, and we were forced to live on nothing but food and water for days. -- W. C. Fields, "My Little Chickadee" % One Page Principle: A specification that will not fit on one page of 8.5x11- inch paper cannot be understood. -- Mark Ardis % One becomes a critic when one cannot be an artist, just as a man becomes a stool pigeon when he cannot be a soldier. -- Gustave Flaubert (letter to Madame Louise Colet, August 12, 1846) % One can't proceed from the informal to the formal by formal means. % One difference between a man and a machine is that a machine is quiet when well oiled. % One friend in a lifetime is much; two are many; three are hardly possible. Friendship needs a certain parallelism of life, a community of thought, a rivalry of aim. -- Henry Brook Adams % One good reason why computers can do more work than people is that they never have to stop and answer the phone. % One man tells a falsehood, a hundred repeat it as true. % One may be able to quibble about the quality of a single experiment, or about the veracity of a given experimenter, but, taking all the supportive experiments together, the weight of evidence is so strong as readily to merit a wise man's reflection. -- Professor William Tiller, parapsychologist, Stanford University, commenting on psi research % One millihelen: the unit of beauty required to launch just one ship % One of my less pleasant chores when I was young was to read the Bible from one end to the other. Reading the Bible straight through is at least 70 percent discipline, like learning Latin. But the good parts are, of course, simply amazing. God is an extremely uneven writer, but when He's good, nobody can touch Him. -- John Gardner, NYT Book Review, Jan 1983 % One of the most misleading representational techniques in our language is the use of the word "I". -- Ludwig Wittgenstein % One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. (So the old bamboozles tend to persist as the new bamboozles rise.) -- Carl Sagan, "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection"; Parade, February 1, 1987 % One seldom sees a monument to a committee. % One thing the inventors can't seem to get the bugs out of is fresh paint. % One way to stop a runaway horse is to bet on him. % One's mind, stretched to a new idea, never goes back to its original dimension. % Only God can make random selections. % Opinions are like assholes: everyone's got one, but nobody wants to look at the other guy's. -- Hal Hickman % Optimists say the glass is half full, pessimists say the glass is half empty, engineers say the glass is twice as big as it needs to be. % Optimization hinders evolution. % Optimization is not some mystical state of grace, it is an intricate act of human labor which carries real costs and real risks. -- Tom Neff % Ordinary people: I fuckin' hate 'em. -- Harry Dean Stanton in "Repo Man" % Oregon, n.: Eighty billion gallons of water with no place to go on Saturday night. % Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds. Biochemistry is the study of carbon compounds that crawl. -- Mike Adams % Osborn's Law: Variables won't; constants aren't. % Our journeys to the stars will be made on spaceships created by determined, hardworking scientists and engineers applying the principles of science, not aboard flying saucers piloted by little gray aliens from some other dimension. -- Robert A. Baker, "The Aliens Among Us: Hypnotic Regression Revisited", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII, No. 2 % Our liberty depends upon the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost. -- Thomas Jefferson (1786) % Our policy is, when in doubt, do the right thing. -- Roy L. Ash, ex-president Litton Industries % Out of body, back in five minutes. % Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it is too dark to read. % Overdrawn? But I still have checks left! % Overflow on /dev/null, please empty the bit bucket. % Overload -- core meltdown sequence initiated. % PHP is a minor evil perpetrated and created by incompetent amateurs, whereas Perl is a great and insidious evil perpetrated by skilled but perverted professionals. -- Jon Ribbens % Paranoia doesn't mean the whole world really isn't out to get you. % Paranoia is simply an optimistic outlook on life. % Paranoids are people, too; they have their own problems. It's easy to criticize, but if everybody hated you, you'd be paranoid too. -- D. J. Hicks % Parking fees that Universal Studios collected from picketers of "The Last Temptation of Christ": $4,500 -- Harper's Index Nov. 1988 % Parkinson's Fifth Law: If there is a way to delay in important decision, the good bureaucracy, public or private, will find it. % Parkinson's Fourth Law: The number of people in any working group tends to increase regardless of the amount of work to be done. % Parkinson's Law: Work expands to fill the time alloted it. % Parts that positively cannot be assembled in improper order will be. % Benford's Law of Controversy: Passion is inversely proportional to the amount of real information available. -- Gregory Benford % Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. -- Eric Hoffer % Patience, n. A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue. -- Ambrose Bierce % Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious. -- Oscar Wilde % Pay no attention to that man behind the curtains. % Peace: a period of cheating between two wars. % People are very flexible and learn to adjust to strange surroundings -- they can become accustomed to reading Lisp and Fortran programs, for example. -- Leon Sterling and Ehud Shapiro, Art of Prolog, MIT Press % People get lost in thought because it is unfamiliar territory. % People often find it easier to be a result of the past than a cause of the future. % People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world. -- Calvin % People usually get what's coming to them ... unless it's been mailed. % People who claim they don't let little things bother them have never slept in a room with a single mosquito. % People who have no faults are terrible; there is no way of taking advantage of them. % People who look down on other people do not end up being looked up to. % People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them that Benjamin Franklin said it first. % People will buy anything that's one to a customer. % Pereant, inquit, qui ante nos nostra dixerunt. (Confound those who have said our remarks before us.) -- Aelius Donatus % Perfection is achieved only on the point of collapse. -- C. N. Parkinson % Perpetuo vincit qui utitur clementia. (He is forever victor who employs clemency.) -- Syrus % Personality can open doors, but only character can keep them open. -- E. G. Leter % Peter's Law of Substitution: Look after the molehills, and the mountains will look after themselves. % Philogyny recapitulates erogeny; erogeny recapitulates philogyny. % Philosophy: Unintelligible answers to insoluble problems. % Pi seconds is a nanocentury. -- Tom Duff % Pioneering basically amounts to finding new and more horrible ways to die -- John W. Campbell % Plagiarism is basic to all culture. -- Papa Seeger % Plan ahead: it was not raining when Noah built the ark. -- Richard Cushing % Please don't ask me what the score is. I'm not even sure what the game is. -- Ashleigh Brilliant % Please don't lie to me, unless you're absolutely sure I'll never find out the truth. -- Ashleigh Brilliant % Please go away. % Please ignore previous fortune. % Please try to limit the amount of `this room doesn't have any bazingas' until you are told that those rooms are `punched out.' Once punched out, we have a right to complain about atrocities, missing bazingas, and such. -- N. Meyrowitz % Please update your programs. % Poetry is nobody's business except the poet's, and everybody else can fuck off. -- Philip Larkin % Pohl's law: Nothing is so good that somebody, somewhere, will not hate it. % Police up your spare rounds and frags. Don't leave nothin' for the dinks. -- Willem Dafoe in "Platoon" % Political T.V. commercials prove one thing: some candidates can tell all their good points and qualifications in just 30 seconds. % Politician, n.: From the Greek "poly" ("many") and the French "tete" ("head" or "face," as in "tete-a-tete": head to head or face to face). Hence "polytetien", a person of two or more faces. -- Martin Pitt % Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master. -- Leonardo da Vinci % Positive, adj.: Mistaken at the top of one's voice. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Power is poison. % Power, n: The only narcotic regulated by the SEC instead of the FDA. % Practice is the best of all instructors. -- Publilius % Predestination was doomed from the start. % Prediction is very difficult, especially of the future. -- Niels Bohr % Preserve the old, but know the new. % Preudhomme's Law of Window Cleaning: It's on the other side. % Prevalent beliefs that knowledge can be tapped from previous incarnations or from a "universal mind" (the repository of all past wisdom and creativity) not only are implausible but also unfairly demean the stunning achievements of individual human brains. -- Barry L. Beyerstein, "The Brain and Consciousness: Implications for Psi Phenomena", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. XII No. 2, ppg. 163-171 % Prevent security leaks. % Pro is to Con as Progress is to Congress. % Probably the best operating system in the world is [the operating system] made for the PDP-11 by Bell Laboratories. -- Ted Nelson, October 1977 % Proclaim liberty throughout the land and to all the inhabitants thereof. -- Leviticus 25:10 % Programming is an art form that fights back. % Programming is 10% science, 25% ingenuity and 65% getting the ingenuity to work with the science. % Programming is like sex: one mistake and you're providing support for a lifetime. -- Michael Sinz % Progress is nothing but the victory of laughter over dogma. -- Benjamin DeCasseres % Promptness is its own reward If one lives by the clock instead of the sword. % Pronounce your prepositions, dammit! % Proper attention to Earthly needs of the poor, the depressed and the downtrodden, would naturally evolve from dynamic, articulate, spirited awareness of the great goals for Man and the society he conspired to erect. -- David Baker, paraphrasing Harold Urey, in "The History of Manned Space Flight" % Pull yourself together; things are not all that bad. % Put not your trust in money, but put your money in trust. % Put your trust in those who are worthy. % Putt's Law: Technology is dominated by two types of people: Those who understand what they do not manage. Those who manage what they do not understand. % Q. What's all wrinkled and hangs out your underwear? A. Your mom! % Q: Why do trans-atlantic transfers take so long? A: Electrons don't swim very fast. % Q: How do you play religious roulette? A: You stand around in a circle and blaspheme and see who gets struck by lightning first. % Q: How many DEC repairman does it take to fix a flat ? A: Five; four to hold the car up and one to swap tires. % Q: How many IBM CPUs does it take to execute a job? A: Four; three to hold it down, and one to rip its head off. % Q: How many IBM CPUs does it take to do a logical right shift? A: 33. 1 to hold the bits and 32 to push the register. % Q: How many IBM types does it take to change a light bulb? A: 100. Ten to do it, and 90 to write document number GC7500439-0001, Multitasking Incandescent Source System Facility, of which 10% of the pages state only "This page intentionally left blank", and 20% of the definitions are of the form "A ...... consists of sequences of non-blank characters separated by blanks". % Q: How many Martians does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A: One and a half. % Q: How many Oregonians does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: Three. One to screw in the lightbulb and two to fend off all those Californians trying to share the experience. % Q: How many existentialists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A: Two. One to screw it in and one to observe how the lightbulb itself symbolizes a single incandescent beacon of subjective reality in a netherworld of endless absurdity reaching out toward a maudlin cosmos of nothingness. % Q: How many journalists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A: Three. One to report it as an inspired government program to bring light to the people, one to report it as a diabolical government plot to deprive the poor of darkness, and one to win a Pulitzer Prize for reporting that Electric Company hired a lightbulb-assassin to break the bulb in the first place. % Q: How many Pro-Lifers does it take to change a light bulb? A: Two. One to screw it in and one to say that light started when the screwing began. % Q: How many supply-siders does it take to change a light bulb? A: None. The darkness will cause the light bulb to change by itself. % Q: How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb? A: Two. One to hold the giraffe and the other to fill the bathtub with brightly-colored power tools. % Q. How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? A. Only one, but it takes a really long time and the light bulb has to want to change. % Q: What do you do with an elephant with three balls? A: Walk him and pitch to the rhino. % Q: Why did the tachyontac cross the road? A: Because it was on the other side. % Q: Why do mountain climbers rope themselves together? A: To prevent the sensible ones from going home. % Quantity is no substitute for quality, but it's the only one we've got. % Quoth the Raven, "Never mind." % Quotations are for people who are not saying things worth quoting. % Quoting one is plagiarism. Quoting many is research. % Rational people don't go stomping around demanding that the world be perfect for them. -- Matthew N. Dodd , in comments posted to the freebsd-java mailing list, 6 Feb 2000 % READ UNHAPPY - MAKNAM -- LISP 1.5 % Romeo: Courage, man; the hurt cannot be much. Mercutio: No, 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church. % Rage, rage, against the dying of the light! -- Dylan Thomas % Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning? -- George W. Bush; Florence, South Carolina; January 11, 2000 % Ray's Rule of Precision: Measure with a micrometer. Mark with chalk. Cut with an axe. % Re: graphics: A picture is worth 10K words -- but only those to describe the picture. Hardly any sets of 10K words can be adequately described with pictures. % Reading is thinking with someone else's head instead of one's own. % Real Programmers don't play tennis, or any other sport that requires you to change clothes. Mountain climbing is OK, and real programmers wear their climbing boots to work in case a mountain should suddenly spring up in the middle of the machine room. % Real Programmers think better when playing Adventure or Rogue. % Real Programs don't use shared text. Otherwise, how can they use functions for scratch space after they are finished calling them? % Real Time, adj.: Here and now, as opposed to fake time, which only occurs there and then. % Real wealth can only increase. -- R. Buckminster Fuller % Receiving a million dollars tax free will make you feel better than being flat broke and having a stomach ache. -- Dolph Sharp, "I'm O.K., You're Not So Hot" % Recent investments will yield a slight profit. % Regardless of the legal speed limit, your Buick must be operated at speeds faster than 85 MPH (140k/h). -- presumable misprint from the 1987 Buick Grand National owner's manual. % Reliable software must kill people reliably. -- Andy Mickel % Religions revolve madly around sexual questions. % Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise. -- James Madison, in a letter to William Bradford, April 1, 1774 % Remember that whatever misfortune may be your lot, it could only be worse in Cleveland. % Remember: You cannot drain the ocean with a teaspoon. -- Ignas Bernstein % Removing the error messages "now that the program is working" is like wearing a parachute on the ground, but taking it off once you're in the air. -- Kernighan & Plauger [Software Tools] % Render unto Caesar if line 54 is larger than line 62. % Replace repetitive expressions by calls to a common function. % Reporter, n.: A writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a tempest of words. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing. -- Wernher von Braun % Resisting temptation is easier when you think you'll probably get another chance later on. % Revolution is the opiate of the intellectuals. -- "Oh, Lucky Man" % Ride the tributaries to reach the sea. -- Arab Proverb % Rocky's Lemma of Innovation Prevention Unless the results are known in advance, funding agencies will reject the proposal. % Rudin's Law: In a crisis that forces a choice to be made between alternative courses of action, most people will choose the worse one possible. % Rule of Feline Frustration: When your cat has fallen asleep on your lap and looks utterly content and adorable, you will suddenly have to go to the bathroom. % Rule of the Great: When people you greatly admire appear to be thinking deep thoughts, they probably are thinking about lunch. % Rules for driving in New York: 1) Anything done while honking your horn is legal. 2) You may park anywhere if you turn your four-way flashers on. 3) A red light means the next six cars may go through the intersection. % SCCS, the source motel! Programs check in and never check out! -- Ken Thompson % Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proven innocent. -- George Orwell % Salad is what food eats. % Satire does not look pretty upon a tombstone. % Sattinger's Law: It works better if you plug it in. % Saying that Java is nice because it works on all OSes is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders. -- Alanna % Schapiro's Explanation: The grass is always greener on the other side -- but that's because they use more manure. % Science has proof without any certainty. Creationists have certainty without any proof. -- Ashley Montague % Science is what happens when preconception meets verification. % Scott's First Law: No matter what goes wrong, it will probably look right. % Scott's Second Law: When an error has been detected and corrected, it will be found to have been wrong in the first place. Corollary: After the correction has been found in error, it will be impossible to fit the original quantity back into the equation. % See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda. -- George W. Bush; Greece, New York; May 24, 2005 % Seminars, n.: From "semi" and "arse", hence, any half-assed discussion. % Semper ubi sub ubi. % Serocki's Stricture: Marriage is always a bachelor's last option. % Sex is the mathematics urge sublimated. -- M. C. Reed. % Sex is the poor man's opera. -- G. B. Shaw % Sex without love is an empty experience, but, as empty experiences go, it's one of the best. -- Woody Allen % Shake hands with your mother again. -- from an old hymn % Shaw's Principle: Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it. % She hates testicles, thus limiting the men she can admire to Democratic candidates for president. -- John Greenway, "The American Tradition", on feminist Elizabeth Gould Davis % She missed an invaluable opportunity to give him a look that you could have poured on a waffle ... % Short words are best, and the old words when short are best of all. -- Winston Churchill % Show business is just like high school, except you get paid. -- Martin Mull % Show me a man who is a good loser and I'll show you a man who is playing golf with his boss. % Silverman's Law: If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will. % Simon's Law: Everything put together falls apart sooner or later. % Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all. % Skinner's Constant (or Flannagan's Finagling Factor): That quantity which, when multiplied by, divided by, added to, or subtracted from the answer you get, gives you the answer you should have gotten. % Slime is the agony of water. -- Jean-Paul Sartre % So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence. -- Bertrand Russell % So we follow our wandering paths, and the very darkness acts as our guide and our doubts serve to reassure us. -- Jean-Pierre de Caussade, eighteenth-century Jesuit priest % So where the sheer incompetence of politicians and generals used to start wars, the sheer incompetence of us computer people has now put an end to it. No mean feat. For centuries humanity has been looking for the Weapon That Would End War Forever. We have found it. War has ended, not with the bang of a bomb, but with the gentle whisper of crashing software. -- Gerard Stafleu (gerard [AT] uwovax.uwo.ca) % So why don't you make like a tree, and get outta here. -- Biff in "Back to the Future" % Socialism is power, power, and more power. -- Oswald Spengler, Hitler's intellectual forebear % Society is the presumption of habit over instinct. -- Peter Taylor % Sodd's Second Law: Sooner or later, the worst possible set of circumstances is bound to occur. % Software entities are more complex for their size than perhaps any other human construct because no two parts are alike. If they are, we make the two similar parts into a subroutine -- open or closed. In this respect, software systems differ profoundly from computers, buildings, or automobiles, where repeated elements abound. -- Fred Brooks, Jr. % Software suppliers are trying to make their software packages more 'user-friendly'.... Their best approach, so far, has been to take all the old brochures, and stamp the words, 'user-friendly' on the cover. -- Bill Gates, President, Microsoft, Inc. % Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go. -- Oscar Wilde % Some grow with responsibility, others just swell. -- Arnold Glasow % Some men are discovered; others are found out. % Some people are born mediocre, some people achieve mediocrity, and some people have mediocrity thrust upon them. -- Joseph Heller, "Catch-22" % Some people fall for everything and stand for nothing. % Some people hope to achieve immortality through their works or their children. I would prefer to achieve it by not dying. -- Woody Allen % Some people in this department wouldn't recognize subtlety if it hit them on the head. % Some people like my advice so much that they frame it upon the wall instead of using it -- Gordon R. Dickson % Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then. -- Katherine Hepburn % Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world. -- Lily Tomlin % Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. -- Sigmund Freud % Sometimes the only solution is to find a new problem. % Sometimes the only way out of a difficulty is through it. % Sometimes, too long is too long. -- Joe Crowe % Spark's Sixth Rule for Managers: If a subordinate asks you a pertinent question, look at him as if he had lost his senses. When he looks down, paraphrase the question back at him. % Speak softly and carry a +6 two-handed sword. % Speaking as someone who has delved into the intricacies of PL/I, I am sure that only Real Men could have written such a machine-hogging, cycle-grabbing, all-encompassing monster. Allocate an array and free the middle third? Sure! Why not? Multiply a character string times a bit string and assign the result to a float decimal? Go ahead! Free a controlled variable procedure parameter and reallocate it before passing it back? Overlay three different types of variable on the same memory location? Anything you say! Write a recursive macro? Well, no, but Real Men use rescan. How could a language so obviously designed and written by Real Men not be intended for Real Man use? % Spiritual leadership should remain spiritual leadership and the temporal power should not become too important in any church. -- Eleanor Roosevelt % Stability itself is nothing else than a more sluggish motion. % Stay out of the road, if you want to grow old. -- Pink Floyd % Steinbach's Guideline for Systems Programming Never test for an error condition you don't know how to handle. % Stock brokers invest your money until it's all gone. -- Woody Allen % Stop searching. Happiness is right next to you. Now, if it'd only take a bath. % Stult's Report: Our problems are mostly behind us. What we have to do now is fight the solutions. % Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward. % Sturgeon's Law: Ninety percent of everything is crap. % Success is a journey, not a destination. % Success is not free. Neither is failure. -- Ray Kroc % Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm. -- Winston Churchill % Success is what happens when something goes right. -- Arnold Glasow % Successful and fortunate crime is called virtue. -- Seneca % Succumb to natural tendencies. Be hateful and boring. % Superiority is always detested. -- Balasar Gracian % Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national government too. -- Richard M. Nixon % Swipple's Rule of Order: He who shouts the loudest has the floor. % TV is chewing gum for the eyes. -- Frank Lloyd Wright % Tact is the ability to tell a man he has an open mind when he has a hole in his head. % Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy. % Tact is the great ability to see other people as they think you see them. % Tact, n.: The unsaid part of what you're thinking. % Take care of the luxuries and the necessities will take care of themselves. % Take everything in stride. Trample anyone who gets in your way. % Take heart amid the deepening gloom that your dog is finally getting enough cheese. -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorada" % Take my word for it, the silliest woman can manage a clever man, but it needs a very clever woman to manage a fool. -- Kipling % Take what you can use and let the rest go by. -- Ken Kesey % Tax reform means "Don't tax you, don't tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree." -- Russell Long % Teach a child to be polite and courteous in the home, and, when he grows up, he will never be able to edge his car onto a freeway. % Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means for going backwards. -- Aldous Huxley % Tell a man that there are 300 billion stars in the universe, and he'll believe you.... Tell him that a bench has wet paint upon it and he'll have to touch it to be sure. % Ten years of rejection slips is nature's way of telling you to stop writing. -- R. Geis % Than self restraint, there is nothing better. -- Lao Tzu % That 150 lawyers should do business together ought not to be expected. -- Thomas Jefferson, on the U.S. Congress. % That government is best which governs least. -- Thomas Jefferson % That government is best which governs not at all. -- Henry David Thoreau % That is the key to history. Terrific energy is expended -- civilizations are built up -- excellent institutions devised; but each time something goes wrong. Some fatal flaw always brings the selfish and cruel people to the top, and then it all slides back into misery and ruin. In fact, the machine conks. It seems to start up all right and runs a few yards, and then it breaks down. -- C. S. Lewis % That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest. -- Thoreau % That which is not good for the swarm, neither is it good for the bee. % That's the thing about people who think they hate computers. What they really hate is lousy programmers. -- Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle in "Oath of Fealty" % The Abrams' Principle: The shortest distance between two points is off the wall. % The Briggs/Chase Law of Program Development: To determine how long it will take to write and debug a program, take your best estimate, multiply that by two, add one, and convert to the next higher units. % The English have no respect for their language, and will not teach their children to speak it. -- G. B. Shaw % The Fifth Rule: You have taken yourself too seriously. % The IQ of the group is the lowest IQ of a member of the group divided by the number of people in the group. % The Idea is like grass. It craves light, likes crowds, thrives on cross-breeding, grows better for being stepped on. -- Ursula K. LeGuin, "The Dispossessed" % The Kennedy Constant: Don't get mad -- get even. % The Law of Software Envelopment (at MIT): Every program at MIT attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot expand are replaced by ones which can. % The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as the poor, to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. -- Anatole France % The Official MBA Handbook on business cards: Avoid overly pretentious job titles such as "Lord of the Realm, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India" or "Director of Corporate Planning". % The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right place but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment. -- Dorothy Nevill % The Roman Rule: The one who says it cannot be done should never interrupt the one who is doing it. % The Swartzberg Test: The validity of a science is its ability to predict. % The Third Law of Photography: If you did manage to get any good shots, they will be ruined when someone inadvertently opens the darkroom door and all of the dark leaks out. % The Tree of Learning bears the noblest fruit, but noble fruit tastes bad. % The USA is so enormous, and so numerous are its schools, colleges and religious seminaries, many devoted to special religious beliefs ranging from the unorthodox to the dotty, that we can hardly wonder at its yielding a more bounteous harvest of gobbledygook than the rest of the world put together. -- Sir Peter Medawar % The United States has entered an anti-intellectual phase in its history, perhaps most clearly seen in our virtually thought-free political life. -- David Baltimore % [The Ford Foundation] is a large body of money completely surrounded by people who want some. -- Dwight MacDonald % The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper -- Thomas Jefferson % The ambassador and the general were briefing me on the -- the vast majority of Iraqis want to live in a peaceful, free world. And we will find these people and we will bring them to justice. -- George W. Bush, Washington, D.C.; October 28, 2003 % The angels wanna wear my red shoes. % The applause of a single human being is of great consequence. -- Samuel Johnson % The attacker must vanquish; the defender need only survive. % The attention span of a computer is as long as its electrical cord. % The author should gaze at Noah, and ... learn, as they did in the Ark, to crowd a great deal of matter into a very small compass. -- Sydney, Smith, Edinburgh Review % The average woman would rather have beauty than brains, because the average man can see better than he can think. % The best cure for anger is delay. -- Seneca % The best prophet of the future is the past. % The best that we can do is to be kindly and helpful toward our friends and fellow passengers who are clinging to the same speck of dirt while we are drifting side by side to our common doom. -- Clarence Darrow % The best thing about a boolean is even if you are wrong, you are only off by a bit. -- Anonymous % The best thing about growing older is that it takes such a long time. % The best way to break a bad habit is to drop it. -- Anonymous % The better part of maturity is knowing your goals. -- Arnold Glasow % The biggest difference between time and space is that you can't reuse time. -- Merrick Furst % The chain that can be yanked is not the cosmic chain. -- Cal Keegan % The chicken that clucks the loudest is the one most likely to show up at the steam fitters' picnic. % The chief barrier to happiness is envy. -- Frank Tyger % The chief cause of problems is solutions. -- Eric Sevareid, CBS Evening News, December 29, 1970 % The city of the dead antedates the city of the living. -- Lewis Mumford % The clothes have no emperor. -- C. A. Hoare, about Ada. % The complexity of software is an essential property, not an accidental one. Hence, descriptions of a software entity that abstract away its complexity often abstract away its essence. -- Fred Brooks, Jr. % The computing field is always in need of new cliches. -- Alan Perlis % The connection between the language in which we think/program and the problems and solutions we can imagine is very close. For this reason restricting language features with the intent of eliminating programmer errors is at best dangerous. -- Bjarne Stroustrup in "The C++ Programming Language" % The correct way to punctuate a sentence that starts: "Of course it is none of my business, but -- " is to place a period after the word "but." Don't use excessive force in supplying such a moron with a period. Cutting his throat is only a momentary pleasure and is bound to get you talked about. -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" % The cost of living hasn't affected its popularity. % The cost of living is going up, and the chance of living is going down. % The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt % The cow is nothing but a machine which makes grass fit for us people to eat. -- John McNulty % 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 classified with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated Reformer of human errors. -- Thomas Jefferson % The day-to-day travails of the IBM programmer are so amusing to most of us who are fortunate enough never to have been one -- like watching Charlie Chaplin trying to cook a shoe. % The debate rages on: Is PL/I Bachtrian or Dromedary? % The decision didn't have to be logical, it was unanimous. % The devil finds work for idle circuits to do. % The difference between Genius and Stupidity is that Genius has limits. % The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects is that science requires reasoning while those other subjects merely require scholarship. -- Robert Heinlein % The difference between sympathy and empathy is three letters: "yes". -- P. Taylor % The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole carloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity. -- John Adams % The earth is like a tiny grain of sand, only much, much heavier. % The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun. -- Buckminster Fuller % The end of labor is to gain leisure. % The end of the world will occur at 3:00 p.m., this Friday, with symposium to follow. % The envious man grows lean at the success of his neighbor. -- Horace % The evolution of the human race will not be accomplished in the ten thousand years of tame animals, but in the million years of wild animals, because man is and will always be a wild animal. -- Charles Galton Darwin % The existence of god implies a violation of causality. % The fact that it works is immaterial. -- L. Ogborn % The famous politician was trying to save both his faces. % The fancy is indeed no other than a mode of memory emancipated from the order of space and time. -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge % The fault lies not with our technologies but with our systems. -- Roger Levian % The finest eloquence is that which gets things done. % The first 90% of a project takes 90% of the time. The last 10% of a project takes 90% of the time. % The first and great commandment is: Do not let them scare you. -- Elmer Davis % The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it. -- Abbie Hoffman % The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts. -- Paul Erlich % The flow chart is a most thoroughly oversold piece of program documentation. -- Frederick Brooks, Jr., The Mythical Man Month % The flush toilet is the basis of Western civilization. -- Alan Coult % The following statement is true. The previous statement is false. % The fountain code has been tightened slightly so you can no longer dip objects into a fountain or drink from one while you are floating in mid-air due to levitation. Teleporting to hell via a teleportation trap will no longer occur if the character does not have fire resistance. -- README file from the NetHack game % The fourth law of thermodynamics: The perversity of the universe tends towards a maximum. % The fundamentalists, by "knowing" the answers before they start [examining evolution], and then forcing nature into the straitjacket of their discredited preconceptions, lie outside the domain of science -- or of any honest intellectual inquiry. -- Stephen Jay Gould, Bully for Brontosaurus (1990) % The future isn't what it used to be. (It never was.) % The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance. % The gentlemen looked one another over with microscopic carelessness. % The goal of Computer Science is to build something that will last at least until we've finished building it. % The goal of science is to build better mousetraps. The goal of nature is to build better mice. % The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion. -- George Washington (The Treaty of Tripoli) % The greatest of faults is to be conscious of none. % The greatest warriors are the ones who fight for peace. -- Holly Near % The hand that rocks the cradle can also cradle a rock. -- Feminist saying, circa 1968-1972 % The hardest thing to open is a closed mind. -- Leo Burnett % The heart has no rainbows when the eye has no tears. % The hell with the Prime Directive: let's kill something. % The herd instinct among economists makes sheep look like independent thinkers. % The human animal differs from the lesser primates in his passion for lists of "Ten Best". -- H. Allen Smith % The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten percent of its capacity -- the rest is overhead for the operating system. % The human mind treats a new idea the way the body treats a strange protein -- it rejects it. -- P. Medawar % The hypothesis: Amid a wash of paper, a small number of documents become the critical pivots around which every project's management revolves. These are the manager's chief personal tools. -- Frederick P. Brooks, Jr., The Mythical Man Month % The idea that Bill Gates has appeared like a knight in shining armour to lead all customers out of a mire of technological chaos neatly ignores the fact that it was he who, by peddling second-rate technology, led them into it in the first place. -- attributed to Douglas Adams % The ideal is impossible. The idea of the ideal is essential. -- P. Taylor % The inability to benefit from feedback appears to be the primary cause of pseudoscience. Pseudoscientists retain their beliefs and ignore or distort contradictory evidence rather than modify or reject a flawed theory. Because of their strong biases, they seem to lack the self-correcting mechanisms scientists must employ in their work. -- Thomas L. Creed, "The Skeptical Inquirer," Summer 1987 % The individual choice of garnishment of a burger can be an important point to the consumer in this day when individualism is an increasingly important thing to people. -- Donald N. Smith, president of Burger King % The Internet? Is that thing still around? -- Homer Simpson % The Internet is the most powerful stupidity amplifier ever invented. It’s like television without the television part. -- James "Kibo" Perry % The lame in the path outstrip the swift who wander from it. -- Francis Bacon % The last thing one knows in constructing a work is what to put first. -- Blaise Pascal % The life of a repo man is always intense. % The life of money-making is one undertaken under compulsion, and wealth is evidently not the good we are seeking, for it is merely useful for the sake of something else. -- Aristotle % The life which is unexamined is not worth living. % The light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an approaching train. % The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won't get much sleep. -- Woody Allen % The longer I am out of office, the more infallible I appear to myself. -- Henry Kissinger % The love of money is only one among many. -- Alfred Marshall % The luck that is ordained for you will be coveted by others. % The main thing is the play itself. I swear that greed for money has nothing to do with it, although heaven knows I am sorely in need of money. -- Feodor Dostoyevsky % The man scarce lives who is not more credulous than he ought to be. ... The natural disposition is always to believe. It is acquired wisdom and experience only that teach incredulity, and they very seldom teach it enough. -- Adam Smith % The man who follows the crowd will usually get no further than the crowd. The man who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever been. -- Alan Ashley-Pitt % The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything. % The marvels of today's modern technology include the development of a soda can, when discarded will last forever; and a $20,000 car which, when properly cared for, will rust out in two or three years. % The meek are contesting the will. % The meek shall inherit the earth -- they are too weak to refuse. % The meek shall inherit the earth, but not its mineral rights. -- J. Paul Getty % The meek shall inherit the earth. The rest of us will go to the stars. % The meek will inherit the Earth..... The rest of us will go to the stars. % The mistake you make is in trying to figure it out. -- Tenessee Williams % The moon may be smaller than Earth, but it's further away. % The more laws and order are made prominent, the more thieves and robbers there will be. -- Lao Tsu % The more things change, the more they stay insane. % The more things change, the more they'll never be the same again. % The more we disagree, the more chance there is that at least one of us is right. % The mosquito is the state bird of New Jersey. -- Andy Warhol % The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny ..." -- Isaac Asimov % The most merciful thing in the world ... is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. -- H. P. Lovecraft % The new Congressmen say they're going to turn the government around. I hope I don't get run over again. % The next six days are dangerous. % The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from. -- Andrew S. Tanenbaum % The notion of a "record" is an obsolete remnant of the days of the 80-column card. -- Dennis M. Ritchie % The objective of all dedicated employees should be to thoroughly analyze all situations, anticipate all problems prior to their occurrence, have answers for these problems, and move swiftly to solve these problems when called upon. However, when you are up to your ass in alligators it is difficult to remind yourself your initial objective was to drain the swamp. % The older a man gets, the farther he had to walk to school as a boy. % The one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception a necessity. -- Oscar Wilde % The one good thing about repeating your mistakes is that you know when to cringe. % The only difference between a rut and a grave is the depth. % The only good bug is a dead bug. But the best bug is the one that wasn't there to begin with. % The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the `social sciences' is: some do, some don't. -- Ernest Rutherford % The only problem with being a man of leisure is that you can never stop and take a rest. % The only things worth learning are the things you learn after you know it all. -- Harry S Truman % The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on. It is never any use to oneself. -- Oscar Wilde % The only way to amuse some people is to slip and fall on an icy pavement. % The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. -- Oscar Wilde % The only way to learn a new programming language is by writing programs in it. -- Brian Kernighan % The opossum is a very sophisticated animal. It doesn't even get up until 5 or 6 pm. % The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth. -- Niels Bohr % The opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth. -- Bohr % The optimum committee has no members. -- Norman Augustine % The past always looks better than it was. It's only pleasant because it isn't here. -- Finley Peter Dunne (Mr. Dooley) % The personal computer market is about the same size as the total potato chip market. Next year it will be about half the size of the pet food market and is fast approaching the total worldwide sales of pantyhose -- James Finke, President, Commodore Int'l Ltd. (1982) % The pitcher wound up and he flang the ball at the batter. The batter swang and missed. The pitcher flang the ball again and this time the batter connected. He hit a high fly right to the center fielder. The center fielder was all set to catch the ball, but at the last minute his eyes were blound by the sun and he dropped it. -- Dizzy Dean % The plural of spouse is spice. % The police are not there to create disorder. The police are there to preserve disorder. -- The late Richard J. Daly, Mayor of the city of Chicago % The power to destroy a planet is insignificant when compared to the power of the Force. -- Darth Vader % The price of greatness is responsibility. -- Winston Churchill % The price one pays for pursuing any profession, or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side. -- James Baldwin % The primary purpose of the DATA statement is to give names to constants; instead of referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at every appearance, the variable PI can be given that value with a DATA statement and used instead of the longer form of the constant. This also simplifies modifying the program, should the value of pi change. -- FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers % The probability of someone watching you is directly proportional to the stupidity of your action. % The problem with any unwritten law is that you don't know where to go to erase it. -- Glaser and Way % The problem with being best man at a wedding is that you never get a chance to prove it. % 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. -- Elizabeth Taylor % The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard. % The program is absolutely right; therefore the computer must be wrong. % The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought- stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion of the imagination. Few media of creation are so flexible, so easy to polish and rework, so readily capable of realizing grand conceptual structures. -- Frederick Brooks, Jr., The Mythical Man Month % The purpose of most meetings seems to be to get as much human meat as possible into one room. -- James Iry, via Twitter % The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong -- but that's the way to bet. -- Damon Runyon % The rain it raineth on the just And also on the unjust fella, But chiefly on the just, because The unjust steals the just's umbrella. % The reason ESP, for example, is not considered a viable topic in contemporary psychology is simply that its investigation has not proven fruitful...After more than 70 years of study, there still does not exist one example of an ESP phenomenon that is replicable under controlled conditions. This simple but basic scientific criterion has not been met despite dozens of studies conducted over many decades... It is for this reason alone that the topic is now of little interest to psychology... In short, there is no demonstrated phenomenon that needs explanation. -- Keith E. Stanovich, "How to Think Straight About Psychology", pp. 160-161 % The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much. % The reason we struggle with insecurity is because we compare our behind-the-scenes with everyone else's highlight reel. -- Steve Furtick % The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw % The revolution will not be televised. % The reward of a thing well done is to have done it. -- Emerson % The right half of the brain controls the left half of the body. This means that only left handed people are in their right mind. % The right half of the brain controls the left half of the body. This means that only left-handed people are in their right minds. % The road to to success is always under construction. -- Florian Bruckner % The secret cement of any organization is trust. -- Donald E. Walker % The shell must break before the bird can fly. -- Alfred, Lord Tennyson % The shortest distance between two points is under construction. -- Noelie Altito % The silly question is the first intimation of some totally new development. % The so-called "desktop metaphor" of today's workstations is instead an "airplane-seat" metaphor. Anyone who has shuffled a lap full of papers while seated between two portly passengers will recognize the difference -- one can see only a very few things at once. -- Fred Brooks, Jr. % The solution to a problem changes the problem. -- J. Martin % The sooner all the animals are extinct, the sooner we'll find their money. -- Ed Bluestone % The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears. % The steady state of disks is full. -- Ken Thompson % The study of theology, as it stands in the Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authority; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion. -- Thomas Paine, from The Age of Reason % The subject matter of research is no longer nature in itself, but nature subjected to human questioning . . . -- Werner Heisenberg % The sun was shining on the sea, Shining with all his might: He did his very best to make The billows smooth and bright -- And this was very odd, because it was The middle of the night. -- Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass" % The superfluous is very necessary. -- Voltaire % The sweetest of all sounds is praise. -- Xenophon % The tar pit of software engineering will continue to be sticky for a long time to come. One can expect the human race to continue attempting systems just within or just beyond our reach; and software systems are perhaps the most intricate and complex of man's handiworks. The management of this complex craft will demand our best use of new languages and systems, our best adaptation of proven engineering management methods, liberal doses of common sense, and ... humility to recognize our fallibility and limitations. -- Frederick Brooks, Jr., The Mythical Man Month % The Three Laws of Thermodynamics The First Law: You can't get anything without working for it. The Second Law: The most you can accomplish by working is to break even. The Third Law: You can only break even at absolute zero. % The time is right to make new friends. % The trouble with a kitten is that When it grows up, it's always a cat -- Ogden Nash. % The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time. % The trouble with being punctual is that people think you have nothing more important to do. % The trouble with doing something right the first time is that nobody appreciates how difficult it was. % The trouble with programmers is that you can never tell what a programmer is doing until it's too late. -- Seymour Cray % The trouble with us in America isn't that the poetry of life has turned to prose, but that it has turned to advertising copy. -- Louis Kronenberger % The truth is that all those having power ought to be mistrusted. -- James Madison % The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility. And vice versa. % The typical page layout program is nothing more than an electronic light table for cutting and pasting documents. % The universe is laughing behind your back. % The unnatural, that too is natural. -- Goethe % The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense. -- E. W. Dijkstra (1982) % The vigor of civilized societies is preserved by the widespread sense that high aims are worth-while. Vigorous societies harbor a certain extravagance of objectives, so that men wander beyond the safe provision of personal gratifications. All strong interests easily become impersonal, the love of a good job well done. There is a sense of harmony about such an accomplishment, the Peace brought by something worth-while. -- Alfred North Whitehead, 1963, in "The History of Manned Space Flight" % The way to make a small fortune in the stock market is to start with a large one. % The Web is like a dominatrix. Everywhere I turn, I see little buttons ordering me to Submit. -- Nytwind % The whole earth is in jail and we're plotting this incredible jailbreak. -- Wavy Gravy % The wife you save may be your own. -- Unofficial slogan of supporters of one of FDR's sons, a notorious womanizer, during the son's first congressional race % The wise shepherd never trusts his flock to a smiling wolf. % The world is a fantasy, so let's find out about it. -- Astrophysicist Dennis Sciama, to Timothy Ferris (quoted in Ferris's book, "The Mind's Sky") % The world is coming to an end. Please log off. % [The World Wide Web is] the only thing I know of whose shortened form -- www -- takes three times longer to say than what it's short for. -- attributed to Douglas Adams % The world is divided into two kinds of people: those who think the world is divided into two kinds of people and those who do not. % The world is no nursery. -- Sigmund Freud % The world looks as if it has been left in the custody of trolls. -- Father Robert F. Capon % The world will not recognize your talent until you demonstrate it. % The world's as ugly as sin, And almost as delightful -- Frederick Locker-Lampson % The worst form of failure is the failure to try. % The years of peak mental activity are undoubtedly between the ages of four and eighteen. At four we know all the questions, at eighteen all the answers. % Theorem: A cat has nine tails. Proof: No cat has eight tails. A cat has one tail more than no cat. Therefore, a cat has nine tails. % There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. % There are 10 types of people who understand binary: The ones who do, and the ones who don't. % There are a lot of lies going around.... and half of them are true. -- Winston Churchill % There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy ... -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % There are no bugs, only unrecognized features. % There are no giant crabs in here, Frank. % There are no saints, only unrecognized villains. % There are only two kinds of programming languages: those people always bitch about and those nobody uses. -- Bjarne Stroustrup % There are some micro-organisms that exhibit characteristics of both plants and animals. When exposed to light they undergo photosynthesis; and when the lights go out, they turn into animals. But then again, don't we all? % There are 10 kinds of people. Those who know binary and those who don't. % There are things that are so serious that you can only joke about them. -- Heisenberg % There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics. -- Disraeli % There are three ways to get something done: do it yourself, hire someone, or forbid your kids to do it. % There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: "The Lord of the Rings" and "Atlas Shrugged". One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs. -- John Rogers (kfmonkey.blogspot.com/2009/03/ephemera-2009-7.html) % There are two ways of constructing a software design. One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies and the other is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. -- Charles Anthony Richard Hoare % There are two ways to write error-free programs. Only the third one works. % There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true. The other is to refuse to accept what is true. -- Søren Kierkegaard % There are very few personal problems that cannot be solved through a suitable application of high explosives. % There can be no offense where none is taken. -- Japanese proverb % There cannot be a crisis next week. My schedule is already full. -- Henry Kissinger % There has been an alarming increase in the number of things you know nothing about. % There is a bear following you around. % There is a decivilizing bug somewhere at work; unconsciously persons of stern worth, by not resenting and resisting the small indignities of the times, are preparing themselves for the eventual acceptance of what they themselves know they don't want. -- attributed to E.B. White % There is a great discovery still to be made in Literature: that of paying literary men by the quantity they do NOT write. % There is no "Complete Idiot's Guide to Creationism," but perhaps one is not needed. -- Andrei Codrescu, on NPR Aug. 25, 1999 % There is no excuse for the use of the word "synergies" on any project where common sense and straight talking are the norm. -- Paul Robinson , in a post to the FreeBSD-Hackers mailing list, 17 July, 2003 % There is some sort of perverse pleasure in knowing that it's basically impossible to send a piece of hate mail through the Internet without its being touched by a gay program. That's kind of funny. -- Eric Allman % There is one safeguard known generally to the wise, which is an advantage and security to all, but especially to democracies as against despots. What is it? Distrust. -- Demosthenes: Philippic 2, sect. 24. % There is a time in the tides of men, Which, taken at its flood, leads on to success. On the other hand, don't count on it. -- T. K. Lawson % There is danger in delaying, good fortune in acting. % There is no choice before us. Either we must Succeed in providing the rational coordination of impulses and guts, or for centuries civilization will sink into a mere welter of minor excitements. We must provide a Great Age or see the collapse of the upward striving of the human race. -- Alfred North Whitehead % There is no heavier burden than a great potential. % There is no idea so sacred that it cannot be questioned, analyzed... and ridiculed. -- Cal Keegan % There is no realizable power that man cannot, in time, fashion the tools to attain, nor any power so secure that the naked ape will not abuse it. So it is written in the genetic cards -- only physics and war hold him in check. And also the wife who wants him home by five, of course. -- Encyclopadia Apocrypha, 1990 ed. % There is no satisfaction in hanging a man who does not object to it -- G. B. Shaw % There is no statute of limitations on stupidity. -- Randomly produced by a computer program called Markov3. % There is no substitute for good manners, except, perhaps, fast reflexes. % There is no such thing as not enough time if you are doing what you want to do. % There is no such thing as pure pleasure; some anxiety always goes with it. % There is no time like the pleasant. % There is no time like the present for postponing what you ought to be doing. % There is nothing in this world constant but inconstancy. -- Swift % There is nothing so deadly as not to hold up to people the opportunity to do great and wonderful things, if we wish to stimulate them in an active way. -- Dr. Harold Urey, Nobel Laureate in chemistry % There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about. -- Oscar Wilde % There is so much sand in Northern Africa that if it were spread out it would completely cover the Sahara Desert. % There was nothing I hated more than to see a filthy old drunkie, a howling away at the sons of his father and going blurp blurp in between as if it were a filthy old orchestra in his stinking rotten guts. I could never stand to see anyone like that, especially when they were old like this one was. -- Alex in "Clockwork Orange" % There were in this country two very large monopolies. The larger of the two had the following record: the Vietnam War, Watergate, double- digit inflation, fuel and energy shortages, bankrupt airlines, and the 8-cent postcard. The second was responsible for such things as the transistor, the solar cell, lasers, synthetic crystals, high fidelity stereo recording, sound motion pictures, radio astronomy, negative feedback, magnetic tape, magnetic "bubbles", electronic switching systems, microwave radio and TV relay systems, information theory, the first electrical digital computer, and the first communications satellite. Guess which one got to tell the other how to run the telephone business? % There will always be survivors. -- Robert Heinlen % There will be big changes for you, but you will be happy. % There you go man, Keep as cool as you can. It riles them to believe that you perceive the web they weave. Keep on being free! % There's a bug somewhere in your code. % There's a fine line between courage and foolishness. Too bad it's not a fence. % There's an old proverb that says just about whatever you want it to. % There's always someone, somewhere, with a big nose, who knows and who trips you up and laughs when you fall. -- The Smiths % There's at least one fool in every married couple. % There's got to be more to life than compile-and-go. % There's more than one way to skin a cat: Way number 15 -- Krazy Glue and a toothbrush. % There's more than one way to skin a cat: Way number 27 -- Use an electric sander. % There's more to life than sitting around in the sun in your underwear playing the clarinet. % There's no future in time travel % There's no limit to how complicated things can get, on account of one thing always leading to another. -- E. B. White % There's no place like home. % There's no place like $HOME. % There's no point in being grown up if you can't be childish sometimes. -- Dr. Who % There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself. -- J. S. Bach % There's nothing wrong with America that a good erection wouldn't cure. -- David Mairowitz % There's only one way to have a happy marriage and as soon as I learn what it is I'll get married again. -- Clint Eastwood % There's so much plastic in this culture that vinyl leopard skin is becoming an endangered synthetic. -- Lily Tomlin % These patriots don't mince words... Okay, sure, they ARE dangerous, hopelessly ignorant, inbred, retarded borderline lunatics with an insatiable lust for the blood of sinners -- but at least they're HONEST about it. -- Reverend Ivan Stang, cofounder of the Church of the Subgenius, about a group known as Free Love Ministries, in his book "High Weirdness By Mail" % They [preachers] dread the advance of science as witches do the approach of daylight and scowl on the fatal harbinger announcing the subversions of the duperies on which they live. -- Thomas Jefferson % They also surf who only stand on waves. % They took some of the Van Goghs, most of the jewels, and all of the Chivas! % Things are always at their best in the beginning. -- Pascal % Things are more like they are now than they ever were before. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower % Things are more like they used to be than they are now. % Things are not as simple as they seems at first. -- Edward Thorp % Things won't get any better, so get used to it. % Think honk if you're a telepath. % This fortune intentionally not included. % This fortune is false. % This fortune is inoperative. Please try another. % This fortune will self destruct in 5 years. % This isn't brain surgery; it's just television. -- David Letterman % This space unintentionally left blank. % This was the ultimate form of ostentation among technology freaks -- to have a system so complete and sophisticated that nothing showed; no machines, no wires, no controls. -- Michael Swanwick, "Vacuum Flowers" % Thoreau's Law: If you see a man approaching you with the obvious intent of doing you good, you should run for your life. -- Attributed to Thoreau by William H. Whyte, Jr., in The Organization Man (1956) % Those of us who believe in the right of any human being to belong to whatever church he sees fit, and to worship God in his own way, cannot be accused of prejudice when we do not want to see public education connected with religious control of the schools, which are paid for by taxpayers' money. -- Eleanor Roosevelt % Those who are quick in deciding are in danger of being mistaken. -- Sophocles % Those who believe in astrology are living in houses with foundations of Silly Putty. -- Dennis Rawlins, astronomer % Those who believe that they believe in God, but without passion in their hearts, without anguish in mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, without an element of despair even in their consolation, believe only in the God idea, not God Himself. -- Miguel de Unamuno, Spanish philosopher and writer % Those who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them. % Those who can, do; those who can't, simulate. % Those who can't repeat the past are condemned to remember it. -- Mark O'Donnell % Those who do not understand Unix are condemned to reinvent it, poorly. -- Henry Spencer, University of Toronto Unix hacker % Those who educate children well are more to be honored than parents, for these only gave life, those the art of living well. -- Aristotle % Those who in quarrels interpose, must often wipe a bloody nose. % Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. -- John F. Kennedy % Those who talk don't know. Those who don't talk, know. % Those who want the Government to regulate matters of the mind and spirit are like men who are so afraid of being murdered that they commit suicide to avoid assassination. -- Harry S Truman % Throw out your gold teeth / And see how they roll. The answer they reveal: / Life is unreal. -- Steely Dan % Time and tide wait for no man. % Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. % Time is an illusion perpetrated by the manufacturers of space. -- Graffiti % Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. % Time is nature's way of making sure that everything doesn't happen at once. % Time wounds all heels. % Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book. -- Cicero % Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles. -- Frank Lloyd Wright % To be awake is to be alive. -- Henry David Thoreau, in "Walden Pond" % To be intoxicated is to feel sophisticated but not be able to say it. % To be is to program. % To be overbusy is a witless task. -- Sophocles % To be perfect is to have changed often. -- J. H. Newman % To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first, and call whatever you hit the target. -- Ashleigh Brilliant % To be wrong all the time is an effort, but some manage it. -- William Feather % To be, or what? -- Sylvester Stallone % To criticize the incompetent is easy; it is more difficult to criticize the competent. % To do easily what is difficult for others is the mark of talent. -- H. F. Amiel % To downgrade the human mind is bad theology. -- C. K. Chesterton % To err is human, to compute divine. Trust your computer but not its programmer. -- Morris Kingston % To err is human, to forgive divine. % To follow foolish precedents, and wink With both our eyes, is easier than to think. -- William Cowper % To invent products out of thin air, you don't ask people what they want -- after all, who would've told you ten years ago that they needed a CD player? You ask them what problems they have when they get up in the morning. -- Robert Hall, Sr. Vice President, GVO, as quoted in the December, 1991, issue of Fortune % To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk. -- Thomas Edison % To iterate is human, to recurse, divine. % To knock a thing down, especially if it is cocked at an arrogant angle, is a deep delight of the blood. -- Georges Santayana % To know the world one must construct it. -- Cesare Pavese % To laugh at men of sense is the privilege of fools. % To program anything that is programmable is obsession. % To program is to be. % To steal from a thief is not theft. It is merely irony. -- Zorro, while retrieving money taxed from Californians % To steal from one person is theft. To steal from many is taxation. -- Daiell's Law (a take-off on Felson's Law) % To teach is to learn. % To those accustomed to the precise, structured methods of conventional system development, exploratory development techniques may seem messy, inelegant, and unsatisfying. But it's a question of congruence: precision and flexibility may be just as disfunctional in novel, uncertain situations as sloppiness and vacillation are in familiar, well-defined ones. Those who admire the massive, rigid bone structures of dinosaurs should remember that jellyfish still enjoy their very secure ecological niche. -- Beau Sheil, "Power Tools for Programmers" % Today is the first day of the rest of your lossage. % Today is the last day of your life so far. % Too clever is dumb. -- Ogden Nash % Too much of a good thing is WONDERFUL. -- Mae West % Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be prosecuted. % Troglodytism does not necessarily imply a low cultural level. % True innovation often comes from the small startup who is lean enough to launch a market but lacks the heft to own it. -- Timm Martin % Truth has always been found to promote the best interests of mankind. -- Percy Bysshe Shelley % Truthful, adj.: Dumb and illiterate. -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary" % Try not to have a good time ... This is supposed to be educational. -- Charles Schulz % Try to be the best of what you are, even if what you are is no good. -- Ashleigh Brilliant % Trying to be happy is like trying to build a machine for which the only specification is that it should run noiselessly. % Turnaucka's Law: The attention span of a computer is only as long as its electrical cord. % Tussman's Law: Nothing is as inevitable as a mistake whose time has come. % Two can Live as Cheaply as One for Half as Long. -- Howard Kandel % Two men look out through the same bars; one sees mud, and one the stars. % Two percent of zero is almost nothing. % UFO's are for real: the Air Force doesn't exist. % UFOs are for real. It's the Air Force that doesn't exist. % Uncertain fortune is thoroughly mastered by the equity of the calculation. -- Blaise Pascal % Uncle Ed's Rule of Thumb: Never use your thumb for a rule. You'll either hit it with a hammer or get a splinter in it. % Uncompensated overtime? Just Say No. % Under any conditions, anywhere, whatever you are doing, there is some ordinance under which you can be booked. -- Robert D. Sprecht (Rand Corp) % Under deadline pressure for the next week. If you want something, it can wait. Unless it's blind screaming paroxysmally hedonistic ... % Underlying Principle of Socio-Genetics: Superiority is recessive. % United Nations, New York, December 25. The peace and joy of the Christmas season was marred by a proclamation of a general strike of all the military forces of the world. Panic reigns in the hearts of all the patriots of every persuasion. Meanwhile, fears of universal disaster sank to an all-time low over the world. -- Isaac Asimov % Universe, n.: The problem. % University, n.: Like a software house, except the software's free, and it's usable, and it works, and if it breaks they'll quickly tell you how to fix it. % UNIX *is* user friendly. It's just selective about who its friends are. -- unknown % Unless one is a genius, it is best to aim at being intelligible. -- Anthony Hope % Unless you are very rich and very eccentric, you will not enjoy the luxury of a computer in your own home. -- Edward Yourdon, 1975. % Use GOTOs only to implement a fundamental structure. % Use debugging compilers. % Use free-form input where possible. % Use library functions. % Use the Force, Luke. % Useful knowledge is a great support for intuition. -- Charles B. Rogers % Users of a tool are willing to meet you halfway; if you do ninety percent of the job, they will be ecstatic. -- Software Tools, p.136. % VMS isn't an operating system, it's a playpen for DEC system programmers. -- Herb Blashtfalt % Van Roy's Law: An unbreakable toy is useful for breaking other toys. % Variables won't. Constants aren't. % Velilind's Laws of Experimentation: 1. If reproducibility may be a problem, conduct the test only once. 2. If a straight line fit is required, obtain only two data points. % Very few profundities can be expressed in less than 80 characters. % Vests are to suits as seat-belts are to cars. % Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. -- Salvor Hardin % Vique's Law: A man without religion is like a fish without a bicycle. % Virtue is its own punishment. % Vital papers will demonstrate their vitality by spontaneously moving from where you left them to where you can't find them. % Vitamin C deficiency is apauling % Volcano -- a mountain with hiccups. % Vote anarchist. % Walter, I love you, but sooner or later, you're going to have to face the fact you're a goddamn moron. -- The Dude ("The Big Lebowski") % War is menstruation envy. % Waste not, get your budget cut next year. % Wasting time is an important part of living. % Watch out for off-by-one errors. % We ARE as gods and might as well get good at it. -- Whole Earth Catalog % We all know that no one understands anything that isn't funny. % We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. -- Oscar Wilde % We are confronted with insurmountable opportunities. -- Walt Kelly, "Pogo" % We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower % We are not alone. % We are what we pretend to be. -- Kurt Vonnegut, JR % We call our dog Egypt, because in every room he leaves a pyramid. % We can defeat gravity. The problem is the paperwork involved. % We can't let children think it's okay to dress up like Vikings and go around hollering. -- Dogbert, on opera % We can't schedule an orgy, it might be construed as fighting -- Stanley Sutton % We cheat the other guy and pass the savings on to you. % We don't know who discovered water, but we are certain it wasn't a fish. -- John Culkin % We don't want to discourage the innovators and those who take risks because they're afraid of getting sued by a lawsuit. -- George W. Bush; Washington, D.C.; June 24, 2004 % We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition: And gentlemen in England now a-bed Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day. -- King Henry V, "Henry V", Act IV, Scene 3 % We have met the enemy and he is us -- Walt Kelly (in POGO) % We learn from history that we do not learn anything from history. % We may not return the affection of those who like us, but we always respect their good judgement. % We must all hang together, or we will surely all hang separately. -- Benjamin Franklin % They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -- Benjamin Franklin % We must remember the First Amendment which protects any shrill jackass no matter how self-seeking. -- F. G. Withington % We now return you to your regularly scheduled program. % We want to create puppets that pull their own strings. -- Ann Marion % We were spanking each other with meat and then suddenly it got weird. -- Joe Hacket % We will have solar energy as soon as the utility companies solve one technical problem -- how to run a sunbeam through a meter. % We work to become, not to acquire. -- Elbert Hubbard % We'll be a great country where the fabrics are made up of groups and loving centers. -- George W. Bush, Kalamazoo, Michigan; March 27, 2001 % We're fighting for this woman's honor, which is more than she ever did. -- Rufus T. Firefly, in "Duck Soup" % We're here to give you a computer, not a religion. -- attributed to Bob Pariseau, at the introduction of the Amiga % We're the weirdest monkeys ever. -- Karl Lehenbauer % We've sent a man to the moon, and that's 29,000 miles away. The center of the Earth is only 4,000 miles away. You could drive that in a week, but for some reason nobody's ever done it. -- Andy Rooney % Wear me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion cruel as the grave; it blazes up like blazing fire, fiercer than any flame. -- Song of Solomon 8:6 (NEB) % Weiler's Law: Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself. % Weinberg's First Law: Progress is made on alternate Fridays. % Weinberg's Second Law: If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilization. % Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends! % Welcome to the human race, with its wars, disease and brutality. -- Chrissie Hynde (The Pretenders), "Show Me" % Welcome to The Machine. % Welcome to the working week. I know it don't thrill you I hope it don't kill you. % Well, I killed my own grandfather and here I am! Guess there's no paradox when time travel isn't involved. -- Andrew Kennedy % Well, well, well! Well if it isn't fat stinking billy goat Billy Boy in poison! How art thou, thou globby bottle of cheap stinking chip oil? Come and get one in the yarbles, if ya have any yarble, ya eunuch jelly thou! -- Alex in "Clockwork Orange" % Well, you see, it's such a transitional creature. It's a piss-poor reptile and not very much of a bird. -- Melvin Konner, from "The Tangled Wing", quoting a zoologist who has studied the archeopteryx and found it "very much like people" % Were there fewer fools, knaves would starve. -- Anonymous % Westheimer's Discovery: A couple of months in the laboratory can frequently save a couple of hours in the library. % Wethern's Law: Assumption is the mother of all screw-ups. % What a waste it is to lose one's mind -- or not to have a mind at all. How true that is. -- V.P. Dan Quayle, garbling the United Negro College Fund slogan in an address to the group (from Newsweek, May 22nd, 1989) % What are you doing wrong with our bug-free product? % What cannot be eaten must be civilized. -- Peter Taylor % What do you call a boomerang that doesn't work? A stick! -- Bill Kirchenbaum, comedian % What does it mean if there is no fortune for you? % What garlic is to salad, insanity is to art. % What happens when you cut back the jungle? It recedes. % What is a magician but a practising theorist? -- Obi-Wan Kenobi % What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind. -- Thomas Hewitt Key, 1799-1875 % What is the difference between the modern computer and a Turing machine? It's the same as that between Hillary's ascent of Everest and the establishment of a Hilton on its peak. % What is tolerance? -- it is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly -- that is the first law of nature. -- Voltaire % What is vice today may be virtue tomorrow. % What is virtue today may be vice tomorrow. % What is worth doing is worth delegating. % What is worth doing is worth the trouble of asking somebody to do. % What makes the Universe so hard to comprehend is that there's nothing to compare it with. % What publishers are looking for these days isn't radical feminism. It's corporate feminism -- a brand of feminism designed to sell books and magazines, three-piece suits, airline tickets, Scotch, cigarettes and, most important, corporate America's message, which runs: "Yes, women were discriminated against in the past, but that unfortunate mistake has been remedied; now every woman can attain wealth, prestige and power by dint of individual rather than collective effort." -- Susan Gordon % What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy? -- Ursula K. LeGuin % What sin has not been committed in the name of efficiency? % What the hell, go ahead and put all your eggs in one basket. % What the large print giveth, the small print taketh away. % What this calls for is a special blend of psychology and extreme violence. -- Vyvyan Basterd, "The Young Ones" % What this country needs is a good 5 dollar plasma weapon. % What this country needs is a good five cent ANYTHING! % What this country needs is a good five cent microcomputer. % What this country needs is a good five-cent nickel. % What use is magic if it can't save a unicorn? -- Peter S. Beagle, "The Last Unicorn" % What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expect generally happens. -- Bengamin Disraeli % What we do not understand we do not possess. -- Goethe % What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding? % What, me worry? % What boots it at one gate to make defence, And at another to let in the foe? -- John Milton, Samson Agonistes (l. 560) % Whatever is not nailed down is mine. What I can pry loose is not nailed down. -- Collis P. Huntingdon % When I said "we", officer, I was referring to myself, the four young ladies, and, of course, the goat. % When I sell liquor, its called bootlegging; when my patrons serve it on Lake Shore Drive, its called hospitality. -- Al Capone % When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President. Now I'm beginning to believe it. -- Clarence Darrow % When I was in my twenties, not shaving for a few days gave me a cool Don Johnson/Miami Vice look. Now that I'm in my forties, though, it tends to make me look more like Otis from Mayberry. -- Tom Gray % When I was in school, I cheated on my metaphysics exam: I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me. -- Woody Allen % When you are in it up to your ears, keep your mouth shut. % When Yahweh your gods has settled you in the land you're about to occupy, and driven out many infidels before you...you're to cut them down and exterminate them. You're to make no compromise with them or show them any mercy. -- Deut. 7:1 (KJV) % When a Banker jumps out of a window, jump after him -- that's where the money is. -- Robespierre % When a fellow says, "It ain't the money but the principle of the thing," it's the money. -- Kim Hubbard % When a fly lands on the ceiling, does it do a half roll or a half loop? % When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere. -- Robert Heinlein % When a shepherd goes to kill a wolf, and takes his dog along to see the sport, he should take care to avoid mistakes. The dog has certain relationships to the wolf the shepherd may have forgotten. -- Robert Pirsig, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" % When all other means of communication fail, try words. % When asked, "If you find so much that is unworthy of reverence in the United States, then why do you live here?" Mencken replied, "Why do men go to zoos?" % When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle. -- Edmund Burke % When choosing between two evils I always like to take the one I've never tried before. -- Mae West % When does summertime come to Minnesota, you ask? Well, last year, I think it was a Tuesday. % When everything has been seen to work, all integrated, you have four more months of work to do. -- C. Portman of ICL Ltd. % When in doubt, do what the President does -- guess. % When in doubt, lead trump. % When in doubt, punt. % When in doubt, use brute force. -- Ken Thompson % When love is gone, there's always justice. And when justice is gone, there's always force. And when force is gone, there's always Mom. Hi, Mom! -- Laurie Anderson % When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment results. -- Calvin Coolidge % When people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together. -- Isaac Asimov, "The Relativity of Wrong", The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. 14 No. 1, Fall 1989 % When someone says "I want a programming language in which I need only say what I wish done," give him a lollipop. -- Alan J. Perlis % When the government bureau's remedies do not match your problem, you modify the problem, not the remedy. % When the wind is great, bow before it; when the wind is heavy, yield to it. % When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part. -- George Bernard Shaw % When we are ignorant of the answer to an important question, one way to proceed is to ask which path of inquiry promises best to facilitate learning. -- Timothy Ferris, "The Mind's Sky: Human Intelligence in a Cosmic Context" % When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary. -- Thomas Paine % When we jumped into Sicily, the units became separated, and I couldn't find anyone. Eventually I stumbled across two colonels, a major, three captains, two lieutenants, and one rifleman, and we secured the bridge. Never in the history of war have so few been led by so many. -- General James Gavin % When you are alone you are all your own. -- Leonardo da Vinci % When you do not know what you are doing, do it neatly. % When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship. -- Harry S Truman % When you make your mark in the world, watch out for guys with erasers. -- The Wall Street Journal % Whenever anyone says, "theoretically", they really mean, "not really". -- Dave Parnas % Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong. -- Oscar Wilde % Where a new invention promises to be useful, it ought to be tried -- Thomas Jefferson % Where humor is concerned there are no standards -- no one can say what is good or bad, although you can be sure that everyone will. -- John Kenneth Galbraith % Where is it written in the Constitution that you may take children from their parents, and parents from their children, and compel them to fight the battles of any war in which the folly or wickedness of government may engage it? -- Daniel Webster, 1814 % Where there's a will, there's an Inheritance Tax. % Wherever you go, there you are. -- Buckaroo Banzai % Whether you can hear it or not The Universe is laughing behind your back -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorada" % While Europe's eye is fix'd on mighty things, The fate of empires and the fall of kings; While quacks of State must each produce his plan, And even children lisp the Rights of Man; Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention, The Rights of Woman merit some attention. -- Robert Burns, Address on "The Rights of Woman", November 26, 1792 % While anyone can admit to themselves they were wrong, the true test is admission to someone else. % While money can't buy happiness, it certainly lets you choose your own form of misery. % While most peoples' opinions change, the conviction of their correctness never does. % While you don't greatly need the outside world, it's still very reassuring to know that it's still there. % Whipit! Whipit good! % Whistler's Law: You never know who is right, but you always know who is in charge. % Who has more leisure than a worm? -- Seneca % Who is W. O. Baker, and why is he saying those terrible things about me? % Who made the world I cannot tell; 'Tis made, and here am I in hell. My hand, though now my knuckles bleed, I never soiled with such a deed. -- A. E. Housman % Who needs companionship when you can sit alone in your room and masturbate? % Who works achieves and who sows reaps. -- Arab Proverb % Who's on first? % Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad. % Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein. -- Book of Proverbs % Why did the Lord give us so much quickness of movement unless it was to avoid responsibility with? % Why does man kill? He kills for food. And not only food: frequently there must be a beverage. -- Woody Allen, "Without Feathers" % Why does opportunity always knock at the least opportune moment? % Why is it that our memory is good enough to retain the least triviality that happens to us, and yet not good enough to recollect how often we have told it to the same person? -- La Rochefoucauld % Why is it that there are so many more horses' asses than there are horses? -- G. Gordon Liddy % Why isn't "palindrome" spelled the same way backwards? % Wiker's Law: Government expands to absorb all available revenue and then some. % Wiker's Law: Government expands to absorb revenue and then some. % Will the highways on the Internet become more few? -- George W. Bush, Concord, NH; January 29, 2000 % Williams and Holland's Law: If enough data is collected, anything may be proven by statistical methods. % Winter is the season in which people try to keep the house as warm as it was in the summer, when they complained about the heat. % With all the fancy scientists in the world, why can't they just once build a nuclear balm? % With clothes the new are best, with friends the old are best. % With every passing hour our solar system comes forty-three thousand miles closer to globular cluster M13 in the constellation Hercules, and still there are some misfits who continue to insist that there is no such thing as progress. -- Ransom K. Ferm % With friends like these, who need hallucinations? % With great effort, you move the rug aside, revealing a trap door. % Without coffee he could not work, or at least he could not have worked in the way he did. In addition to paper and pens, he took with him everywhere as an indispensable article of equipment the coffee machine, which was no less important to him than his table or his white robe. -- Stefan Zweigs, Biography of Balzac % Without ice cream life and fame are meaningless. % Words are the voice of the heart. % Words must be weighed, not counted. % Worst Vegetable of the Year: The brussels sprout. This is also the worst vegetable of next year. -- Steve Rubenstein % Wozencraft's Law: If you make all of your plans on the assumption that a particular thing won't happen -- it will. % Writing code has a place in the human hierarchy worth somewhere above grave robbing and beneath managing. -- Gerald Weinberg % Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down. % Writing in C or C++ is like running a chain saw with all the safety guards removed. -- Bob Gray % Writing programs needs genius to save the last order or the last millisecond. It is great fun, but it is a young man's game. You start it with great enthusiasm when you first start programming, but after ten years you get a bit bored with it, and then you turn to automatic-programming languages and use them because they enable you to get to the heart of the problem that you want to do, instead of having to concentrate on the mechanics of getting the program going as fast as you possibly can, which is really nothing more than doing a sort of crossword puzzle. -- Christopher Strachey, 1962 % Xerox does it again and again and again and ... % Xerox never comes up with anything original. % XML is just data with that Internet shit wrapped around it. -- Joe Romello, by way of Steve Sapovits % Yes, but every time I try to see things your way, I get a headache. % Yes, but which self do you want to be? % Yes, many primitive people still believe this myth...But in today's technical vastness of the future, we can guess that surely things were much different. -- The Firesign Theater % Yes, we have no bonanzas. % Yesterday upon the stair I met a man who wasn't there. He wasn't there again today -- I think he's from the CIA. % Yield to Temptation ... it may not pass your way again. -- Lazarus Long, "Time Enough for Love" % Yinkel, n.: A person who combs his hair over his bald spot, hoping no one will notice. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets" % You can do more with a kind word and a gun than with just a kind word. -- Al Capone % You can make it illegal, but you can't make it unpopular. % You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing viability of FORTRAN. -- Alan Perlis % You can never get all the facts from just one newspaper, and unless you have all the facts, you cannot make proper judgements about what is going on. -- Harry S Truman % You can observe a lot just by watching. -- Yogi Berra % You can often profit from being at a loss for words. -- Frank Tyger % You can take all the impact that science considerations have on funding decisions at NASA, put them in the navel of a flea, and have room left over for a caraway seed and Tony Calio's heart. -- F. Allen % You can tell how far we have to go, when FORTRAN is the language of supercomputers. -- Steven Feiner % You can't antagonize and influence at the same time. % You can't carve your way to success without cutting remarks. % You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus. % You can't get there from here. % You can't have great software without a great team, and most software teams behave like dysfunctional families. -- Jim McCarthy % You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair. % You can't start worrying about what's going to happen. You get spastic enough worrying about what's happening now. -- Lauren Bacall % You can't teach self-esteem. Self-esteem arises from attempting challenging tasks and mastering them. % You can't underestimate the power of fear. -- Tricia Nixon % You cannot build a reputation on what you are going to do. -- Henry Ford % You cannot propel yourself forward by patting yourself on the back. % You cannot succeed by criticizing others. % You couldn't even prove the White House staff sane beyond a reasonable doubt. -- Ed Meese, on the Hinckley verdict % You don't have to explain something you never said. -- Calvin Coolidge % You don't have to think too hard when you talk to teachers. -- J. D. Salinger % You know, you really half give me a buzz. -- Stevie Ray Vaughan, "Honey Bee" (from "Couldn't Stand the Weather") % You know why there are so few sophisticated computer terrorists in the United States? Because your hackers have so much mobility into the establishment. Here, there is no such mobility. If you have the slightest bit of intellectual integrity you cannot support the government.... That's why the best computer minds belong to the opposition. -- an anonymous member of the outlawed Polish trade union, Solidarity % You may call me by my name, Wirth, or by my value, Worth. -- Nicklaus Wirth % You may have heard that a dean is to faculty as a hydrant is to a dog. -- Alfred Kahn % You never know how many friends you have until you rent a house on the beach. % You never finish a program, you just stop working on it. % You or I must yield up his life to Ahrimanes. I would rather it were you. I should have no hesitation in sacrificing my own life to spare yours, but we take stock next week, and it would not be fair on the company. -- J. Wellington Wells % You see but you do not observe. -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in "The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes" % You should emulate your heros, but don't carry it too far. Especially if they are dead. % You should never wear your best trousers when you go out to fight for freedom and liberty. -- Henrick Ibson % You're never too old to become younger. -- Mae West % Your attitude determines your attitude. -- Zig Ziglar, self-improvement doofus % Your conscience never stops you from doing anything. It just stops you from enjoying it. % Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart, what is true. % Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries. % Your reality is lies and balderdash, and I'm glad to say that I have no grasp of it. -- Baron von Munchausen % Your true value depends entirely on what you are compared with. % Youth is the trustee of posterity. % Youth is wasted on the young. -- George Bernard Shaw % Youth is when you blame all your troubles on your parents; maturity is when you learn that everything is the fault of the younger generation. % Zero Defects, n.: The result of shutting down a production line. % Zimmerman's Law of Complaints: Nobody notices when things go right. % Zounds! I was never so bethumped with words since I first called my brother's father dad. -- William Shakespeare, "King John" % Zymurgy's Law of Volunteer Labor: People are always available for work in the past tense. % [In the U. S. Army] An officer does not take an oath of loyalty to the Commander-in-Chief. He takes an oath of loyalty to the Constitution. -- Sam Donaldson % [Leslie Stahl was] a pussy compared to Rather. -- George H. W. Bush % Grep me no patterns and I'll tell you no lines. % After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known quotations. -- H. L. Mencken, on Shakespeare % All successful newspapers are ceaselessly querulous and bellicose. They never defend anyone or anything if they can help it; if the job is forced upon them, they tackle it by denouncing someone or something else. -- H.L. Mencken, Prejudices, 1919. % A man who can laugh, if only at himself, is never really miserable. -- H.L. Mencken, Minority Report, 1956 % College football is a game which would be much more interesting if the faculty played instead of the students, and even more interesting if the trustees played. There would be a great increase in broken arms, legs, and necks, and simultaneously an appreciable diminution in the loss to humanity. -- H. L. Mencken % Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking. -- H. L. Mencken, "Sententiae," The Vintage Mencken, 1955. % Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses. -- H. L. Mencken % Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. -- H.L. Mencken % Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable. -- H. L. Mencken % Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem -- neat, plausible, and wrong. -- H. L. Mencken, "The Divine Afflatus" (16 November 1917) % Equality before the law is probably forever inattainable. It is a noble ideal, but it can never be realized, for what men value in this world is not rights but privileges. -- H.L. Mencken, Minority Report, 1956 % Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable. -- H.L. Mencken, "Prejudices: Third Series", 1922 % For one American husband who maintains a chorus girl in Levantine luxury around the corner, there are hundreds who are as true to their oaths, year in and year out, as so many convicts in the deathhouse. -- H.L. Mencken, In Defense of Women, 1922. % I believe that religion, generally speaking, has been a curse to mankind -- that its modest and greatly overestimated services on the ethical side have been more than overborne by the damage it has done to clear and honest thinking. -- H. L. Mencken, "Forum" (September, 1930) % I go on working for the same reason a hen goes on laying eggs. -- H. L. Mencken % Judge: a law student who marks his own examination papers. -- H.L. Mencken, "Sententiae," The Vintage Mencken, 1955 % Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence. -- attributed to H. L. Mencken % Men have a much better time of it than women. For one thing, they marry later. For another thing, they die earlier. -- H.L. Mencken, A Mencken Chrestomathy, 1949. % My guess is that well over eighty per cent of the human race goes through life without ever having a single original thought. That is to say, they never think anything that has not been thought before, and by thousands. A society made up of individuals who were all capable of original thought would probably be unendurable. The pressure of ideas would simply drive it frantic. -- H.L. Mencken, Minority Report, 1956 % Never let your inferiors do you a favor. It will be extremely costly. -- H.L. Mencken, "Sententiae," The Vintage Mencken, 1955. % No government is ever really in favor of so-called civil rights. It always tries to whittle them down. They are preserved under all governments, insofar as they survive at all, by special classes of fanatics, often highly dubious. -- H.L. Mencken, Minority Report, 1956 % No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public. -- Attributed to H.L. Mencken. % Nowhere in the world is superiority more easily attained, or more eagerly admitted. The chief business of the nation, as a nation, is the setting up of heroes, mainly bogus. -- H.L. Mencken, Prejudices, 1923. % Once he had one leg in the White House and the nation trembled under his roars. Now he is a tinpot pope in the Coca-Cola belt and a brother to the forlorn pastors who belabor halfwits in galvanized iron tabernacles behind the railroad yards. -- H. L. Mencken, writing of William Jennings Bryan, counsel for the supporters of Tennessee's anti-evolution law at the Scopes "Monkey Trial" in 1925. % Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them. -- H. L. Mencken % Sin is a dangerous toy in the hands of the virtuous. It should be left to the congenitally sinful, who know when to play with it and when to let it alone. -- H. L. Mencken % Suppose two-thirds of the members of the national House of Representatives were dumped into the Washington garbage incinerator tomorrow, what would we lose to offset our gain of their salaries and the salaries of their parasites? -- H. L. Mencken, "Prejudices, Fourth Series" (1924) % The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other animal. -- H. L. Mencken % The chief contribution of Protestantism to human thought is its massive proof that God is a bore. -- H.L. Mencken, "The Aesthetic Recoil," American Mercury, July, 1931. % The great artists of the world are never Puritans, and seldom even ordinarily respectable. No virtuous man -- that is, virtuous in the YMCA sense -- has ever painted a picture worth looking at, or written a symphony worth hearing, or a book worth reading, and it is highly improbable that the thing has ever been done by a virtuous woman. -- H.L. Mencken, Prejudices, 1919. % The highfalutin aims of democracy, whether real or imaginary, are always assumed to be identical with its achievements. This, of course, is sheer hallucination. Not one of those aims, not even the aim of giving every adult a vote, has been realized. It has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good. -- H.L. Mencken, Minority Report, 1956 % The most costly of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind. -- H.L. Mencken, A Mencken Chrestomathy, 1949. % The notion that science does not concern itself with first causes -- that it leaves the field to theology or metaphysics, and confines itself to mere effects -- this notion has no support in the plain facts. If it could, science would explain the origin of life on earth at once -- and there is every reason to believe that it will do so on some not too remote tomorrow. To argue that gaps in knowledge which will confront the seeker must be filled, not by patient inquiry, but by intuition or revelation, is simply to give ignorance a gratuitous and preposterous dignity.... -- H. L. Mencken, 1930 % The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear -- fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants beyond everything else is safety. -- H.L. Mencken, Prejudices, 1920. % The truth is that Christian theology, like every other theology, is not only opposed to the scientific spirit; it is also opposed to all other attempts at rational thinking. Not by accident does Genesis 3 make the father of knowledge a serpent -- slimy, sneaking and abominable. Since the earliest days the church as an organization has thrown itself violently against every effort to liberate the body and mind of man. It has been, at all times and everywhere, the habitual and incorrigible defender of bad governments, bad laws, bad social theories, bad institutions. It was, for centuries, an apologist for slavery, as it was the apologist for the divine right of kings. -- H. L. Mencken % There is, in fact, no reason to believe that any given natural phenomenon, however marvelous it may seem today, will remain forever inexplicable. Soon or late the laws governing the production of life itself will be discovered in the laboratory, and man may set up business as a creator on his own account. The thing, indeed, is not only conceivable; it is even highly probable. -- H. L. Mencken, 1930 % To sum up: 1. The cosmos is a gigantic fly-wheel making 10,000 revolutions a minute. 2. Man is a sick fly taking a dizzy ride on it. 3. Religion is the theory that the wheel was designed and set spinning to give him the ride. -- H. L. Mencken, Coda from "Smart Set", 1920 % When women kiss it always reminds one of prize-fighters shaking hands. -- H. L. Mencken, "Sententiae," The Vintage Mencken, 1955. % When A annoys or injures B on the pretense of saving or improving X, A is a scoundrel. -- H. L. Mencken, "Newspaper Days: 1899-1906" (1941) % Whenever you hear a man speak of his love for his country it is a sign that he expects to be paid for it. -- H.L. Mencken, "Sententiae," The Vintage Mencken, 1955. % From Fronto I learned to observe what envy, and duplicity, and hypocrisy are in a tyrant, and that generally those among us who are called Patricians are rather deficient in paternal affection. -- Marcus Aurelius, "The Meditations", Book I % The time of a man's life is as a point; the substance of it ever flowing, the sense obscure; and the whole composition of the body tending to corruption. -- Marcus Aurelius, "The Meditations", Book II % That [life] which is longest of duration, and that which is shortest, both come to one effect. -- Marcus Aurelius, "The Meditations", Book II % You must, therefore, hasten, not only because you are every day nearer to death, but also because your intellect, which enables you to know the true nature of things and to order all your actions by that knowledge, wastes and decays daily -- or, may fail you before you die. -- Marcus Aurelius, "The Meditations", Book II % Never esteem of anything as profitable, which shell ever constrain thee to break thy faith, or to lose thy modestroy; to hate any man, to suspect to curse, to dissemble, to lust after anything, that requireth the secret of walls or veils. -- Marcus Aurelius, "The Meditations", Book III % He who prefers, before all things, his rational part and spirit... he shall never lament and exclaim; never sigh; he shall never want either solitude or company; and, which is chiefest of all, he shall live without either desire or fear. -- Marcus Aurelius, "The Meditations", Book III % Let no act be done without a purpose, nor otherwise than according to the perfect principles of art. -- Marcus Aurelius, "The Meditations", Book IV % Take away your opinion, and you then take away the complaint, "I have been harmed." Take away the complaint, "I have been harmed," and the harm is taken away. -- Marcus Aurelius, "The Meditations", Book IV % Many grains of frankincense on the same altar: one falls before, another falls after; but it makes no difference. -- Marcus Aurelius, "The Meditations", Book IV % Do not act as if you were going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over you. While you live, while it is in your power, be good. -- Marcus Aurelius, "The Meditations", Book IV % How much trouble he avoids who does not look to see what his neighbour says or does or thinks, but only to what he does himself, that it may be just and pure. -- Marcus Aurelius, "The Meditations", Book IV % Everything which is in any way beautiful is beautiful in itself, and terminates in itself, not having praise as part of itself. Neither worse, then, nor better is a thing made by being praised. -- Marcus Aurelius, "The Meditations", Book IV % The words which were formerly familiar are now antiquated: so also the names of those who were famed of old, are now in a manner antiquated... For all things soon pass away and become a mere tale, and complete oblivion soon buries them. -- Marcus Aurelius, "The Meditations", Book IV % Everything is only for a day, both that which remembers and that which is remembered. -- Marcus Aurelius, "The Meditations", Book IV % Thou art a little soul bearing about a corpse, as Epictetus used to say. -- Marcus Aurelius, "The Meditations", Book IV % Time is like a river made up of the events which happen, and a violent stream; for as soon as a thing has been seen, it is carried away, and another comes in its place, and this will be carried away too. -- Marcus Aurelius, "The Meditations", Book IV % Be like the promontory against which the waves continually break, but it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it. -- Marcus Aurelius, "The Meditations", Book IV % How easy it is to repel and to wipe away every impression which is troublesome or unsuitable, and immediately to be in all tranquility. -- Marcus Aurelius, "The Meditations", Book V % To seek what is impossible is madness: and it is impossible that the bad should not do something of this kind. -- Marcus Aurelius, "The Meditations", Book V % The best way of avenging yourself is not to become like the wrong-doer. -- Marcus Aurelius, "The Meditations", Book VI % If any man is able to convince me and show me that I do not think or act right, I will gladly change; for I seek the truth by which no man was ever injured. But he is injured who abides in his error and ignorance. -- Marcus Aurelius, "The Meditations", Book VI % Let not future things disturb you, for you will come to them, if it shall be necessary, having with you the same reason which you now use for present things. -- Marcus Aurelius, "The Meditations", Book VII % Receive wealth or prosperity without arrogance; and be ready to let it go. -- Marcus Aurelius, "The Meditations", Book VIII % He often acts unjustly who does not do a certain thing; not only he who does a certain thing. -- Marcus Aurelius, "The Meditations", Book IX % It is your duty to leave another man's wrongful act there, where it is. -- Marcus Aurelius, "The Meditations", Book IX % America is a ball of Appalachia with a thin coating of civility. -- Rich Simons % American justice is measured by the amount of money you are willing to risk to make your point. -- Rich Simons % America has become a tired old whore, selling her institutions like back alley blowjobs to fat cat businessmen for their pocket change. -- Rich Simons % But in the end I remind myself that people are merely shaved apes, and pretty much spend their time masturbating and throwing feces. -- Rich Simons % I am waiting for the "Internet Beermeister," so hackers can wage a "Denial of Cerveza" attack. -- Rich Simons % Money doesn't stretch -- if somebody makes a killing, somebody else loses his shirt. -- Rich Simons % Never work anywhere where you can't find the guy in charge and break his nose. -- Rich Simons % Nothing is more dangerous than a man whose actions are the responsibility of his deity. -- Rich Simons % Some people hold their noses when used as toilet paper by the shadowy overlords; some people inhale the heady aroma with gusto. -- Rich Simons % Those who sacrifice liberty for the sake of safety deserve neither, but those who sacrifice creativity for safety end up with a velvet painting of Elvis. -- Rich Simons % Windows is a manifestation of commerce; Unix is a manifestation of culture. -- Rich Simons % Working in Windows is like baking moose shit pie. Sure, you're baking pies, but look what's in 'em. -- Rich Simons % I prefer the company of men without ovaries. -- Rich Simons % The American business executive resembles the Ferengi more each day. In another 20 years, there will be dorm rooms full of toothless hillbillies at the Amazon fulfillment centers and the Walmarts. -- Rich Simons % Be cautious of those who give you advice. That's my advice to you. -- Steve Mayr % If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Sounds like a plan. -- Steve Mayr % If you take the easy way out, nothing will come easy. -- Steve Mayr % By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. -- George Carlin % Here's a bumper sticker I'd like to see: "We are the proud parents of a child whose self-esteem is sufficient that he doesn't need us promoting his minor scholastic achievements on the back of our car." -- George Carlin % Honesty may be the best policy, but it's important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy. -- George Carlin % I have as much authority as the Pope, I just don't have as many people who believe it. -- George Carlin % I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death. -- George Carlin % I think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately. -- George Carlin % If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little. -- George Carlin % If God had intended us not to masturbate, he would've made our arms shorter. -- George Carlin % If this is the best God can do, I'm not impressed. -- George Carlin % Just because your tattoo has Chinese characters in it doesn't make you Spiritual. It's right above the crack of your butt. And it translates to "beef with broccoli." The last time you did anything spiritual, you were praying to God you weren't pregnant. You're not spiritual. -- George Carlin % The very existence of flame-throwers proves that some time, somewhere, someone said to themselves, "You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I'm just not close enough to get the job done." -- George Carlin % There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls. -- George Carlin % Anybody who wants religion is welcome to it, as far as I'm concerned -- I support your right to enjoy it. However, I would appreciate it if you exhibited more respect for the rights of those people who do not wish to share your dogma, rapture or necrodestination. -- Frank Zappa, "The Real Frank Zappa Book" % Don't eat yellow snow. -- Frank Zappa % Hey, you know something, people? I'm not black, but there's a whole lot of times I wish I could say I'm not white. -- Frank Zappa % I never set out to be weird. It was always other people who called me weird. -- Frank Zappa % I think pop music has done more for oral intercourse than anything else that has ever happened, and vice versa. -- Frank Zappa % If you wind up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your mother, your Dad, your priest, to some guy on television, to any of the people telling you how to do your shit, then you *deserve* it. If you want to be a schmuck, be a schmuck -- but don't wait around for respect from other people -- a schmuck is a schmuck. -- Frank Zappa, "The Real Frank Zappa Book" % In the future, etiquette will become more and more important. That doesn't mean knowing which fork to pick up -- I mean basic consideration for the rights of other animals (human beings included) and the willingness, whenever practical, to tolerate the other guy's idiosyncrasies. -- Frank Zappa, "The Real Frank Zappa Book" % Is that a real poncho? I mean, is that a Mexican poncho or a Sears poncho? Hmmm... No fooling. -- Frank Zappa, "Camarillo Brillo" % Most people wouldn't know music if it came up and bit them on the ass. -- Frank Zappa % Modern Americans behave as if intelligence were some sort of hideous deformity. -- Frank Zappa % Most rock journalism is people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk for the people who can't read. -- Frank Zappa % My best advice to anyone who wants to raise a happy, mentally healthy child is: Keep him or her as far away from a church as you can. -- Frank Zappa % Remember, Information is not knowledge; Knowledge is not Wisdom; Wisdom is not truth; Truth is not beauty; Beauty is not love; Love is not music; Music is the best. -- Frank Zappa % Remember, there's a big difference between kneeling down and bending over. -- Frank Zappa % Take the Kama Sutra. How many people died from the Kama Sutra as opposed to the Bible? Who wins? -- Frank Zappa % The bassoon is one of my favorite instruments. It has a medieval aroma, like the days when everything used to sound like that. Some people crave baseball...I find this unfathomable, but I can easily understand why a person could get excited about playing the bassoon. -- Frank Zappa % The Book says BURN and DESTROY repent and redeem and revenge and deploy and rumble thee forth to the land of the unbelieving scum 'cause they don't go for what's in the Book and that makes 'em BAD. -- Frank Zappa % The computer can't tell you the emotional story. It can give you the exact mathematical design, but what's missing is the eyebrows. -- Frank Zappa % The essence of Christianity is told to us in the Garden of Eden history. The fruit that was forbidden was on the Tree of Knowledge. The subtext is, All the suffering you have is because you wanted to find out what was going on. You could be in the Garden of Eden if you had just kept your fucking mouth shut and hadn't asked any questions. -- Frank Zappa % There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life. -- Frank Zappa % There is no such thing as a dirty word. Nor is there a word so powerful, that it's going to send the listener to the lake of fire upon hearing it. -- Frank Zappa % Our brains have just one scale, and we resize our experiences to fit. -- Randall Munroe, xkcd % There's no such thing as bad language. I don't believe that any more. That's ridiculous. They call it a "debasing of the language?" No! We are adults. These are the words that WE use, to express frustration, rage, anger -- in order that we don't pick up a tire iron and beat the shit out of someone. -- Lewis Black % I don't know if you noticed, but our two-party system is a bowl of shit looking in the mirror at itself. -- Lewis Black % There is a big difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament, and that is, the New Testament God is kind of a great guy (He is!), especially when you compare him to the Old Testament God, who is a prick. -- Lewis Black % The reason you should go to Las Vegas is because, for only the second time, the second time, ever, they have rebuilt Sodom and Gomorrah. It's back!! And you have the opportunity to see it before it turns to salt. And you wanna get out there before the Christian Right finds out what we're up to and shits all over it. -- Lewis Black % [The Weather Channel] is the most watched cable channel in America. I'll repeat that. It is the most watched cable channel in America. They were worried about the terrorists immobilizing us, and a portion of our countrymen watch weather. 'Kay, you don't get any more immobile than that... unless you're in a goddamn coma. That means you're saying, "I'd go to the window, but it's too far." If you want to know what the weather is you go to a window and stick your hand out and if you want to know what the temperature is you drive by a bank. -- Lewis Black % There's no such thing as soy milk. It's soy juice. But they couldn't sell soy juice, so they called it soy milk. Because anytime you say soy juice, you actually... start to gag. -- Lewis Black % You don't want another Enron? Here's the law: If you have a company, and it can't explain, in one sentence... what it does... it's illegal! -- Lewis Black % The one thing I think we learned this year is that the Democrats and the Republicans are completely worthless. -- Lewis Black % If mzero doesn't need to be a single, unambiguous value, then the algebra of monads would seem to be a bit hinky. -- A tweet from @djspiewak (Daniel J. Spiewak) % A monad is just a monoid in the category of endofunctors, what's the problem? -- Saunders Mac Lane, filtered through James Iry % Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance. -- Confucius % Rotten wood cannot be carved. -- Confucius (Analects, Book 5, Chapter 9) % Men's natures are alike. It is their habits that carry them far apart. -- Confucius % Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in getting up every time we do. -- Confucius % It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop. -- Confucius % We like to think we spend most of our time power-typing. "I'm being productive, I'm writing programs!" But, we don't. We spend most of our time looking into the abyss, saying, "My God, what have I done?" -- Douglas Crockford, during his keynote at YUIConf 2011 % "That hardly ever happens" is another way of saying, "It happens". -- Douglas Crockford, during his keynote at YUIConf 2011 % I used to think everyone should learn programming. When I first starting programming...I thought, "Wow, this is such an amazing way to organize information! Everybody should learn to do this!" I don't think that any more. I think there has to be something seriously wrong with you, in order to do this work. A normal person, once they've looked into the abyss, will say, "I'm done. This is stupid. I'm going to go to something else." But not us, 'cause there's something really wrong with us. -- Douglas Crockford, during his keynote at YUIConf 2011 % Confusion must be avoided. Confusion is the enemy. Confusion is what causes bugs and security mishaps and all the other things that make us miserable. -- Douglas Crockford, during his keynote at YUIConf 2011 % Write [code] in a way that clearly communicates your intent. -- Douglas Crockford, during his keynote at YUIConf 2011 % Geriatric Relativity: The observation that time goes faster the older you get. -- Brian M. Clapper % Critical thinking is the antidote to gullibility and credulity, which explains why politicians aren't fond of critical thinking. -- Brian M. Clapper % The president of the United States has claimed, on more than one occasion, to be in dialogue with God. If he said that he was talking to God through his hairdryer, this would precipitate a national emergency. I fail to see how the addition of a hairdryer makes the claim more ridiculous or offensive. -- Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation % Man is manifestly not the measure of all things. This universe is shot through with mystery. The very fact of its being, and of our own, is a mystery absolute, and the only miracle worthy of the name. -- Sam Harris, "The End of Faith" % What is so unnerving about the candidacy of Sarah Palin is the degree to which she represents -- and her supporters celebrate -- the joyful marriage of confidence and ignorance . . . Ask yourself: how has "elitism" become a bad word in American politics? There is simply no other walk of life in which extraordinary talent and rigorous training are denigrated. We want elite pilots to fly our planes, elite troops to undertake our most critical missions, elite athletes to represent us in competition and elite scientists to devote the most productive years of their lives to curing our diseases. And yet, when it comes time to vest people with even greater responsibilities, we consider it a virtue to shun any and all standards of excellence. When it comes to choosing the people whose thoughts and actions will decide the fates of millions, then we suddenly want someone just like us, someone fit to have a beer with, someone down-to-earth -- in fact, almost anyone, provided that he or she doesn't seem too intelligent or well educated. -- Sam Harris % Unreason is now ascendant in the United States -- in our schools, in our courts, and in each branch of the federal government. -- Sam Harris, "The Politics of Ignorance" (2005) % The point at which we fully acquire our humanity, and our capacity to suffer, remains an open question, but anyone who would dogmatically insist that these traits must arise coincident with the moment of conception has nothing to contribute, apart from his ignorance, to this debate. -- Sam Harris Water is two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen. This seems as value-free an utterance as human beings ever make. But what do we do when someone doubts the truth of this proposition? Ok, all we can do is appeal to scientific values. The value of understanding the world. The value of evidence. The value of logical consistency. What if someone says, "Well, that’s not how I choose to think about water." Ok, what can we say to such a person? Ok, all we can do is appeal to scientific values. And if he doesn’t share those values, the conversation is over. Ok, if someone doesn’t value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn’t value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic? -- Sam Harris, during a Notre Dame debate with William Lane Craig % I love living in the future. -- Bill Cheswick % Sendmail(8) proved that if you polish a turd long enough, you may eventually end up with a shiny coprolite. -- Bill Cheswick % Salad is what food eats. -- Bill Cheswick % Angels we have heard on High/Tell us to go out and Buy. -- Tom Lehrer % The Army has carried the American ... ideal to its logical conclusion. Not only do they prohibit discrimination on the grounds of race, creed and color, but also on ability. -- Tom Lehrer % If, after hearing my songs, just one human being is inspired to say something nasty to a friend, or perhaps to strike a loved one, it will all have been worth the while. -- Tom Lehrer % I'm not tempted to write a song about George W. Bush. I couldn't figure out what sort of song I would write. That's the problem: I don't want to satirise George Bush and his puppeteers, I want to vaporize them. -- Tom Lehrer (2003) % I basically like "comments," though they can seem a little jarring: spit- flecked rants that are appended to a product that at least tries for a measure of objectivity and dignity. It's as though when you order a sirloin steak, it comes with a side of maggots. -- Gene Weingarten, Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post columnist % I disagree with those who suggest that we permanently close down the U.S. mail on the grounds that it can kill you. That is sheer hysteria. I think we should permanently close down the U.S. mail on the grounds that it has been making us sick for quite a while. -- Gene Weingarten, Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post columnist % Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job. -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" % Bypasses are devices that allow some people to dash from point A to point B very fast while other people dash from point B to point A very fast. People living at point C, being a point directly in between, are often given to wonder what's so great about point A that so many people from point B are so keen to get there and what's so great about point B that so many people from point A are so keen to get THERE. They often wish that people would just once and for all work out where the hell they wanted to be. -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" % Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea ... -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" % Men were real men, women were real women, and small, furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were REAL small, furry creatures from Alpha Centauri. Spirits were brave, men boldly split infinitives that no man had split before. Thus was the Empire forged. -- "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy", Douglas Adams % Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space. -- "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" % The word "spine" is, of course, an anagram of "penis". This is true in almost fifty percent of the languages of the Galaxy, and many people have attempted to explain why. Usually these explanations get bogged down in silly puns about "standing erect". -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" % There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened. -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" % With a rubber duck, one's never alone. -- "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" % Inspiration usually comes during work, rather than before it. -- Madeleine L'Engle % That's the way things come clear. All of a sudden. And then you realize how obvious they've been all along. -- Madeleine L'Engle % When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability... To be alive is to be vulnerable. -- Madeleine L'Engle % Because you're not what I would have you be, I blind myself to who, in truth, you are. -- Madeleine L'Engle % A good photograph is knowing where to stand. -- Ansel Adams % A photograph is usually looked at -- seldom looked into. -- Ansel Adams % A true photograph need not be explained, nor can it be contained in words. -- Ansel Adams % Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships. -- Ansel Adams % In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration. -- Ansel Adams % These people live again in print as intensely as when their images were captured on old dry plates of sixty years ago... I am walking in their alleys, standing in their rooms and sheds and workshops, looking in and out of their windows. Any they in turn seem to be aware of me. -- Ansel Adams % When I'm ready to make a photograph, I think I quite obviously see in my minds eye something that is not literally there in the true meaning of the word. I'm interested in something which is built up from within, rather than just extracted from without. -- Ansel Adams When in doubt, tell the truth. -- Mark Twain % A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining and wants it back the minute it begins to rain. -- Mark Twain % A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read. -- Mark Twain % [He was] a solemn, unsmiling, sanctimonious old iceberg who looked like he was waiting for a vacancy in the Trinity. -- Mark Twain % Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. -- Mark Twain % Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. -- Mark Twain % God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board. -- Mark Twain % I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up. -- Mark Twain, "The Innocents Abroad" % I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did. I said I didn't know. -- Mark Twain % If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man. -- Mark Twain % It is by the fortune of God that, in this country, we have three benefits: freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and the wisdom never to use either. -- Mark Twain % It is the difference of opinion that makes horse races. -- Mark Twain % It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech. -- Mark Twain % Man is the only animal that blushes -- or needs to. -- Mark Twain % My father was an amazing man. The older I got, the smarter he got. -- Mark Twain % The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter. -- Mark Twain % It could probably be shown, by facts and figures, that there is no distinctly native criminal class except Congress. -- Mark Twain % There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist. -- Mark Twain % There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact. -- Mark Twain % They spell it "da Vinci" and pronounce it "da Vinchy". Foreigners always spell better than they pronounce. -- Mark Twain % Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer. -- Mark Twain % Wagner's music is better than it sounds. -- Mark Twain % When I was younger, I could remember anything, whether it had happened or not; but my faculties are decaying now and soon I shall be so I cannot remember any but the things that never happened. It is sad to go to pieces like this but we all have to do it. -- Mark Twain % Whenever the literary German dives into a sentence, that is the last you are going to see of him until he emerges on the other side of the Atlantic with his verb in his mouth. -- Mark Twain in "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" % Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform. -- Mark Twain in "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" % Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved. -- Mark Twain % He is now rising from affluence to poverty. -- Mark Twain % A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds. -- Mark Twain % A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar. -- Mark Twain % Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand. -- Mark Twain % But who prays for Satan? Who, in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most? -- Mark Twain % Civilization is the limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessities. -- Mark Twain % Drag your thoughts away from your troubles... by the ears, by the heels, or any other way you can manage it. -- Mark Twain % If the world comes to an end, I want to be in Cincinnati. Everything comes there ten years later. -- Mark Twain % Martyrdom covers a multitude of sins. -- Mark Twain % Patriot: the person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about. -- Mark Twain % Prosperity is the best protector of principle. -- Mark Twain % Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain % The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane. -- Mark Twain % There are basically two types of people. People who accomplish things, and people who claim to have accomplished things. The first group is less crowded. -- Mark Twain % To be good is noble; but to show others how to be good is nobler and no trouble. -- Mark Twain % To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence. -- Mark Twain % Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing wrong with this, except that it ain't so. -- Mark Twain % We have the best government that money can buy. -- Mark Twain % When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear. -- Mark Twain % When people do not respect us we are sharply offended; yet in his private heart no man much respects himself. -- Mark Twain % When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained. -- Mark Twain % Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. -- Mark Twain % Wit is the sudden marriage of ideas which before their union were not perceived to have any relation. -- Mark Twain % [Silvio Berlusconi] is so thoroughly corrupt, every time he smiles, an angel gets gonorrhea. -- Dylan Moran % [Adulthood] feels like ... walking around in a desert, with a bag over your head, bumping into people who rob you as they bore you. -- Dylan Moran % Tequila isn't even a drink. It's just a way of getting the police round, without using the phone. -- Dylan Moran % I basically think I'm what would've happened if James Dean had lived, and discovered carbohydrates and orthopedic shoes. -- Dylan Moran % When did ignorance become a point of view? -- Dilbert (Scott Adams) % There's no kill switch on awesome. -- Dilbert (Scott Adams) % You want a toe? I can get you a toe, believe me. There are ways, Dude. You don't wanna know about it, believe me. -- Walter to The Dude ("The Big Lebowski") % Hey, careful, man, there's a beverage here! -- The Dude ("The Big Lebowski") % "The Dude abides." I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners. Shoosh. I sure hope he makes the finals. -- The Stranger ("The Big Lebowski") % We’ve bought into the idea that education is about training and "success", defined monetarily, rather than learning to think critically and to challenge. We should not forget that the true purpose of education is to make minds, not careers. A culture that does not grasp the vital interplay between morality and power, which mistakes management techniques for wisdom, which fails to understand that the measure of a civilization is its compassion, not its speed or ability to consume, condemns itself to death. -- Chris Hedges, "Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle" % Inverted totalitarianism, unlike classical totalitarianism, does not revolve around a demagogue or charismatic leader. It finds expression in the anonymity of the Corporate State. It purports to cherish democracy, patriotism, and the Constitution while manipulating internal levers. -- Chris Hedges, "Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle" % Washington has become our Versailles. We are ruled, entertained, and informed by courtiers -- and the media has evolved into a class of courtiers. The Democrats, like the Republicans, are mostly courtiers. Our pundits and experts, at least those with prominent public platforms, are courtiers. We are captivated by the hollow stagecraft of political theater as we are ruthlessly stripped of power. It is smoke and mirrors, tricks and con games, and the purpose behind it is deception. -- Chris Hedges, "Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle" % The split in America, rather than simply economic, is between those who embrace reason, who function in the real world of cause and effect, and those who, numbed by isolation and despair, now seek meaning in a mythical world of intuition, a world that is no longer reality-based, a world of magic. -- Chris Hedges, American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America % Hope has a cost. Hope is not comfortable or easy. Hope requires personal risk. It is not about the right attitude. Hope is not about peace of mind. Hope is action. Hope is doing something. The more futile, the more useless, the more irrelevant and incomprehensible an act of rebellion is, the vaster and more potent hope becomes. Hope never makes sense. Hope is weak, unorganized and absurd. Hope, which is always nonviolent, exposes in its powerlessness, the lies, fraud and coercion employed by the state. Hope knows that an injustice visited on our neighbor is an injustice visited on all of us. Hope posits that people are drawn to the good by the good. This is the secret of hope's power. Hope demands for others what we demand for ourselves. Hope does not separate us from them. Hope sees in our enemy our own face. -- Chris Hedges % Racism towards Muslims is as evil as anti-Semitism, but try to express this simple truth on a partisan Palestinian or Israeli website. -- Chris Hedges, Death of the Liberal Class % A society without the means to detect lies and theft soon squanders its liberty and freedom. -- Chris Hedges % Really, the comforting side in most conspiracy theory arguments is the one claiming that anyone who's in power has any plan at all. -- xkcd #1081 (mouseover text) % A person who is nice to you, but rude to a waiter, is not a nice person. (This is very important. Pay attention. It never fails.) -- Dave Barry % Meetings are an addictive, highly self-indulgent activity that corporations and other large organizations habitually engage in only because they cannot actually masturbate. -- Dave Barry % Styling mousse, which is gunk that looks like shaving cream ... was invented by a French hair professional whom, if you met him, you would want to punch directly in the mouth. -- Dave Barry % There are two kinds of solar-heat systems: "passive" systems collect the sunlight that hits your home, and "active" systems collect the sunlight that hits your neighbors' homes, too. -- Dave Barry, "Postpetroleum Guzzler" % There is more money being spent on breast implants and Viagra than on Alzheimer's research. This means that by 2030, there should be a large elderly population with perky boobs and huge erections and absolutely no recollection of what to do with them. -- Dave Barry % It is inhumane, in my opinion, to force people who have a genuine medical need for coffee to wait in line behind people who apparently view it as some kind of recreational activity. -- Dave Barry % No matter what happens, somebody will find a way to take it too seriously. -- Dave Barry % Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight Protestants, today it's open to anybody who owns hideous clothing. -- Dave Barry % People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them. -- Dave Barry % It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. -- Albert Einstein % Imagination is more important than knowledge. -- Albert Einstein % If A equals success, then the formula is: A = X + Y + Z. X is work. Y is play. Z is keep your mouth shut. -- Albert Einstein % 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. -- Albert Einstein % The tyranny of the ignoramuses is insurmountable and assured for all time. -- Albert Einstein % Man usually avoids attributing cleverness to somebody else, unless it is an enemy. -- A. Einstein % My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind. -- Albert Einstein % Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it. -- Albert Einstein, as quoted by Virgil Henshaw in "Albert Einstein: Philosopher Scientist" (1949) % 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. -- Albert Einstein % The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax. -- Albert Einstein % The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. -- Albert Einstein % The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible. -- Albert Einstein % The only real valuable thing is intuition. -- Albert Einstein % God may be subtle, but He isn't plain mean. -- Albert Einstein % God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically. -- Albert Einstein % Dear Posterity, If you have not become more just, more peaceful, and generally more rational than we are (or were) -- why then, the Devil take you. -- Albert Einstein, message for a time capsule % Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen. -- Albert Einstein % As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. -- Albert Einstein % An autocratic system of coercion, in my opinion, soon degenerates. For force always attracts men of low morality, and I believe it to be an invariable rule that tyrants of genius are succeeded by scoundrels. -- Albert Einstein, The World As I See It (1931) % If I had only known, I would have been a locksmith. -- Albert Einstein % I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. -- Albert Einstein % A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be. -- Albert Einstein % All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual. -- Albert Einstein % An empty stomach is not a good political adviser. -- Albert Einstein % Any intelligent fool can make things bigger and more complex... It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction. -- Albert Einstein % As far as I'm concerned, I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue. -- Albert Einstein % Concern for man and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavors. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations. -- Albert Einstein % Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater. -- Albert Einstein % Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school. -- Albert Einstein % Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted. -- Albert Einstein % Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. -- Albert Einstein % He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice. -- Albert Einstein % I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity. -- Albert Einstein % If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough. -- Albert Einstein % People think my friend George is weird because he wears sideburns...behind his ears. I think he's weird because he wears false teeth...with braces on them. -- Steven Wright % I came home the other night and tried to open the door with my car keys...and the building started up. So I took it out for a drive. A cop pulled me over for speeding. He asked me where I live. I said, "Here." -- Steven Wright % I was playing poker the other night... with Tarot cards. I got a full house and 4 people died. -- Steven Wright % My brother sent me a postcard the other day with this big satellite photo of the entire earth on it. On the back it said: "Wish you were here". -- Steven Wright % You can't have everything. Where would you put it? -- Steven Wright % You know that feeling when you're leaning back on a stool and it starts to tip over? Well, that's how I feel all the time. -- Steven Wright % I'm making wine at home, but I make it out of raisins, so it'll be aged automatically. -- Steven Wright % Babies don't need a vacation, but I still see 'em at the beach. Pisses me off. -- Steven Wright % Sponges grow in the ocean. That kills me. I wonder how much deeper the ocean would be, if that didn't happen. -- Steven Wright % It doesn't matter what temperature a room is, it's always room temperature. -- Steven Wright % I remember the day the candle shop burned down. Everyone just stood around and sang, "Happy birthday." -- Steven Wright % If you shoot a mime, should you use a silencer? -- Steven Wright % Once I stayed in a hotel where the pool was on the 23rd floor. I couldn't believe how deep it was. -- Steven Wright % There's a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore looking like an idiot. -- Steven Wright % What's another word for, "thesaurus"? -- Steven Wright % Whenever I think about the past, it's just bring back so many memories. -- Steven Wright % Once I was walking through the woods, and I saw a rabbit standing in front of a candle, making shadows of people on a tree. I said, "Don't be so sarcastic." -- Steven Wright % I'm a peripheral visionary. I can see into the future, but just way off to the side. -- Steven Wright % It's hard for me to buy clothes, 'cause I'm not my size. -- Steven Wright % Small keyboards make for big mistakes. -- Joe Gunn % The last refuge of the insomniac is a sense of superiority to the sleeping world. -- Leonard Cohen % Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash. -- Leonard Cohen % Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as a secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh. -- Leonard Cohen, The Favorite Game % I don't consider myself a pessimist. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel soaked to the skin. -- Leonard Cohen % The older I get, the surer I am that I’m not running the show. -- Leonard Cohen % Deprivation is the mother of poetry. -- Leonard Cohen, The Favorite Game % We are so lightly here. It is in love that we are made. In love we disappear. -- Leonard Cohen % There is a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in. -- Leonard Cohen, Selected Poems, 1956-1968 % This is a broken world, and we live with broken hearts and broken lives, but still that is no alibi for anything. On the contrary, you have to stand up and say, "Hallelujah," under those circumstances. -- Leonard Cohen % A human is a system for converting dust billions of years ago into dust billions of years from now via a roundabout process which involves checking email a lot. -- Randall Munroe (xkcd #1173) % Among the many invectives I invent when people piss me off, this is my current favorite: 'Fuck yer own throat, you piss-dribbling monkey dick!' I'm hoping it catches on with you folks. -- Jon Miller, a.k.a., Doc Spender % Well, vegans, as you know, don't have eggs, meat, dairy, or senses of humor. -- Peter Sagal, on NPR's "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" (21 Sep, 2013) % An ounce of perversion is worth a pound of pure. -- Dr. Mark Crislip % Holy water is often contaminated with bacteria and, as a result, I hypothesize that Pasteur went to Hell, since, if he'd gone to heaven, all the water would be clean." -- Dr. Mark Crislip % It is ignoring the nuances of a complicated topic to grind your axe that annoys me. -- Dr. Mark Crislip % Anybody who thinks that homeopathy is appropriate therapy for anything but thirst is ... unfit to care for patients. -- Dr. Mark Crislip % That woman speaks eight languages and can't say "no" in any of them. -- Dorothy Parker % There's a hell of a distance between wise-cracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words. -- Dorothy Parker % If you have any young friends who aspire to become writers, the second greatest favor you can do them is to present them with copies of The Elements of Style. The first greatest, of course, is to shoot them now, while they’re happy. -- Dorothy Parker % I require three things in a man: he must be handsome, ruthless, and stupid. -- Dorothy Parker % That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment. -- Dorothy Parker % The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. -- Dorothy Parker % Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone. -- Dorothy Parker % This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force. -- Dorothy Parker, on Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" % It's not the tragedies that kill us; it's the messes. -- Dorothy Parker % All those writers who write about their own childhood! Gentle God, if I wrote about mine you wouldn't sit in the same room with me. -- Dorothy Parker % Sometimes, a grand adventure begins when you lick the evil. -- Joe Pizzirusso % Angels are very good at math. That's why they call them arc-angels. -- Steven Novella (The Skeptics Guide to the Universe) % Girls are complicated. The instruction manual that comes with girls is 800 pages, with chapters 14, 19, 26 and 32 missing, and it's badly translated, hard to figure out. -- Huge Laurie, on raising a girl % There is no material safety data sheet for astatine. If there were, it would just be the word "NO" scrawled over and over in charred blood. -- Randall Munroe, "What If?" %