It is a good thing
for an uneducated man
to read books of quotes.
Winston Churchill (1874-1965), former British Prime Minister
Now and then I come across a saying
which has meaning for me,
and it becomes a part of me.
W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965), English playwright and novellist,
Of Human Bondage, 1915
A good saying answers where the sermon fails,
just as a small hand gun
will kill more than a whole barrel of gunpowder
exploded in the air.
William Gilmore Simms (1806-1870), American writer and historian
Quotes with a point are a blessing
to people who have become shallow.
Louise Guiney (1861-1920), American poet and essayist
The surest way to make a monkey of a man
is to quote him.
Robert Benchley (1889-1945), American humourist and columnist
A trip of a thousand miles
must begin with a single step.
Lao Tzu, founder of Taoism (about 500 BC)
One rule sums up all the others,
and that rule is to love...
first, love God, and then, love others.
Jesus, Matthew 22:37-40
Work like you don’t need the money.
Love like you’ve never been hurt.
Dance like nobody’s watching.
Satchel Paige (1906-1982), African-American baseball player
If you would not be forgotten
as soon as you are dead and rotten,
either write something worth reading
or do things worth the writing.
Benjamin Franklin (1705-1790), American inventor and statesman
Truth will not break like a bubble, at a touch;
no, you may kick it about all day like a football,
and it will be round and full at evening.
Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894), American doctor and writer
Whoever talks to you about others
will talk to others about you.
Spanish Proverb
Do to others
what you would want them to do to you.
Jesus, Matthew 7:12
You have to kiss a lot of frogs
to find your prince.
Author unknown
Anyone who does anything important
is surely going to be hated, and misunderstood.
Every great man understands it;
and understands, too,
that being hated is no proof of being great.
The last proof of being great lies in being able to take the hate without becoming bitter.
Elbert Hubbard (1856 - 1915), American writer, artist, phlosopher
If your enemy is hungry feed him;
if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing
you shall pile coals of fire on his head.
The Bible, Romans 12:20.
Think how hard it is to change yourself
and you’ll understand what little chance you
have of changing others.
Jacob M. Braude, author of Braude's Treasure of Wit and Humour
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 (1888-1955), American self-improvement lecturer and author of
How to Win Friends and Influence People
The time will never be ‘just right’.
Start where you stand,
and work with whatever tools you have.
Better tools will be found as you go along.
Napoleon Hill (1883-1970), American author
If you don’t like something, change it.
If you can’t change it, change your attitude.
Maya Angelou (1923- ), American author and poet
A bank manager is a person
who lends you his umbrella
when the weather is clear,
but wants it back the minute it begins to rain.
Mark Twain (1835-1910), American author and humourist
A great weight was lifted from my shoulders
the day I learned that no one owes me anything.
Harry Browne (1933-2006), writer, politician and market analyst
Don’t cripple your children
by making their lives easy.
Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988), science fiction writer
I’ve had a lot of worries in my life,
most of which never happened.
Mark Twain (1835-1910), American author and humourist
Making the simple hard to understand
happens all the time;
making the hard to understand simple,
very simple,
that’s the mark of a truly wise person.
Charles Mingus (1922-1979), jazz musician
The way to have friends is to be one.
Ralph Waldo Emercson (1803-1882), poet, lecturer, and essayist
Forced to choose between
turning against my country
or turning against my friend,
I pray that I would have the strength
to turn against my country.
E. M. Forster (1879-1970), Two Cheers for Democracy (1951)
When I work fourteen hours a day,
seven days a week, I get lucky.
Armand Hammer (1898 - 1990), business tycoon
Nothing is especially hard
if you break it down into small jobs.
Henry Ford (1863-1947), American industrialist
and founder of the Ford Motor Company,
who pioneered assembly lines
Only one life. It will soon be past.
Only what’s done for love will last.
Charles T. Studd (1860-1931), missionary to China, India, and Africa
A man may fall many times
but he won’t be without hope
until he says someone pushed him.
Elmer G. Leterman (1897-1982), author and insurance broker
Don’t spend your time asking
‘Why isn’t the world a better place?’
It will be time wasted.
The question to ask is
‘How can I make it better?’
To that there is an answer.
Leo F. Buscaglia (1924-1998), author and motivational speaker
There is so much good in the worst of us,
And so much bad in the best of us,
That it does not become any of us
To talk about the rest of us.
Edward Wallis Hoch (1849-1925), lecturer and ex-governor of Kansas
You can no more win a war
than you can win an earthquake.
Jeannette Rankin (1880-1973), first American Congresswoman
They laugh at you, then they fight you,
and then you win.
Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948), pacifist & ideological leader of India
Let someone else blow your horn,
and the sound will travel twice as far.
Mark Twain (1835-1910), American author and humourist
You will find as you look back on your life
that the times when you have truly lived
are the times when you have done things
in the spirit of love.
Henry Drummond (1851-1897), scientist and author
A lie gets halfway around the world before the
truth has a chance to get its pants on.
Winston Churchill (1874-1965), former British Prime Minister
Find a job you like
and you add five days to every week.
Jackson Brown, Jr, American inspirational author
I never did a day’s work in my life.
It was all fun.
Thomas Edison (1847-1931), inventor and scientist
God does not expect us to be perfect,
but he does expect us to try to be perfect.
Anonymous
My country is the earth,
and my religion is to do good.
Thomas Paine (1737-1809), author, inventor, revolutionary,
intellectual
The Rights of Man part 2 (1792), page 414
We were made to help each other.
If you have something to teach us, do it.
If not, listen to what we are teaching.
Aristotle (384-322 B.C), philosopher, teacher of Alexander the Great
Auctoritates Aristotelis, (ed. J. Hamesse, 1974),
Success seems to be mostly a matter of
hanging on after others have let go.
William Feather (1889-1981), author and publisher
Words once spoken
can never be brought back.
Wentworth Dillon (1630-1685), poet, fourth Earl of Roscommon
Talk between two people becomes an argument
when one or the other stops listening.
Anonymous
Good fences make good neighbours.
mid-17th Century proverb
Better a fence at the top of the cliff
than a hospital at the bottom.
Frederick Truby King (1858-1938), New Zealand health reformer
He who asks a question is a fool for five minutes;
he who does not ask stays a fool forever.
Chinese Proverb
If you do not have something worth dying for,
you do not have anything worth living for.
Martin Luther King (1929-1968), civil rights activist, Baptist minister
People should read what they want to read.
What they are forced to read
will do them little good.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), English writer and lexicographer
Boswell Life volume 1, page 428 (14 July, 1763),
Not my will, but yours, be done.
Jesus, praying before he died, in Luke 22:42
A sincere person
is one who wants to know the truth so much
that they are willing to change their actions
if the truth shows that they are wrong.
Anonymous
The truth that makes people free
is, for the most part,
the truth that they choose not to hear.
Herbert Agar (1897-1980), A Time for Greatness (1942), chapter 7
Do not believe all that you hear,
and do not say all that you believe.
Author unknown
Being an adult means being able to say
‘I’m sorry you feel like that,’
and then walk away. That’s hard.
Lois McMaster Bujold (1949- ), in A Civil Campaign, 1999
When good people do nothing,
it is all that evil people need to win.
Edmund Burke (1729-1797), Irish stateman and philosopher
When planning for a year,
plant corn.
When planningfor ten years,
plant trees.
When planning for life,
teach children.
Kwan-Tsu (740-645 BC)
What kind of place would this world be,
If everybody in it was just like me?
Author unknown
Not many sounds in life
are more interesting than a knock at the door.
Charles Lamb (1775-1834), Essays of Elia (1823), ‘Valentine’s Day’
The more arguments you win,
the less friends you have.
American proverb
“My thoughts are not your thoughts, and your
ways are not my ways,” says God.
The Bible, Isaiah 55:8
We are guilty of all the good that we did not do.
Voltaire (1694-1778), French writer, historian, philosopher
Dying does not take a smart person by surprise.
Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1695), poet and fable-teller
Change yourself and you change the world.
Anonymous
Why do you call me Lord,
if you will not do what I say?
Jesus, Luke 6:46
It is not that Christianity
has been tried and did not work.
It is that people could see that it was difficult,
and because of this, they have never tried it.
G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), English writer and Christian apologist
What’s Wrong with the World (1910), part 1
The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.
The Bible, Psalm 111:10
If you want to be rich,
you must learn to buy less.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), English writer and lexicographer
Life volume 4, page 157 (letter, 7 December, 1782),
A little more.
John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937), oil magnate and philanthropist
when asked how much money a person needs to be happy
Think about the flowers in the field,
how they grow.
They do not work and they do not make cloth.
But I say that Solomon with all his wealth,
was not dressed as well as one of them.
Jesus, Matthew 6:28
We have nothing to fear but fear itself.
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), 32nd American president
4 March, 1933, in Public Papers (1938), volume 1
The pen is stronger than the sword.
Edwin Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873), writer and politician
It takes two things to make a country rich:
water and peace.
African proverb
Do not spit in the well.
You may be thirsty by and by.
Russian proverb
Thank God men cannot as yet fly
and lay waste the sky as well as the earth!
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), author, poet and philosopher
Don't blow it. Good planets are hard to find.
Time magazine
God will destroy those who destroy the earth.
The Bible, Revelation 11:18
They kill good trees to put out bad newspapers.
James G. Watt, Newsweek (8 March, 1982)
The sun, the moon, and the stars would have
been destroyed long ago, had they
happened to be in the reach of human hands.
Havelock Ellis (1859-1939), The Dance of Life (1923)
God made Truth with many doors to welcome
every believer who knocks on them.
Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931), Lebanese-American author
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a
time, but it’s not going to go away.
Elvis Presley (1935-1977), American singer
Truth can receive all lights.
3rd Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713), Sensus Communis (1709),
Long is the way, and hard,
that leads out of the dark
and up to the light.
John Milton (1608-1674),English poet5, Paradise Lost (1667), book 2
Give light,
and the darkness will go away of itself.
Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536), Dutch humanist and priest
Adults can learn from very little children.
The Great Spirit may show to them
many things which older people miss.
Black Elk (1863-1950), Sioux holy man
Truth is a land without roads.
You do not go there by following a religion.
J. Krishnamurti (1895-1986), speech in Holland, 3 August, 1929
One truth must be on another truth:
truth on truth, line on line,
here a little and there a little.
The Bible, Isaiah 28:10
All truths are half truths.
It is thinking that they are whole truths
that makes devils of us.
Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947), Dialogues (1954), prologue
It is one thing to show a person that he is wrong,
but it is a very different thing
to give that person the truth.
John Locke (1632-1704), Essay concerning Human Understanding
Truth sits on the lips of dying men.
Matthew Arnold (1822-1888), Sohrab and Rustum
If you stay in my teachings,
you will know the truth,
and the truth will make you free.
Jesus, John 8:31-32
I love Plato, but I love truth more.
Aristophanes (c.450-c.385), Greek comedic playwright
It is truth that you cannot win against.
You can very easily win against me.
Socrates (469-399 BC), Plato Symposium 201d
The old always fights against the new.
Author unknown
All colours will agree in the dark.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626), English scientist, lawyer, and statesman
But it does move.
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), after giving in to church leaders, in 1632,
who said it was wrong to say that the earth moves around the sun.
To wear the coat of Galileo
it is not enough that people are against you.
You must also be right.
Robert Park (1864-1944), American sociologist
It is dangerous to be right
when the government is wrong.
Voltaire (1694-1778), French writer, historian, and philosopher
Every man has a right to say
what he thinks is true, and every other man
has a right to knock him down for it.
Dying as a martyr is the test.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), English writer and lexicographer
True, it is the salt of the earth;
but no one wants salt rubbed into their sores.
Rebecca West (1892-1983), The Salt of the Earth (1935), chapter 2
There is one thing stronger than
all the armies in the world,
and that is an idea whose time has come.
Victor Hugo (1802-1885), French writer and statesman
Don't worry about people robbing an idea.
If it's your own and it's new,
you will have to force it down their throats.
Howard Aiken (1900-1973), computer inventor
We are prisoners of ideas.
Ralph Waldo emerson (1803-1882), American writer and lecturer
I had rather do and not promise
than promise and not do.
Arthur Warwick (1603-1633), English essayist
It is easier to believe a lie
that one has heard a thousand times
than to believe a truth
that one has never heard before.
Robert S. Lynd (1892-1970), American sociologist
