A few sayings, and thoughts...

 

“If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, it's just possible you haven't grasped the situation. ” / Jean Kerr

Don't tell people about your problems: Ninety percent don’t care; and the other ten percent are glad you got ‘em. –Lou Holtz

Imagine a world in which generations of human beings come to believe that
certain films were made by God or that specific software was coded by him.
Imagine a future in which millions of our descendants murder each other
over rival interpretations of Star Wars or Windows 98. Could anything --
anything -- be more ridiculous? And yet, this would be no more ridiculous
than the world we are living in. -Sam Harris, author (1967- )

Whenever people say 'We mustn't be sentimental,' you can take it they are about to do something cruel.  And if they add 'We must be realistic,' they mean they are going to make money out of it.  -Brigid Brophy, writer (1929-1995)

 

For every ten people who are clipping at the branches of evil, you're lucky to find one who's hacking at the roots. -Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (1817-1862)

 

Henry Miller -
"The Bible contains six admonishments to homosexuals and 362 admonishments 

to heterosexuals. That doesn't mean that God doesn't love heterosexuals. 

It's just that they need more supervision."

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

 

Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do
only a little. -Edmund Burke, statesman and writer (1729-1797)

 

When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or
any other kind of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or
goals are in doubt. -Robert T. Pirsig, author and philosopher (1928- )

Don't judge men's wealth or godliness by their Sunday appearance. -Benjamin
Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)

 

How beautiful it is to do nothing, and then rest afterward. -Spanish
proverb

 

Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on
silence. Day after day he invents machines and devices that increase noise
and distract humanity from the essence of life, contemplation, meditation.
Tooting, howling, screeching, booming, crashing, whistling, grinding, and
trilling bolster his ego. -Jean Arp, artist and poet (1887-1948)

 

Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds
long to play with your hair. -Kahlil Gibran, mystic, poet, and artist
(1883-1931)

 

There is no pillow so soft as a clear conscience. -French proverb

 

I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all
the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than
on the opinion of others. -Marcus Aurelius, philosopher (121-180)

 

I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time. -Friedrich
Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)

 

He that is the author of a war lets loose the whole contagion of hell and
opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death. -Thomas Paine, philosopher and
writer (1737-1809)

 

I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has
read. -Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)

 

There are three truths: my truth, your truth, and the truth. -Chinese
proverb

 

Nature can provide for the needs of people; [she] can't provide for the

greed of people. -Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)

 

I'm always amazed that people will actually choose to sit in front of the

television and just be savaged by stuff that belittles their intelligence.

-Alice Walker, writer (1944- )

 

 

In the absence of touching and being touched, people of all ages can sicken

and grow touch-starved. -Diane Ackerman, writer (1948- )

 

 

Life without industry is guilt, industry without art is brutality. -John
Ruskin, author, art critic, and social reformer (1819-1900)

 

We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his
noble qualities...still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of
his lowly origin. -Charles Darwin, naturalist and author (1809-1882)

 

We all love animals. Why do we call some "pets" and others "dinner?" -k.d.

lang, singer (1961- )

 

Scriptures, n. The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from

the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based.

-Ambrose Bierce, writer (1842-1914) [The Devil's Dictionary]

• “A positive anything is better than a negative nothing”

“There are so many people waiting for the ‘right time’ to start something,

 whether that’s a new business, a new goal or even a diet. 

The fact is, there are no guarantees, so JUST START. 

Focus on the positives and watch your world and outcomes change in front of you.”

 

Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are
putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it. -Mark Twain, author and
humorist (1835-1910)

 

Wrongs are often forgiven, but contempt never is. Our pride remembers it

forever. -Lord Chesterfield, statesman and writer (1694-1773)

 

Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by

heart and his friends can only read the title. -Virginia Woolf, writer

(1882-1941)

 

The mind is but a barren soil; a soil which is soon exhausted, and will

produce no crop, or only one, unless it be continually fertilized and

enriched with foreign matter. -Joshua Reynolds, painter (1723-1792)

 

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so
certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. -Bertrand
Russell, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate (1872-1970)

"You can pick your friends and you can pick your nose but you cant wipe 

your friends on the couch."

It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and
groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more
desolation. War is hell. -William Tecumseh Sherman, Union General in the
American Civil War (1820-1891)

A visitor from Mars could easily pick out the civilized nations. They have
the best implements of war. -Herbert V. Prochnow, banker (1897-1998

The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to
its children. -Dietrich Bonhoeffer, theologian (1906-1945)

Beauty is the purgation of superfluities. -Michelangelo Buonarroti,
sculptor, painter, architect, and poet (1475-1564)

"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an 

attractive and well preserved body, But rather to skid in sideways, Champagne in one 

hand - strawberries in the other, Body thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and 

screaming: "WOO! HOO! - What a Ride!!!" " - Unknown

I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because
I notice it always coincides with their own desires. -Susan B Anthony,
reformer and suffragist (1820-1906)

The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid
by necessity and the brute by instinct. -Marcus Tullius Cicero, statesman,
orator and writer (106-43 BCE)

The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a
torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself for an
oracle, is inborn in us. -Paul Valery, poet and philosopher (1871-1945)

As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both
instances there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged.
And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the
air - however slight - lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.
-William O. Douglas, judge (1898-1980)

I once wanted to become an atheist, but I gave up - they have no holidays.
-Henny Youngman, comedian, actor (1906-1998)

Never vote for the best candidate, vote for the one who will do the least
harm. -Frank Dane

Edible, adj.: Good to eat, and wholesome to digest, as a worm to a toad, a
toad to a snake, a snake to a pig, a pig to a man, and a man to a worm.
-Ambrose Bierce, writer (1842-1914)

Revenge has no more quenching effect on emotions than salt water has on
thirst. -Walter Weckler

Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation, are men who
want crops without plowing the ground. -Frederick Douglass, abolitionist,
editor and orator (1817-1895)

This is his first punishment, that by the verdict of his own heart no
guilty man is acquitted. -Juvenal, poet (c. 60-140)

One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you
can't utter. -James Earl Jones, actor (1931- )

If we had paid no more attention to our plants than we have to our
children, we would now be living in a jungle of weed. -Luther Burbank,
horticulturist (1849-1926)

As no roads are so rough as those that have just been mended, so no sinners
are so intolerant as those that have just turned saints. -Charles Caleb
Colton, author and clergyman (1780-1832)

A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands
and his brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his
brain and his heart is an artist. -Louis Nizer, lawyer (1902-1994)

The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man. Other forms of
transport grow daily more nightmarish. Only the bicycle remains pure in
heart. -Iris Murdoch, writer (1919-1999)

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter, and lose our freedoms, 

it will be because we destroyed ourselves. -Abraham Lincoln, 16th U.S. President (1809-1865)

In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The
learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer
exists. -Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)

No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and
he's not the same man. -Heraclitus, philosopher (c. 540-470 BCE)

What soap is for the body, tears are for the soul. -Jewish proverb

Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could; Some
blunders and absurdities crept in; Forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow
is a new day; You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be
encumbered with your old nonsense. -Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and
philosopher (1803-1882)

What a child doesn't receive he can seldom later give. -P.D. James, writer
(1920- )

The perfection of art is to conceal art. -Quintilian (Marcus Fabius
Quintilianus), rhetorician (c. 35-95)

"A doctor examining one of his more crapulent patients said to him,
'Your body is a temple and your congregation is too large.'"

Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore avoid
undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity. -Socrates,
philosopher (469?-399 BCE)

I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.
-Michelangelo Buonarroti, sculptor, painter, architect, and poet
(1475-1564)

Always be nice to your children because they are the ones who will

choose your rest home.    - Phyllis Diller, comedienne

A successful man is one who makes more money than a wife can spend. A
successful woman is one who can find such a man. -Lana Turner, actress
(1921-1995)

One can pay back the loan of gold, but one dies forever in debt to those
who are kind. -Malayan Proverb

Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not
giving it. -William Arthur Ward, college administrator, writer (1921-1994)

He who establishes his argument by noise and command, shows that his reason
is weak. -Michel De Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)

Efficiency is intelligent laziness. -David Dunham

Brasington's Ninth Law: A carelessly planned project takes three times
longer to complete than expected; a carefully planned one will take only
twice as long.

.

As regards intellectual work, it remains a fact, indeed, that great
decisions in the realms of thought and momentous discoveries and solutions
of problems are only possible to an individual working in solitude.
-Sigmund Freud, neurologist, founder of psychoanalysis (1856-1939)

If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play. -John Cleese,
comic actor (1939- )

The tears of strangers are only water. -Russian proverb

Assumptions are the termites of relationships. -Henry Winkler, actor 

(1945-   )

It (death) comes equally to us all, and makes us all equal when it comes.
-John Donne, poet (1573-1631)

Be yourself and do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; in
the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.
-Max Ehrmann, writer and lawyer (1872-1945)

The great tragedy of science -- the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an
ugly fact. -Thomas Huxley, biologist and writer (1825-1895)

The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough
to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well
enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over its government.
-Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd US President (1882-1945)

The principal contributor to loneliness in this country is television. What
happens is that the family 'gets together' alone. -Ashley Montagu,
anthropologist and writer (1905-1999)

Authority without wisdom is like a heavy axe without an edge: fitter to
bruise than polish. -Anne Bradstreet, poet (1612-1672)

Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority.  The more
uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right
and what is wrong.  All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of
men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped
them up and tried to enforce them.  The truly civilized man is always
skeptical and tolerant, in this field as in all others.  His culture is
based on: "I am not too sure." - H.L.Mencken

We despise all reverences and all objects of reverence which are outside
the pale of our list of sacred things. And yet, with strange inconsistency,
we are shocked when other people despise and defile the things which are
holy to us. -Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)

A life well lived is a life that has been devoted to the systematic acquisition of the more delicious of vices, with regular forays into virtue, for it is only virtue that makes a vice exquisitely delicious. We were given virtue that we may enjoy our vices more completely.  (unknown)

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. -Dalai Lama

Those who know nothing of foreign languages know nothing of their own. -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (1749-1832)

We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form. -William R. Inge, clergyman, scholar, and author (1860-1954)

Coincidences are spiritual puns. -G.K. Chesterton, essayist and novelist (1874-1936)

War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and
multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses. -Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
 

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the
affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and
endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the
best in others; to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy
child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life
has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
 
 

When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when the tiger wants
to murder him he calls it ferocity. -George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel
laureate (1856-1950)

The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent upon it,
can still ripen a bunch of grapes as it if had nothing else in the universe
to do. -Galileo Galilei, physicist and astronomer (1564-1642)
 
 

I know I'm not going to understand women. I'll never understand how you can 

take boiling hot wax, pour it onto your upper thigh, rip the hair out by the root, 

and still be afraid of a spider.
 

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More die in the United States of too much food than of too little. -John
Kenneth Galbraith, economist (1908- )
 

The only man who is really free is the one who can turn down an invitation
to dinner without giving an excuse. -Jules Renard, writer (1864-1910)

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's
character, give him power. -Abraham Lincoln, U.S. president (1809-1865)
 

He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a
fool forever. -Chinese proverb
 
 
 
Space isn't remote at all. It's only an hour's drive away if your
car could go straight upwards. -Fred Hoyle, Astronomer, mathematician, writer
(1915- ) 

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