This is my list of random quotes on anything and everything. I have been accumulating these quotes for many years. All are interesting, most are great.
“I would rather have questions that cannot be answered than answers that cannot be questioned.” – unknown
“We know that old boy didn’t actually steal any horses, but he’s obviously guilty of trying to avoid being hanged for it.” Wyoming rancher
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
“I would say if you have a dream and you’re passionate about something, then don’t be afraid to go and live that out,” Tebow said. “There will always be naysayers and people that want to bring you down, but let your passions speak louder than the critics will ever speak. Listen to your heart, and let that be something you pursue, because in life, the greatest thing you’re going to regret is not failing, it’s going to be not trying.” Tim Tebow
“The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he already knows, without a shadow of a doubt, what is laid before him.” Leo Tolstoy
“Decision making, like coffee, needs a cooling process.” – George Washington
“If you can remember the 60’s, you weren’t there.” Unknown
“You have no time for b___s___ after your parents are murdered,” movie producer Dallas Sonnier
The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule. – H. L. Mencken
“The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.” Disraeli wrote in his novel “Conningsby”
“Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.” Woodrow Wilson
Bigotry is “an incapacity to conceive seriously the alternative to a proposition.” GK Chesterton
Fowler’s true subject, however—his heart’s home—is a set of two general principles, clarity and unpretentiousness, that he felt should govern all use of language. The book’s fame derives from the articles he wrote in relation to those matters—“genteelism,” “mannerisms,” “irrelevant allusion,” “love of the long word,” to name a few. Fowler defines “genteelism” as “the substituting, for the ordinary natural word that first suggests itself to the mind, of a synonym that is thought to be less soiled by the lips of the common herd, less familiar, less plebian, less vulgar, less improper, less apt to come unhandsomely betwixt the wind & our nobility.” A quote from “The Language Wars: A History of Proper English”, by Henry Hitchings about the 1926 book, “A Dictionary of Modern English Usage,” written by H. W. Fowler
Political language, by means of circumlocution and euphemism and other doctorings, was “designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.” Comments about George Orwell’s 1946 essay “Politics and the English Language”
“I tell you, sir,” he whispered, “it is the end of the world. Never were known such excesses of the scholars: it is the cursed inventions of the age that ruin everything: artillery, serpentines, bombards, and above all, printing, that other pestilence from Germany. No more manuscripts! No more books! Printing is cutting up the bookselling trade. The end of the world is certainly at hand!” — Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, p. 11 Originally published in 1831
“He was the unloving father that I never had, but I still craved his acceptance.” – Ex-football player from the University of Florida referring to his then head coach Steve Spurrier
“Does Rupert like me? I think so, but it doesn’t matter. When I go up to the magic room in the sky every three months, if my numbers are right, I get to live. If not, I’m killed. Our relationship isn’t about love—it’s about arithmetic. Survival means hitting your numbers. I’ve met or exceeded mine in 56 straight quarters. The reason is: I treat Rupert’s money like it is mine.” Roger Ailes talking about his relationship with Rupert Murdoch
“Within three or four months, the average girl will just get used up. It just takes your soul, you know? It just takes your soul.” Larry Flynt, owner of Hustler magazine, talking about women in the porn movie business.
“…you can’t go from a $2,000-a-night suite at the La Mirage to a penitentiary, and really understand it, and come out a liberal.” Robert Downey Jr.
“I feel so strongly that deep and simple is far more essential than shallow and complex.” – Fred Rogers
“I knew I was going to take the wrong train, so I left early.” Yogi Berra
“In the mornings I used to say goodbye to my wife like someone going to work. I’d leave the house, walk around a few blocks, and come back like a person arriving at the office.” The writer Orhan Pamuk
Our power is patience. We have discovered that writing allows even a stupid person to seem halfway intelligent, if only that person will write the same thought over and over again, improving it just a little bit each time. It is a lot like inflating a blimp with a bicycle pump. Anybody can do it. All it takes is time. KURT VONNEGUT
If you write a hundred short stories and they’re all bad, that doesn’t mean you’ve failed. You fail only if you stop writing. I’ve written about 2,000 short stories; I’ve only published about 300 and I feel I’m still learning. Any man who keeps working is not a failure. He may not be a great writer, but if he applies the old-fashioned virtues of hard, constant labor, he’ll eventually make some kind of career for himself as a writer. RAY BRADBURY (1967)
“He would give all of his clothes to his servant, admonishing him NOT to return them until he (Hugo) had completed his day’s work.” – The great writer Victor Hugo
“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.” Stephen King
I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English – it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don’t let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in.” Mark Twain, March 20, 1880
“I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had time to make it shorter.” Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)
“I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him.” Booker T. Washington (1856-1915)
“The difference between reality and fiction? Fiction has to make sense.” Tom Clancy
“He was the wearisomest self-righteous pharisee that ever ransacked a Bible to rake the promises to himself and fling the curses on his neighbors.” ~Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” William Faulkner
“…decades of tradition unhampered by progress.” Unknown
“Men often stumble over the Truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry on as if nothing had happened.” Winston Churchill
“Hard work fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.” Anonymous
“My mind is incapable of conceiving such a thing as a soul. I may be in error, and man may have a soul; but I simply do not believe it.” Thomas Edison
“I want to know how God created the world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details.” Albert Einstein
“You can’t be somebody that you’re not, because all of you shows up.” Speaker John Boehner referring to someone playing golf.
“When you win, say little. When you lose, say less.” Patriot’s coach Bill Belichick
“I praise you 24/7!!! And this how you do me!!!, You expect me to learn from this??? How??? I’ll never forget this!! Ever!! Thx Tho.” Twitter comment from Steve Johnson, Buffalo Bills receiver after dropping game winning pass.
“One of the greatest tragedies of life is the murder of a beautiful theory by a gang of brutal facts.” Benjamin Franklin
“Mercy is when I don’t receive what I do deserve. Grace is when I receive that which I don’t deserve.” Ron Dunn
“We then all believed we would be saved. The Devil was down there and so was God. I didn’t see either but I felt both. They were in a battle for our souls. And God won.” Chilean miner Mario Sepulveda
“We were swallowed into the bowels of hell, but we have been reborn, and now I feel it is my duty to tell what went on and the lessons to be learned.” Chilean miner Mario Sepulveda
“Well, I’m not putting death on the agenda,” he told the Times. “I don’t want to see my old friend Lucifer just yet. He’s the guy I’m gonna see, isn’t it? I’m not going to the other place, let’s face it.” Keith Richards
”Find out what you are good at, and focus on that. Seek out individuals that have strengths you lack, and then rely on them and their judgment. Don’t control in every area. If you do, you will stifle excellence in areas where you are weak, and you will ultimately diminish everyone’s true potential. If you make decisions in the areas of your weaknesses, you will end up promoting your weakness instead of other’s strengths.” Me, 10-13-2010
“When you win an election, you are always inclined to believe you won for the reasons you wanted to win.” political scientist Bill Galston concerning Obama
“The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.” Cicero – 55 BC
“Any party which takes credit for the rain (today) must not be surprised if its opponents blame it for the drought (tomorrow).” Dwight Morrow
“It is nice to be important, but it is more important to be nice.” Bozo the Clown, Larry “Bozo” Harmon (this is how he would end many of his shows)
“The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally — not a 20 percent traitor.” – Ronald Reagan
“Accident rules every corner of the universe… except perhaps the chambers of the human heart” Nels Gudmundsson (Max von Sydow) in Snow Falling on Cedars
“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts” is how the great Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman defined science.
You believe that reality is something objective, external, existing in its own right. … But I tell you, Winston, that reality is not external. Reality exists in the human mind, and nowhere else. Not in the individual mind, which can make mistakes, only in the mind of the Party. … Whatever the Party holds to be truth is truth. — George Orwell, 1984
“Miracles are short-term solutions, it’s wisdom that helps you go the distance.” John Nolte
“I’ve never felt this much tension, it’s like riding a psychotic horse through a burning barn.” Armand, from The Birdcage
“…designed by geniuses so it could be run by idiots.” Unknown
“Most of us are not really approaching the subject in order to find out what Christianity says; we are approaching it in the hope of finding support from Christianity for the views of our own party.” C.S. Lewis
“Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise.” Cato
“From the moment an organizer enters a community, he lives, dreams, eats, breathes, sleeps only one thing, and that is to build the mass power base of what he calls the army.” Saul Alinsky
“The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.” Vladimir Lenin
Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted. Vladimir Lenin
The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency. Vladimir Lenin
Democracy is indispensable to socialism. Vladimir Lenin
A lie told often enough becomes the truth. Vladimir Lenin
It is true that liberty is precious; so precious that it must be carefully rationed. Vladimir Lenin
Our program necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism. Vladimir Lenin
Under socialism, all will govern in turn and will soon become accustomed to no one governing. Vladimir Lenin
The press should be not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, but also a collective organizer of the masses. Vladimir Lenin
I’m willing to forgo the cheap satisfaction of the radical pose for the deep satisfaction of radical ends.” Van Jones
“If you want a watch that looks accurate, buy a Rolex. If you want an accurate watch, buy a Seiko”.
‘These are my principles – if you don’t like them, I have others!’ Groucho Marx
“If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts. If you have the law on your side, pound the law. If you have neither on your side, pound the table.” old legal aphorism
“’Well, I will jump on their backs and ride all the way down to hell.” Stephen Curtis – British attorney to Russian oligarchs, in response to, “If you fall out with them, they will come after you. You are dealing with the Devil.”
“There is no individual salvation without collective salvation,” President Obama
“To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.” Theodore Roosevelt
“Two percent of the people think; three percent think they think, and 95 percent would rather die than think.” Henry Ford
“The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it.” Ansel Adams
“Alas, less is no more…” or “Times have changed since the Bauhaus, less is (now) no more.” Me
“it is impossible to be practically wise without being good.” – “virtue makes us aim at the right end, and practical wisdom makes us take the right means.” Aristotle
“Oh, for eloquence to plead the cause of China, for a pencil dipped in fire to paint the condition of this people.” Hudson Taylor
“Intolerance,” says John, “is not tolerated here.” straight resident of gay community Wilton Manors in Florida
“Prove to me that you’re no fool – walk across my swimming pool.” Herod sings, In Jesus Christ Superstar
“….I’m reading the Gospels at the moment and I can find no evidence of the kind of Christ people seem to have invented and created. There is no evidence of Christ, meek and mild. I can find Christ the compassionate, the gentle, but I also find a very temperamental, aggressive, passionate and often angry man a lot of the time. We will go for a man with that sort of breadth who is an enormous figure. I do believe Christ lived as a person. I don’t think there is any disputing that.” Franco Zeffirelli maker of the 1975 film “Jesus of Nazareth”
“Faith without coffee is dead.” Pastor Brian Zahnd
“If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself.” Saint Augustine
“If two friends ask you to judge a dispute, don’t accept, because you will lose one friend; on the other hand, if two strangers come with the same request, accept because you will gain one friend.” Saint Augustine
“Thou must be emptied of that wherewith thou art full, that thou may be filled with that whereof thou art empty.” Saint Augustine
“Seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand.” Saint Augustine
“The confession of evil works is the first beginning of good works.” Saint Augustine
“The words printed here are concepts. You must go through the experiences.” Saint Augustine
“To abstain from sin when one can no longer sin is to be forsaken by sin, not to forsake it.” Saint Augustine
“To many, total abstinence is easier than perfect moderation.” Saint Augustine
“The king hath note of all that they intend, by interception which they dream not of.” Shakespeare
“You’ve got to lose your passion for dumbness.” Loosely attributed to Bob Dylan
“the emergence of parallel societies based on separate philosophical convictions” The German fear of homeschooling
“The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists.” J. Edgar Hoover
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.” Robert A. Heinlein
“Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn’t there. Theologians can persuade themselves of anything.” Robert A. Heinlein
“I never learned from a man who agreed with me.” Robert A. Heinlein
“never ascribe to malice, that which is adequately explained by stupidity” Robert A. Heinlein
“if your mother tells you she loves you, get a second source.” old newspaper adage
“Life is run by poker players, not the systems analysts. It is one of the most forgotten, then relearned foreign-policy axioms in history. If you keep backing away because you’re afraid of what might happen to you—and you keep backing away and backing away—what you were afraid of in the first place is going to happen to you.” Adm. John S. McCain Jr. (father of Senator John S. McCain III)
“What’s mine is mine, what’s yours is negotiable.” Cold War joke about how the Russians view a compromise.
“A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption of our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider to our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us the opportunity to do so.” Mahatma Gandhi
“How much can a Koala Bear?” Unknown Australian
“It has been said that a (person) is not a full-fledged missionary until he has had fleas, the missionary itch (a skin allergy which comes with a change in food and climate), and a Dear John (letter).” Book – ‘So You’re Going on a Mission?’ (1968)
“Whenever I think of a turkey I want a drumstick.” … And whenever I think of you I wanta neck!” So You’re Going on a Mission? (1968)
“….he (Tony snow) did not need a long life for us to measure. It was, rather, we who needed his life to be longer.” Very Rev. David M. O’Connell, president of Catholic University
“Tune in, turn on, drop out.” Timothy Leary, 1967
“I just remember looking over at my friend, and all of a sudden he just says to me, `Dear God, save us. Then I just closed my eyes and all of a sudden it’s (the tornado) gone.” Ethan Hession, Boy Scout 13, said as he crawled under a table with his friend.
“A dude with a pencil is worse than a cat with a machine gun.” Bo Diddley (speaking of accountants and managers stealing from him)
“..the easiest rationalization for the refusal to seek the truth is the denial that truth exists.” Sidney Hook
“Step-by-step or all-at-once, either way, it’s the only way.” Me
“Make ’em laugh, make ’em cry, make ’em wait (or go on).” Novelist Wilkie Collins, referring to short stories in a series (like a ‘prayer’ book with chapters)
“God made men, but Sam Colt made them equal.” Unknown
Capt. Renault: What in heaven’s name brought you to Casablanca? Rick: My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters. Capt. Renault: The waters? What waters? We’re in the desert. Rick: I was misinformed.
“In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love – they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.” – The Third Man
“Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action, Mr Bond.” Spoken by Auric Goldfinger (written by Ian Fleming)
“Nothing right in my left brain, nothing left in my right brain.”
“Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming… Wow! What a ride!”
“That’s a really nice pen. You must be a great writer.” Unknown
The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits. – Albert Einstein
”A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.” – Sir Winston Churchill
“I believe in Christianity as I believe the sun has risen… by it I see everything else.” CS Lewis
“We campaigned across the South . . . without a single catcall or boo. It was not until we got north to New York that we began to hear this from Koch, President Reagan, and then Mrs. Ferraro . . . . Some people are making hysteria while I’m making history.” Jesse Jackson
“Never talk when you can nod, and never nod when you can wink, and never write an e-mail because it’s death. You’re giving prosecutors all the evidence we need,” Gov. Eliot Spitzer
“When you pee on yourself, it only stays warm for a little while.” “It is better to be judged by 12 than be carried by 6.” movie, We Own The Night
“I’m man enough to admit that I’m nowhere near man enough for the job.” Dennis Palatov
“When someone starts throwing everything they can at you, including the kitchen sink, it probably means that they are going down the drain.” Me
“We will match your capacity to inflict suffering, with our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force, with soul force. We will not hate you, but we cannot, in all good conscience obey (you) your unjust laws. But we will soon wear you down by our capacity to suffer. And in winning our freedom, we will so appeal to your heart and conscience, that we will win your freedom as well.” Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“You two will have a very hard time finding a mate after you return home from this journey.” “What do you mean?” Christoph queried. “I mean, you are now gathering a wider view of the world. You will need to find the same. It will be impossible for you to stay satisfied with someone whose main concern in life is the color of her fingernail polish.
“Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s blood … aim high in hope and work.” Daniel Burnham, architect
“(When everyone in America knows you’re in a dreadful position, admit you’re in a dreadful position.) Don’t lie about it and make them roll their eyes, tell the truth and make them blink.” Peggy Noonan
“Cry yourself a river, build yourself a bridge, and get over it.” and “Tell your voices to shut up I can’t hear mine!” and “The lab called, your brain is ready.” and “I’m not a COMPLETE IDIOT, some parts are missing.” and “When you’re riding in a time machine way far into the future, don’t stick your elbow out the window, or it’ll turn into a fossil.” and “Roses are red violets are blue I’m schizophrenic and so am I!” and “I hope life isn’t a big joke, because I don’t get it.” Unknown
“There was one moment where they were riding their little ponies in Scotland, and Stella said to me: ‘Dad! You’re Paul McCartney, aren’t you?’ ‘Yes darling, but I’m Daddy really’.” Paul McCartney
“Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (highest I.Q. ever recorded)
“We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Death is Nature’s expert advice to get plenty of Life.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“All truly wise thoughts have been thought thousands of times; But to make them truly ours we must think them over again honestly (and long enough), until they take root in our personal experience.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“He who seizes the [right] moment is the right man.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Talent develops in tranquility, character in the full current of human life.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“The most original authors are not so because they advance what is new, but because they put what they have to say as if it had never been said before.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Never make predictions, especially about the future.” baseball manager Casey Stengel
“First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.” Martin Niemoeller
“If any group of citizens is uniquely unqualified to tell someone else how to vote, it’s those of us who live in the sheltered, privileged arena of celebrity hood……Trust me, one’s view of the world isn’t any clearer from the back seat of a limo.” Pat Sajak, host of “Wheel of Fortune”
“it is all in the approach… the handshake … the “body language” and voice….and the most important thing of all…eye contact….the “language” of eye contact is universal, international and cross cultural….your intent is most often mirrored in your eyes…..this is when you are “judged” by a complete stranger…..” Photographer David Alan Harvey
The first rule of lawyers: Never ask a question you do not know the answer to. If you ignore the rule, then at least make sure you do not do it to someone with a lot more experience than you have. Anonymous Blogger
“Diplomacy without military might is like music without instruments.” Frederick the Great
“An Amateur built the Ark, Professionals built the Titanic.” Unknown
“Just enough is never good enough.” Unknown
“Cogito Ergo Sum.” (I think, therefore I am.) Rene Descartes
“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is (actually) going home; that wildness is a necessity…” John Muir, 1898
“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape (from) finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.” Marcus Aurelius
“I marvel that whereas the ambitious dreams of myself, Caesar, and Alexander should have vanished into thin air, (but) a (certain) Judean peasant – Jesus – is able to stretch his hands across the centuries and (continue to) control the destinies of men and nations.” – Napoleon I Bonaparte (1809)
“Among those who dislike oppression are many who like to oppress.” Napoleon Bonaparte
My standard response to the comment, “I don’t believe in God” is “Oh, that’s interesting; which god is it you don’t believe in?” Depending on their answer, I would say, “Well, I’m not surprised you don’t believe in that god. I don’t believe in that god either,” and, then I would say, “I believe in the God I see revealed in Jesus of Nazareth.” N. T. Wright
“Nature and nature’s laws lay hid in night; God said ‘Let Newton be’ and all was light.” Newton’s epitaph by Alexander Pope
“Gravity can explain the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done.” Isaac Newton
“I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by men who were inspired. I study the Bible daily.” Isaac Newton
“Atheism is so senseless. When I look at the solar system, I see the earth at the right distance from the sun to receive the proper amounts of heat and light. This did not happen by chance.” Isaac Newton
Sans Dieu Rien–Without God, Nothing
“If you aren’t skillful enough to sketch a man who’s thrown himself out of a window during the time it takes him to fall from the fifth floor to the ground you’ll never make grandes machines.” (A grande machine is a large public painting.) Romantic French painter Eugene Delacroix
“Lord Help Me to be the Person My Dog thinks I am” Bumper Sticker
“The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.” Oscar Wilde
“First get your facts (right); then you can distort them at your leisure.” Mark Twain
“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics.” Benjamin Disraeli
“Then there was the man who drowned crossing a stream with an average depth of six inches.” W. I. E. Gates
“(Compared to 1999…we cannot quite declare victory, but we can declare progress.” Jakob Nielsen
The decisive moment, is ‘the simultaneous recognition, in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event as well as the precise organization of forms which gives that event its proper expression.” Henri Cartier-Bresson, great photographer
“I think the answer is simple: if your audience is going to act like you’re designing billboards, then design great billboards.” Steve Krug
“satisficing” “Optimizing is hard, and it takes a long time. Satisficing is more efficient.” (Economist Herbert Simon coined the term — a cross between satisfying and sufficing — in Models of Man: Social and Rational)
“Life can only be understood backwards; but must be lived forwards.” Soren Kierkegaard
“It is not only for what we do that we are held responsible, but also for what we do not do.” Moliere
“The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.” Walter Begehot
“Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” Sigmund Freud
“How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the starving, and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these.´ George Washington Carver
“Friendship is born at the moment when one person says to another: What! You too? I thought I was the only one.” C. S. Lewis
“A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.” Anonymous
“Mountaintops inspire leaders but valleys mature them.” Sir Winston Churchill
“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” Sir Winston Churchill
“No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” Sir Winston Churchill 1947
“We have not journeyed all this way because we are made of sugar candy.” Winston Churchill
“If we open a quarrel between past and present, we shall find that we have lost the future.” Winston Churchill
“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” Winston Churchill
“All I want is compliance with my wishes, after reasonable discussion.” Winston Churchill
“The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.” Winston Churchill
“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” Winston Churchill
“Continuous effort – not strength or intelligence – is the key to unlocking our potential.” Winston Churchill
“Keep away from people that try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you too, can become great.” Mark Twain
“One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. Which road do I take? she asked. Where do you want to go was his response? I don’t know, Alice answered. Then, said the cat, it doesn’t matter.” Lewis Carroll
“The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” Nelson Mandela
“Knowledge is Power.” Sir Francis Bacon
“Knowledge can be conveyed, but not wisdom. It can be found, it can be lived, it is possible to be carried by it, miracles can be performed with it, but it cannot be expressed in words and taught.” Herman Hesse
“All great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom; justice; honor; duty; mercy; hope.” Sir Winston Churchill
“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of (a) general moral crises maintain their neutrality.” Dante Alighieri
”The path to Auschwitz was paved with indifference.” Historian of the Third Reich, Ian Kershaw
“When things are bad, we take comfort in the thought that they could always be worse. And when things are worse, we find hope in the thought that things are so bad that they have to get better.” Malcolm Forbes
“In a country of the blind the one-eyed man is king.” Deciderius Erasmus
“Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment,” said Barry LePatner.
“There are no solids. There are no things. There are only interfering and non-interfering patterns operative in pure principle, and principles are eternal. Principles never contradict principles. /…/ The synergetic integral of the totality of principles is God, whose sum-total behavior in pure principle is beyond our comprehension and is utterly mysterious to us, because as humans — in pure principle — we do not and never will know all the principles.” – R. Buckminster Fuller 1981
“Whether we are able to be a complete success or failure is in such critical balance that every smallest human test of integrity every smallest moment-to-moment decision tips the scales affirmatively or negatively.” – R. Buckminster Fuller
“When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.” – R. Buckminster Fuller
Liberal Preachers – “You hear what the psychologist says, what the historian says, what the New York Times editorial writer says, and then the sermon concludes with, And perhaps Jesus said it best…” —Martin Copenhaver, ‘The Making of a Post-liberal’ (or, “They tell you what the psychologist says, then what the historian says, after that what the New York Times editorial writer says, and then finally the sermon concludes with, And perhaps Jesus said it best…”)
“Whether they live in an igloo or a grass shack or a mud hut, people around the world all want the same thing: a better house!” Jack Handey
“What I look forward to is continued immaturity followed by death.” Dave Barry
“The places where trails do not exist are not well marked.” Dave Barry
“When trouble arises and things look bad, there is always one individual who perceives a solution and is willing to take command. Very often, that person is crazy.” Dave Barry
“You can say any fool thing to a dog, and the dog will give you this look that says, `My God, you’re RIGHT! I NEVER would’ve thought of that!'” Dave Barry
“……beneath their surface differences, there are a lot of deep, underlying differences.” Dave Barry
“The difference between greatness and mediocrity is often how an individual views a mistake…” Nelson Boswell
“When in doubt, tell the truth.” Mark Twain
“When in doubt, believe.” Me
“Asking ‘Who ought to be the boss?’ is like asking ‘Who ought to be the tenor in the quartet?’ Obviously, the man who can sing tenor.” Henry Ford
“…but things don’t necessarily have to be that expensive to be good. As long as they are expensive enough to last.” Daphne Guinness (daughter of the brewery heir Jonathan Guinness)
“No, I can’t say as ever I was lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.” Daniel Boone replied when, at age 86, he was asked by Chester Harding if he had ever been lost during his travels.
“To take a photograph is to align the head, the eye, and the heart. It’s a way of life.” Henri Cartier-Bresson
“If your pictures aren’t good enough, you aren’t close enough.” Robert Capa (Photographer)
“Common sense is both more rare and more desirable in leaders than mere intelligence.” Voltaire
“The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.” Albert Einstein
“Nine to 5 has been replaced with ‘Give me a deadline and I will meet your deadline,'” Kirah says of young people’s work habits. “They’re saying ‘I might work until 2 a.m. that night. But I will do it all on my terms.’
‘When going through hell, keep going.’ Winston Churchill
“It is faith alone that justifies, but faith that justifies can never be alone.” John Calvin or “…though one is justified by faith alone, the faith which justifies is never in fact alone.” N. T. Wright, DD
“Faith alone, plus nothing” Martin Luther My version – For it is Faith alone in Christ alone that will move God when you are alone, or, For it is by Faith alone in Christ alone that God moves when you are alone.
“When I want your opinion I’ll give it to you.” G. I. Jane movie
“Would you rather have your Allah who tells you to kill me in order to go to heaven, or my Jesus who tells me to love you because I am going to heaven and wants you to be with me?” Rick Mathes of Mission Gate Prison Ministries
“He had performed in public like he practiced in private.”
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” – Arthur C. Clarke
“The person who says it can’t be done shouldn’t interrupt the person who is doing it.” from the wall of the Mountain Rose Cafe
“An enamored amateur need not be a genius to stay out of the ruts he has never been trained in.” Historian Daniel J. Boorstin
Tolerance is the virtue of a man without convictions. G.K. Chesterton
Caveat Emptor – “let the buyer beware.” (From Latin caveat mptor, let the buyer beware: caveat, third person sing. present subjunctive of cav re, to beware + mptor, buyer.)
All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them. Galileo Galilei
Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe. Galileo Galilei
Henry Ford described enthusiasm as ‘the spark in the eye, the spring in the step, the grip of the hand’.
“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing” – Helen Keller
To the optimist, the glass is half full. To the pessimist, the glass is half empty. To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be. Anonymous By the way, where is this glass that everyone keeps talking about? Me
“Life is for serving God, and those who cannot repay. Business is for serving those who can repay. Either way, it comes down to service and serving.” Me
“The best diplomacy starts with getting to know each other,” President George W. Bush, in reference to bringing foreign leaders to his ranch in Crawford, Texas (Remember we are to be Ambassadors for Christ)
“desktop freelancers and innovative startups all over the world” The World is Flat, Thomas L. Friedman
“Victor Hugo was a madman who believed himself to be Victor Hugo” — Jean Cocteau
“The pope? How many divisions does he have?” Stalin (The answer; more than you know and can see with your limited sight….enough)
Most noteworthy is the volume of damning information whitewashed by bland wording, culminating in Volcker’s judgment that in some respects Annan’s performance was “inadequate.” By such standards, the Titanic was (just) “non-buoyant.” Claudia Rosett, Weekly Standard, 04/11/2005, Volume 010, Issue 28
“We know that he has, more than any other man, the gift of compressing the largest amount of words into the smallest amount of thought.” Winston Churchill, 1933
“Would it foil some vast eternal plan if I were a wealthy man?” Fiddler on the Roof – Tevye, the lead-character
“If only this toothache would go away, I could write another chapter on the problem of pain.” C.S. Lewis
“Power is the present means, to obtain some future apparent good.” Thomas Hobbes
“Always remember, you are just one “hearing” away from Faith, just one ‘knowing” away from Peace, and just one “action” away from total Victory.” Me
“The happiest of people don’t necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way. The brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past; you cannot go forward in life until you let go of your past failures and heartaches.” Christian email
“When you were born, you were crying and everyone around you was smiling.” Christian email
“Until my work on this earth is done, I am immortal. But when my work for Christ is done … I go to be with Jesus,” John Wesley
“You can get so well educated in America that your thoughts become detached from common sense. You can get so complicated in your thinking that the obvious isn’t real to you anymore.” Peggy Noonan
“Time is short. Eternity is long. It is only reasonable that this short life be lived in the light of eternity.” Charles H. Spurgeon
“no better friend, no worse enemy.” United States Marines
“It isn’t enough to be “right”; you must also be right there, and at best you should be there right on time.” Taken partially from an article by Brendan Miniter
“The proverbial thirteenth chime of the clock – (is) not only wrong itself, but calls into question everything that came before (it).” Glenn Harlan Reynolds
“Bill Clinton pandered by telling you what you wanted to hear. John Kerry panders by never telling you what you don’t want to hear. This is negative pandering; he talks a lot without really ruling anything out so you can draw your own conclusions…..Kerry has been talking for years, and yet such is the thicket of his verbiage that he has achieved almost complete strategic ambiguity.” David Brooks
“It is darkest right before it gets really really dark, and only then will it start to brighten.” Julie Loehr’s Pastor in St. Louis
“The great conflict of the 21st century will not be between the West and terrorism. Terrorism is a tactic, not a belief. The true battle will be between modern civilization and anti-modernists; between those who believe in the primacy of the individual and those who believe that human beings owe their allegiance and identity to a higher authority; between those who give priority to life in this world and those who believe that human life is mere preparation for an existence beyond life; between those who believe in science, reason, and logic and those who believe that truth is revealed through Scripture and religious dogma. Terrorism will disrupt and destroy lives. But terrorism itself is not the greatest danger we face.” Robert Reich, the former U.S. labor secretary under President Bill Clinton
“I wish that for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
And just for that one moment
I could be you
Yes, I wish that for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
You’d know what a drag it is to see you” Bob Dylan – Positively 4th Street
“Wagner’s music, it’s not as bad as it sounds.” Mark Twain
“Politics moves upward into ethics, and ethics ascends to theology.” Russell Kirk
“A society which denies the heart its role becomes, in very short order, a heartless society.” Russell Kirk
“Don’t judge everything by appearance. The early bird may simply have been up all night.” Unknown
“Never bite off less than you can chew.” 2007 Audi Ad
“If you tell a lie long enough, it becomes the truth.” Joseph Goebbels, minister of propaganda for the Nazis
“You can take off your hats now, gentlemen, and I think perhaps you’d better.” Stephen Vincent Benet, wrote on the death of his friend Scott Fitzgerald.
Orwell’s putdown that a particular idea was so stupid that only an intellectual would believe it. “An idea so stupid that only an intellectual would believe it.”
“Some of the stupidest brilliant people who ever lived.” Peggy Noonan
“I will lie me down and bleed awhile / And then I will rise and fight again.” An old warrior
“A communist is someone who reads (or quotes) Marx. An anti-communist is someone who understands Marx.” Ronald Reagan
Below is the birthday tribute to President Ronald Reagan on Feb. 3, 1994, by Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher
It is an honor and a joy to be with you to celebrate the 44th anniversary of your 39th birthday. I hope to be here to celebrate the 51st anniversary of this same birthday.
Indeed, if you were thinking of running again to see us into the 21st century I’d be even better pleased.
I note, President Reagan, from one of your books that in 1987 you heard one presidential candidate say that what this country needed was a president for the ’90s. You were set to run again, because you thought he said a president in his 90s and you were (inaudible).
Well, for us, hope springs eternal. All it needs is to repeal the 27th Amendment to the Constitution.
Sir, you strode into our midst at a time when America needed you most. This great country had been through a period of national malaise bereft of any sense of moral direction. Through it all, throughout eight of the fastest-moving years in memory, you were unflappable and unyielding.
You brushed off the jibes and jabs of your jealous critics. With that Irish twinkle and that easy homespun style, which never changed, you brought a new assurance to America. You were not only America’s president – important as that is – you were a great leader. In a time of average men, you stood taller than anyone else.
With a toughness unseen for a long time, you stood face-to-face with the evil empire. And, with an unexpected diplomacy which confused your foes – and even some of your friends – you reached out to that empire, perhaps no longer evil, but still formidable. You met its leaders on their turf, but on your terms.
In a time of politicians, you proved yourself a statesman. And that leadership, that faith in freedom and enterprise brought about a renewal of this great country. America was back and the free world became a safer place.
It was not only that you were the Great Communicator – and you were the greatest – but that you had a message to communicate.
The message that had inspired the founding fathers, the message that has guided this nation from its birth – the essence of good government is to blend the wisdom of the ages with the circumstances of contemporary times – that is what you did. Not since Lincoln, or Winston Churchill in Britain, has there been a president who has so understood the power of words to uplift and to inspire.
You reached beyond partisanship to principles, beyond our own selves to our very souls. You reached for and touched, as Lincoln had said so long before you, the better angels of our nature.
Leadership is more than budgets and balance sheets. More than the policy of public measures, it is a matter of moral purpose. And that moral realm is reached by that insight and rhetoric of which only the truly great are capable.
This political instinct of truth, conviction and patriotism began long before you were president. I have been reading that excellent book of your speeches, Ron, and I am going to refer to three speeches in particular.
In 1969, as governor of California, you spoke at Eisenhower College. It was a terrible time of student rebellion, of violence against property, violence against fellow students and violence against others on the campus.
“How and when did all this begin?” you asked. “It began,” you said, “the first time someone old enough to know better declared it was no crime to break the law in the name of social protest. It began with those who, in the name of change or progress, decided they could scrap all the time-tested wisdom man has accumulated in his climb from the swamp to the stars.”
And I particularly like the next bit:
“Saint Thomas Aquinas warned teachers that they must never dig a ditch in front of a student that they failed to fill in. To nearly raise doubts, and to ever seek and never find is to be in opposition to education and progress.” You were right and said so fearlessly while some academics just compromised.
And my second choice arises because we are coming to the 50th anniversary of the D-Day Normandy landings – the Longest Day, the day we dare not lose the battle. Let us recall what you said on the 40th anniversary on those beaches, for no one else could say it better.
You said, “Those men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next. The Americans who fought here that morning,” you continued, “knew word of the invasion was spreading through the darkness back home.
“They felt in their hearts that in Georgia they were filling the churches at 4:00 a.m. in the morning. In Kansas they were kneeling on their porches and praying, and in Philadelphia they were ringing the Liberty Bell. And they knew that God was an ally in this great cause. That night General Ridgeway was listening in the darkness for the promise God made to Joshua: ‘I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.'”
And you said, “Let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died. We will always remember. We will always be proud.”
Ron, I think that was your greatest speech.
Like Winston Churchill, you made words fight like soldiers and lifted the spirit of the nation
And my third one, also a favorite, which was seen the world over, was the terrible Challenger space shuttle disaster. You knew immediately, with that unfailing instinct, that the tragedy needed a national voice to share the mourning, to comfort and yet to say “The quest must go on.” You were on television within hours.
And I remember so well you spoke especially to the schoolchildren who had been watching. You said: “I know it is hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It’s all part of the process of exploration and discovery. The future doesn’t belong to the faint-hearted. It belongs to the brave. The Challenger crew is pulling us into the future. And we’ll continue to follow them.”
And, of course, America did, as we saw today.
And the memorable last words you used came from a poem which linked you all so much to Britain, because that poem was written by a young fighter pilot, killed in the skies over Britain, shortly before his death in 1941, at the age of 19. You will know them; they’re your favorite and they are mine: “I slipped the surly bonds of earth, put out my hand and touched the face of God.”
You always had the right words, and we honor you for it.
There were so many other speeches, some prophetic, some humorous, but all with a vision, all which inspired. We could identify with each and every one. More than anyone else, you knew people’s desire to be attached to some cause greater than themselves. So, instead of inundating the American people with the torrent of projections and percentages, you spoke of the voluntary spirit of community and charity.
When others spoke of the fear of war, you spoke of the need for warriors and peace through strength. When others bewailed the failure of big government to provide for the collective good, you spoke of self-reliance, of personal responsibility, of individual pride and integrity. When others demanded compromise – when others demanded compromise – you, Ronald Reagan, preached conviction. Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, birthday tribute to President Ronald Reagan on Feb. 3, 1994
“Freedom is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom, and then lost it, have never known it again.” President Ronald Reagan
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while DARING GREATLY so that his place shall never be with those timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.” Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President Of The United States
Thank you for being there when I need you. And when I need a friend to talk to. I’ll never forget our conversations. I love you. Erin (oogabooga) – birthday card 3/25/2004
“Age and treachery will beat youth and exuberance every time.”
“Do your homework and stand your ground.” Peter Bart, Hollywood editor
“You had the choice between war and shame. You chose shame and you will get war anyway.” Winston Churchill to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain after the Munich meeting where he appeased Hitler
“In adversity, there’s opportunity, but that doesn’t mean there’s no adversity.” Michael Reene
“It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at him.”
“Habit is stronger than desire.” Mike Murdock
“I can’t change your life till I can get you to change your daily routine.” Mike Murdock
“I am smiling because I have no clue what is going on.” Bumper Sticker
“Quick, look busy, Jesus is coming soon.” Bumper Sticker
“If you want to test your memory, try to recall what you were worrying about one year ago today.” Rotarian
“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, — it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.” Farewell Address, George Washington
“There will be hardships ahead. And faith will not make our path easy, but it will give us strength for the journey,” Bush said. My rendition – “There will be hardships ahead. And faith will not make our path easy, but it will give us strength for the journey, and make our path sure”
“He started in Hollywood, where everything is political, and moved to D.C., where everything is theatrical.” WMAL-AM – Washington, D.C., Chris Berry
Laurens van der Post, in a memoir of his relationship with Carl Jung, said that we all forget the obvious: “We live not only our own lives but, whether we know it or not, also the life of our time.” We add to that larger life or detract; we give or withhold, we lead or shrink back, we put ourselves on the line for the truth or we ignore the summons, we meet the great challenge of our age or we retreat to our gardens. It is not bad to tend your garden, and is in fact necessary; you can find wholeness, solace and truth there too. But to tend it and also step forward into history, to step into the life of your age, to step onto history’s stage and seek to take part constructively, to try to make your era better–that is a very great thing.
“Courage is being scared to death and saddling up anyway.” John Wayne
(Bob)Woodward said the toughest job of every president is “to define the next stage of good” for the nation — be it a tax cut for the middle class, a medical plan for seniors — and then “develop a plan to get there.”
“A conspiracy of mediocrities united by the common terror of any decisive action.” Prince Metternich’s description of the Prussian royal court:
“Never underestimate the power of dumb people in large groups.” Bumper Sticker
Good architects borrow, great architects steal…
No amount of genius can overcome a preoccupation with detail. Anonymous
It is good if your enemy underestimates you. The dumber they think you are the more surprised they are when you kill them. Colin Powell (I think?)
“A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.” Herm Albright
People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Anonymous
“You can’t think and hit at the same time.” Yogi Berra
“A number is not a number, it is a range.” MetLife Real Estate quote
“To change and to change for the better are two different things.” German Proverb
“I wouldn’t ever set out to hurt anyone deliberately unless it was, you know, important —like a league game or something.” Dick Butkus
“There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.” Johann von Goethe
“Ignorance and arrogance, a truly unattractive combination” Rex Rouis (me)
“The things that will destroy us are politics without principle; pleasure without conscience; wealth without work; knowledge without character; business without morality; science without humanity; and worship without sacrifice.” Mahatma Gandhi
“Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.” Mahatma Gandhi
“First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.” Mahatma Gandhi
A religion that takes no account of practical affairs and does not help to solve them is no religion. Mahatma Gandhi
An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching. Mahatma Gandhi
“Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.” John Wesley
“A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him.” David Brink
“Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.” Henry David Thoreau
“Never in the field of human conflict was so much been owed by so many to so few.” Sir Winston Churchill
“This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” Sir Winston Churchill
“Rampant and increasing ignorance,” and “Structural incompetence” Steve Smith, MetLife Real Estate
Truncated yet circuitous (cut corners yet still taking the long route) Me
Maybe common sense can only belong to common people, and is not for those who consider themselves uncommon….Or…People who consider themselves to be uncommon usually have a difficulty with common sense. Me
She can’t cook but she sure is ugly. Unknown
P.T. Barnum supposedly remarked that no one ever went broke by underestimating the intelligence of the American public.
“Truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it and ignorance may deride it, but, in the end, there it is.” Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965).
The difference between New York and Washington DC – New York was “tough but not mean” and Washington DC was “mean but not tough.” ED Crandall, the former president of American Airline
“They did nothing in particular, but did it very well.” – Gilbert and Sullivan wrote of the British House of Lords
Love many, trust few, and always paddle your own canoe. Anonymous
Courage is doing what you’re afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you’re scared. Eddie Rickenbacker
I can see that aerial warfare is actually scientific murder. Eddie Rickenbacker
I can give you a six-word formula for success: Think things through — then follow through. Eddie Rickenbacker
Unconfirmed quotes of our founding fathers:
http://www.wallbuilders.com/resources/search/detail.php?ResourceID=20
“Grow your own dope…..plant a man!” Bumper Sticker
Keep talking until one of them thinks of something to say…..Or Keep talking until you think of something to say
The U.N. is a convocation of delegates who love Humanity but hate people.
“There is nobody more intolerant that someone demanding tolerance.” Thomas B. in California writes to Fox News
It is an axiom of political life that you never raise expectations, whether in a political or military campaign, because your defeats are then magnified and your victories discounted. Charles Krauthammer
As though truth wouldn’t set these people free, but would set them off. Charles Krauthammer or to say……The truth will set you free after it sets you off.
However, they ignore the fact that the First Amendment is intended to protect only against government sanctions for exercising free speech rights, not private actions. Edward I. Koch
“The fundamental difference is that conservatives think man is created in God’s image. Liberals think they [themselves] are gods – they want to create utopia on Earth with wealth redistribution, breaking the bonds of marriage and ties between parents and a child.” Ann Coulter
“His pomposity is overshadowed only by his rank stupidity,” description of Walter Cronkite by Ann Coulter
“It would appear that we have reached the limits of what it is possible to achieve with computer technology, although one should be careful with such statements, as they tend to sound pretty silly in 5 years” John Von Neumann (in 1949)
“Exaggerate the essential, and leave the obvious unclear.” Vincent Van Gogh
“In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” – George Orwell
In war, truth is often the first casualty. Sir Winston Churchill
“I really admire how you take care of all your responsibilities. I can barely finish my homework.” A 12-year-old in a letter to Pope John Paul II,
“Marry or marry not, in any (either) case you’ll regret it” Socrates
“By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.” Socrates
He is like the generals of France, who enter each war perfectly prepared to win the last one.
I was once asked to describe the devil….I replied: If the devil is the living flesh of evil, then here is who I think he is. Far from appearing as a hideous demon, he is the average-looking person who walks into a room and shakes your hand with a smile. By the time he leaves, the standards of decency of everyone within that room have been lowered ever so slightly. Wendy McElroy on Fox News article
A humorous story or joke is a short but vivid story that has for its end a sudden twist of delightful insight, usually containing a further unexpected connection to a seemingly unrelated issue. A surprised and joyous connection is suddenly made; the result of which is laughter. Afterward, we are left with a fascinating and curious insight….one that sticks with us. What a great teaching tool!! Me 10/24/2003
Sometimes there is no punch line but a more distant connection, which takes a moment to be realized, resulting in a focused moment of delightful insight…and again, laughter. Me 10/24/2003
Golf is for people that don’t want to be with their spouse, but don’t have the guts to have an affair…..or….Golf is for men that don’t love their wives, but don’t have the guts to go find another woman. Me
End of general quotes
Frank Lloyd Wright Quotes
I’m all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let’s start with typewriters.
A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines, so they should go as far as possible from home to build their first buildings.
Think simple’ as my old master used to say – meaning reduce the whole of its parts into the simplest terms, getting back to first principles.
The truth is more important than the facts.
Regard it as just as desirable to build a chicken house as to build a cathedral.
The space within becomes the reality of the building.
Less is only more where more is no good.
I have been black and blue in some spot, somewhere, almost all my life from too intimate contacts with my own furniture.
I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.
Give me the luxuries of life and I will willingly do without the necessities.
An architect’s most useful tools are an eraser at the drafting board, and a wrecking bar at the site.
The thing you really believe in always happens… and the belief in a thing makes it happen. – Frank Lloyd Wright (1868-1959)
Margaret Thatcher Quotes
If my critics saw me walking over the Thames they would say it was because I couldn’t swim.
Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.
Being prime minister is a lonely job… you cannot lead from the crowd.
Democratic nations must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend.
Disciplining yourself to do what you know is right and importance, although difficult, is the highroad to pride, self-esteem, and personal satisfaction.
Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy.
I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.
I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil, and I believe that in the end good will triumph.
I do not know anyone who has got to the top without hard work. That is the recipe. It will not always get you to the top, but should get you pretty near.
I don’t mind how much my Ministers talk, so long as they do what I say.
I just owe almost everything to my father and it’s passionately interesting for me that the things that I learned in a small town, in a very modest home, are just the things that I believe have won the election.
I love argument, I love debate. I don’t expect anyone just to sit there and agree with me, that’s not their job.
If you just set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing.
Albert Einstein Quotes
The leaves and the light are one.
“Never regard study as a duty, but as the enviable opportunity to learn to know the liberating influence of beauty in the realm of the spirit for your own personal joy and to the profit of the community to which your later work belongs.”
“Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value.”
“Perfection of means and confusion of ends seem to characterize our age.”
“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.”
“If A equals success, then the formula is: A=X+Y+Z. X is work. Y is play. Z is keeping your mouth shut.”
“Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.”
“A person starts to live when he can live outside himself.”
“The faster you go, the shorter you are.”
“Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler.”
“God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically.”
“Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT’S relativity.”
“When a blind beetle crawls over the surface of the globe, he doesn’t realize that the track he has covered is curved. I was lucky enough to have spotted it.”
“I have no particular talent. I am merely inquisitive.”
“It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”
“If I had my life to live over again, I’d be a plumber.”
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
“Women marry men hoping they will change. Men marry women hoping they will not. So each is inevitably disappointed.”
“No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong.”
“The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.”
“I cannot believe that God would choose to play dice with the universe.” or sometimes quoted as “God does not play dice with the universe.”
“Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.”
“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”
Science, Philosophy and Religion: a Symposium (1941) ch. 13
“I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”
“What Life Means to Einstein: An Interview by George Sylvester Viereck,” for the October 26, 1929 issue of The Saturday Evening Post.
“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.”
Quoted on pg. 289 of Adventures of a Mathematician, by S. M. Ulam(Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1976). Apparently these words also occur somewhere in What I Believe (1930).
“Gravitation can not be held responsible for people falling in love”
“Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.”
“When the solution is simple, God is answering.”
“I want to know God’s thoughts …the rest are details.”
“I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own — a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotisms.” [Albert Einstein, obituary in New York Times, 19 April 1955]
“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” — Albert Einstein
“We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.”
“The highest principles for our aspirations and judgments are given to us in the Jewish-Christian religious tradition. It is a very high goal which, with our weak powers, we can reach only very inadequately, but which gives a sure foundation to our aspirations and valuations. If one were to take that goal out of its religious form and look merely at its purely human side, one might state it perhaps thus: free and responsible development of the individual, so that he may place his powers freely and gladly in the service of all mankind. … it is only to the individual that a soul is given. And the high destiny of the individual is to serve rather than to rule, or to impose himself in any other way.”
“Intelligence makes clear to us the interrelationship of means and ends. But mere thinking cannot give us a sense of the ultimate and fundamental ends. To make clear these fundamental ends and valuations and to set them fast in the emotional life of the individual, seems to me precisely the most important function which religion has to form in the social life of man.”
“It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.” [Albert Einstein, 1954, from “Albert Einstein: The Human Side”, edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press]
“The process of scientific discovery is, in effect, a continual flight from wonder.”
“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.”
“The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.”
“If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?”
“Where the world ceases to be the scene of our personal hopes and wishes, where we face it as free beings admiring, asking and observing, there we enter the realm of Art and Science”
“When the number of factors coming into play in a phenomenological complex is too large scientific method in most cases fails. One need only think of the weather, in which case the prediction even for a few days ahead is impossible. Nevertheless, no one doubts that we are confronted with a causal connection whose causal components are in the main known to us. Occurrences in this domain are beyond the reach of exact prediction because of the variety of factors in operation, not because of any lack of order in nature.”
“Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes place is determined by laws of nature, and therefore this holds for the action of people. For this reason, a research scientist will hardly be inclined to believe that events could be influenced by a prayer, i.e. by a wish addressed to a Supernatural Being.” [Albert Einstein, 1936, responding to a child who wrote and asked if scientists pray. Source: “Albert Einstein: The Human Side”, Edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffmann]
“Relativity teaches us the connection between the different descriptions of one and the same reality”.
“I sometimes ask myself how it came about that I was the one to develop the theory of relativity. The reason, I think, is that a normal adult never stops to think about problems of space and time. These are things which he has thought about as a child. But my intellectual development was retarded, as a result of which I began to wonder about space and time only when I had already grown up.”
“When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.”
“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.”
“The devil has put a penalty on all things we enjoy in life. Either we suffer in health or we suffer in soul or we get fat.”
“The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.”
“A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy.”
“The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there’s no risk of accident for someone who’s dead.”
“The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with the joy of living are goodness, beauty, and truth. To make a goal of comfort or happiness has never appealed to me; a system of ethics built on this basis would be sufficient only for a herd of cattle.”
“Without deep reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people.”
“A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of others.”
“Only a life lived for others is a life worth while.”
“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as judge in the field of truth and knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the Gods.”
“When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.”
“The only source of knowledge is experience”
“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”
“I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” “What Life Means to Einstein: An Interview by George Sylvester Viereck,” for the October 26, 1929 issue of The Saturday Evening Post.
“Joy in looking and comprehending is nature’s most beautiful gift.”
“Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.”
“Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age 18.
“Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them.”
“Strange is our Situation Here Upon Earth”
“Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.”
“If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.”
“An empty stomach is not a good political advisor.”
“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”
“I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.”
“Force always attracts men of low morality, and I believe it to be an invariable rule that tyrants of genius are succeeded by scoundrels.”
“Nationalism is an infantile sickness. It is the measles of the human race.”
“The only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.”
“If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world.”
“The wireless telegraph is not difficult to understand. The ordinary telegraph is like a very long cat. You pull the tail in New York, and it meows in Los Angeles. The wireless is the same, only without the cat.”
“The foundation of morality should not be made dependent on myth nor tied to any authority lest doubt about the myth or about the legitimacy of the authority imperil the foundation of sound judgment and action.”
“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.” (1929)
“Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.”
“Politics is a pendulum whose swings between anarchy and tyranny are fueled by perpetually rejuvenated illusions.”
“All our lauded technological progress — our very civilization – is like the axe in the hand of the pathological criminal.”
“Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person.”
“Desire for approval and recognition is a healthy motive, but the desire to be acknowledged as better, stronger or more intelligent than a fellow being or fellow scholar easily leads to an excessively egoistic psychological adjustment, which may become in jurious for the individual and for the community. ”
“On Education,” Address to the State University of New York at Albany, in Ideas and Opinions
“We have penetrated far less deeply into the regularities obtaining within the realm of living things, but deeply enough nevertheless to sense at least the rule of fixed necessity ….. what is still lacking here is a grasp of the connections of profound generality, but not a knowledge of order itself.
“(1) Those instrumental goods which should serve to maintain the life and health of all human beings should be produced by the least possible labor of all.
(2) The satisfaction of physical needs is indeed the indispensable precondition of a satisfactory existence, but in itself is not enough. In order to be content men must also have the possibility of developing their intellectual and artistic powers to whatever extent accord with their personal characteristics and abilities.”
“If the possibility of the spiritual development of all individuals is to be secured, a second kind of outward freedom is necessary. The development of science and of the creative activities of the spirit in general requires still another kind of freedom, which may be characterized as inward freedom. It is this freedom of the spirit which consists in the interdependence of thought from the restrictions of authoritarian and social prejudices as well as from unphilosophical routinizing and habit in general. This inward freedom is an infrequent gift of nature and a worthy object for the individual.”
Some more or the same from Einstein:
“Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.” “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
“Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.” “I want to know God’s thoughts; the rest are details.” “The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.” “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.” “The only real valuable thing is intuition.” “A person starts to live when he can live outside himself.” “I am convinced that He (God) does not play dice.” “God is subtle but he is not malicious.” “Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.” “I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.” “The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.” “Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.” “Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.” “Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” “Great spirits have often encountered violent opposition from weak minds.” “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.” “Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.” “Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one’s living at it.” “The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.” “The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.” “God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically.” “The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday thinking.” “Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.” “Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.” “The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.” “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” “Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.” “The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.” “Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.” “Equations are more important to me, because politics is for the present, but an equation is something for eternity.” “If A is a success in life, then A equals x plus y plus z. Work is x; y is play; and z is keeping your mouth shut.” “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the the universe.” “As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.” “Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.” “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” “In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep.” “The fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears, for there’s no risk of accident for someone who’s dead.” “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.” “Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism — how passionately I hate them!” “No, this trick won’t work…How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?” “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.” “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.” “The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking…the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker.” “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.”
“Equations are more important to me, because politics is for the present, but an equation is something for eternity.”
“As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.”
“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”
To the contrary: “If God created the universe,” says Penzias, who is Jewish, “he would have done it elegantly. The absence of any imprint of intervention upon creation is what we would expect from a truly all-powerful Creator. You don’t need somebody diddling around like Frank Morgan in The Wizard of Oz to keep the universe going. Instead, what you have is half a page of mathematics that describes everything. In some sense, the power of the creation lies in its underlying simplicity.”
The End
Comments
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