ENGLISH INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES

"Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish."--John Quincy Adams

"Change does not necessarily assure progress, but progress implacably requires change. Education is essential to change, for education creates both new wants and the ability to satisfy them." --Henry Steele Commager

"It is said that if there were no darkness in the world, it would not be possible to see the light; if this is the case, starlight is all the more rich for its illumination of the night sky."--Scott Fowler

"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." --Thomas Jefferson

"Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking outward together in the same direction." --Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

"True friendship comes when silence between two people is comfortable." --unknown

"When you hug someone, never be the first to let go."

"Smile all the time, even when you're sad. You never know when someone could be falling in love with your smile."

"You never lose by loving. You always lose by holding back."

"Love is like playing the piano. First you must learn to play by the rules, then you must forget the rules and play from your heart."

"If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people." --Virginia Woolfe

"You can stand tall without standing on someone. You can be a victor without having victims." --Harriet Woods

"Time is a companion that goes with us on a journey. It reminds us to cherish each moment, because it will never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we have lived." --Captain Jean-Luc Picard

"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

"A smile is the light in your window that tells others that there is a caring, sharing person inside."--Author Unknown

"In everyone's life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit." --Albert Schweitzer

"There are no secrets to success: Don't waste time looking for them. Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty to those for who you work, and persistence." --General Colin Powell

"Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction." --John F. Kennedy

"Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." --George Bernard Shaw

"Pick your friends like you would pick a diamond. They all start off unpolished, but with a little work, They can become a sparkle in your life." --Gary Harrington

"Superman isn't brave. You can't be brave if you are indestructible.

It's every day people like me and you that are brave, Knowing we can easily be defeated but still continue forward. That's TRUE Bravery!" --Jesse Downs

"Life is like a mine field, you must walk through it one step at a time, but with imagination. Once you shut down your imagination and step in the wrong direction, things blow up." --Ty Howard

"You will not grow if you sit in a beautiful flower garden, but you will grow if you are sick, if you are in pain, if you experience losses, and if you do not put your head in the sand. Take the pain as a gift to you with a very, very specific purpose."--Elizabeth Kubler Ross

"When all is said and done; the unselfish acts of what we have done, without asking for anything in return, will have said it all!" --Brian Jett

"If you are experiencing resistance, you must exert some persistence in order to improve your existence." --Malcolm X. Trotter

"The grass is always greener on the other side, until you jump the fence and see the weeds up close." --Albert Grashuis

"Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal." --Unknown

"Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts." --Charles Dickens

"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

"Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved."--William Jennings Bryan

"The most sacred of the duties of a government [is] to do equal and impartial justice to all its citizens." --Thomas Jefferson

"You must love people and use money, not love money and use people." --Tom Luu

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." --Martin Luther King, Jr.

"We don't love qualities; we love a person; sometimes by reason of their defects as well as their qualities." --Jacques Maritain

"He who has not Christmas in his heart will never find it under a tree." --Unknown

"Enjoy the little things in life, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things."--Antonio Smith

"What is Christmas? It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, hope for the future. It is a fervent wish that every cup may overflow with blessings rich and eternal, and that every path may lead to peace." --Agnes M. Pharo

"Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures." --Henry Ward Beecher

"The more I want to get something done, the less I call it work." --Richard Bach

"It is not real work unless you would rather be doing something else." --J. M. Barrie

"Put your troubles in a pocket with a hole in it." --Author unknown

"Love is the expression of one's values, the greatest reward you can earn for the moral qualities you have achieved in your character and person, the emotional price paid by one man for the joy he receives from the virtues of another." --Ayn Rand

"Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation." --Robert F. Kennedy

"Do not keep the alabaster box of your love & friendship sealed up until your friends are dead. Fill their lives with sweetness. Speak approving, cheering words while their ears can hear them, and while their hearts can be thrilled and made happier. The kind things you mean to say when they are gone, say before they go."--George William Childs

"One word frees us of all the weight and pain in life. That word is love." –Sophocles

"Art is the desire of a man to express himself, to record the reactions of his personality to the world he lives in."--Amy Lowell

"Great art is as irrational as great music. It is mad with its own loveliness." --George Jean Nathan

"The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity." --George Bernard Shaw

"You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war." --Napoleon Bonaparte

"The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on." --Joseph Heller

"Getters generally don't get happiness; givers get it. You simply give to others a bit of yourself—a thoughtful act, a helpful idea, a word of appreciation, a lift over a rough spot, a sense of understanding, a timely suggestion. You take something out of your mind, garnished in kindness out of your heart, and put it into the other fellow's mind and heart." --Charles H. Burr

"More look up and admire the stars. A champion climbs a mountain and grabs one." --H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

"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 best executive is one who has sense enough to pick good people to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it."--Theodore Roosevelt

"Moving fast is not the same as going somewhere." --Robert Anthony

"The best way to escape from your problem is to solve it." --Robert Anthony

"You can have anything you want if you will give up the belief that you can't have it." --Robert Anthony

"The heart has reasons that reason does not understand." --Jacques Benigne Bossuel

"A man falls in love through his eyes, a woman through her ears." --Woodrow Wyatt

"To love and win is the best thing. To love and lose, the next best." --William Makepeace Thackeray

"The man who tried his best and failed is superior to the man who never tried." --Bud Wilkinson

"I am treating you as my friend, asking you to share my present minuses in the hope that I can ask you to share my future pluses." --Katherine Mansfield

"Ideals are like stars, you will not succeed in touching them with your hands. But like the seafaring men on the desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them you will reach your destiny."--Carl Schurz

"It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it."--W. Somerset Maugham

"A kind heart is a fountain of gladness, making everything in its vicinity freshen into smiles."--Washington Irving

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." --Martin Luther King, Jr.

"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy." --John Adams in a letter to his wife, dated 1780

"It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived."--Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.

"Aim at perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable. However, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer to it than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as unattainable."--Lord Chesterfield

"When written in Chinese, the word 'crisis' is composed of two characters—one represents danger, and the other represents opportunity." --John F. Kennedy quoting Saul David Alinsky in 1959

"The best defense against usurpatory government is an assertive citizenry." --William F. Buckley, Jr.

"Nobody makes a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little." --Edmund Burke

"It is discouraging how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit." --Noël Coward

"For me, the principal fact of life is the free mind. For good and evil, man is a free creative spirit. This produces the very queer world we live in, a world in continuous creation and therefore continuous change and insecurity. A perpetually new and lively world, but a dangerous one, full of tragedy and injustice. A world in everlasting conflict between the new idea and the old allegiances, new arts and new inventions against the old establishment." --Joyce Cary

"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." --Alvin Toffler

"Every great advance in science has issued from a new audacity of imagination." --John Dewey

"The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them."--William Bragg

"Life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well." --Josh Billings

"I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."

—Nathan Hale, in 1776 - These were his last words, before being hanged by the British as a spy.

"Education is an important element in the struggle for human rights. It is the means to help our children and thereby increase self-respect. Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today."--Malcolm X

"To show a child what once delighted you, to find the child’s delight added to your own, this is happiness."--J.B. Priestley

"Sometimes you have to leave your home to find your home." --Unknown

"Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if he or she were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness, and understanding you can muster, and do so with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again."--Og Mandino

"Love has reasons that reason knows not." --St. Augustine

"Love is an irresistable desire to be irresistably desired."--Robert Frost

"Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence."--H. L. Mencken

"Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom."--Bertrand Russell

"Know love, know happiness. No love, no happiness." --Unknown

"All love is sweet. Given or returned. Common as light is love, and its familiar voice wearies not ever... they who inspire it are most fortunate, as I am now, but those who feel it most are happier still." --Percy Shelly

"Love is like playing piano. First you must learn to play by the rules, then you must forget the rules and play from your heart!

"Government is the people's business and every man, woman and child becomes a shareholder with the first penny of tax paid." --Ronald Reagan

"As long as you keep a person down, some part of you has to be down there to hold him down, so it means you cannot soar as you otherwise might." --Marian Anderson

"I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past."--Thomas Jefferson

"Every job is a self potrait of the person who did it. Autograph your work with excellence." --Jessica Guidobono

"I desire so to conduct the affairs of this administration that if at the end, when I come to lay down the reigns of power, I have lost every other friend on earth, I shall at least have one friend left, and that friend shall be down inside me."

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have bourne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

"The best way to destroy your enemy is to make him your friend."

"Ships are safe in the harbor, but ships are not meant to stay in the harbor."

"To dream of the person we'd like to be is a waste of the person we are."

"Worry does not prevent disaster, it prevents joy."

"No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same."--Viktor Frankl

"A man may fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame someone else." --Knox Manning

"Every man should have a fair-sized cemetery in which to bury the faults of his friends" --Henry Brooks Adams

"A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of Nature." --Ralph Waldo Emerson

"There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly." --Buckminster Fuller

"It is not the critic who counts, not the man that points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause, who at best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."--Theodore Roosevelt

"When I dare to be powerful -- to use my strength in the service of my vision -- it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid." --Audre Lord

"The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude to me is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than success, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, gift, or skill. It will make or break a company...a church... a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past... The only thing we can do is play on the string we have, and that is our attitude. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you... we are in charge of our attitudes."--Charles Swindoll

"When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced...Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice." --Cherokee Proverb

"Love is the flower of life, and blossoms unexpectedly and without law, and must be plucked where it is found, and enjoyed for the brief hour of its duration." --D.H.Lawrence

"If there is anything which it is the duty of the whole people to never entrust to any hands but their own - that thing is the preservation of their own liberties and institutions." --Abraham Lincoln

"He who prays for his neighbors, will be heard for himself." –The Talmud

"The things that count most in life are usually the things that cannot be counted."--Bernard Meltzer

"If you can learn from hard knocks, you can also learn from soft touches." --Carolyn Kenmore

"The best and most beautiful things in life cannot be seen or even touched... they must be felt with the heart." --Helen Keller

"I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end." --Abraham Lincoln

"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 Akers

"When you come to the edge of all the light you know and are about to step off into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing one of two things will happen: There will be something solid to stand on or you will be taught to fly."

"The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering." --Saint Augustine

"Failure is the only opportunity to begin again, more intelligently." --Henry Ford

"The smallest deed is far greater than the grandest intention."

"All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up."--Pablo Picasso

"Education is not something which the teacher does... it is a natural process which develops spontaneously in the human being." --Maria Montessori

"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

"Treat every person with kindness and respect, even those who are rude to you. Remember that you show compassion to others not because of who they are but because of who you are."--Andrew T. Somers

"Freedom is not worth having if it doesn't include the freedom to make mistakes." –Gandhi

"Life is not measured by the breaths we take but by the moments that take our breath away."

"Gratitude - like a warm blanket, it wards off the icy chill of discontent." --C. Beaulieu

"In most cases, strengths and weaknesses are two sides of the same coin. A strength in one situation is a weakness in another, yet often the person can't switch gears. It's a very subtle thing to talk about strengths and weaknesses because almost always they're the same thing." --Steve Jobs

"An eye for an eye makes everyone blind."--Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do."--Bob Dylan

"Fears over tomorrow and regrets over yesterday are twin thieves that rob us of the moment."—Anonymous

"Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought."--Albert von Szent-Gyorgy

"The mind has exactly the same power as the hands: not merely to grasp the world, but to change it."--Colin Wilson

"Nobody ever defended anything successfully -- there is only attack and attack and attack some more." --General George S. Patton

"I believe firmly that the moment our hearts are emptied of pride and selfishness and ambition and everything that is contrary to God's law, the Holy Spirit will fill every corner of our hearts. But if we are full of pride and conceit and ambition and the world, there is no room for the Spirit of God. We must be emptied before we can be filled." --D. L.Moody

"Without the rocks, the stream would lose its song." --Proverb

"We want to be loved for WHO we are, not what we look like."

"The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions." --Alfred Adler

"Be daring, be different, be impractical; be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary." --Cecil Beaton

"Looking back, I have this to regret, that too often when I loved, I did not say so." --David Grayson

"A problem, at its core, is really just an opportunity to learn and explore." --Stephen Coleman

"Every action of our lives touches on some chord that will vibrate in eternity." --Edwin Hubbel Chapin

"The greatest sweetener of human life is Friendship. To raise this to the highest pitch of enjoyment, is a secret which but few discover." --Joseph Addison

"Teachers open the door, but you enter by yourself."--Unknown

"All men by nature desire to know."—Aristotle

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." --Albert Einstein

"Don't be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps."--David Lloyd George

"Every production of genius must be the production of enthusiasm." --Benjamin Disraeli

"Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem more afraid of life than death." --James F. Byrnes

"I don't believe in pessimism. If something doesn't come up the way you want, forge ahead. If you think it's going to rain, it will."--Clint Eastwood

"Don't be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in a year as you make use of. One man gets only a week's value out of a year while another gets a full year's value out of a week."--Charles Richards

"Change does not necessarily assure progress, but progress implacably requires change. Education is essential to change, for education creates both new wants and the ability to satisfy them". --Henry Steele Commager

"Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation." --Robert F. Kennedy

"You can have anything you want if you want it desperately enough. You must want it with an inner exuberance that erupts through the skin and joins the energy that created the world."--Sheila Graham

"A mind once stretched by a new idea never regains its original dimension."--Oliver Wendell Holmes

"Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books."--John Lubbock

"Liberty has never come from Government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it... The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it."--Woodrow Wilson

"People are lonely because they build walls instead of bridges."--Unknown

"Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you did not do than by the things 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

"Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense." --Ralph Waldo Emmerson

"One can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways." --Edith Wharton

"History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid." --Dwight D. Eisenhower

"Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth." --Mohammed Ali

"The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience and ability."--Henry Ford

"I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat."

"We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give."

"This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

"Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense."

"Without courage, all other virtues lose their meaning."

"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."

"If we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future."

"Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.'"

"Everything I am or could ever hope to be, I owe to my darling mother."--Abe Lincoln

"You tell me, and I forget. You teach me, and I remember. You involve me, and I learn." --Benjamin Franklin

"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

"Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known."--Oscar Wilde

"Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back, a new life, a new friend, a new love, or a new country." --Anais Nin

"Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow grow, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation." --George Washington

"Every man ought to be inquisitive through every hour of his great adventure down to the day when he shall no longer cast a shadow in the sun. For if he dies without a question in his heart, what excuse is there for his continuance?" --Frank Moore Colby

"The end of a man is to let the spirit in him permeate his whole being, his soul , flesh, and affections. He attains his deepest self by losing his selfish ego." --Robert Musil

"That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet."--Emily Dickinson

"Our workaday lives are filled with opportunities to bless others. The power of a single glance or an encouraging smile must never be underestimated."--G. Richard Rieger

"If you haven't got all the things you want, be grateful for the things you don't have that you don't want."--Anonymous

"As you wander on through life, sister/brother, whatever be your goal, keep your eye on the donut, and not upon the hole."--Sign in the Mayflower Coffee Shop, Chicago

"The hardest of all is learning to be a well of affection, and not a fountain; to show them we love them not when we feel like it, but when they do." --Nan Fairbrother

"The cure for all ills and wrongs, the cares, the sorrows and the crimes of humanity, all lie in the one word 'love.' It is the divine vitality that everywhere produces and restores life." --Lydia Maria Child

"Cherish your wishes and your dreams, as they are the children of your soul and the blueprints of your ultimate achievement."

"Reason has never failed men. Only force and repression have made the wrecks in the world."--William Allen White

"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 alone will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent."--Calvin Coolidge

"The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up."—Mark Twain

"The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter."-- Mark Twain

"There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them." --Joseph Brodsky

"When you read a book, you hold another's mind in your hands."--James Burke

“If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought—not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate."--Oliver Wendell Holmes

"You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments when you have truly lived are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love."--Henry Drummond

"The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed." --J. Krishnamurti

"Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact." --William James

"Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself."--Harvey Fierstein

"The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it." --W. M. Lewis

- Ideas are one thing, and what happens is another.

- John Cage, American composer and author (1912-1992)

"Laziness is often mistaken for patience." - French proverb.

My definition of an educated man is the fellow who knows the right thing to do at the time it has to be done. ... You can be sincere and still be stupid. - Charles F. Kettering, American inventor (1876-1958).

We have forty million reasons for failure, but not a single excuse.
- Richard Kipling

The faster you go, the more chance there is of stubbing your toe, but the more chance you have of getting somewhere. - Charles F. Kettering

"I venture to suggest that patriotism is not a short and frenzied outburst of emotion but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime." - Adlai E. Stevenson, American statesman (1900-1965).

"God made the world round so we would never be able to see too far down the road." - Isak Dinesen, Danish author (1885-1962).

Victory belongs to the most persevering.- Napolean Bonaparte

"There is no such thing as conversation. It is an illusion. There are intersecting monologues, that is all." - Dame Rebecca West, Irish-born novelist (1892-1983).

"I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail." 

- William Faulkner, American author (1897-1962).

Deeds, not words shall speak me. - John Fletcher

It is better to die on your feet than live on your knees.- Dolores Ibarruri

A life of wisdom must be a life of contemplation, combined with action.
- M. Scott Peck

"History is too serious to be left to historians."
- Iain Macleod, British politician (1913-1970).

Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings. - C. Archie Danielson

"Nothing makes people so worthy of compliments as occasionally receiving them. One is more delightful for being told one is delightful just as one is more angry for being told one is angry." - Katharine Fullerton Gerould, American writer (1879-1944).

"The world cares very little about what a man or woman knows; it is what the man or woman is able to do." - Booker T. Washington, American educator and author (1856-1915).

"The worst disease in the world is the plague of vengeance." - Dr. Karl Menninger, American psychiatrist (1893-1990).

By doing just a little every day, I can gradually let the task overwhelm me.
- Ashleigh Brilliant, UC Berkeley 'street' philosopher

"Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers." - Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892).

"I think life is really hard sometimes. It's not easy to wake up every day and go through what you go through. But the beautiful moments that you share with people that you love, or even experience alone, are worth all of the pain and sorrow. Those moments should be cherished, and I think that's what music is all about - to remind people of the beautiful moments that are in everybody's life." --Charlie Haden

"The earth has music for those who listen."--William Shakespeare

"Genius without education is like silver in the mine."--Benjamin Franklin

"A man has not lived until he has almost died. For those who have fought, life has a flavor the protected will never know." --A Vietnam Veteran

"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

- Never mistake motion for action. -- Ernest Hemingway

- 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

- One of the advantages of being disorderly is that one is constantly making exciting discoveries. -- A. A. Milne

- The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it. - Albert Einstein

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DRAMA

On drama in art and life:

"I made some mistakes in drama. I thought the drama was when the actors cried. But drama is when the audience cries." -- Frank Capra, American film director

"Life beats down and crushes the soul, and art reminds you that you have one." -- Stella Adler, American actress, founded "Stella Adler Conservatory of Acting"

"Man is a make-believe animal -- he is never so truly himself as when he is acting a part." -- William Hazlitt (1778-1830), British essayist noted for literary criticism

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SOLITUDE

"Solitude is not something you must hope for in the future. Rather, it is a deepening of the present, and unless you look for it in the present you will never find it." -- Thomas Merton, quoted by Monica Furlong Merton, Harper & Row Magazine

"Be able to be alone. Lose not the advantage of solitude, and the society of thyself." -- Sir Thomas Browne, English physician, writer

"Solitude is the beginning of all freedom." -- William Orville Douglas, American jurist and associate justice US Supreme Court

"Only when one is connected to one's inner core is one connected to others. And, for me, the core, the inner spring, can best be re-found through solitude." -- Anne Spencer Morrow Lindbergh American aviator and writer of "North to the Orient"

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APPEARANCES

Appearances do not define one's character:

"Fine words and insinuating appearance are seldom associated with true virtue." -- Confucius, Chinese sage

"A good man often appears gauche simply because he does not take advantage of the myriad, mean little chances of making himself look stylish. Preferring truth to form, he is not constantly at work upon the facade of his appearance." -- Jean "Iris" Murdoch, Irish-born writer

"Why not be oneself? That is the whole secret of a successful appearance. If one is a greyhound why try to look like a Pekinese?" -- Edith Sitwell, British Poet

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EDUCATION

One of the most useful benefits of education is self-improvement:

"Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not." -- Walter Bagehot (1826-77) British economist, journalist

"The test and the use of man's education is that he finds pleasure in the exercise of his mind." -- Jacques Martin Barzun, American educator, historian, Dean of Graduate School, Columbia University

"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. (Felice) Leo(nardo) Buscaglia, American Professor of Education at USC

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TOUCH

Our sense of touch invites affection and companionship:

"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." -- Dr. (Felice) Leo(nardo) Buscaglia, American Professor of Education at USC

"What feeling is so nice as a child's hand in yours? So small, so soft and warm, like a kitten huddling in the shelter of your clasp." -- Marjorie Holmes, writer

"In the absence of touching and being touched, people of all ages can sicken and grow touch starved." -- Diane Ackerman, author, A Natural History of The Senses

"Touch seems to be as essential as sunlight." -- Diane Ackerman, author, A Natural History of The Senses

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SIGHT

Vision is more than the ability to see all that surrounds you in the physical world:

"Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart...Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens." -- Carl Gustav Jung, Swiss psychiatrist

"The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight, but has no vision." -- Helen Adams Keller, American memoirist, lecturer

"Perception is strong and sight weak. In strategy, it is important to see distant things as if they were close and to take a distanced view of close things." -- Miyamoto Musashi, Japanese warrior and strategist

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ENDURANCE

By all accounts it is determination that leads to success and achievement. "Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck -- but, most of all, endurance." -- James Arthur Baldwin

"Endurance is one of the most difficult disciplines, but it is to the one who endures that the final victory comes." -- Buddha

"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 M. Devos

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CHILDREN

Some grownups feel that children have cornered the market on happiness:

"Children have neither a past nor a future. Thus they enjoy the present -- which seldom happens to us." -- Jean de La Bruyere

"The only truly happy people are children and the creative minority." -- Jean Caldwell

"We find delight in the beauty and happiness of children that makes the heart too big for the body." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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INSTRUCTIONS FOR LIFE

1. Give people more than they expect and do it cheerfully.

2. Memorize your favorite poem.

3. Don't believe all you hear, spend all you have or sleep all you want.

4. When you say, "I love you," mean it.

5. When you say, "I'm sorry," look the person in the eye.

6. Be engaged at least six months before you get married.

7. Believe in love at first sight.

8. Never laugh at anyone's dreams. People who don't have dreams don't have much.

9. Love deeply and passionately. You might get hurt but it's the only way to live life completely.

10. In disagreements, fight fairly. No name calling.

11. Don't judge people by their relatives.

12. Talk slowly but think quickly.

13. When someone asks you a question you don't want to answer, smile and ask, "Why do you want to know?"

14. Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

15. Call your Mom.

16. Say "bless you" when you hear someone sneeze.

17. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.

18. Remember the three R's: Respect for self; Respect for others; Responsibility for all your actions.

19. Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship.

20. When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.

21. Smile when picking up the phone. The caller will hear it in your voice.

22. Marry a man/woman you love to talk to. As you get older, their conversational skills will be as important as any other.

23. Spend some time alone.

24. Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.

25. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

26. Read more books and watch less TV.

27. Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll get to enjoy it a second time.

28. Trust in God but lock your car.

29. A loving atmosphere in your home is so important. Do all you can to create tranquil harmonious home.

30. In disagreements with loved ones, deal with the current situation. Don't bring up the past.

31. Read between the lines.

32. Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality.

33. Be gentle with the earth.

34. Pray. There's immeasurable power in it.

35. Never interrupt when you are being flattered.

36. Mind your own business.

37. Kiss.

38. Once a year, go someplace you've never been before.

39. If you make a lot of money, put it to use helping others while you are living. That is wealth's greatest satisfaction.

40. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a stroke of luck.

41. Learn the rules then break some.

42. Remember that the best relationship is one where your love for each other is greater than your need for each other.

43. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.

44. Remember that your character is your destiny.

45. Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.