Famous Quotes
Names are arranged alphabetically:
Abraham Lincoln (American President)
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That’s my religion.
The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who’ll get me a book I ain’t read.
The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend.
Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.
Albert Einstein (Physicist, Nobel laureate)
Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.
The person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.
The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.
Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.
Great spirits have always faced violent opposition from the mediocre minds.
If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.
Education is what remains when one has forgotten what one has learned in school.
A man should look for what is, and not what he thinks should be.
Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.
The only source of knowledge is experience.
It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.
We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive.
The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.
Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.
If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?
Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
Ambrose Bierce (American writer, journalist, satirist)
Speak when you are angry and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.
The covers of this book are too far apart.
Amy Goodman (American journalist, author)
Go to where the silence is and say something.
Ayn Rand (American writer and philosopher)
You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality.
Benjamin Franklin (American inventor, diplomat, journalist)
The US constitution doesn’t guarantee happiness only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself.
They who would give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
By failing to prepare you are preparing to fail.
Life’s tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late.
Well done is better than well said.
I wake up every morning at nine and grab the morning paper. Then I look at the obituary page. If my name is not on it, I get up.
Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.
He does not possess wealth; it possesses him.
Work as if you were to live 100 years; pray as if you were to die tomorrow.
We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.
Bob Dylan (American singer, songwriter, poet)
He not busy being born is busy dying.
Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.
Three things cannot long be hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.
Health is the greatest gift, contentment is the greatest wealth, and faithfulness is the great relationship.
C. S. Lewis (Irish novelist, poet, academic, medievalist, literary critic)
The task for the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.
Carl Friedrich Gauss (German mathematician)
Mathematics is the queen of sciences.
Carl Sagan (American astronomer, author, science communicator)
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.
Charles Darwin (English naturalist, geologist)
A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.
Confucius (Chinese philosopher)
Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.
I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.
Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you don’t stop.
If I walk with two other men, each of them will serve as my teacher. I will pick out the good points of the one and imitate them, and the bad points of the other and correct them in myself.
What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.
You cannot open a book without learning something.
The purpose of our lives is to be happy.
When you are discontent, you always want more, more, more. Your desires can never be satisfied. But when you practice contentment, you can say to yourself, ‘Oh yes – I already have everything that I really need.’
Sleep is the best meditation.
In the practice of tolerance, one’s enemy is the best teacher.
If you can help others; if you cannot do that, atleast do not harm them. This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.
Ernest Hemingway (American author, journalist)
Courage is grace under pressure.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
I like to listen. I have learnt a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.
There is no friend as loyal as a book.
Friedrich Nietzsche (German philosopher)
That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
He who has a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'.
The knight of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies, but also to hate his friends.
Whenever I climb I am followed by a dog called 'Ego'.
When you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.
There are no facts, only interpretations.
George Bernard Shaw (Irish Playwright, Nobel laureate)
Most people get a chance to think two or three times a year. But I am fortunate that I am able to think several times a week.
A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.
Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.
I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.
Progress is impossible without change. And those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.
The moment we want to believe something, we suddenly see all the arguments for it, and become blind to the arguments against it.
Some see things and say ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were and say ‘Why not?’
When I was young, I observed that nine out of ten things I did were failures. So I did ten times more work.
George Carlin (American comedian, writer)
Weather forecast for tonight: dark.
Groucho Marx (American comedian and film and television star)
Learn from the mistakes of others. You can never live long enough to make them all yourself.
I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it.
I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.
I intend to live forever, or die trying.
From the moment I picked up your book until I put it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it.
Henri Poincaré (French mathematician, theoretical physicist, engineer, and a philosopher of science)
To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.
Experience tells us not which is the truest geometry, but which is the most convenient.
Time and Space … It is not nature which imposes them upon us, it is we who impose them upon nature because we find them convenient.
The scientist does not study nature because it is useful to do so. He studies it because he takes pleasure in it, and he takes pleasure in it because it is beautiful.
It is by logic that we prove, but by intuition that we discover. To know how to criticize is good, to know how to create is better.
Science is built up with facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house.
Henry Ward Beecher (American social reformer, clergyman)
A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs. It’s jolted by every pebble on the road.
Isaac Asimov (American writer)
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
Yasthu sarvani bhutani aathmany eva anupasyathi
Sarva bhuteshu cha aathmaanam tatho na vijugupsate.
He who sees all beings in his own self
And sees his own self in all beings.
He does not hate anyone thereafter.
(alternate translation for last line) It will not seek to hide from him
Jimi Hendrix (American musician, singer, songwriter)
Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.
Jimmy Durante (American actor, comedian, singer)
Be nice to people on your way up because you meet them on your way down.
John F. Kennedy (American President)
Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.
We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.
Victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan.
Mankind must put an end to war - or war will put an end to mankind.
Khalil Gibran (Lebanese artist, poet, and writer)
I have learnt silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.
Labrinth (Ernglish singer, songwriter)
Of course, success takes you where your character can't sustain you.
Lee Iacocca (American engineer, industrialist)
In times of great stress or adversity, it’s always best to keep busy, to plow your anger and your energy into something positive.
In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something else.
Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
Happiness is when what you say, what you think, and what you do are in harmony.
A man is but a product of his thoughts, what he thinks, he becomes.
Nobody can hurt me without my permission.
A ‘No’ uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a ‘Yes’ merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.
It is health that is real wealth, and not pieces of gold and silver.
An ounce of practice is worth more than tones of preaching.
The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.
I suppose leadership at one time meant muscles; but today it means getting along with people.
If I had no sense of humor I would have committed suicide a long time ago.
You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body but you will never imprison my mind.
Poverty is the worst form of violence.
We must be the change we wish to see in the world.
Whenever I despair, I remember that the way of truth and love has always won. There may be tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they may seem invincible, but in the end, they always fail. Think of it: always.
I am an uncompromising opponent of violent methods even to serve the noblest of causes.
Mark Twain (American writer, humorist)
Anger is an acid which can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything in which it is poured.
If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
A man who carries the cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.
A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.
Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
The most interesting information comes from children, for they tell all they know and then stop.
Humor is mankind’s greatest blessing.
All generalizations are false, including this one.
Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.
It’s good sportsmanship to not pick up lost golf balls while they are still rolling.
Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.
Laws control the lesser man.. right conduct controls the greater one.
Few things are harder to put up with than a good example.
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.
Martin Luther King Jr. (American civil rights leader, Baptist minister)
I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.
Faith is taking the first step even if you don’t see the whole staircase.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
The ultimate test of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and moments of convenience, but where he stands in moments of challenge and moments of controversy.
Mignon McLaughlin (American journalist, author)
A sense of humor is a major defense against minor troubles.
उम्र भर हम यूँ ही गलती करते रहे, धूल चेहरे पे थी और हम आईना साफ़ करते रहे
Umar Bhar Hum Yun Hi Galti Karte Rahe, Dhul Chehre Pe Thi aur Hum Aaina Saaf Karte Rahe
(Throughout life I kept on repeating this mistake; dust was on my face and I kept on cleaning the mirror)
I hated every moment of my training, but I said ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.’
Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.
Napoleon Bonaparte (French military and political leader)
Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.
Omar Khayyam (Persian philosopher, mathematician, poet)
Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.
Oprah Winfrey (American talk show host, producer, and philanthropist.)
Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.
Oscar Wilde (Irish writer, poet)
A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.
Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.
A man can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies.
I am not young enough to know everything.
I have nothing to declare except my genius.
There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.
Pablo Picasso (Spanish painter)
Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.
Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.
Paul Erdos (Hungarian mathematician)
Problems worthy of attack prove their worth by fighting back.
We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.
Rabindranath Tagore (Indian poet, writer, essayist, painter, Nobel laureate)
Don’t limit a child to your own learning, for he was born in another time.
Faith is the bird which feels the light when the dawn is still dark.
Every child comes with a message that God is not yet discouraged of man.
Beauty is truth’s smile when she beholds her own face in a perfect mirror.
You cannot cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.
Facts are many but the truth is one.
Those who own much have much to fear.
I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.
Jodi Tor Dak Shune Keu Na Ase Tobe Ekla Cholo Re (Even if no one hears your call, you keep moving by yourself).
If you want to know India, read Vivekananda, in him everything is positive and nothing is negative.
Rene Descartes (French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist)
Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems.
Reinhold Niebuhr (American theologian, ethicist, commentator)
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.
Richard P. Feynman (American theoretical physicist, Nobel laureate)
To every man is given the key to the gates of heaven. The same key opens the gates of hell. (Buddhist proverb)
By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day.
The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.
Don’t ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.
The world is full of willing people; some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.
Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee, and I’ll forgive Thy great big joke on me.
The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.
Robert J. Oppenheimer (American theoretical physicist)
Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds. (citing from the Bhagavad Gita, after witnessing the world's first nuclear explosion)
Robert M. Pirsig (American writer, philosopher)
The real cycle you're working on is a cycle called yourself.
The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.
The truth knocks on the door and you say, "Go away, I'm looking for the truth," and so it goes away. Puzzling.
Any effort that has self-glorification as its final endpoint is bound to end in disaster. When you try to climb a mountain to prove how big you are, you almost never make it. And even if you do it's a hollow victory. In order to sustain the victory you have to prove yourself again and again in some other way, and again and again and again, driven forever to fill a false image, haunted by the fear that the image is not true and someone will find out. That's never the way.
The only Zen you can find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there.
According to the Theory of Relativity, Riemann geometry best describes the world we live in.
Samuel Goldwyn (Polish American film producer)
I am giving you a definite maybe.
A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on.
I read part of it all the way.
Anybody who goes to a psychiatrist should have his head examined.
An honest man is always a child.
Beware the barrenness of a busy life.
Steve Jobs (American entrepreneur)
Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become.
Swami Vivekananda (Indian philosopher, saint)
Do not be afraid. Say to others I am not afraid.
Be a hero. Always say, ‘I have no fear’.
Take up on idea. Make that one idea your life – think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.
We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far.
If money help a man to do good to others, it is of some value; but if not, it is simply a mass of evil, and the sooner it is got rid of, the better.
Condemn none: if you can stretch out a helping hand, do so. If you cannot, fold your hands, bless your brothers, and let them go their own way.
Arise! Awake! And stop not until the goal is reached.
No one can get anything unless he earns it.
Whatever we wish ourselves to be, we have the power to make ourselves.
Work for work's sake. Work through freedom. Work through love.
To work we have the right, but not to the fruits thereof. Leave the fruits alone. Why care for results? If you wish to help a man, never think what that man's attitude should be towards you.
Love, truth and unselfishness are our highest ideal.
Self-restraint is the manifestation of greater power than all outgoing action. Such self-control produces a mighty will and a great character.
Every man should take up his own ideal and endeavor to accomplish it; that is a surer way for progress than taking up other men's ideals which he can never hope to accomplish.
Ignorance is death; knowledge is life. Ignorance is the mother of all the evil and all the misery that we see.
Thomas Edison (American Inventor)
Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
Thomas Jefferson (American President)
The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.
I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.
Ulysses S. Grant (American President)
I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution.
Victor Hugo (French poet, novelist)
All the forces in the world are not as powerful as an idea whose time has come.
To love another person is to see the face of God.
Laughter is the sun that drives the winter from the human face.
An initiative is doing the right thing without being told.
Be as a bird perched on a frail branch that she feels bending beneath her, still she sings away all the same, knowing she has wings.
Strong and bitter words indicate a weak cause.
Perseverance, secret of all triumphs.
Short as life is, we make it still shorter by the careless waste of time.
Life’s greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved.
There is one spectacle grander than the sea, that is the sky; there is one spectacle grander than the sky, that is the interior of the soul.
Voltaire (French writer, historian, and philosopher)
I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.
Common sense is not so common.
What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly - that is the first law of nature.
Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?
Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.
Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.
It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.
Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do.
Warren Buffet (American business, philanthropist)
Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.
It’s better to hang out with people better than you. Pick out associates whose behavior is better than yours and you’ll drift in that direction.
You do things when the opportunities come along. I’ve had periods in my life when I’ve had a bundle of ideas come along, and I’ve had long dry spells. If I get an idea next week, I’ll do something. If not, I won’t do a thing.
I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over.
Winston Churchill (British prime minister)
A joke is a very serious thing.
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has no heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains.
We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.
Woody Allen (American actor, filmmaker, comedian)
I am not afraid of death, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.
The talent of being happy is appreciating and liking what you have, instead of what you don’t have.
If you want to make God laugh, let him about your plans.
Eighty percent of success is showing up.
Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering – and it’s over much too soon.
I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia.
Most of the time I don’t have much fun. The rest of the time I don’t have fun at all.
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work; I want to achieve immortality through not dying.
Yogi Berra (American baseball player)
A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.
You better cut the pizza in four pieces because I’m not hungry enough to eat six.
Baseball is ninety percent mental and the other half is physical.
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.
Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t come to yours.
Half the lies they tell about me aren’t true.
If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.
The future ain’t what it used to be.
You can observe a lot by just watching.
It ain’t over till it’s over.
It’s like déjà-vu, all over again.
Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.
I usually take a two hour nap from one to four.
It gets late early out there.
It was impossible to get a conversation going, everybody was talking too much.
We made too many wrong mistakes.
I never said most of the things I said.
Unknown
Our perpetuity lies in the way in which we pass knowledge to the next generation.
Make your goals so grand that you don't have any time left for wasting.
One must pay dearly for immortality; one has to die several times while one is still alive.
Endure and persist; this pain will turn to good by and by.
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers.
When an honest man learns he is mistaken, he will either cease to be mistaken, or he will cease to be an honest man.
Work is Worship.
Fear is the dark room where negatives are developed.
Nothing on earth consumes a man more quickly than the passion of resentment.
Note:
Acknowledgement: Several of the quotations mentioned above have been obtained from 'The Quotations Collections' created by Prof. Gabriel Robins (Web link to his page: http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/quotes.html)