Ancient Words of Wisdom

A

-African proverb

Even God cannot change the past
-Agathon

The wise learn many things from their enemies.
-Aristophanes

B

Good taste is always an asset
-Rudy Bakalov

Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought.
-Basho

Dreaming men are haunted men
-Stephen Vincent Benet

It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.
-William Blake

No bird soars to high if he soars with his own wings
-William Blake

Death is only the beginning of eternal life
-Elfriede Blauensteiner

This is as true in everyday life as it is in battle: we are given one life and the decision is ours whether to wait for circumstances to make up our mind, or whether to act, and in acting, to live.
-General Omar Bradley

I either want less corruption, or more chance to participate in it.
-Ashleigh Brilliant

All that we are is the result of what we have thought.
-Buddha

Let us do or die
-Robert Burns

Logic is like the sword--those who appeal to it shall perish by it.
-Samuel Butler

C

There is not any memory with less satisfaction than the memory of some temptation we resisted.
-James Branch Cabell

Don't walk behind me, I may not lead. Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend
-Albert Camus

Freedom is nothing else but a chance to be better.
-Albert Camus

The problem with political jokes is they get elected.
-Henry Cate VII

And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow.
-Jerry Chin

A thorn defends the rose, harming only those who would steal the blossom.
-Chinese Proverb

True friendship is like sound health, the value of it is seldom known until it be lost.
-Charles Caleb Colton

Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.
-Confucius

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.
-e. e. cummings

D

Don't fear change, embrace it.
-Anthony J. D'Angelo

There is no greater sorrow than to recall a time of happiness in misery
-Dante

I think; therefore I am.
Rene Descartes

To gain that which is worth having, it may be necessary to lose everything else.
-Bernadette Devlin

It is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor relations.
-Charles Dickens,

It's kind of fun to do the impossible.
-Walt Disney

Man is only truly great when he acts from his passions
-Benjamin Disraeli

It is much easier to be critical than to be correct
-Benjamin Disraeli

No man is an Island, entire of itself...
-John Donne

If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
-Frederick Douglass

The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppose.
-Frederick Douglass

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius
-Arthur Conan Doyle

He raised a mortal to the skies, she drew an angel down
-Dryden

...You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
-Bob Dylan

E

The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
-Albert Einstein

Humility must always be the portion of any man who receives acclaim earned in the blood of his followers and the sacrifices of his friends.
-Dwight David Eisenhower

When I discover who I am, I'll be free.
-Ralph Ellison

All men are poets at heart
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

I hate quotations.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nature and Books belong to the eyes that see them.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

F

Start every day off with a smile and get it over with.
-W. C. Fields

The only reason some people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory.
-Paul Fix

I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.
-Anne Frank

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -- I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.
-Robert Frost

The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office.
-Robert Frost

G

Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.
-Mahatma Ghandi

Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.
-Mahatma Gandhi

Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality.
-Jules de Gaultier

What does not kill me makes me stronger
-Goethe

It is easy to take liberty for granted when you have never had it taken from you.
-M. Grundler

Life is like a box of chocolates... you never know what you're gonna get.
-Forrest Gump

H

I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do.
-Edward Everett Hale

Prejudice is the child of ignorance
-William Hazlett

I'm the one that has to die when it's time for me to die, so let me live my life, the way I want to
-Jimi Hendrix

These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves.
-Gilbert Highet

Your friend is the man who knows all about you and and still likes you
-Elbert Hubbard

The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.
-Hubert H. Humphrey

I

With love and patience, nothing is impossible.
-Daisaku Ikeda

J

I live for books.
-Thomas Jefferson

Be polite to all, but intimate with few.
-Thomas Jefferson

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.
-Samuel Johnson

To be prejudiced is always to be weak
-Samuel Johnson

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
-Samuel Johnson

Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow that talent to the dark place where it leads
-Erica Jong

K

Beauty is truth, truth is beauty-that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know
-John Keats

The most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen or touched - they are felt by the human heart
-Helen Keller

And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country.
-John F. Kennedy

Too often we... enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
-John F. Kennedy

Honor isn't about making the right choices. It's about dealing with the consequences.
-Midori Koto

L

Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition.
-Timothy Leary

What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy?
-Ursula LeGuin

If a person feels he can't communicate, the least he can do is shut up about it.
-Tom Lehrer

Life is like a sewer... what you get out of it depends on what you put into it.
-Tom Lehrer

Remember, the greatest gift is not found in a store nor under a tree, but in the hearts of true friends.
-Cindy Lew

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
-Abraham Lincoln

The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and will to carry on.
-Walter J. Lippmann

No man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience.
-John Locke

Part of being sane, is being a little bit crazy.
-Janet Long

M

It is love, not reason, that is stronger than death
-Thomas Mann

We live in an age when pizza gets to your home before the police
-Jeff Marder

It Lies not in our power to love or hate, for will in us is over ruled by fate
-Christopher Marlowe

The road to hell is paved with good intentions
-Karl Marx

The Depth of your Mythology is the Extent of your Effectiveness.
-John Maxwell

In war there is no substitute for victory.
-General Douglas MacArthur

If you think education is expensive, Try Ignorance.
-Andy McIntyre

To live without loving is not really to live
-Moliere

I'll make thee famous by my pen, and glorious by my sword
-Marquis of Montrose

The difficulty in life is the choice
-George Moore

People are strange
-Jim Morrison

Let's just say I was testing the bounds of society. I was just curious.
-Jim Morrison

N

When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.
-Native American Saying

If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants
-Isaac Newton

To solve the problems of today, we must focus on tomorrow.
-Erik Nupponen

O

Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.
-P. J. O'Rourke

P

Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.
-Plato

What a poor appearance the tales of poets make when stripped of the colours which music puts upon them, and recited in simple prose
-Plato

I would define in brief, the poetry of words as the Rhythmical Creation of Beauty
-Edgar Allan Poe

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before
-Edgar Allan Poe

All that we see or seem is but a drem within a dream
-Edgar Allan Poe>

To err is human, to forgive divine.
-Alexander Pope

One murder makes a villian, millions a hero
-Beilby Porteus

Q

R

There's a bit of magic in everything, and some loss to even things out.
-Lou Reed

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.
-Eleanor Roosevelt

We can gain no lasting peace if we approach it with suspicion and mistrust or with fear. We can gain it only if we proceed with the understanding, the confidence, and the courage which flow from conviction.
-Franklin D. Roosevelt

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself -- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.
-Franklin D. Roosevelt

Free people, remember this maxim: We may acquire liberty, but it is never recovered if it is once lost.
-Rousseau

What is love? two souls and one flesh; freindship? two bodies and one soul
-Joseph Roux

Reputations are created every day and every minute.
-Christopher Ruel

I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.
-Bertrand Russell

S

Nothing happens unless first a dream.-Carl Sandburg

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
-George Santayana

No problem is so formidable that you can't walk away from it.
-Charles Schulz

Major writing is to say what has been seen, so that it need never be said again.
-Delmore Schwartz

Live simply that others might simply live.
-Elizabeth Seaton

Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.
-Chief Seattle

Everything may happen. (Omnio fieri possent.
-Seneca

Cowards die many times before their deaths, the valiant never taste death but once
-William Shakespeare

This above all: to thine own self be true
-William Shakespeare

Life is a tale told by an idiot -- full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
-William Shakespeare

Virtue is insufficient temptation.
-George Bernard Shaw

When a man wants to murder a tiger, it's called sport; when the tiger wants to murder him it's called ferocity.
-George Bernard Shaw

Only the actions of the just smell sweet and blossom in the dust
-James Shirley<

Journalists cover words and delude themselves into thinking they have committed journalism.
-Hedrick Smith

True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.
-Socrates

And in knowing that you know nothing, that makes you the smartest of all.
-Socrates

Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts... perhaps the fear of a loss of power.
-John Steinbeck

Silent gratitude isn't much use to anyone.
-G. B. Stern

T

We can do no great things; only small things with great love.
-Mother Teresa

'Tis better to have loved and lost, Than never to have loved at all.
-Alfred Lord Tennyson

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.
-Henry David Thoreau

It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.
-James Thurber

It's not the size of the dog in the fight, its the size of the fight in the dog
-Mark Twain

It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either.
-Mark Twain

Truth is more of a stranger than fiction.
-Mark Twain

If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything.
-Mark Twain

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

U

V

Remember that it is far better to follow well than to lead indifferently.
--John G. Vance

Common sense is no so common
-Voltaire

I may not agree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it
-Voltaire

With stupidity the gods themselves struggle in vain.
-Friedrich von Schiller

W

The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered... deeply, ...finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.
-George Washington

He is a fool who thinks by force or skill to turn the current of a woman's will
-Isaac Watts

The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it
-Oscar Wilde

The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.
-Oscar Wilde

X

Y

Z

It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees
-Emiliano Zapata

Art is making something out of nothing and selling it.
-Frank Zappa

Anonymous and Unknown

The universe is not indifferent to intelligence, it is actively hostile to it
-Anonymous

Liberty is the right to choose. Freedom is the result of the right choice.
-Anonymous

The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits
-Anonymous

The future belongs to those who dare.
-Anonymous

If we deny love that is given to us, if we refuse to give love because we fear pain or loss, then our lives will be empty, our loss greater.
-Unknown

Never deprive someone of hope -- it may be all they have.
-Unknown

Between the wish and the thing life lies waiting.
-Unknown

To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world
-Unknown

Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway
-Unknown

Writing only leads to more writing
-Unknown

Power is having all the justification to kill and not doing so
-Unknown

Diversity is the one true thing we all have in common... Celebrate it every day
-Unknown

The worst prison would be a closed heart.
-Unknown







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