abstract
A collection of some of my favorite quotes.
Inspire
Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen. —Robert Bresson
Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. —Mark Twain
One person can make the difference between success and failure. —Unknown
I must create my own system or be enslaved by another man’s. —William Blake
There is no law of progress. Our future is in our own hands, to make or to mar. It will be an uphill fight to the end, and would we have it otherwise? Let no one suppose that evolution will ever exempt us from struggles. ‘You forget,’ said the Devil, with a chuckle, ’that I have been evolving too.’ —William Ralph Inge
Keep your face always toward the sunshine, and shadows will fall behind you.
—Walt Whitman
What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
The only impossible journey is the one you never begin.
—Tony Robbins
On Books
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts, others to be read, but not curiously, and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. —Sir Francis Bacon
On Boundaries
I teach people how to treat me by what I will allow. —Stephen R. Covey
You are what you settle for. —Janis Joplin
On Business
All existing business models are wrong. Find a new one. —Hugh Macleod, How To Be Creative: 11, 08-22-04
On Change
Change is the process by which the future invades our lives. —Alvin Toffler, American writer, futurist, businessman (October 4, 1928 – June 27, 2016)
On Character
Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting a particular way… you become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions. —Aristotle
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power. —Abraham Lincoln
To be a saint is the exception; to be upright is the rule. Err, falter, sin, but be upright. To commit the least possible sin is the law for man. Sin is a gravitation. —Victor Hugo
The elevation of appearance over substance, of celebrity over character, of short term gains over lasting achievement displays a poverty of ambition. It distracts you from what’s truly important. —Barack Obama
When the character of a man is not clear to you, look at his friends. —Japanese Proverb
The thought manifests as the word; the word manifests as the deed; the deed develops into habit; and habit hardens into character. So watch the thought and its ways with care, and let it spring from love, born out of concern for all beings. As the shadow follows the body, as we think, so we become. —Dhammapada
On Children
What a child doesn’t receive he can seldom later give. —PD James
We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty. —Mother Theresa
On Compliance
He who neglects what is done for what ought to be done, sooner effects his ruin than his preservation. —Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince
On Communication
Never miss a chance to keep your mouth shut. —Robert Newton Peck, ‘A Day No Pigs Would Die’
When you wish to instruct, be brief; that men’s minds take in quickly what you say, learn its lesson, and retain it faithfully. Every word that is unnecessary only pours over the side of a brimming mind. —Cicero, Roman author, orator, & politician (106 BC - 43 BC)
If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor. —Albert Einstein
Language most shews a man: Speak, that I may see thee. —Ben Jonson
Say all you have to say in the fewest possible words, or your reader will be sure to skip them; and in the plainest possible words or he will certainly misunderstand them. —John Ruskin
On Criticism
If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much. —Donald Rumsfeld, US SecDef
A wolf does not lose sleep over the opinions of sheep. —Unknown
Sometimes the clearest mirrors come from those who are outside looking in. —Jennifer Neal
On Death
Of all the pulpits from which human voice is ever sent forth, there is none from which it reaches so far than from the grave. —John Ruskin
On Difficulties
I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars. —Og Mandido
On Discipline
If we don’t discipline ourselves, the world will do it for us. —William Feather (1889 - 1981)
On Enemies
Observe your enemies, for they first find out your faults. —Antisthenes, Greek philosopher at Athens (445 BC - 365 BC)
Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names. —John F. Kennedy
On Entitlement
A man who thinks he has a higher purpose can do terrible things, even to those he professes to love. —Denise Mina
On Existence
There will come a time, when all of us are dead. All of us. There will come a time when there are no human beings remaining to remember that anyone ever existed or that our species ever did anything. —John Green, The Fault in Our Stars, 2012
On Happiness
The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts, therefore guard accordingly; and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue, and reasonable nature. —Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Roman Emperor, A.D. 161-180 (121 AD - 180 AD)
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. —Hemingway
One of the indictments of civilizations is that happiness and intelligence are so rarely found in the same person. —William Feather (1889 - 1981)
Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go. —Oscar Wilde
On Intelligence & Wisdom
Most geniuses —especially those who lead others —prosper not by deconstructing intricate complexities but by exploiting unrecognized simplicities. —Andy Beniot (via a compliment from Kasia King)
We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers —people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely. —E. O. Wilson, 1998.
A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. —Agent K, Men in Black, 1997.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people. —Eleanor Roosevelt
The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance —it is the illusion of knowledge. —Daniel J. Boorstin, US historian (1914 - 2004)
Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid. —Albert Einstein
On Keeping to Oneself
If you reveal your secrets to the wind you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees. —Kahlil Gibran
Let us have a care not to disclose our hearts to those who shut up theirs against us. —Francis Beaumont
Preach not to others what they should eat, but eat as becomes you, and be silent. —Epictetus
On Leaders
Most people in an organization don’t go further or deeper than the leadership figure in that organization will take them. —Unknown
An organization is either enabled or limited by its leadership figure. —Unknown
Leaders deserve the teams they build. —Mike Myatt
Don’t hire a dog and then bark yourself. —David Ogilvy
Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to high sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations. —Peter Drucker
A leader takes people where they want to go. A great leader takes people where they don’t necessarily want to go, but ought to be. —Rosalynn Carter
If you want to build a ship, do not drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea. —Antoine de Saint-Exupery
On Men
Beware of the man who won’t be bothered with details. —William Feather (1889 - 1981)
Never forget what a man says to you when he is angry. —Henry Ward Beecher
On the Mind & Mental Health & Thinking
You have to allow a certain amount of time in which you are doing nothing in order to have things occur to you, to let your mind think. —Mortimer Adler
A mind, like a home, is furnished by its owner, so if one’s life is cold and bare he can blame none but himself. —Louis L’Amour
The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts, therefore guard accordingly; and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue, and reasonable nature. —Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Roman Emperor, A.D. 161-180 (121 AD - 180 AD)
A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions. —Oliver Wendell Holmes
If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it. —Mary Engelbreit
Quiet people have the loudest minds. —Stephen Hawking
Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes. —Sigmund Freud
On Mistakes
If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not working on hard enough problems. And that’s a big mistake. —Frank Wilczek, American physicist (1951 - )
A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing. —George Bernhard Shaw
On Modesty
Have more than thou showest; Speak less than thou knowest. —Shakespeare
On Technology
Technology is a poor substitute for accountabilty. —Christian
On Trust
Trust is like the air we breathe. When it’s present, no one really notices. When it’s absent, everyone notices. —Warren Buffett
Like a drop of water in a pond, your personal credibility has a ripple effect on your relationships, team, organization, and market —even on society. —Stephen M. R. Covey
The moment there is suspicion about a person’s motive, everything he does becomes tainted. —Mahatma Gandhi
It is better to trust and be disappointed once in a while than it is to distrust and be miserable all the time. —Abraham Lincoln
The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them. —Ernest Hemingway
I have found that by trusting people until they prove themselves unworthy of that trust, a lot more happens. —James E Burke, Former CEO, Johnson & Johnson
Because you believed I was capable of behaving decently, I did. —Paulo Coelho
A 10 percent increase in trust inside an organization has the same effect on employee satisfaction as a 36 percent increase in pay. —Helliwell and Huang
On Work
Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness. —Thomas Carlyle, Past and Present, 1843 (Scottish author, essayist, & historian (1795 - 1881))
Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work. —Aristotle | Greek critic, philosopher, physicist, & zoologist (384 BC - 322 BC)
If people only knew how hard I work to gain my mastery, it wouldn’t seem so wonderful at all. —Michelangelo Buonarroti
My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was much less competition. —Ghandi
Be regular and orderly in your life…so that you may be violent and original in your work. —Gustave Flaubert, French Novelist
I must create my own system or be enslaved by another man’s. —William Blake
Uncategorized
Danger and delight grow on one stalk. —English Proverb
The words ‘I am…’ are potent words; be careful what you hitch them to. The thing you’re claiming has a way of reaching back and claiming you. —A. L. Kitselman
This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it. —Ralph Waldo Emerson
You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. —Plato
Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. —Winston Churchill
Prejudices are rarely overcome by argument. Not being founded in reason, they cannot be defeated by logic. —Tryon Edwards
Expectations have a tremendous impact on results. —Joe Weimerskirch
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. —Arthur C. Clarke, British science fiction author and futurist (predicted geosynchronous satellites 20 years before they were invented)
Givers have to set limits because takers rarely do. —Irma Kurtz
All that counts in life is intention. —Andrea Bocelli
Strange, the feeling, of knowing that you have killed —yet being unable to find the corpse. —Unknown
When it is all finished, you will then finally see. It was never random. —Unknown
Hope is not a strategy.
—Unknown
Let me have men about me that are fat; Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o’nights: Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
—Julius Caesar to Marcus Antonius (Shakespeare)
My impression is that we have seen, perhaps for 150 years, a gradual increase in language that is either meaningless or destructive of meaning. And I believe that this increasing unreliability of language parallels the increasing disintegration, over the same period, of persons and communities.
In this degenerative accounting, language is almost without the power of designation, because it is used conscientiously to refer to nothing in particular. Attention rests on percentages, categories, abstract functions… It is not language that the user will very likely be required to stand by or to act on, for it does not define any personal ground for standing or acting. It’s only practical utility is to support with “expert opinion” a vast, impersonal technological action already begun. It is a tyrannical language. —Wendell Berry, 1983