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"Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself... Guard your honor. Let your reputation fall where it will. And outlive the bastards."
"Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them."
"Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. As a peacemaker the lawyer has superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough."
"Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?"
"Don't pray that God's on our side, pray that we're on his side."
"Don't worry when you are not recognized, but strive to be worthy of recognition."
"Force is all-conquering, but its victories are short-lived."
"Gentlemen, why don't you laugh? With the fearful strain that is upon me night and day, if I did not laugh, I should die. You need this medicine as much I do."
"He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met."
"He has the right to criticize who has the heart to help."
"How many legs does a dog have if you count his tail as a leg? Four. You can call a tail a leg if you want to, but that doesn't make it a leg."
"I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crises. The great point is to bring them the real facts."
"I am for those means which will give the greatest good to the greatest number."
"I am not concerned that you have fallen; I am concerned that you arise."
"I don't know who my grandfather was; I'm much more concerned to know what his grandson will be."
"I don't like that man. I must get to know him better."
"I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice."
"I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him."
"I will prepare and some day my chance will come."
"I will study and get ready, and perhaps my chance will come."
"I'm not concerned that you have fallen, I'm concerned that you arise."
"If I had six hours to cut down a tree, I'd spend the first four sharpening my axe."
"If I only had an hour to chop down a tree, I would spend the first 45 minutes sharpening my axe."
"If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business."
"If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?"
"If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee."
"If you don't want to use the army, I should like to borrow it for a while."
"If you look for the bad in people, you will surely find it."
"A house divided against itself cannot stand."
"Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing."
"Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?"
"I don't think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday."
"And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years."
"'Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt."
"I have an irrepressible desire to live till I can be assured that the world is a little better for my having lived in it."
"I do not believe the Union will dissolve, I believe it will become all one thing, or all the other."
"If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend."
"Important principles may and must be flexible."
"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."
"Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing."
"I am a slow walker, but I never walk backwards."
"In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all... Perfect relief is not possible, except with time. You cannot now realize that you will ever feel better... And yet this is a mistake. You are sure to be happy again."
"It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues."
"It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels he is worthy of himself and claims kindred to the great God who made him."
"It is doubtful whether his heroism and skill exhibited last Sunday afternoon, has ever been surpassed in the world."
"It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced."
"It often requires more courage to dare to do right than to fear to do wrong."
"Let me not be understood as saying that there are no bad laws, nor that grievances may not arise for the redress of which no legal provisions have been made. I mean to say no such thing. But I do mean to say that although bad laws, if they exist, should be repealed as soon as possible, still, while they continue in force, for the sake of example they should be religiously observed."
"Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be."
"My father taught me to work; he did not teach me to love it."
"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."
"Neither Heaven nor Hell. It is simply Purgatory."
"No man has a good enough memory to make a successful liar."
"No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent."
"No man resolved to make the most of himself has time to waste on personal contention."
"No matter how much cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens."
"Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this."
"People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like."
"Quarrel not at all. No man resolved to make the most of himself can spare time for personal contention."
"So you're the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war."
"Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves."
"That some should be rich, shows that others may become rich, and, hence, is just encouragement to industry and enterprise."
"The ballot is stronger than the bullet."
"The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time."
"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present... we must think anew and act anew."
"The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is why he makes so many of them."
"The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
"The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just."
"The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons. Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us."
"The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty."
"The worst thing you can do for those you love is the things they could and should do themselves."
"Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle."
"Those who would deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, cannot long retain it."
"To ease another's heartache is to forget one's own."
"To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men."
"Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored."
"Truth is generally the best vindication against slander."
"Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people may be engaged in. That everyone may receive at least a moderate education appears to be an objective of vital importance."
"We are not enemies but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic cords of memory shall swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of nature."
"What is conservativism? Is it not the aherence to the old and tried against the new and untried?"
"Whatever you are, be a good one."
"When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. And that is my religion."
"When the conduct of men is designed to be influenced, persuasion, kind unassuming persuasion, should ever be adopted. It is an old and true maxim that 'a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.' So with men. If you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart, which, say what he will, is the great highroad to his reason, and which, once gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing him of the justice of your cause, if indeed that cause is really a good one."
"When you have got an elephant by the hind leg, and he is trying to run away, it's best to let him run."
"Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally."
"Will springs from the two elements of moral sense and self-interest."
"With malice toward none, with charity for all, ...let us strive on to finish the work we are in, ...to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."
"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."
"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds. . . to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations."
"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time."
"You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today."
"You may deceive all the people part of the time, and part of the people all the time, but not all the people all the time."
"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. So is a lot."
"Americanism: A mode of living which we find the joy of life and the joy of work harmoniously combined."
"Anyone that has never made a mistake, has never tried anything new."
"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."
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish."
"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."
"Einstein's Three Rules of Work: 1) Out of clutter find simplicity; 2) From discord find harmony; 3) In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity."
"Every age has its beautiful moments."
"Everyone Is a Genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid."
"Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom."
"Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions."
"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."
"I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious."
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
"I never think of the future - it comes soon enough."
"If I had an hour to save the world, I would use 50 minutes to define the problem."
"If I had only known, I would have been a locksmith."
"If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts."
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
"Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death."
"Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them."
"It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience."
"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."
"One should not pursue goals that are easily achieved. One must develop an instinct for what one can just barely achieve through one's greatest efforts."
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."
"Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing."
"The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle."
"The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax."
"The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with the joy of living are goodness, beauty and truth."
"The important thing is not to stop questioning."
"The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I am a devoutly religious man."
"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It's the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and science. Whoever does not know it can no longer wander, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed."
"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science."
"The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is at all comprehensible."
"The past, present and future are only illusions, even if stubborn ones."
"The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one."
"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
"The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them."
"The true value of a human being can be found in the degree to which he has attained liberation from the self."
"The value of achiement lies in the achieving."
"The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing."
"The world is not dangerous because of those who do harm, but because of those who look at it without doing anything."
"There are only two ways to live your life. One as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."
"To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself."
"Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves."
"Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value."
"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth."
"We have to do the best we can. This is our sacred human responsibility."
"We still do not know one-thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us."
"When you look at yourself from a universal standpoint, something inside always reminds or informs you that there are bigger and better things to worry about."
"Yes, we have to divide up our time like that, between our politics and our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever."
"You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created."
"You do not really understand that which you cannot explain to your grandmother."
"Technological change is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal."
"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."
"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."
"Out of clutter, find Simplicity. \ From discord, find Harmony. \ In the middle of difficulty lies Opportunity."
"ABORIGINIES, n. Persons of little worth found cumbering the soil of a newly discovered country. They soon cease to cumber; they fertilize."
"Absurdity, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion."
"ACADEME, n. An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught."
"ACADEMY, n. [from ACADEME] A modern school where football is taught."
"Acquaintance, n. A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to."
"ADAGE, n. Boned wisdom for weak teeth."
"ADAMANT, n. A mineral frequently found beneath a corset. Soluble in solicitate of gold."
"Admiration, n. Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves."
"ARTLESSNESS, n. A certain engaging quality to which women attain by long study and severe practice upon the admiring male, who is pleased to fancy it resembles the candid simplicity of his young."
"Australia, n. A country lying in the South Sea, whose industrial and commercial development has been unspeakably retarded by an unfortunate dispute among geographers as to whether it is a continent or an island."
"Barometer, n.: An ingenious instrument which indicates what kind of weather we are having."
"Before undergoing a surgical operation, arrange your temporal affairs. You may live."
"Bore, n.: A person who talks when you wish him to listen."
"Brain: an apparatus with which we think we think."
"Bride, n. A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her."
"Cabbage, n.:A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head."
"Calamities are of two kinds: misfortunes to ourselves, and good fortune to others."
"Childhood, n. The period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth - two removes from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of age."
"Christian, n. One who follows the teachings of Christ insofar as they are not inconsistent with a life of sin."
"Clergyman, n. - A man who undertakes the management of our spiritual affairs as a method of bettering his temporal ones."
"Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum (I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.)"
"Cogito me cogitare, ergo cogito me esse (I think that I think, therefore I think that I am.)"
"Conservative. noun. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from a liberal, who wishes to replace them with others."
"Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility."
"Critic, n. A person who boasts himself hard to please because nobody tries to please him."
"Cynic, n. A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be."
"Dentist, n.: A Prestidigitator who, putting metal in one's mouth, pulls coins out of one's pockets."
"Diplomacy: The patriotic art of lying for one's country."
"Education, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding."
"Egotist, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me."
"Every time Europe looks across the Atlantic to see the American eagle, it observes only the rear end of an ostrich."
"Experience is a revelation in the light of which we renounce our errors of youth for those of age."
"Experience, n. The wisdom that enables us to recognize as an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced."
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
"Faith, noun. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel."
"Fork, n. An instrument used chiefly for the purpose of putting dead animals into the mouth."
"Happiness, noun. An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another."
"History, n. An account mostly false, of events unimportant, which are brought about by rulers mostly knaves, and soldiers mostly fools."
"Impiety, noun. Your irreverence toward my deity."
"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."
"Interpreter: 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."
"Lawsuit n. A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage."
"Lawyer, n. One skilled in the circumvention of the law."
"Love, n - A temporary insanity curable by marriage."
"Mad, adj: Affected with a high degree of intellectual independence."
"Marriage, n. The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress and two slaves, making in all, two."
"Mayonnaise: One of the sauces which serve the French in place of a state religion."
"Opera, n. A play representing life in another world whose inhabitants have no speech but song, no motions but gestures, and no postures but attitudes."
"Optimism, n. The doctrine or belief that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly."
"Optimist, n. A proponent of the doctrine that black is white."
"Painting: The art of protecting flat surfaces from the weather and exposing them to the critic."
"Philosophy, n. A route of many roads leading from nowhere to nothing."
"Phonograph, n. An irritating toy that restores life to dead noises."
"Pleasure, n. The least hateful form of dejection."
"Politeness, n. The most acceptable hypocrisy."
"Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles."
"Politics: The conduct of public affairs for private advantage."
"Quotation, n: The act of repeating erroneously the words of another."
"Reporter: A writer who guesses his way to the truth and dispels it with a tempest of words."
"Reverence: the spiritual attitude of a man to a god and a dog to a man."
"Saint, noun. A dead sinner revised and edited."
"Scriptures, n. The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based."
"Self-denial is indulgence of a propensity to forego."
"Success is the one unpardonable sin against one's fellows."
"The covers of this book are too far apart."
"The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavor upon the business known as gambling."
"The ocean is a body of water occupying about two-thirds of a world made for man - who has no gills."
"There is nothing new under the sun but there are lots of old things we don't know."
"To be positive: To be mistaken at the top of one's voice."
"Truth -- An ingenious compound of desirability and appearance."
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography."
"Year, n. A period of three hundred and sixty-five disappointments."
"The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible."
"Revolution, n. In politics, an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment."
"At the present rate of progress, it is almost impossible to imagine any technical feat that cannot be achieved - if it can be achieved at all - within the next few hundred years."
"CNN is one of the participants in the war. I have a fantasy where Ted Turner is elected president but refuses because he doesn't want to give up power."
"It may be that the old astrologers had the truth exactly reversed, when they believed that the stars controlled the destinies of men. The time may come when men control the destinies of stars."
"Like all revolutionary new ideas, the subject has had to pass through three stages, which may be summed up by these reactions: (1) 'It's crazy --- don't waste my time.' (2) 'It's possible, but it's not worth doing.' (3) 'I always said it was a good idea.'"
"Reading computer manuals without the hardware is as frustrating as reading sex manuals without the software."
"The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible."
"When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong. [Clarke defines the adjective 'elderly' as :'In physics, mathematics and astronautics it means over thirty; in other disciplines, senile decay is sometimes postponed to the forties. There are of course, glorious exceptions; but as every researcher just out of college knows, scientists of over fifty are good for nothing but board meetings, and should at all costs be kept out of the laboratory.']"
"When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong."
"I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose."
"Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really merely commonplaces of existence."
"The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes."
"I never guess. It is a shocking habit -- destructive to the logical faculty."
"Cleanliness and order are not matters of instinct; they are matters of education, and like most great things, you must cultivate a taste for them."
"He was one of those men who think that the world can be saved by writing a pamphlet."
"He who anticipates his century is generally persecuted when living, and always pilfered when dead."
"How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct."
"I am a Conservative to preserve all that is good in our constitution, a Radical to remove all that is bad. I seek to preserve property and to respect order, and I equally decry the appeal to the passions of the many or the prejudices of the few."
"Little things affect little minds."
"My idea of an agreeable person is a person who agrees with me."
"Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for truth."
"Nurture your mind with great thoughts, for you will never go any higher than you think."
"Nurture your mind with great thoughts."
"Success is the child of audacity."
"The best way to become acquainted with a subject is to write a book about it."
"The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but to reveal to him his own."
"The most dangerous strategy is to jump a chasm in two leaps."
"The secret of success is consistency of purpose."
"The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by quotation."
"What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expected generally happens."
"When men are pure, laws are useless; when men are corrupt, laws are broken."
"A benevolent man should allow a few faults in himself, to keep his friends in countenance."
"A cheerful face is nearly as good for an invalid as healthy weather."
"A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats."
"A democracy is two wolves and a small lamb voting on what to have for dinner. Freedom under a constitutional republic is a well armed lamb contesting the vote."
"A good conscience is a continual Christmas."
"A penny saved is a penny earned."
"Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is."
"A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over."
"A small leak can sink a great ship."
"All cats are gray in the dark."
"All would live long, but none would be old."
"An investment in knowledge still yields the best returns."
"Anger is never without Reason, but seldom with a good One."
"Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do."
"At 20 years of age the will reigns, at 30 the wit, at 40 the judgment."
"Be at war with your vices; at peace with your neighbors, and let every new year find you a better man."
"Be civil to all; sociable to many; familiar with few; friend to one; enemy to none."
"Be slow in choosing a friend, slower in changing."
"Be studious in your profession, and you will be learned. Be industrious and frugal, and you will be rich."
"Beware of the young doctor and the old barber."
"But in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."
"By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail."
"Clean your finger before you point at my spots."
"Content makes poor men rich; Discontent makes rich men poor."
"Creditors have better memories than debtors."
"Critics are our friends, they tell us our faults."
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!"
"Distrust and caution are the parents of security."
"Do good to your friends to keep them, to your enemies to win them."
"Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight."
"Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that's the stuff life is made of."
"Drive thy business or it will drive thee."
"Each year, one vicious habit rooted out, in time ought to make the worst man good."
"Early morning hath gold in its mouth."
"Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise."
"Eat to live, and not live to eat."
"Educate your children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies subject to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish misery from their future and crimes from society."
"Employ thy time well, if thou meanest to get leisure."
"Energy and persistence alter all things."
"Energy and persistence conquer all things."
"Experience is a dear teacher, but fools will learn at no other."
"Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other."
"Fish and visitors smell in three days."
"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?"
"For the want of a nail, the shoe was lose; for the want of a shoe the horse was lose; and for the want of a horse the rider was lost, being overtaken and slain by the enemy, all for the want of care about a horseshoe nail."
"Games lubricate the body and the mind."
"Genius without education is like silver in the mine."
"Glass, china and reputation are easily cracked, and never well mended."
"God grant that not only the love of liberty but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man may pervade all the nations of the earth, so that a philosopher may set his foot anywhere on its surface and say: 'This is my country.'"
"God heals, and the doctor takes the fees."
"He is a fool that cannot conceal his wisdom."
"He is ill clothed that is bare of virtue."
"He that blows the coals in quarrels that he has nothing to do with, has no right to complain if the sparks fly in his face."
"He that can have patience can have what he will."
"He that falls in love with himself will have no rivals."
"He that has done you a kindness will be more ready to do you another, than he whom you yourself have obliged."
"He that is good at making excuses is seldom good at anything else."
"He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else."
"He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money."
"He that lives upon hope will die fasting."
"He that rises late must trot all day."
"He that waits upon Fortune, is never sure of a dinner."
"He that would live in peace and at ease, must not speak all he knows nor judge all he sees."
"He was so learned he could name a horse in 9 languages, and bought a cow to ride on."
"He who multiplies riches multiplies cares."
"Hear reason, or she'll make you feel her."
"Hide not your talents, they for use were made. What's a sun-dial in the shade?"
"How many observe Christ's birthday! How few, his precepts! O! 'tis easier to keep Holidays than Commandments."
"I am in the prime of senility."
"I believe I shall,in some shape or other,always exist; and, with all the inconveniences human life is liable to, I shall not object to a new edition of mine, hoping, however, that the errata of the last may be corrected."
"I cannot conceive otherwise than that He, the Infinite Father, expects or requires no worship or praise from us, but that He is even infinitely above it."
"If a man could have half his wishes, he would double his troubles."
"If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins."
"If you know how to spend less than you get, you have the philosopher's stone."
"If you would be loved, love and be lovable."
"If you would be wealthy, think of saving as well as getting."
"If you would know the value of money, go try to borrow some; for he that goes a-borrowing goes a-sorrowing."
"If you would persuade, you must appeal to interest rather than intellect."
"If you wouldst live long, live well, for folly and wickedness shorten life."
"If your head is wax, don't walk in the sun."
"In general, mankind, since the improvement of cookery, eats twice as much as nature requires."
"In rivers and bad governments, the lightest things swim at the top."
"It is easier to prevent bad habits than to break them."
"It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man."
"Laws too gentle are seldom obeyed; too severe, seldom executed."
"Life's tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late."
"Little strokes fell great oaks."
"Lost time is never found again."
"Love your enemies, for they tell you your faults."
"Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself to it."
"Men and melons are hard to know."
"Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of its filling a vacuum, it makes one. If it satisfies one want, it doubles and trebles that want another way. That was a true proverb of the wise man, rely upon it; 'Better is little with the fear of the Lord, than great treasure, and trouble therewith.'"
"Necessity never made a good bargain."
"Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today."
"None preaches better than the ant, and she says nothing."
"Our critics are our friends; they show us our faults."
"Passion governs, and she never governs wisely."
"Plough deep, while Sluggards sleep; and you shall have Corn, to sell and to keep."
"Pride breakfasted with plenty, dined with poverty, and supped with infamy."
"Read much, but not many books."
"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."
"Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve."
"Rules too soft are seldomly followed; rules too harsh are seldomly executed."
"Search others for their virtues, thyself for thy vices."
"Sir, I agree to this Constitution, with all its Faults, if they are such; because I think a General Government necessary for us, and there is no Form of Government but what may be a Blessing to the People if well administered; and I believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a Course of Years, and can only end in Despotism as other Forms have done before it, when the People shall become so corrupted as to need Despotic Government, being incapable of any other."
"Sloth makes all things difficult, but industry, all things easy. He that rises late must trot all day, and shall scarce overtake his business at night, while laziness travels so slowly that poverty soon overtakes him."
"So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do."
"Tell me....And I Forget,Teach me.....And I Learn,Involve Me.....And I Remember."
"The absent are never without fault, nor the present without excuse."
"The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself."
"The discontented man finds no easy chair."
"The doors of wisdom are never shut."
"The first mistake in public business is the going into it."
"The strictest law sometimes becomes the severest injustice."
"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason."
"There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one's self."
"There is no kind of dishonesty into which otherwise good people more easily and frequently fall than that of defrauding the government."
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
"They that will not be counseled, cannot be helped. If you do not hear reason she will rap you on the knuckles."
"Think what you do when you run into debt; you give another power over your liberty."
"Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead."
"Three people can keep a secret so long as two of them are dead."
"Timothy was so learned he could name a horse in 9 languages, and bought a cow to ride on."
"To be proud of virtue is to poison oneself with the antidote."
"To be thrown upon one's own resources, is to be cast into the very lap of fortune; for our faculties then undergo a development and display an energy of which they were previously unsusceptible."
"To follow by faith alone is to follow blindly."
"To lengthen thy Life, lessen thy meals"
"To succeed, jump as quickly at opportunities as you do at conclusions."
"To the generous mind the heaviest debt is that of gratitude, when it is not in our power to repay it."
"We must hang together, gentlemen...else, we shall most assuredly hang separately."
"We must indeed all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall hang separately."
"Well done is better than well said."
"Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame."
"Keep your broken arm inside your sleeve."
"When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic. Sell not liberty to purchase power."
"Where sense is wanting, everything is wanting,"
"Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody."
"Whoever feels pain in hearing a good character of his neighbor, will feel a pleasure in the reverse. And those who despair to rise in distinction by their virtues, are happy if others can be depressed to a level of themselves."
"Wish not so much to live long as to live well."
"Write injuries in dust, benefits in marble."
"You may delay, but time will not."
"The noblest question in the world is: 'What good may I do in it?'"
"A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism."
"Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
"A rat who gnaws at a cat's tail invites destruction."
"All of the books in the world contain no more information than is broadcast as video in a single large American city in a single year. Not all bits have equal value."
"But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."
"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."
"If we long to believe that the stars rise and set for us, that we are the reason there is a Universe, does science do us a disservice in deflating our conceits?"
"If you want to bake an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the Universe."
"In every country, we should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit. In the demon-haunted world that we inhabit by virtue of being human, this may be all that stands between us and the enveloping darkness."
"It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English -- up to fifty words used in correct context -- no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese."
"Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us -- there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation of a distant memory, as if we were falling from a great height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries."
"Personally, I would be delighted if there were a life after death, especially if it permitted me to continue to learn about this world and others, if it gave me a chance to discover how history turns out."
"Science is not only compatible with spirituality; it is a profound source of spirituality."
"Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep insights can be winnowed from deep nonsense."
"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known."
"The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition."
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent."
"Think of how many religions attempt to validate themselves with prophecy. Think of how many people rely on these prophecies, however vague, however unfulfilled, to support or prop up their beliefs. Yet has there ever been a religion with the prophetic accuracy and reliability of science?"
"We embarked on our journey to the stars with a question first framed in the childhood of our species and in each generation asked anew with undiminished wonder: What are the stars? Exploration is in our nature. We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for the stars."
"We live at a moment when our relationships to each other, and to all other beings with whom we share this planet, are up for grabs."
"One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time."
"Anyone who's ever significantly changed the course of humanity has either been a Crackpot, a Heretic, or a Dissident. In the case of Albert Einstein, he was all three!"
"In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time someting like that happened in politics or religion."
"When you make the finding yourself - even if you're the last person on Earth to see the light - you'll never forget it."
"Where we have strong emotions, we're liable to fool ourselves."
"Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people."
"A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song."
"A bit of fragrance clings to the hand that gives flowers."
"A book holds a house of gold."
"A book is like a garden carried in the pocket."
"A book tightly shut is but a block of paper."
"A child's life is like a piece of paper on which every person leaves a mark."
"A clever person turns great troubles into little ones and little ones into none at all."
"A diamond with a flaw is worth more than a pebble without imperfections."
"A filthy mouth will not utter decent language."
"A fool judges people by the presents they give him."
"A gem is not polished without rubbing, nor a man perfected without trials."
"A nation's treasure is in its scholars."
"A thorn defends the rose, harming only those who would steal the blossom."
"A thousand cups of wine do not suffice when true friends meet, but half a sentence is too much when there is no meeting of minds."
"An inch of time cannot be bought with an inch of gold."
"At birth we bring nothing with us; at death we take nothing away."
"Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still."
"Be the first to the field and the last to the couch."
"Better to argue with a wise man than prattle with a fool."
"Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness."
"Control your emotion or it will control you."
"Deal with the faults of others as gently as with your own."
"Deep doubts, deep wisdom; small doubts, little wisdom."
"Dig the well before you are thirsty."
"Do good, reap good; do evil, reap evil."
"Do not employ handsome servants."
"Do not fear going forward slowly; fear only to stand still."
"Do not remove a fly from your friend's forehead with a hatchet."
"Don't open a shop unless you like to smile."
"Each generation will reap what the former generation has sown."
"Everything in the past died yesterday; everything in the future was born today."
"Flowing water never goes bad."
"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."
"Habits are cobwebs at first; cables at last."
"He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever."
"He who cannot agree with his enemies is controlled by them."
"He who is drowned is not troubled by the rain."
"He who strikes the first blow admits he's lost the argument."
"I dreamed a thousand new paths. . . I woke and walked my old one."
"I drink tea and forget the world's noises."
"If heaven made him, earth can find some use for him."
"If we don't change our direction we're likely to end up where we're headed."
"If you are patient in one moment of anger, you will escape a hundred days of sorrow."
"If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, educate people."
"If you bow at all, bow low."
"If you don't want anyone to know, don't do it."
"If you get up one more time than you fall you will make it through."
"If you stand straight, do not fear a crooked shadow."
"Keep a green tree in your heart and a singing bird will come."
"Learning is like rowing upstream: To not advance is to fall back."
"Not until just before dawn do people sleep best; not until people get old do they become wise."
"Of all strategies, to know when to quit may be the best."
"One step at a time is good walking."
"Only by learning do we discover how ignorant we are."
"Only distance tests the strength of horses; only time reveals the hearts of men."
"Patience in one minute of anger can prevent one hundred days of sorrow."
"Raise your sail one foot and you get ten feet of wind."
"Teachers open the door. You enter by yourself."
"Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand."
"The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials."
"The man who comes with a tale about others has himself an ax to grind."
"The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it."
"Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it."
"To know the road ahead, ask those coming back."
"Unless we change direction, we are likely to wind up where we are headed."
"When drinking water, remember its source."
"When you drink the water, remember the spring."
"When you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other."
"With time and patience the mulberry leaf becomes a silk gown."
"With true friends . . . even water drunk together is sweet enough."
"Renew thyself completely each day; do it again, and again, and forever again."
"Above our life we love a steadfast friend."
"Accursed be he that first invented war."
"All places are alike, and every earth is fit for burial."
"Come live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove, That valleys, groves, hills, and fields, Woods, or steepy mountain yields."
"Confess and be hanged."
"Excess of wealth is cause of covetousness."
"Goodness is beauty in the best estate."
"Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed In one self place, for where we are is hell, And where hell is there must we ever be."
"I'm armed with more than complete steel, - The justice of my quarrel."
"Is it not passing brave to be a King and ride in triumph through Persepolis?"
"Jigging veins of rhyming mother wits."
"Live and die in Aristotle's works."
"Money can't buy love, but it improves your bargaining position."
"O, thou art fairer than the evening air clad in the beauty of a thousand stars."
"Our swords shall play the orators for us."
"That perfect bliss and sole felicity, the sweet fruition of an earthly crown."
"Virtue is the fount whence honour springs."
"Was this the face that launched a thousand ships, and burnt the topless towers of Ileum?"
"What are kings, when regiment is gone, but perfect shadows in a sunshine day?"
"What feeds me destroys me."
"While money doesn't buy love, it puts you in a great bargaining position."
"Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?"
"High heels were invented by a woman who had been kissed on the forehead."
"Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it."
"Man makes a great fuss about this planet which is only a ball bearing in the hub of the universe."
"My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated but not signed."
"Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to be always part of unanimity."
"Forget injuries, never forget kindness."
"I count religion but a childish toy, and hold there is no sin but ignorance."
"There is no sin but ignorance."
"The bicycle, the bicycle surely, should always be the vehicle of novelists and poets."
"There are three ingredients in the good life: learning, earning, and yearning."
"There is no mistaking a real book when one meets it. It is like falling in love."
"There is only one success -- to be able to spend your life in your own way."
"Either you decide to stay in the shallow end of the pool or you go out in the ocean."
"A box of crayons and a big sheet of paper provides a more expressive medium for kids than computerized paint programs."
"Computers in classrooms are the filmstrips of the 1990s."
"Data is not information, Information is not knowledge, Knowledge is not understanding, Understanding is not wisdom."
"If you don't have an E-mail address, you're in the Netherworld. If you don't have your own World Wide Web page, you're a nobody."
"Merely that I have a World Wide Web page does not give me any power, any abilities, nor any status in the real world."
"Rather than bringing me closer to others, the time that I spend online isolates me from the most important people in my life, my family, my friends, my neighbourhood, my community."
"The Internet is a telephone system that's gotten uppity."
"Treat your password like your toothbrush. Don't let anybody else use it, and get a new one every six months."
"When I'm online, I'm alone in a room, tapping on a keyboard, staring at a cathode-ray tube."
"While I admire the insights of many of the people in the world of computing, I get this cold feeling that I speak a different language."
"Why is it drug addicts and computer afficionados are both called users?"
"Anyone can post messages to the net. Practically everyone does. The resulting cacophony drowns out serious discussion."
"As the networks evolve, so do my opinions toward them, and my divergent feelings bring out conflicting points of view. In advance, I apologize to those who expect a consistent position from me."
"Call me a troglodyte; I'd rather peruse those photos alongside my sweetheart, catch the newspaper on the way to work, and page thorough a real book."
"Computers force us into creating with our minds and prevent us from making things with our hands. They dull the skills we use in everyday life."
"Electronic communication is an instantaneous and illusory contact that creates a sense of intimacy without the emotional investment that leads to close friendships."
"Here are my strong reservations about the wave of computer networks. They isolate us from one another and cheapen the meaning of actual experience. They work against literacy and creativity. They undercut our schools and libraries."
"I sense an insatiable demand for connectivity. Maybe all these people have discovered important uses for the Internet. Perhaps some of them feel hungry for a community that our real neighborhoods don't deliver. At least a few must wonder what the big deal is."
"I spend almost as much time figuring out what's wrong with my computer as I do actually using it."
"It's a great medium for trivia and hobbies, but not the place for reasoned, reflective judgment. Suprisingly often, discussions degenerate into acrimony, insults and flames."
"No computer network with pretty graphics can ever replace the salespeople that make our society work."
"The Internet has no such organization - files are made available at random locations. To search through this chaos, we need smart tools, programs that find resources for us."
"A man who has committed a mistake and doesn't correct it, is committing another mistake."
"A superior man in dealing with the world is not for anything or against anything. He follows the righteousness as the standard."
"Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves."
"Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without."
"Better than the one who knows what is right is he who loves what is right."
"Do not worry about people not knowing your ability: worry about not having it."
"Even when walking in a party of three I can always be certain of learning from those I am with. There will be good qualities that I can select for imitation and bad ones that will teach me what requires correction in myself."
"Everything has its beauty but not everyone sees it."
"Forget injuries, never forget kindnesses."
"He that would perfect his work must first sharpen his tools."
"He who will not economize will have to agonize."
"If a man take no thought about what is distant, he will find sorrow near at hand."
"If you don't know how to serve me, why worry about serving gods?"
"Is it not delightful to have friends come from afar?"
"Is virtue a thing remote? I wish to be virtuous, and lo! virtue is at hand."
"It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop."
"It is a fault to cling to a fault."
"It is only the very wisest and the very stupidest who cannot change."
"Men's natures are alike, it is their habits that carry them far apart."
"Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time we fall."
"Plan ahead or find trouble on the doorstep."
"Precompense injury with injustice, and recompense kindness with kindness."
"Respect yourself and others will respect you."
"Sincerity and truth are the basis of every virtue."
"Study the past if you would define the future."
"The firm, the enduring, the simple, and the modest are near to virtue."
"The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones."
"The object of the superior man is truth."
"The superior man seeks what is right; the inferior one, what is profitable."
"The superior man, when resting in safety, does not forget that danger may come. When in a state of security he does not forget the possibility of ruin. When all is orderly, he does not forget that disorder may come. Thus his person is not endangered, and his States and all their clans are preserved."
"There are three marks of a superior man: \ being virtuous, he is free from anxiety; \ being wise, he is free from perplexity; \ being brave, he is free from fear."
"There are three marks of a superior man: being virtuous, he is free from anxiety; being wise, he is free from perplexity; being brave, he is free from fear."
"Things that are done, it is needless to speak about . . . things that are past, it is needless to blame."
"Things that are done, it is needless to speak about...things that are past, it is needless to blame."
"To be able under all circumstances to practice five things constitutes perfect virtue; these five things are gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness and kindness."
"To go beyond is as wrong as to fall short."
"To see what is right and not to do it, is want of courage."
"To see what is right, and not to do it, is want of courage or of principle."
"What is most needed for learning is a humble mind."
"What the superior man seeks is in himself; what the small man seeks is in others."
"When anger rises, think of the consequences."
"When we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves."
"Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart."
"First there must be order and harmony within your own mind. Then this order will spread to your family, then to the community, and finally to your entire kingdom. Only then can you have peace and harmony."
"I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand."
"That man alone is wise who remains master of himself."
"To look up is joy."
"[The superior man] acts before he speaks, and afterwards speaks according to his actions."
"Be not ashamed of mistakes and thus make them crimes."
"Time and tide wait for no man."
"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance."
"By nature, men are nearly alike; by practice, they get to be wide apart."
"Fine words and an insinuating appearance are seldom associated with true virtue."
"Have no friends not equal to yourself."
"He who exercises government by means of his virtue may be compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the stars turn towards it."
"He who speaks without modesty will find it difficult to make his words good."
"He with whom neither slander that gradually soaks into the mind, nor statements that startle like a wound in the flesh, are successful may be called intelligent indeed."
"Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles."
"I am not one who was born in the possession of knowledge; I am one who is fond of antiquity, and earnest in seeking it there."
"I have not seen a person who loved virtue, or one who hated what was not virtuous. He who loved virtue would esteem nothing above it."
"If a man takes no thought about what is distant, he will find sorrow near at hand."
"If a man withdraws his mind from the love of beauty, and applies it as sincerely to the love of the virtuous; if, in serving his parents, he can exert his utmost strength; if, in serving his prince, he can devote his life; if in his intercourse with his friends, his words are sincere - although men say that he has not learned, I will certainly say that he has."
"Is virtue a thing remote? I wish to be virtuous, and lo! Virtue is at hand."
"Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous."
"Recompense injury with justice, and recompense kindness with kindness."
"The cautious seldom err."
"The determined scholar and the man of virtue will not seek to live at the expense of injuring their virtue. They will even sacrifice their lives to preserve their virtue complete."
"The man of virtue makes the difficulty to be overcome his first business, and success only a subsequent consideration."
"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."
"The people may be made to follow a path of action, but they may not be made to understand it."
"The scholar who cherishes the love of comfort is not fit to be deemed a scholar."
"The superior man cannot be known in little matters, but he may be entrusted with great concerns. The small man may not be entrusted with great concerns, but he may be known in little matters."
"The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions."
"The superior man is satisfied and composed; the mean man is always full of distress."
"The superior man...does not set his mind either for anything, or against anything; what is right he will follow."
"There are three things which the superior man guards against. In youth...lust. When he is strong...quarrelsomeness. When he is old...covetousness."
"They must often change who would be constant in happiness or wisdom."
"To be able to practice five things everywhere under heaven constitutes perfect virtue...[They are] gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness."
"Virtue is more to man than either water or fire. I have seen men die from treading on water and fire, but I have never seen a man die from treading the course of virtue."
"Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practices it will have neighbors."
"What the superior man seeks is in himself. What the mean man seeks is in others."
"What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others."
"When a man's knowledge is sufficient to attain, and his virtue is not sufficient to enable him to hold, whatever he may have gained, he will lose again."
"When we see men of worth, we should think of equaling them; when we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves."
"When you have faults, do not fear to abandon them."
"When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it - this is knowledge."
"While you are not able to serve men, how can you serve spirits [of the dead]?...While you do not know life, how can you know about death?"
"With coarse rice to eat, with water to drink, and my bended arm for a pillow - I have still joy in the midst of these things. Riches and honors acquired by unrighteousness are to me as a floating cloud."
"Without an acquaintance with the rules of propriety, it is impossible for the character to be established."
"... The important thing is to realize the positive side and try to increase that; realize the negative side and try to reduce. That's the way."
"As human beings we all want to be happy and free from misery . . . we have learned that the key to happiness is inner peace."
"Basically we are all the same human beings with the same potential to be a good human being or a bad human being."
"Compassion can be put into practice if one recognizes the fact that every human being is a member of humanity and the human family regardless of differences in religion, culture, color and creed. Deep down there is no difference."
"Each of us in our own way can try to spread compassion into people's hearts."
"From the viewpoint of absolute truth, what we feel and experience in our ordinary daily life is all delusion."
"Genuine compassion is based not on our own projections and expectations, but rather on the rights of the other: irrespective of whether another person is a close friend of an enemy, as long as that person wishes for peace and happines and wishes to overcome suffering, then on that basic we develop genuine concern for his or her problem. This is genuine compassion."
"If we can realize and meditate on ultimate truth, it will cleanse our impurities of mind and thus eradicate the sense of discrimination. This will help to create true love for one another. The search for ultimate truth is, therefore, vitally important."
"If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion."
"It is the enemy who can truly teach us to practice the virtues of compassion and tolerance."
"My message is the practice of compassion, love, and kindness."
"Never overestimate your power to change others. In the practice of tolerance, one's enemy is the best teacher."
"Of all the various delusions, the sense of discrimination between oneself and others is the worst form, as it creates nothing but unpleasantness for both sides."
"Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck."
"Sleep is the best meditation."
"Spend five minutes at the beginning of each day remembering we all want the same things (to be happy and be loved) and we all are connected to one another."
"The greatest obstacle to inner peace are disturbing emotions such as anger and attachment, fear and suspicion, while love, compassion, and a sense of universal responsibility are the sources of peace and happiness."
"The measure of a man's spiritual evolution is his acceptance of the unacceptable."
"The more we take the welfare of others to heart and work for their benefit, the more benefit we derive for ourselves. This is a fact that we can see."
"We can never obtain peace in the world if we neglect the inner world and don't make peace with ourselves. World peace must develop out of inner peace."
"Western civilizations these days place great importance on filling the human 'brain'with knowledge, but no one seems to care about filling the human 'heart' with compassion."
"What is meant...by the term 'illusion' is that phenomena do not exist independently of other phenomena, that their appearance of independent existence is illusory. This is all that is meant by 'illusion,' not that something is not really there."
"When we meet real tragedy in life, we can react in two ways -- either by losing hope and falling into self-destructive habits, or by using the challenge to find our innter strength."
"All of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon - instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today."
"Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain - and most do."
"Believe that you will succeed, and you will."
"First ask yourself: What is the worst that can happen? Then prepare to accept it. Then proceed to improve on the worst."
"Flaming enthusiasm, backed by horse sense and persistence, is the quality that most frequently makes for success."
"For better or worse, you must play your own little instrument in the orchestra of life."
"I deal with the obvious. I present, reiterate and glorify the obvious -- because the obvious is what people need to be told."
"Learn to love, respect and enjoy other people."
"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."
"Remember happiness doesn't depend upon who you are or what you have; it depends solely upon what you think."
"Take a chance! All life is a chance. The man who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare."
"The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it."
"You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you."
"All of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our window today."
"10 percent of computer users are Mac users, but remember, we are the top 10 percent."
"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools."
"Ah, this is obviously some strange usage of the word 'safe' that I wasn't previously aware of."
"The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today."
"Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things."
"Apple Computer:We may not get everything right, but at least we knew the century was going to end."
"Don't Panic."
"Everything that's already in the world when you're born is just normal; anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it; anything that gets invented after you're thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilisation as we know it until it's been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really."
"For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen."
"He attacked everything in life with a mix of extraordinary genius and naive incompetence, and it was often difficult to tell which was which."
"He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it."
"He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife."
"How do I know the past is not a fiction conceived to reconcile the difference between my state of mind and the present."
"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so."
"I don't believe it. Prove it to me and I still won't believe it."
"I love deadlines. I especially like the whooshing sound they make as they go flying by."
"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."
"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be."
"I'm spending a year dead for tax reasons."
"In the beginning the universe was created. This has widely been regarded as a bad move."
"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
"In those days spirits were brave, the stakes were high, men were real men, women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri."
"It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes."
"Life... is like a grapefruit. It's orange and squishy, and has a few pips in it, and some folks have half a one for breakfast."
"Nothing travels faster than light, with the possible exception of bad news, which follows its own rules."
"Perhaps I'm old and tired, but I always think that the chances of finding out what really is going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say hang the sense of it and just keep yourself occupied."
"Reality is frequently inaccurate."
"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 art of flying is to throw yourself at the ground and miss."
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in a moment of reasoned lucidity which is almost unique among its current tally of five million, nine hundred and seventy-three thousand, five hundred and nine pages, says of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation products that 'it is very easy to be blinded to the essential uselessness of them by the sense of achievement you get from getting them to work at all.' In other words, - and this is the rock-solid principle on which the whole of the Corporation's Galaxywide success is founded - their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws."
"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."
"The impossible often has a kind of integrity which the merely improbable lacks."
"The last time anybody made a list of the top hundred character attributes of New Yorkers, common sense snuck in at number 79."
"The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing that cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair."
"The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination"
"When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on."
"A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic."
"There is a theory which states that if anyone discovers 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."
"There was a point to this narrative, but it has presently escaped the chronicler's mind."
"There's nothing in life so difficult that a Microsoft manual can't make it completely incomprehensible."
"Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so."
"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty."
"Why is there pain and misery in the world?... Why is the sky blue? Why is water wet? Why didn't Microsoft even put in a word count? These things are unknowable."
"The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."
"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."
"A dreadful silence fell across the conference table as the commander of the Vl'hurgs, resplendent in his black jewelled battle shorts, gazed levelly at the G'Gugvuntt leader squatting opposite him in a cloud of green sweet-smelling steam, and, with a million sleek and horribly beweaponed star cruisers poised to unleash electric death at his single word of command, challenged the vile creature to take back what it had said about his mother."
"Half of the modern drugs could well be thrown out of the window, except that the birds might eat them."
"Do not condemn the man that cannot think or act as fast as you can, because there was a time when you could not do things as well as you can today."
"Cowardice asks the question - is it safe? Expediency asks the question - is it politic? Vanity asks the question - is it popular? But conscience asks the question - is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because it is right."
"I have a dream that my four little 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."
"Become a possibilitarian. No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see possibilities--always see them, for they're always there."
"I've worked in the private sector before; they expect results!"
"What would you attempt to do if you knew you could not fail?"
"If your dog is fat, you are not getting enough exercise!"
"Adults are obsolete children."
"If it keeps up, man will atrophy all his limbs but the push-button finger."
"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... and that enables you to laugh at all of life's realities."
"Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So. . . get on your way."
"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."
"You know you're in love when you can't fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams."
"You have brains in your head.\ You have feet in your shoes. \You can steer yourself\ Any direction you choose. \ Out there things can happen \ and frequently do \ to people as brainy \ And footsy as you.\ With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet, \ You're too smart to go down any not-so-good street. \ Be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray \ or Mordeci Ali Van Allen O'Shea \ you're off to Great Places! \ Today is your day! \ Your mountain is waiting. \ So...get on your way!"
"An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows."
"Dollars and guns are no substitutes for brains and will power."
"Don't join the book burners. Don't think you're going to conceal faults by concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don't be afraid to go in your library and read every book..."
"Don't think you are going to conceal thoughts by concealing evidence that they ever existed."
"I can think of nothing more boring for the American people than to have to sit in their living rooms for a whole half hour looking at my face on their television screens."
"I have found in battle that planning is indispensible but plans are useless."
"I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it."
"A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul."
"I would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have persuaded him he will stick. If I scare him, he will stay just as long as he is scared, and then he is gone."
"In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."
"What counts is not necessarily the size of the dog in the fight - it's the size of the fight in the dog."
"Character building begins in our infancy, and continues until death."
"Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people."
"I believe that all that we go through here must have some value."
"I think that somehow, we learn who we really are and then live with that decision."
"It is not fair to ask of others what you are unwilling to do yourself."
"It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan."
"Life was meant to be lived, and curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life."
"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
"People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built."
"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."
"We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face... we must do that which we think we cannot."
"You must do the thing you think you cannot do."
"'Form follows function' - that has been misunderstood. Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union."
"An idea is salvation by imagination."
"Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose the former and have seen no reason to change."
"Freedom is from within."
"Give me the luxuries of life and I will willingly do without the necessities."
"I believe in God, only I spell it Nature."
"I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters."
"Its never just a game when you're winning."
"If you tilt the whole country sideways, Los Angeles is the place where everything loose will fall."
"Noble life demands a noble architecture for noble uses of noble men. Lack of culture means what it has always meant: ignoble civilization and therefore imminent downfall."
"Space is the breath of art."
"Television: chewing gum for the eyes."
"The longer I live the more beautiful life becomes."
"The physician can bury his mistakes, but the architect can only advise his client to plant vines - so they should go as far as possible from home to build their first buildings."
"The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen."
"The truth is more important than the facts."
"Tip the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles."
"Turn the world over on its side and everything loose will land in Los Angeles."
"TV is chewing gum for the eyes."
"A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward."
"Be sincere. Be brief. Be seated."
"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."
"It is fun to be in the same decade with you."
"When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on."
"If you treat people right they will treat you right - ninety percent of the time."
"I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it, the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master."
"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing."
"A man learns to skate by staggering about making a fool of himself; indeed, he progresses in all things by making a fool of himself."
"A perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell."
"An Irishman's heart is nothing but his imagination."
"Be like the sun and meadow, which are not in the least concerned about the coming winter."
"Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world."
"Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve."
"England and America are two countries separated by a common language."
"Even the youngest of us may be wrong sometimes."
"Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough."
"Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history."
"Home life as we understand it is no more natural to us than a cage is to a cockatoo."
"Human beings are the only animals of which I am thoroughly and cravenly afraid."
"I can forgive Alfred Nobel for having invented dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize."
"I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation."
"If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion."
"If you can't get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance."
"Scratch any cynic and you'll find a disappointed idealist."
"Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will."
"It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid."
"Liberty means responsibility. That's why most men dread it."
"Martyrdom... is the only way in which a man can become famous without ability."
"One man that has a mind and knows it can always beat ten men who haven't and don't."
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it."
"People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them."
"Reading made Don Quixote a gentleman. Believing what he read made him mad."
"Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not."
"Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say, why not?"
"Take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then say it with the utmost levity."
"The golden rule is that there are no golden rules."
"The joy in life is to be used for a purpose. I want to be used up when I die."
"The longer I live the more I see that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains I have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time."
"The man who writes about himself and his own time is the only man who writes about all people and all time."
"The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it."
"The more things a man is ashamed of, the more respectable he is."
"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it."
"There are two tragedies in life. One is not to get your heart's desire. The other is to get it."
"There is no love sincerer than the love of food."
"Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything."
"Use your health even to the point of wearing it out. That is what it is for. Spend all you have before you die, and do not outlive yourself."
"We don't bother much about dress and manners in England, because as a nation we don't dress well and we've no manners."
"What is life but a series of inspired follies? The difficulty is to find them to do. Never lose a chance: it doesn't come every day."
"When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty."
"When I was a young man I observed that nine out of every ten things I did were failures. I didn't want to be a failure. So I did ten times more work."
"You are going to let the fear of poverty govern your life and your reward will be that you will eat, but you will not live."
"You don't learn to hold your own in the world by standing on guard, but by attacking and getting well hammered yourself."
"Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children."
"The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity."
"Honesty may be the best policy, but it's important to remember that apparently, by elimination, dishonesty is the second-best policy."
"I think it's the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately."
"I worry about my judgment when anything I believe in or do regularly begins to be accepted by the American public."
"I'm 60 years of age. That's 16 Celsius."
"I'm not concerned about all hell breaking loose, but that a PART of hell will break loose... it'll be much harder to detect."
"Some national parks have long waiting lists for camping reservations. When you have to wait a year to sleep next to a tree, something is wrong."
"There's no present. There's only the immediate future and the recent past."
"Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music."
"Weather forcast for tonight: dark. Continued dark overnight, with widely scattered light by morning."
"Well, if crime fighters fight crime and fire fighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part to us, do they?"
"Where do forest rangers go to get away from it all?"
"A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five."
"Age is not a particularly interesting subject. Anyone can get old. All you have to do is live long enough."
"All people are born alike - except Republicans and Democrats."
"Either this man is dead or my watch has stopped."
"From the moment I picked up your book until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it."
"I didn't like the play, but then I saw it under adverse conditions - the curtain was up."
"I don't have a photograph, but you can have my footprints. They're upstairs in my socks."
"I eat like a vulture. Unfortunately the resemblance doesn't end there."
"I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book."
"I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception."
"I sent the club a wire stating, PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON'T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT ME AS A MEMBER."
"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."
"It isn't necessary to have relatives in Kansas City in order to be unhappy."
"Money frees you from doing things you dislike. Since I dislike doing nearly everything, money is handy."
"My mother loved children--she would have given anything if I had been one."
"No man goes before his time -- unless the boss leaves early."
"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others."
"All that is gold does not glitter; not all those that wander are lost."
"...People sometimes mistake their own shortcomings for those of society and want to fix [society] because they don't know how to fix themselves."
"Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night."
"I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them."
"Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today -- but the core of science fiction, its essence has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all."
"It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be. This, in turn, means that our statesmen, our businessmen, our every man must take on a science fictional way of thinking."
"It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety."
"Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome."
"Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right."
"Never let your sense of morals keep you from doing what is right."
"No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be. . .."
"Old people think young people haven't learned about love. Young people think old people have forgotten about love."
"If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them."
"I write for the same reason I breathe - because if I didn't, I would die."
"I'm not a speed reader. I'm a speed understander."
"One, a robot may not injure a human being, or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm; Two, a robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law; Three, a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws."
"Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest."
"People say 'It's as plain as the nose on your face.' But how much of the nose on your face can you see, unless someone holds up a mirror for you?"
"People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do."
"Science can be introduced to children well or poorly. If poorly, children can be turned away from science; they can develop a lifelong antipathy; they will be in a far worse condition than if they had never been introduced to science at all."
"Science does not promise absolute truth, nor does it consider that such a thing necessarily exists. Science does not even promise that everything in the Universe is amenable to the scientific process."
"Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not."
"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny ...'"
"The most hopelessly stupid man is he who is not aware that he is wise."
"The three fundamental Rules of Robotics...One: a robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm...Two:..a robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law...Three: a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First and Second Laws."
"There is no belief, however foolish, that will not gather its faithful adherents who will defend it to the death."
"Violence is the diplomacy of the incompetent."
"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."
"When, however, the lay public rallies round an idea that is denounced by distinguished but elderly scientists and supports that idea with great fervor and emotion -- the distinguished but elderly scientists are then, after all, probably right."
"You must keep sending work out; you must never let a manuscript do nothing but eat its head off in a drawer. You send that work out again and again, while you're working on another one. If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success - but only if you persist."
"...for advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill."
"'I wish life was not so short,' he thought. 'Languages take such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about.'"
"Advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise."
"All that we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."
"But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn't. And if they had, we shouldn't know, because they'd have been forgotten. We hear about those as just went on -- and not all to a good end, mind you; at least not to what folk inside a story and not outside it call a good end."
"Courage is found in unlikely places."
"Do not meddle in the affairs of wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger."
"Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens."
"Few can foresee whither their road will lead them, till they come to its end."
"He should not vow to walk in the dark, who has not seen the nightfall."
"He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom."
"To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today."
"His house was perfect, whether you liked food, or sleep, or work, or story-telling, or singing, or just sitting and thinking, best, or a pleasant mixture of them all."
"I am told that I talk in shorthand and then smudge it."
"I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence."
"It's wisdom to recognize necessity, when all other courses have been weighed, though as folly it may appear to those who cling to false hope."
"Little by little, one travels far."
"Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more perfect world, or even with a little more care in this very imperfect one) both partners might be found more suitable mates. But the real soul-mate is the one you are actually married to."
"Still round the corner there may wait, A new road or a secret gate."
"The board is set, the pieces are moving. We come to it at last... The great battle of our time."
"The Darkness has begun. There will be no dawn."
"The deeds will not be less valiant because they are unpraised."
"The Hobbits are just rustic English people, made small in size because it reflects the generally small reach of their imagination."
"The treacherous are ever distrustful."
"The world changes, and all that once was strong now proves unsure."
"The world has changed. I see it in the water. I feel it in the Earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost, For none now live who remember it."
"The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair; and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater."
"Their Oath shall drive them, and yet betray them, and ever snatch away the very treasures that they have sworn to pursue."
"There I lay staring upward, while the stars wheeled over... Faint to my ears came the gathered rumour of all lands: the springing and the dying, the song and the weeping, and the slow everlasting groan of overburdened stone."
"Valour needs first strength, then a weapon."
"What do you mean? Do you wish me a good morning, or mean that it is a good morning whether I want it or not; or that you feel good on this morning; or that it is a morning to be good on?"
"With hope or without hope we will follow the trail of our enemies. And woe to them, if we prove the swifter!"
"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."
"Let your joy be in your journey - not in some distant goal."
"If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world."
"'It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door,' he used to say. 'You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.'"
"It's a dangerous business going out your front door."
"It's a job that's never started that takes the longest to finish."
"Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends."
"One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them."
"Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible, and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works..."
"I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it."
"If you had any guts, you'd go to the library and educate yourself."
"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."
"Any man whose errors take ten years to correct is quite a man."
"If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One... I am become Death, the Shatterer of Worlds."
"The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true."
"Now we are all sons of bitches."
"A little wisdom is a stumbling block on the way to Buddahood."
"Never let go the reins of the wild colt of the heart."
"The bird that cries korokoro in the mountain rice-field I know to be a hototogisu - yet it may have been my father; it may have been my mother."
"However fickle I seem, my heart is never unfaithful; Out of the slime itself, spotless the lotus grows."
"A single prayer moves heaven."
"Art is the illusion of spontaneity."
"Beginning is easy - Continuing is hard."
"Don't give others what they don't want."
"Don't stay long when the husband is not at home."
"Fall down seven times, get up eight."
"Fall seven times, stand up eight."
"Gossip about a person and his shadow will appear."
"If you believe everything you read, better not read."
"In a quarrel, the higher voiced person will win."
"Never rely on the glory of the morning nor the smiles of your mother-in-law."
"One kind word can warm three winter months."
"The closer you stan to the lighthouse, the darker it gets."
"The reverse side also has a reverse side."
"There is always a piece of fortune in misfortune."
"Time spent laughing is time spent with the gods."
"True words are often not beautiful, just as beautiful words are often not true."
"Vision with action is a daydream; action without vision is a nightmare."
"We're fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance."
"When someone's character is not clear to you, look at that person's friends."
"When the character of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends."
"If you sit by the river long enough, you will see the body of your enemy float by."
"The mind is host, the body guest."
"Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it's less good than the one you had before. You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you've lost, or you can accept that and try to put together something that's good."
"We think the government should be pushing for more encryption. That it’s a great thing. You know, it’s like the sun and the air and the water."
"Why fit in when you were born to stand out?"
"...and that this country shall have a new birth of freedom, and that this government, of the people, for the people, by the people, shall not perish from the Earth."
"When writers die, they become books."
"Hope and fear cannot occupy the same space. Invite one to stay."
"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength; while loving someone deeply gives you courage."
"The palest ink is better than the best memory."
"Whenever I have endured or accomplished some difficult task -- such as watching television, going out socially or sleeping -- I always look forward to rewarding myself with the small pleasure of getting back to my typewriter and writing something."
"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance."
"You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant."
"There is no falling behind. There is no getting ahead. There is only getting up in the morning, and doing some tasks, and trying to just be a person in this world we live in."
"A Pen Transmits the Voice of the Soul."
"Do not pick up the pen unless you understand how heavy it is, and how long you may carry it for."
"Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy."
"Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking."
"My two fingers on a typewriter have never connected with my brain. My hand on a pen does. A fountain pen, of course. Ball-point pens are only good for filling out forms on a plane."
"But words are things, and a small drop of ink, falling like dew, upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think."
"One of the kindest things you can do is be gentle and patient with yourself."
"Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always."
"The pen is the interpreter of the soul: what one thinks, the other expresses"
"I have had so many conversations or email exchanges with students in the last few years wherein I anger them by indicating that simply saying, "This is my opinion" does not preclude a connected statement from being dead wrong. It still baffles me that some feel those four words somehow give them carte blanche to spout batshit oratory or prose. And it really scares me that some of those students think education that challenges their ideas is equivalent to an attack on their beliefs."
"Let us not submit to the vile doctrine of the nineteenth century that every enterprise must justify itself in pounds, shillings and pence of cash income … Why should we not add in every substantial city the dignity of an ancient university or a European capital … an ample theater, a concert hall, a dance hall, a gallery, cafes, and so forth. Assuredly we can afford this and so much more. Anything we can actually do, we can afford."
"The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder."
"The work you do while you procrastinate is probably the work you should be doing for the rest of your life."
"The only source of knowledge is experience."
"It actually doesn't take much to be considered a difficult woman. That's why there are so many of us."
"Knowledge is no guarantee of good behavior, but ignorance is a virtual guarantee of bad behavior."
"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem: they know how it’s done, they’ve seen it done every day, but they’re unable to do it themselves."
"The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the zero adjust on his bathroom scale."
"The most important thing in life is not simply to capitalize on your gains. Any fool can do that. The important thing is to profit from your losses. That requires intelligence, and makes the difference between a man of sense and a fool."
"Silence is as full with potential wisdom and wit as the unhewn marble of great sculpture."
"Cooking is an art form, and the eating of the meal in an atmosphere of rest and relaxation is the only way to savor the artist's handiwork."
"Why do born-again people so often make you wish they’d never been born the first time?"
"Politicians should read science fiction, not westerns and detective stories."
"If you really want to know what Middle-earth is based on, it's my wonder and delight in the earth as it is, particularly the natural earth...and I also was born with a great love of trees."
"If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are rotten, either write things worth reading or do things worth the writing."
"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read."
"An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest."
"Ignorance is the night of the mind, but a night without moon and star."
"I believe all suffering is caused by ignorance."
"Either America will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States."
"All human situations have their inconveniences. We feel those of the present but neither see nor feel those of the future; and hence we often make troublesome changes without amendment, and frequently for the worse."
"Fiction gives us empathy: it puts us inside the minds of other people, gives us the gifts of seeing the world through their eyes. Fiction is a lie that tells us true things, over and over."
"There are two kinds of people in the world: those who think people can be subdivided into as few as two categories, and those who know better."
"I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road."
"The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote."
"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back, for their private benefit."
"Everything takes longer and costs more."
"It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth. impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility. plunder into philanthropy. thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required NO CHARACTER"
"If you keep your eye on the profit, you’re going to skimp on the product. But if you focus on making really great products, then the profits will follow."
"Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics and you’ll get ten different answers, but there’s one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won’t just take us. It’ll take Marilyn Monroe and Lao-Tzu, Einstein, Buddy Holly, Aristophanes .. and all of this .. all of this was for nothing unless we go to the stars."
"You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life and karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life."
"The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug."
"Aim for the chopping block. If you aim for the wood, you will have nothing. Aim past the wood, aim through the wood; aim for the chopping block."
"Wisdom includes not getting angry unnecessarily. The Law ignores trifles and the wise man does, too."
"Never trust people who smile constantly. They're either selling something or not very bright."
"It is not the Strongest nor most Intelligent species that survives, but the one most adaptable to change."
"A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved, except in memory. LLAP"
"Some years ago, when I was still dreaming about becoming that special breed of cat called 'author,' I had a birthday coming up and my wife was out of ideas. I told her to check out the bookstores for any book by Larry Niven except the three I'd already acquired. I don’t remember how many Wanda returned with, but I do know that I still read them periodically."
"There is no lighter burden, nor more agreeable, than a pen."
"Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying."
"Here’s a comforting thought for you…However long you may live, the world will never lose its ability to surprise you with its beauty."
"Diversity contains as many treasures as those waiting for us on other worlds. We will find it impossible to fear diversity and to enter the future at the same time."
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men."
"If a book told you something when you were fifteen, it will tell you it again when you're fifty, though you may understand it so differently that it seems you're reading a whole new book."
"In my life I have found two things of priceless worth - learning and loving. Nothing else - not fame, not power, not achievement for its own sake - can possible have the same lasting value. For when your life is over, if you can say 'I have learned' and 'I have loved,' you will also be able to say "I have been happy.’"
"Don't ever apologize to an author for buying something in paperback, or taking it out from a library (that's what they're for. Use your library). Don't apologize to this author for buying books secondhand, or getting them from bookcrossing or borrowing a friend's copy. What's important to me is that people read the books and enjoy them, and that, at some point in there, the book was bought by someone. And that people who like things, tell other people. The most important thing is that people read."
"‘Star Trek’ was an attempt to say that humanity will reach maturity and wisdom on the day that it begins not just to tolerate, but take a special delight in differences in ideas and differences in life forms."
"Be not simply good; be good for something."
"A dull pencil is better than a sharp mind"
"The job of art is to chase ugliness away."
"If you want to change the world, pick up your pen & write."
"Books are a uniquely portable magic."
"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one."
"She did not need much, wanted very little. A kind word, sincerity, fresh air, clean water, a garden, kisses, books to read, sheltering arms, a cozy bed, and to love and be loved in return."
"I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else."
"We have an obligation to read aloud to our children. To read them things they enjoy. To read to them stories we are already tired of. To do the voices, to make it interesting, and not to stop reading to them just because they learn to read themselves."
"More the knowledge, lesser the ego. Lesser the knowledge, more the ego."
"Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers."
"How wonderful it is to be able to write someone a letter! To feel like conveying your thoughts to a person, to set at your desk and pick up a pen, to put your thoughts into words like this is truly marvelous."
"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."
"I have a friend who's an artist and has sometimes taken a view which I don't agree with very well. He'll hold up a flower and say "look how beautiful it is," and I'll agree. Then he says "I as an artist can see how beautiful this is but you as a scientist take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing," and I think that he's kind of nutty. First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me too, I believe. Although I may not be quite as refined aesthetically as he is... I can appreciate the beauty of a flower. At the same time, I see much more about the flower than he sees. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty. I mean it's not just beauty at this dimension, at one centimeter; there's also beauty at smaller dimensions, the inner structure, also the processes. The fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; it means that insects can see the color. It adds a question: does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting questions which the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds. I don't understand how it subtracts."
"…but every time we think we have measured our capacity to meet a challenge, we look up and we're reminded that that capacity may well be limitless..."
"Banning books gives us silence when we need speech. It closes our ears when we need to listen. It makes us blind when we need sight."
"As he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness."
"We read to know we’re not alone."
"Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm."
"Sam Cogley asked me to give you something special. It’s not a first edition or anything, just a book. Sam says that makes it special, though."
"There are three sides to every story: your side, my side, and the truth. And no one is lying. Memories shared serve each differently."
"Space may be the final frontier. But it’s made in a Hollywood basement."
"Listen and you will teach yourself."
"I am a flag-waving believer in truth, justice and the American way, and I don’t understand how so many people who call themselves patriots can support efforts to undermine our democracy and our Constitution. It is alarming."
"Other than Earth itself, the most habitable place in the solar system lies fifty-five kilometers above the surface of Venus. At that altitude, the temperature, atmospheric pressure, and gravity are all earth-like. And it would be easy to colonize. The atmosphere is so dense that breathable air acts as a lifting gas, turning every habitable space into an airship."
"A Caligula, or a Yuri Vorbarra, can rule a long time, while the best men hesitate to do what is necessary to stop him, and the worst ones take advantage."
"Lovers of print are simply confusing the plate for the food."
"I have grown old from being serious. I have grown ill from being serious. I want to laugh at myself."
"Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring - it was peace."
"There's no past and there's no future. Time is a very misleading thing. All there is ever, is the now."
"I love cats because I enjoy my home; And little by little, they become its visible soul."
"Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor."
"And all I ask is a tall ship, And a star to steer her by."
"Keep a notebook. Travel with it, eat with it, sleep with it. Slap into it every stray thought that flutters into your brain. Cheap paper is less perishable than grey matter, and pencil marks endure longer than memory."
"When religion and politics travel in the same cart, the riders believe nothing can stand in their way. Their movements become headlong - faster and faster and faster. They put aside all thoughts of obstacles and forget the precipice does not show itself to the man in a blind rush until it's too late."
"Education is not something you can finish."
"If you cannot be wise, pretend to be someone who is wise, and then just behave like they would."
"Foolish friends are worse than wise enemies."
"It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By "business" I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living."
"‘Honest work’—a euphemism for underpaid bodily exertion, done standing up or on your knees, often in bad weather or other nasty circumstances, and frequently involving shovels, picks, hoes, assembly lines, tractors, and unsympathetic supervisors. It has never appealed to me. Sitting at a typewriter in a nice warm room, with no boss, cannot possibly be described as ‘honest work.’"
"You should be especially nice to a librarian today, or tomorrow. Sometime this week, anyway. Probably the librarians would like tea. Or chocolates. Or a reliable source of funding."
"For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes (Matthew 5). But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course, that's Moses, not Jesus. I haven't heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere. 'Blessed are the merciful' in a courtroom? 'Blessed are the peacemakers' in the Pentagon? Give me a break!"
"Books permit us to interrogate the past with high accuracy; to tap the wisdom of our species; to understand the point of view of others, and to contemplate with the greatest minds that ever were. Books are Key to understanding the world and participating in a democratic society."
"I have yet to see any problem, however complicated, which, when looked at in the right way did not become still more complicated."
"Whenever you are fed up with life, start writing: ink is the great cure for all human ills, as I have found out long ago."
"You are never too old to set a new goal or to dream a new dream."
"Socrates said, "The misuse of language induces evil in the soul." He wasn't talking about grammar. To misuse language is to use it the way politicians and advertisers do, for profit, without taking responsibility for what the words mean. Language used as a means to get power or make money goes wrong: it lies. Language used as an end in itself, to sing a poem or tell a story, goes right, goes towards the truth. A writer is a person who cares what words mean, what they say, how they say it. Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom, and so they use them with care, with thought, with fear, with delight. By using words well they strengthen their souls. Story-tellers and poets spend their lives learning that skill and art of using words well. And their words make the souls of their readers stronger, brighter, deeper."
"But stars change and universes do, too / Write on!"
"Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much the wheel, New York, wars and so on-whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man— for precisely the same reasons."
"Make a notebook and a pen your greatest friend, because dreams written down are halfway done."
"Write a man a story and you can entertain him for a few hours; Teach that man to write and you can send him to Hell for a lifetime."
"You know what’s weird? Day by day, nothing seems to change, but pretty soon … everything’s different."
"Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present, controls the past."
"To that extent, I think that science fiction, even the corniest of it, even the most outlandish of it, no matter how badly it's written, has a distint therapeutic value because all of it has as its primary postulate that the world does change. I cannot overemphasize the importance of that idea. Unless you believe that, unless you are prepared for it—as I know all of you are—you can't retain your sanity these days."
"It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power."
"My uncle says the architects got rid of the front porches because they didn't look well. But my uncle says that was merely rationalizing it; the real reason, hidden underneath, might be they didn't want people sitting like that, doing nothing, rocking, talking; that was the wrong kind of social life. People talked too much. And they had time to think. So they ran off with the porches. And the gardens, too. Not many gardens any more to sit around in. And look at the furniture. No rocking chairs any more. They're too comfortable. Get people up and running around."
"The finest of pleasures are always the unexpected ones."
"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."
"It is not in doing what you like, but in liking what you do that is the secret of happiness."
"The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time."
"This book was written with the world’s finest word processor, a Waterman cartridge fountain pen. To write the first draft of such a long book by hand put me in touch with the language as I haven’t been in years. I even wrote one night (during a power outage) by candlelight. One rarely finds such opportunities in the twenty-first century, and they are to be savored."
"My fountain pen was always one of my most prized possessions; I valued it highly, especially because it had a thick nib, and I can only write neatly with thick nibs. It has led a long and interesting fountain-pen life. When I was nine, my fountain pen (packed in cotton wool) arrived as a ‘sample of no commercial value’ all the way from Aachen, where my grandmother (the kindly donor) used to live. I lay in bed with flu, while the February winds howled around our flat. This splendid fountain pen came in a red leather case, and I showed it to my girlfriends the first chance I got. Me, Anne Frank, the proud owner of a fountain pen."
"An insult is like a drink; it affects one only if accepted."
"Self-esteem comes from what you think of you, not what other people think of you."
"Practice kindness all day to everybody and you will realize you’re already in heaven now."
"Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes his aid against the other.... The prayers of both could not be answered--that of neither has been answered fully."
"But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here."
"To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world."
"Inspiration usually comes during work rather than before it."
"Better than a thousand days of diligent study is one day with a great teacher."
"Teach the children so it will not be necessary to teach the adults."
"If three of us travel together, I shall find two teachers."
"He who can, does. He who cannot, teaches."
"And now that you don’t have to be perfect, you can be good."
"Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed."
"Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love."
"Your beliefs don't make you a better person, your behavior does."
"Of all the chemical mixtures, ink is the most dangerous."
"Chasing after pleasure is a danger common to all; it carries away the world. He who gets caught in its eddies finds no escape."
"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day."
"If we all did the things we were capable of, we would astound ourselves."
"Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. And unselfishness is letting other people's lives alone, not interfering with them. Selfishness always aims at creating around it an absolute uniformity of type. Unselfishness recognizes infinite variety of type as a delightful thing, accepts it, acquiesces in it, enjoys it. It is not selfish to think for oneself. A man who does not think for himself does not think at all. It is grossly selfish to require of one's neighbor that he should think in the same way, and hold the same opinions. Why should he? If he can think, he will probably think differently. If he cannot think, it is monstrous to require thought of any kind from him. A red rose is not selfish because it wants to be a red rose. It would be horribly selfish if it wanted all the other flowers in the garden to be both red and roses."
"You don’t take a photograph, you make it."
"The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words."
"Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, 'It might have been.’"
"The lost cannot be recovered; but let us save what remains: not by vaults and locks which fence them from the public eye and use, in consigning them to the waste of time, but by such a multiplication of copies, as shall place them beyond the reach of accident."
"People move away, grow older, die, and the bright belief that there will be another marvelous thing around each corner fades. It is now or never; we must snatch at happiness as it flies."
"What was beautiful in the painting was not like words, it was like paint — silent, direct, and concrete, resisting translation even into thought. As such, my response to the picture was trapped inside me, a bird fluttering in my chest. And I didn’t know what to make of that."
"It is shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult."
"There are celestial sights more dazzling, spectacles than inspire more awe, but to the thoughtful observer... there is nothing in the sky so profoundly impressive as these canals of Mars."
"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."
"Writing is the closest thing we have to real magic."
"We are all stardust and stories."
"A profound love between two people involves, after all, the power and chance of doing profound hurt."
"There is an art to smiling in a way that others will believe. It is always important to include the eyes; otherwise, people will know you hate them."
"‘You want stories?’ Thom Merrilin declaimed. ‘I have stories, and I will give them to you. I will make them come alive before your eyes.’"
"Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change."
"When banks collapse, it is not bankers who starve."
"It is easy to imagine a highly intelligent society with no particular interest in technology. It is easy to see around us examples of technology without intelligence. When we look into the universe for signs of artificial activities, it is technology and not intelligence that we must search for."
"Art is the expression of man’s pleasure in labour"
"I keep six honest serving men: They taught me all I knew: Their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who."
"It is not inconceivable that there is a kind of Galactic Survey, established by cooperating civilizations on many planets throughout the Milky Way Galaxy, which keeps an eye (or some equivalent organ) on emerging planets and seeks out undiscovered worlds."
"‘Second to the right,’ said Peter, ‘and then straight on till morning.’"
"Many have imagined republics and principalities which have never been seen or known to exist in reality; for how we live is so far removed from how we ought to live…"
"The weakest ink is mightier than the strongest memory."
"Good ink cannot be the quick kind, ready to pour out of a bottle."
"Ancient astronauts didn’t build the pyramids. Human beings built the pyramids, because they’re clever, and they work hard."
"It is a mistake to allow any mechanical object to realize you are in a hurry."
"It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong."