quotes blog

The metaphor is perhaps one of man’s most fruitful potentialities. Its efficacy verges on magic, and it seems a tool for creation which God forgot inside one of His creatures when He made him. - Jose Ortega y Gasset

The man who regards his own life and that of his fellow creatures as meaningless is not merely unhappy but hardly fit for life. - Albert Einstein

A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest–a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. - Albert Einstein

We shall support whatever the enemy opposes and oppose whatever the enemy supports. - Mao Tse-Tung

If I have not read a book before, it is, for all intents and purposes, new to me whether it was printed yesterday or three hundred years ago. - William Hazlitt

The distinction between children and adults, while probably useful for some purposes, is at bottom a specious one, I feel. There are only individual egos, crazy for love. - Don Barthelme

Here is the answer which I will give to President Roosevelt… We shall not fail or falter we shall not weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock of battle nor the long-drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down. Give us the tools and we will finish the job. - Sir Winston Churchill

The Price Of Freedom Is Eternal Vigilance. - Thomas Jefferson

Here is the answer which I will give to President Roosevelt… We shall not fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock of battle nor the long-drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down. Give us the tools and we will finish the job. - Sir Winston Churchill, Radio speech, 1941

Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can all of them make me laugh. - W. H. Auden

Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh. - W. H. Auden

People are the common denominator of progress. So… no improvement is possible with unimproved people, and advance is certain when people are liberated and educated. It would be wrong to dismiss the importance of roads, railroads, power plants, mills, and the other familiar furniture of economic development…. But we are coming to realize… that there is a certain sterility in economic monuments that stand alone in a sea of illiteracy. Conquest of illiteracy comes first. - John Kenneth Galbraith, The Affluent Society (1958)

A man is like a fraction whose numerator is what he is and whose denominator is what he thinks of himself. The larger the denominator the smaller the fraction. - Leo Tolstoy

If you fear making anyone mad, then you ultimately probe for the lowest common denominator of human achievement. - James Earl Jimmy Carter, Jr.

Being in the army is like being in the Boy Scouts, except that the Boy Scouts have adult supervision. - Blake Clark

Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffered Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night-she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question-Is this all - Betty Naomi Friedan

The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality. - Alighieri Dante

The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in time of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality. - -Dante Alighieri

When once a man has made celebrity necessary to his happiness, he has put it in the power of the weakest and most timorous malignity, if not to take away his satisfaction, at least to withhold it. His enemies may indulge their pride by airy negligence and gratify their malice by quiet neutrality. - Samuel Johnson

The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis. - Dante Alighieri

Maybe the answer to Selective Service is to start everyone off in the army and draft them for civilian life as needed. - Bill Vaughan

The fact was I had the vision… I think everyone has… what we lack is the method. - Jack Kerouac

I have many regrets, and I’m sure everyone does. The stupid things you do, you regret…if you have any sense….And if you don’t regret them, maybe you’re stupid. - Katharine Hepburn

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. - Brian Tracy

Everyone is in business for himself, for he is selling his services, labor or ideas. Until one realizes that this is true he will not take conscious charge of his life and will always be looking outside himself for guidance. - Sidney Madwed

Some people surrender their freedom willingly but others are forced to surrender it. Imprisonment begins with birth. Society, parents they refuse to allow you to keep the freedom you were born with. There are subtle ways to punish a person for daring to feel. You see that everyone around you has destroyed his true feeling nature. You imitate what you see. - Jim Morrison

Anecdotes and maxims are rich treasures to the man of the world, for he knows how to introduce the former at fit place in conversation. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The power of illustrative anecdotes often lies not in how well they present reality, but in how well they reflect the core beliefs of their audience. - David P. Mikkelson, Snopes.com, 04-10-04

Words must be weighed, not counted. - Polish Proverb

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. - Albert Einstein, (attributed)

Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it. - Fyodor Dostoevsky

The upward course of a nation’s history is due in the long run to the soundness of heart of its average men and women. - Elizabeth II

The average Ph.D. thesis is nothing but a transference of bones from one graveyard to another. - J. Frank Dobie, “A Texan in England”, 1945

Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, ‘Something is out of tune.’ - Carl Gustav Jung

Our schools have been scientifically designed to prevent over-education from happening. … The average American (should be) content with their humble role in life, because they’re not tempted to think about any other role. - William Torrey Harris

Men always talk about the most important things to perfect strangers. In the perfect stranger we perceive man himself; the image of a God is not disguised by resemblances to an uncle or doubts of wisdom of a mustache. - G. K. Chesterton

Hitchhiker No No, no, not 6 I said 7. Nobody’s comin’ up with 6. Who works out in 6 minutes You won’t even get your heart goin, not even a mouse on a wheel. Ted That — good point. Hitchhiker 7’s the key number here. Think about it. 7-Elevens. 7 doors. 7, man, that’s the number. 7 chipmunks twirlin’ on a branch, eatin’ lots of sunflowers on my uncle’s ranch. You know that old children’s tale from the sea. It’s like you’re dreamin’ about Gorgonzola cheese when it’s clearly Brie time, baby. Step into my office. Ted Why Hitchhiker ‘Cause you’re fired - There’s Something About Mary

I remember we were all horrified to see Grandpa up on the roof with his Superman cape on. ‘Get down’ yelled Uncle Lou. ‘Don’t move’ screamed Grandma. But Grandpa wouldn’t listen. He walked to the edge of the roof and stuck out his arms, like he was going to fly. I forget what happened after that. - Jack Handey Deep Thoughts

Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things. - Dan Quayle, 11/30/88

I remember how my Great Uncle Jerry would sit on the porch and whittle all day long. Once he whittled me a toy boat out of a larger toy boat I had. It was almost as good as the first one, except now it had bumpy whittle marks all over it. And no paint, because he had whittled off the paint. - Jack Handey Deep Thoughts

The best coffee in Europe is Vienna coffee, compared to which all other coffee is fluid poverty. - Mark Twain, Greatly Exaggerated

Formerly a public man needed a private secretary for a barrier between himself and the public. Nowadays he has a press secretary to keep him properly in the public eye. - Daniel J. Boorstin

No man’s life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session. - Judge Gideon J. Tucker

The worst thing about Europe is that you can’t go out in the middle of the night and get a Slurpee. - Tellis Frank

The pictures of airplanes flying into buildings, fires burning, huge structures collapsing, have filled us with disbelief, terrible sadness and a quiet, unyielding anger. referring to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon - George Walker Bush

We’re going to find out who did this and we’re going after the bastards referring to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon - Orrin Hatch

Expecting a carjacker or rapist or drug pusher to care that his possession or use of a gun is unlawful is like expecting a terrorist to care that his car bomb is taking up two parking spaces. - Joseph T. Chew

I would rather be ashes than dust I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time. - Jack London

Motivation is an external, temporary high that PUSHES you forward. Inspiration is a sustainable internal glow which PULLS you forward. - Thomas Leonard

Happiness does not come from doing easy work but from the afterglow of satisfaction that comes after the achievement of a difficult task that demanded our best. - Theodore Isaac Rubin

You should hammer your iron when it is glowing hot. - Publilius Syrus

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 the faces surrounding him. In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. - Albert Camus

If the Vikings were around today, they would probably be amazed at how much glow-in-the-dark stuff we have, and how we take so much of it for granted. - Jack Handey Deep Thoughts

Turning and turning in the widening gyre,
The falcone cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world… - W. B. Yeats, the second coming

Creativity often consists of merely turning up what is already there. Did you know that right and left shoes were thought up only a little more than a century ago - Bernice Fitz-Gibbon

Behold a worthy sight, to which the God, turning his attention to his own work, may direct his gaze. Behold an equal thing, worthy of a God, a brave man matched in conflict with evil fortune. - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Engineering is not merely knowing and being knowledgeable, like a walking encyclopedia; engineering is not merely analysis; engineering is not merely the possession of the capacity to get elegant solutions to non-existent engineering problems; engineering is practicing the art of the organized forcing of technological change… Engineers operate at the interface between science and society… - Dean Gordon Brown

Engineers like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily available, they will create their own problems. - Scott Adams

Engineers participate in the activities which make the resources of nature available in a form beneficial to man and provide systems which will perform optimally and economically. - L. M. K. Boelter, 1957

Hell must be isothermal; for otherwise the resident engineers and physical chemists (of which there must be some) could set up a heat engine to run a refrigerator to cool off a portion of their surroundings to any desired temperature. - Henry Albert Ben, _The Second Law_

I want to emphasize in the great concentration which we now place upon scientists and engineers how much we still need the men and women educated in the liberal tradition, willing to take the long look, undisturbed by prejudices and slogans of the moment, who attempt to make an honest judgment on difficult events. - John Fitzgerald Kennedy

A great many college graduates come here thinking of lawyers as social engineers arguing the great Constitutional issues. - Archibald Cox

The good devout man first makes inner preparation for the actions he has later to perform. His outward actions do not draw him into lust and vice rather it is he who bends them into the shape of reason and right judgement. Who has a stiffer battle to fight than the man who is striving to conquer himself. - Thomas a Kempis

I pray you bear me henceforth from the noise and rumour of the field, where I may think the remnant of my thoughts in peace, and part of this body and my soul with contemplation and devout desires. - William Shakespeare

To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull facilities can comprehend only in the most primitive forms–this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong to the ranks of the devoutly religious men. - Albert Einstein

I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Grown ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them. - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity. - Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire

Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them. - Antoine de Saint-Exupery, “The Little Prince”, 1943

Having once decided to achieve a certain task, achieve it at all costs of tedium and distaste. The gain in self-confidence of having accomplished a tiresome labor is immense. - Arnold Bennett

I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea shore and diverting himself and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary while the greater ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. - Ashley Montagu

A ragged colt may prove a good horse. And so may an untoward slovenly boy prove a decent and useful man. - James Kelly

Though boys throw stones at frogs in sport, the frogs do not die in sport, but in earnest. - Bion

Boys are beyond the range of anybody’s sure understanding, at least when they are between the ages of 18 months and 90 years. - James Grover Thurber

A boy becomes an adult three years before his parents think he does, and about two years after he thinks he does. - Lewis Blaine Hershey

Shouldn’t someone tag Mr Kennedy’s bold new imaginative program with its proper age Under the tousled boyish haircut is still old Karl Marx-first launched a century ago. There is nothing new in the idea of a government being Big Brother. - Ronald Reagan

You could not step twice into the same river; for other waters are ever flowing on to you. - Heraclitus, On the Universe

Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away. - Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

He who endeavors to serve, to benefit, and improve the world, is like a swimmer, who struggles against a rapid current, in a river lashed into angry waves by the winds. Often they roar over his head, often they beat him back and baffle him. Most men yield to the stress of the current… Only here and there the stout, strong heart and vigorous arms struggle on toward ultimate success. - Albert Pike

Enough shovels of earth ……………………..a mountain. Enough pails of water ………………………….a river. - Chinese Proverb

You could not step twice into the same rivers; for other waters are ever flowing on to you. - Heraclitus of Ephesus

Lakes, rivers, streams…all are water and all travel to the same destination. So it is with religion. - Muhammed Ali, in a television interview

Why abandon a belief merely because it ceases to be true Cling to it long enough, and it will turn true again, for so it goes. Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favor. - Robert Frost

It?s a wonder I haven?t abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart. - Anne Frank, Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, July 15, 1944

Anyone who clings to the historically untrue - and thoroughly immoral - doctrine that violence never settles anything I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler would referee. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forgot this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and there freedoms. - Robert Heinlein

Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view. - George Lucas

Have you ever seen an inchworm crawl up a leaf or a twig, and then, clinging to the very end, revolve in the air, feeling for something, to reach something That’s like me. I am trying to find something out there beyond the place on which I have footing. - Albert P. Ryder

Family love is messy, clinging, and of an annoying and repetitive pattern, like bad wallpaper. - Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. - Samuel Ullman

The most essential factor is persistence - the determination never to allow your energy or enthusiasm to be dampened by the discouragement that must inevitably come. - James Whitcomb Riley

Apathy can be overcome by enthusiasm, and enthusiasm can only be aroused by two things first, an ideal, with takes the imagination by storm, and second, a definite intelligible plan for carrying that ideal into practice. - Arnold J. Toynbee

Golf is very much like a love affair, if you don’t take it seriously, it’s no fun, if you do, it breaks your heart. Don’t break your heart, but flirt with the possibility. - Louise Suggs

The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has. - Will Rogers, Illiterate Digest (1924), “Helping the Girls with their Income Taxes”

Golf is a good walk, ruined. - Mark Twain

Let us more and more insist on raising funds of love, of kindness, of understanding, of peace. Money will come if we seek first the Kingdom of God-the rest will be given. - Mother Theresa

I love cats. I love their grace and their elegance. I love their independence and their arrogance, and the way they lie and look at you, summing you up, surely to your detriment, with that unnerving, unwinking, appraising stare. - Joyce Stranger

Five thousand balloons, capable of raising two men each, could not cost more than five ships of the line; and where is the prince who can afford so to cover his country with troops for its defense as that 10,000 men descending from the clouds might not in many places do an infinite deal of mischief before a force could be brought together to repel them? - Benjamin Franklin

Instead of raising your hand to ask a question in class, how about individual push buttons on each desk That way, when you want to ask a question, you just push the button and it lights up a corresponding number on a tote board at the front of the class. Then all the professor has to do is check the lighted number against a master sheet of names and numbers to see who is asking the question. - Jack Handey Deep Thoughts

My father always told me that all businessmen were sons of bitches, but I never believed it till now. — (Comment made 10 April 1962 in reaction to news that U.S. Steel was raising prices by $6 per ton, right after the unions negotiated a modest new contract under pressure from JFK to keep inflation down.) - John F. Kennedy, “A Thousand Days,” by Arthur Schlesinger Jr. [1965]

Our subconscious minds have no sense of humor, play no jokes and cannot tell the difference between reality and an imagined thought or image. What we continually think about eventually will manifest in our lives. Unfortunately most of us are completely unaware of this fact and we do not monitor our thoughts with the care needed so that we can create in our lives the results we say we want. Since the great majority of people do not feel worthy and deserving of abundant good fortune, radiant good health and total success in all areas of their lives that overriding thought pattern controls the results people get. The first order of business of anyone who wants to enjoy success in all areas of his
her life is to take charge of the internal dialogue they have and only think, say and behavior in a manner consistent with the results they truly desire. - Sidney Madwed

The most beautiful and most profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. So to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that which is impenetretrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms-this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness. - Albert Einstein

To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull facilities can comprehend only in the most primitive forms–this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong to the ranks of the devoutly religious men. - Albert Einstein

During these periods of relaxation after concentrated intellectual activity, the intuitive mind seems to take over and can produce the sudden clarifying insights which give so much joy and delight. - Fritjof Capra

If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it. - Herodotus, The Histories of Herodotus

During [these] periods of relaxation after concentrated intellectual activity, the intuitive mind seems to take over and can produce the sudden clarifying insights which give so much joy and delight. - Fritjof Capra, physicist

The line, often adopted by strong men in controversy, of justifying the means by the end. - Saint Jerome, Letter 48

Men are rewarded or punished not for what they do but for how their acts are defined. That is why men are more interested in better justifying themselves than in better behaving themselves. - Thomas S. Szasz

A quotation, like a pun, should come unsought, and then be welcomed only for some propriety of felicity justifying the intrusion. - Robert Chapman

Disgust with dirt can be so great that it prevents us from cleaning ourselves - from “justifying” ourselves. - Friedrich Nietzsche, Aphorisms in Beyond Good and Evil

Virtue extends our days: he live two lives who relives his past with pleasure. - Marcus Valerius Martialis, Epigrams

Persons who have no desire to live have a very slight chance of recovery. We can continue to extend to them our love, sympathy, and prayers but ultimately we must respect a person’s decision to die. - Michio Kushi

The man who in view of gain thinks of righteousness; who in the view of danger is prepared to give up his life; and who does not forget an old agreement however far back it extends - such a man may be reckoned a complete man. - Confucius, The Confucian Analects

It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot, irreverence to their studies they are not here to worship what is known, but to question it. - Jacob Chanowski

I am delighted to have you play football. I believe in rough, manly sports. But I do not believe in them if they degenerate into the sole end of any one’s existence. I don’t want you to sacrifice standing well in your studies to any over-athleticism and I need not tell you that character counts for a great deal more than either intellect or body in winning success in life. Athletic proficiency is a mighty good servant, and like so many other good servants, a mighty bad master. - Theodore Roosevelt

Studies indicate that the one quality all successful people have is persistence. They’re willing to spend more time accomplishing a task and to perservere in the face of many difficult odds. There’s a very positive relationship between people’s ability to accomplish any task and the time they’re willing to spend on it. - Joyce

The happiest people are those who think the most interesting thoughts. Those who decide to use leisure as a means of mental development, who love good music, good books, good pictures, good company, good conversation, are the happiest people in the world. And they are not only happy in themselves, they are the cause of happiness in others. - William Lyon Phelps

‘What is the use of a book,’ thought Alice, ‘without pictures or conversations’ - Lewis Carroll

Take Nothing but Pictures.
Leave nothing but footprints.
Kill nothing but time. - Motto of the Baltimore Grotto (caving society)

…all life is only a set of pictures in the brain, among which there is no difference betwixt those born of real things and those born of inward dreamings, and (there is) no cause to value one above the other.” - H.P. Lovecraft

Every man’s work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself. - Samuel Butler

At the bottom every man knows well enough that he is a unique human 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