integrity has no need of rules.

-a camus

there is something that is much more scarce, something rarer than ability. it is the ability to recognize ability.

-r half

 

do what you can, with what you have, where you are.

-th roosevelt

 

natural ability without education has more often raised a man to glory and virtue than education without natural ability.

-cicero, 90 BC

 

a man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything.

-samuel johnson, 1745

 

the mass of men lead quiet lives of deparation.

-thoreau, 1847

 

none of us can help the things life has done to us. they're done before you realize it, and then they make you do other things, till at last everything comes between you and what you'd like to be, and you've the feeling of having lost your true self forever.

-e o'neill

 

only the shallow know themselves.

-o wilde, 1888

the inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

-w churchill

 

the more the change the more it is the same thing.

-a karr, 1836

 

every man has three characters- that which he exhibits, that which he has, and that which he thinks he has.

-a karr, 1853

children are unpredictable. you never know what inconsistency theyre going to catch you in next.

-f jones

 

-j plomp

 

if you want to see what children can do, you must stop giving them things.

-n douglas

 

too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve.

-r lewin

 

-steve mcqueen

 

i always seem to suffer from loss of faith on entering cities.

-emerson, 1833

 

you cant say civilizations dont advance, for in every war they kill you in a new way.

-w. rogers

 

a visitor from mars could easily pick ouy the civilized nations, they have the best implementations of war.

- h prochnow

 

the marvels of film, radio, television; are marvels of one-way communication, which is not communication at all.

-m mayer

 

it is a luxury to be understood.

-emerson 1849

 

be obscure clearly.

-e white

 

 

as i grow older, i pay less attention to what men say. i just watch what they do.

-a carnegie

 

if there is anything a nonconformist hates worse than a conformist it is another nonconformist who doesnt conform to the latest standards of nonconformity.

-b vaughan

 

i never dared to be radical when young, for fear it would make me conservative when old.

-r frost

 

consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.

-o wilde, 1878

 

consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

-emerson, 1852

 

dont talk unless you can improve the silence.

-vermont proverb

i dip my pen in the blackest ink, because i am not afraid of falling in my inkpot.

-emerson, 1860

 

if you see in any situation only what everybody else can see, you can be said to be so much a representative of your culture that you are a victim of it.

-s hayakawa

people ask for for criticism, but they really only want praise.

-s maugham

 

the powers of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.

-g shaw

 

once you accept your own death all of a sudden you are free to live. you no longer care about your reputation, you no longer care except so far as your life can be used tactically- to promote a cause you believe in.

-s alinsky

 

as i would not be a slave, so would i not be a master, this expresses my idea of democracy.

-a lincoln, 1843

democracy arose from mens thinking that if they are equal in any respect, the are equal absolutely.

-aristotle, 364 bc

 

the future is hidden even from the men who make it.

-a france

 

a society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves.

-b jouvenel

 

the most important thing is to not stop questioning.

-a einstein

 

doubt till thou canst doubt no more, doubt is thought, and thought is life. systems which end doubt are devices for drugging thought.

-a guerard

  

the aim of education is the knowledge not of fact, but of values.

-w inge

if i had learned education, i would not have had time to learn of anything else.

-c vanderbilt, 1850

 

dont talk about yourself, it will be done when you leave.

-w mizner

 

it is a curious fact that of all the illusions that beset mankind none is quite so curious as that tendency to suppose that we are mentally and morally superior than those who differ from us in opinion.

-e hubbard

 

the defect of equality is that we only desire it with our superiors.

-h becque, 1861

no one should expect the government to act in accordance with the moral code appropriate to the conduct of the individual.

-spinoza, 1654

 

two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing wonder and awe- the starry heavens above me, and the moral law within me.

-kant, 1770

 

experience enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.

-f jones

 

experience is not what happens to a man, it is what a man does with what happens to him.

-a huxley

 

the degree of ones emotion varies inversely with ones knowledge of the facts- the less you know the hotter you get.

-b russell

 

show me a thoroughly satisfied man- and i will show you a failure.

-t edison

 

i cannot give you the formula for success, but i can give you the formula for failure, which is- try to please everybody.

-h swope

 

question with boldness even the existence of god; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

-jefferson, 1788

 

a little inaccuracy saves a world of explanation.

-c ayres

 

if you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, either write things worth reading or do things worth writing.

-b franklin, 1755

 

if you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.

-g shaw

 

the reason parents no longer lead their children in the right direction is because the parents arent going that way themselves.

-f hubbard

 

you are free, and that is why you are lost.

-f kafka

 

the price of freedom of religion or of speech or of the press is that we must put up with, and even pay for, a good deal of rubbish.

-justice jackson

 

liberty is being free from the things we dont like in order to be slaves of the things we do like.

-e benn

in the end more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security. when the athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for was freedom from responsibility, then athens ceased to be free.

-e gibbon, 1766

 

true friendship exists when silence between two people is comfortable.

-d gentry

 

few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment.

-a einstein

 

the principal mark of genius is not perfection but originality, the opening of new frontiers.

-a koestler

 

it is the curse of talent that, although it labors with greater steadiness and perseverance than genius, it does not reach its goal, while genius already on the summit of the ideal, gazes laughingly about.

-r schumann, 1833

 

genius is the ability to reduce the complicated to the simple.

-c ceram

 

it makes no difference who you vote for- the two parties are really one party representing four percent of the people.

-g vidal

 

you cannot adopt politics as a profession and remain honest.

-l howe

 

the short memory of american voters is what keeps our politicians in office.

-w rogers

 

the bird of paradise alights only upon the hand that does not grasp.

-j berry

 

nobody believes  a rumor here in washington until its officially denied.

-e cheyfitz

  

happiness is the interval between periods of unhappiness.

-d marquis

a person is never happy except at the price of some ignorance.

-a france

what a wonderful life ive had, i only wish i had realized it sooner!

-colette

 

the world is a comedy to those that think, a tragedy to those who feel.

-h walpole, 1747

 

christ believed in hell. i do not myself feel any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment.

-b russell

 

what history teaches us is that man never learned anything from it.

-hegel, 1813

 

inventing is a combination of brains and materials. the more brains you use, the less material you need.

-c kettering

 

if my theory of relativity is proven successful, germany will claim me as a german...should my theory prove untrue, germany shall declare i am a jew.

-a einstein

 

the beginning of philosophy is a recognition of the conflicts between men, a search for their cause, a condemnation of mere opinion, and the discovery of a standard of judgement.

-epictetus, 54 ad

 

give your decision, never your reasons; your decisions may be right, your reasons are sure to be wrong.

-earl of mansfield, 1743

 

of all mens miseries the bitterest is this, to know so much and to have control over nothing.

-herodotus, 453 bc

 

we can be knowledgeable with other mens knowledge, but we cannot be wise with other mens wisdom.

-m montaigne, 1570

 

all our knowledge has its origins in our perception.

-da vinci, 1501

 

there is far greater peril in buying knowledge than in buying meat or drink.

-plato, 400 bc

 

try to know everything of something, and something of everything.

-h peter, 1812

 

one of the difficulties in the language is that all our words from loose using have lost their edges.

-e hemingway

 

no poets ever interpreted nature as freely as a lawyer interprets truth.

-j giraudoux

 

under current law, it is a crime for a private citizen to lie to a government official, but not for the government official to lie to the people.

-d fraser

laws are spider webs through which the big flies pass and the little ones get caught.

-h balzac, 1824

 

every actual state is corrupt, good men must not obey laws too well.

-emerson, 1846

 

where all think alike, noone thinks very much.

-w lippmann

 

if you cant convince them, confuse them.

-h truman

 

the second half of a mans life is made up of nothing but the habits he has acquired during the first half.

-f dostoevski, 1849

 

the thing that i should wish to obtain from money would be leisure with security.

-b russell

 

few women and fewer men have enough character to be idle.

-e lucas

 

only a person who can live with himself can enjoy the gift of leisure.

-h greber

 

it is not true that life is one damn thing after another, it one damn thing over and over.

-e millay

 

one learns in life to keep silent and draw ones own confusions.

-c skinner

 

if jack is in love, he is no judge of jills beauty.

-ben franklin, 1755

 

the liars punishment is not in the least that he is not believed but that he cannot believe anyone else.

-g shaw

 

a man who wont lie to a woman has very little consideration for her feelings.

-o miller

 

the tendencies of democracies are, in all things, to mediocrity, since the tastes, knowledge, and principles of the majority form the tribunal of appeal.

-j cooper, 1819

 

we must laugh in order to aviod crying for him.

-n bonaparte, 1798

 

the superior man understands what is right, the inferior man understands what will sell.

-confucious, 500 bc

 

one machines can do the work of fifty ordinary men. no machines can do the work of one extraordinary man.

-e hubbard

 

tv- chewing gum for the eyes.

-f lloyd wright

 

great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

-a einstein

 

how is it that our memory is good enough to retain the least triviality that happens to us, and yet not good enough to recollect how often we have told it to the same person?

-rochefoucauld, 1631

 

the mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, or a hell of heaven.

-j milton, 1639

 

great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.

-l peter

 

 

i write music like a sow pisses.

-w mozart, 1785

 

never does nature say to do one thing, and wisdom another.

-juvenal, 85 ad

 

remember, noone can make you feel inferior without your consent.

-e roosevelt

 

are you not ashamed of heaping up the greatest amount of money and honour and reputation, and caring so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul?

-socrates, 410 bc

 

the optimist proclaims that the world we live in is the best of all possible worlds, the pessimist fears this may be true.

-j cabell

 

the best audience is one that is intelligent, well educated- and a little drunk.

-a barkley

 

only work which is the product of inner compulsion can have spiritual meaning.

-w gropius

 

when i am finishing a picture i hold some god-made object up to it- a rock, flower, a branch or my hand- as a final test. if the painting stands up beside a thing man cannot make, the painting is authentic. it theres a clash between the two, it is the painting which is wrong.

-m chagall

 

you can make a better living in the world as a soothsayer/psychic than as a truthsayer.

-g lichtenburg, 1779

 

carriages without horses shall go, and accidents fill the world with woe, around the world thoughts shall fly, in the twinkling of an eye.

-m shipton, 1499

 

i never think of the future. it comes soon enough.

-a einstein

 

the best thing about the future is that it only comes one day at a time.

-a lincoln, 1851

 

there are two kinds of people in ones life- people whom one keeps waiting- and the people for whom one waits.

-s behrman

 

beware the fury of a patient man.

-j dryden, 1661

 

not he who has little, but he who wishes more, is poor.

-seneca, 31 ad

 

the wrong sort of people are always in  power because they would not be in power if they were not the wrong sort of people.

-j tyson

 

i have never been able to concieve how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.

-t jefferson, 1799

 

the trouble with most of us is that we would rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.

-n peale

 

individuals having no religious affiliation show on the average less prejudice than do church members.

-g allport

 

everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. no one can eliminate prejudices- just recognize them.

-e murrow

 

nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principals.

-r emerson, 1872

 

it is easier to fight for ones principles than to live up to them.

-a adler

 

the trial of principle: without it a man hardly knows if hes honest or not.

-h fielding, 1731

 

a problem well stated is a problem half-solved.

-c kettering

 

we live in the midst of alarms; anxiety beclouds the future; we expect some new disaster with each newspaper we read.

-a lincoln, 1855

 

no man profiteth but by the loss of others.

-m montaigne, 1566

 

what we call "progress"is the exchange of one nuisance for another nuisance.

-h ellis

 

for most americans, progress means accepting what it new because its new, and discarding what is old because its old.

-l mumford

 

those who speak most of progress measure it by quantity and not by quality.

-g santayana

 

in their worship of the machine, many americans have settled for something less than a full life, something that is hardly a tenth of a life, or a hundredeth of a life. they have confused human progress with mechanization.

-l mumford

 

the reasonable man adapts himself to the world, the unreasonable one persist in trying to adapt the world to himself. therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

-g shaw

 

it is possible to own too much. a man with one watch knows what time it is, a man with two watches is never quite sure.

-l segall

 

it is the preoccupation with possession, more than anything else, that prevents men from living freely and nobly.

-b russell

 

i cant figure out where i leave off and everyone else begins.

-g mccabee

 

judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.

-voltaire, 1727

 

stay at home in your mind. dont recite other peoples opinions. i hate quotations, tell me what you know.

-r emerson, 1844

 

a great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.

-w james

 

loyalty to a petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.

-m twain

 

if i break wind in wittenburg, they smell it in rome.

-martin luther, 1516

 

i consider myself a hindu, christian, moslem, jew, buddhist, and confucian.

-m gandhi

 

all religions must be tolerated for every man must get to heaven in his own way.

-frederick the great, 1739

 

religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet.

-n bonaparte, 1799

 

my riches consist not in the extent of my possessions but in the fewness of my wants.

-j brotherton

 

chastity is the most unnatural of all sexual perversions.

-r gourmont

 

as to marriage or celibacy, let a man take which course he will, he will be sure to repent.

-socrates, 480 bc

 

marriage has many a pain but celibacy has no pleasures.

-s johnson, 1741

 

a little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.

-o wilde, 1881

 

man is a creautre who lives not by bread alone, but primarily by catchwords.

-r stevenson, 1875

 

our major obligation is not to mistake slogans for solutions.

-e murrow

 

the best things and best people rise out of their separateness; im against a homogenized society because i want the cream to rise.

-r frost

 

there are people into whose heads it never enters to concieve of any better state of society than that which now exists.

-h george, 1871

 

society is always taken by suprise at any new example of common sense.

-r emerson, 1929

 

the gap in our economy is between what we have and what we think we ought to have- and that is a moral problem, not an economic one.

-p heyne

 

i never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.

-h thoreau, 1842

 

one of the greatest necessities in america is to discover creative solitude.

-c sandburg

 

in solitude, be a multitude to thyself.

-tibullus, 36 bc

 

i was never less alone than while by myself.

-e gibbon, 1760

 

for every artist with something to say but the inability to say it well, there are two who could say something well if they had something to say.

-p mills

 

there are only two ways of getting on in this world, by ones own industry or by the weakness of others.

-j bruyere, 1677

 

no one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the american public.

-h mencken

 

i hear and i forget. i see and i remember. i do and i understand.

-chinese proverb

 

a conclusion is a place where you got tired thinking.

-m fischer

 

the no-mind no-thinks no-thoughts about no-things.

-buddhe, 513 bc

 

man can live without air for a few minutes, without water for about two weeks, without food for about two months, and without a new thought for years on end.

-k ruth

 

natives who beat drums to drive out evil spirits are objects of scorn to smart americans who blow their horns to clear up traffic jams.

-m kelly

 

the victor is never asked if he told the truth.

-a hitler

 

the planners problem is to find ways of creating, within the urban environment, the sense of belonging.

-l marx

 

there are some jobs in which it is impossible for a man to be virtuous.

-aristotle, 356 bc

 

we are told that talent creates its own opportunities, but it sometimes seems that intense desire creates not only its own opportunities, but its own talents.

-e hoffner

 

always take a job which is too big for you.

-h fosdick

 

war will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today.

-jf kennedy

 

in wartime, truth is so precioud that she should always be protected by a bodyguard of lies.

-w churchill

 

no poems can live long or please that are written by water drinkers.

-horace, 40 bc

 

after wisdom comes true wit.

-e esar

 

stoicism is the wisdom of madness and cynicism the madness of wisdom.

-b evans

 

its easier to be original and foolish than original and wise.

-g leibniz, 1688

 

we give advice, but we cannot give the wisdom to profit by it.

-rochefoucauld

 

like every man of sense and good feeling, i abominate work.

-a huxley

 

verily the best of women are those who are content with little.

-mohammed, 602

 

once made equal to a man, woman becomes his superior.

- socrates, 413 bc

 

it is a great misfortune neither to have enough wit to talk well nor enough judgement to be silent.

-j brupere, 1661

 

the man who sees the consistency in things is a wit, the man who sees the inconsistency in things is a humorist.

-g chesteron

 

a satirist is a man who discovers unpleasant things about himself and then says them about other people.

-p mcarthur

 

a taste for irony has  kept more hearts from breaking than a sense of humor, for it takes irony to appreciate the joke which is on oneself.

-j west

 

a sense of humor keen enough to show a man his own absurdities will keep him from committing all sins, except those worth committing.

-s butler