Thrivenotes

Thrive Quotes

Over 400 Excellent Quotes

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If we are not free, no one will respect us. — Abdul Kalam

What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself. — Abraham H. Maslow

We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it. — Abraham Lincoln

I’m a slow walker, but I never walk back. — Abraham Lincoln

The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time. — Abraham Lincoln

Time is the immaterial material with which you sculpt your day; do not throw it away. — adminadam

What luck for rulers that men do not think. — Adolf Hitler

In a mad world, only the mad are sane. — Akiro Kurosawa

Once in a while it really hits people that they don’t have to experience the world in the way they have been told to. — Alan Keightley

Technology is destructive only in the hands of people who do not realize that they are one and the same process as the universe. — Alan Watts

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. — Albert Camus

But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself. — Albert Camus

You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question. — Albert Camus

All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. — Albert Camus

I see many people die because they judge that life is not worth living. I see others paradoxically getting killed for the ideas or illusions that give them a reason for living (what is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying). I therefore conclude that the meaning of life is the most urgent of questions. — Albert Camus

After all manner of professors have done their best for us, the place we are to get knowledge is in books. The true university of these days is a collection of books. — Albert Camus

But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads? — Albert Camus

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

In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion. — Albert Camus

Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is. — Albert Camus

Integrity has no need of rules. — Albert Camus

The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion. — Albert Camus

The significant problems we face in life can not be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them. — Albert Einstein

The woman who follows the crowd will usually get no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been. — Albert Einstein

A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. — Albert Einstein

Confusion of goals and perfection of means seems, in my opinion, to characterize our age. — Albert Einstein

All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. — Albert Einstein

I am an adherent of the ideal of democracy, although I well know the weaknesses of the democratic form of government. Social equality and economic protection of the individual appeared to me always as the important communal aims of the state. Although I am a typical loner in daily life, my consciousness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty, and justice has preserved me from feeling isolated. — Albert Einstein

Look with complete innocence at the infinitely improbable thing before you. — Aldous Huxley

A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Science fiction is the sovereign prophylactic against future shock. — Alvin Toffler

All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusions is called a philosopher. — Ambrose Bierce

The problem with close-minded people is that they usually have their mouths open. — Amy O. (of 364quotes.blogspot.com)

One man with courage is a majority. — Andrew Jackson

All great rebellions are born of private acts of civil disobedience that inspire rebel bands to plot together. — Anonymous

What makes the desert beautiful, is that somewhere, it hides a well. — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Believe what you see and not all you hear. — Arabic proverb

A foolish man may be known by six things: Anger without cause, speech without profit, change without progress, inquiry without object, putting trust in a stranger, and mistaking foes for friends. — Arabic proverb

A horse of good breed is not dishonored by his saddle. — Arabic proverb

Call someone your lord and he’ll sell you in the slave market. — Arabic proverb

He who sees the calamity of other people finds his own calamity light. — Arabic proverb

Measure your guilt, then stretch your legs. — Arabic proverb

Only the tent pitched by your own hands will stand. — Arabic proverb

The fruit of silence is tranquility. — Arabic proverb

The mind is for seeing, the heart is for hearing. — Arabic proverb

Think of the going out before you enter. — Arabic proverb

When what you want doesn’t happen, learn to want what does. — Arabic proverb

Who does not go with you, go with him. — Arabic proverb

Write the bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble. — Arabic proverb

You are like a tree, giving your shade to the outside. — Arabic proverb

Give me the place to stand, and I shall move the earth. — Archimedes

There is only one condition in which we can imagine managers not needing subordinates, and masters not needing slaves. This condition would be that each (inanimate) instrument could do its own work. — Aristotle

Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom. — Aristotle

The distinction between true and false appears to become increasingly blurred by… the pollution of the language. — Arne Tiselius

Abraham Lincoln reportedly said that, given eight hours to chop down a tree, he’d spend six sharpening his axe. — Art Evans

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see. — Arthur Schopenhauer

A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others. — Ayn Rand

Ask yourself whether the dream of heaven and greatness should be waiting for us in our graves – or whether it should be ours here and now and on this earth. — Ayn Rand

People create their own questions because they are afraid to look straight. All you have to do is look straight and see the road, and when you see it, don’t sit looking at it – walk. — Ayn Rand

Reason is not automatic. Those who deny it cannot be conquered by it. Do not count on them. Leave them alone. — Ayn Rand

The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody had decided not to see. — Ayn Rand

The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me. — Ayn Rand

The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. — Ayn Rand

Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision. — Ayn Rand

You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality. — Ayn Rand

What greater wealth is there than to own your life and to spend it on growing? Every living thing must grow. It can’t stand still. It must grow or perish. — Ayn Rand

Every man builds his world in his own image. He has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice. — Ayn Rand

My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose. — Ayn Rand, Anthem

Joy is the goal of existence, and joy is not to be stumbled upon, but to be achieved, and the act of treason is to let its vision drown in the swamp of the moment’s torture. — Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life. — Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

If I’m ever upset, I know I can just fill a cup with water and throw it up in the air. — Barnaby_Wunch

If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worthy reading, or do things worth the writing. — Benjamin Franklin

All mankind is divided into three classes: those that are immovable, those that are movable, and those that move. — Benjamin Franklin

Do good to your friends to keep them, to your enemies to win them. — Benjamin Franklin

Eat to please thyself, but dress to please others. — Benjamin Franklin

He that can have patience can have what he will. — Benjamin Franklin

He that composes himself is wiser than he that composes a book. — Benjamin Franklin

Hide not your talents. They for use were made. What’s a sundial in the shade? — Benjamin Franklin

I wake up every morning at nine and grab for the morning paper. Then I look at the obituary page. If my name is not on it, I get up. — Benjamin Franklin

It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man. — Benjamin Franklin

I am a strong believer in luck and I find the harder I work the more I have of it. — Benjamin Franklin

It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority. — Benjamin Franklin

Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning. — Bill Gates

Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Here’s Tom with the Weather. — Bill Hicks

Truth is, everybody is going to hurt you; you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for. — Bob Marley

The problem with computers is that there is not enough Africa in them. — Brian Eno

You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete. — Buckminster Fuller

A designer is an emerging synthesis of artist, inventor, mechanic, objective economist and evolutionary strategist. — Buckminster Fuller

All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become. — Buddha

A dog is not considered a good dog because he is a good barker. A man is not considered a good man because he is a good talker. — Buddha

Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely. — Buddha

I do not believe in a fate that falls on men however they act; but I do believe in a fate that falls on them unless they act. — Buddha

To be idle is a short road to death and to be diligent is a way of life; foolish people are idle, wise people are diligent. — Buddha

To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one’s family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one’s own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him. — Buddha

Every human being is the author of his own health or disease. — Buddha

We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world. — Buddha

Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it. — Buddha

Let yourself be open and life will be easier. A spoon of salt in a glass of water makes the water undrinkable. A spoon of salt in a lake is almost unnoticed. — Buddha

The way is not in the sky. The way is in the heart. — Buddha

Do not be the judge of people; do not make assumptions about others. A person is destroyed by holding judgments about others. — Buddha

We are a way of the universe knowing itself. — Carl Sagan

It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring. — Carl Sagan

Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge. — Carl Sagan

It will not be we who reach Alpha Centauri, and the other nearby stars. It will be a species very like us – but with more of our strengths and fewer of our weaknesses. — Carl Sagan

We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depths of our answers. — Carl Sagan

In the way that skepticism is sometimes applied to issues of public concern, there is a tendency to belittle, to condescend, to ignore the fact that, deluded or not, supporters of superstition and pseudoscience are human beings with real feelings, who, like the skeptics, are trying to figure out how the world works and what our role in it might be. Their motives are in many cases consonant with science. If their culture has not given them all the tools they need to pursue this great quest, let us temper our criticism with kindness. None of us comes fully equipped. — Carl Sagan

I’ve never known any trouble that an hour’s reading didn’t assuage. — Charles de Secondat

Minds, like bodies, will fall into a pimpled, ill-conditioned state from mere excess of comfort. — Charles Dickens

Being forced to work, and forced to do your best, will breed in you temperance and self-control, diligence and strength of will, cheerfulness and content, and a hundred virtues which the idle will never know. — Charles Kingsley

Years ago, it meant something to be crazy. Now everyone’s crazy. — Charles Manson

We argue with our biology, and the result of that argument is civilization. — Charles Siebert

Sueña y serás libre en espíritu, lucha y serás libre en vida. / Dream and you will be free in spirit, fight and you will be free in life. — Che Guevara

Man truly achieves his full human condition when he produces without being compelled by the physical necessity of selling himself as a commodity. — Che Guevara

Once you become predictable, no one’s interested anymore. — Chet Atkins

If you stand straight, do not fear a crooked shadow. — Chinese proverb

One joy shatters a hundred griefs. — Chinese Proverb

A minute of perfection was worth the effort. A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection. — Chuck Palahniuk

What you don’t understand you can make mean anything. — Chuck Palahniuk

The first step — especially for young people with energy and drive and talent, but not money — the first step to controlling your world is to control your culture. To model and demonstrate the kind of world you demand to live in. To write the books. Make the music. Shoot the films. Paint the art. — Chuck Palahniuk

People have to really suffer before they can risk doing what they love. — Chuck Palahniuk

We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens. — Chuck Palahniuk

I used to work in a funeral home to feel good about myself, just the fact that I was breathing. — Chuck Palahniuk

The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud. — Coco Chanel

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest. — Confucius

It does not matter how slow you go so long as you do not stop. — Confucius

When we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves. — Confucius (BC 551-BC 479)

With realization of one’s own potential and self-confidence in one’s ability, one can build a better world. — Dalai Lama

Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck. — Dalai Lama

Happiness doesn’t depend on any external conditions, it is governed by our mental attitude. — Dale Carnegie

There is only one way to get anybody to do anything. And that is by making the other person want to do it. — Dale Carnegie

Consumers and farmers must continue to walk together. We are all in the same struggle for a life of peace. — Diego Perez Lopez, Coffee Farmer in Chiapas, México

I seldom end up where I wanted to go, but almost always end up where I need to be. — Douglas Adams

The capacity to produce social chaos is the last resort of desperate people. — Dr. Cornel West

He who learns death unlearns slavery. — Dr. Cornel West

A well-trained man knows how to answer questions; an educated man knows what questions are worth asking. — E. Digby Baltzell (1955)

Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it — not against it. — Eckhart Tolle

All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream. — Edgar Allan Poe

Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others. — Edward Abbey

The first thing you’ll have to do, is the last thing you wished. — Edward Murphy

Every aquarium will eventually leak. — Edward Murphy

If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal. — Emma Goldman

I love sleep. My life has a tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know? — Ernest Hemingway

A living organism feeds upon negative entropy. Thus the device by which an organism maintains itself stationary at a fairly high level of orderliness (i.e., a fairly low level of entropy) really consists in continually sucking orderliness from its environment. — Erwin Schrödinger

Courage lies in being oneself, in showing complete independence, in loving what one loves, in discovering the deep roots of one’s feelings. — Fernand Pouillon

Question: Who governs the governors? Answer: Entropy — Frank Herbert

The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action. — Frank Herbert

When law and duty are one, united by religion, you never become fully conscious, fully aware of yourself. You are always a little less than an individual. — Frank Herbert

Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty. — Frank Herbert

What do you despise? By this are you truly known. — Frank Herbert

If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual. — Frank Herbert

Wealth is a tool of freedom, but the pursuit of wealth is the way to slavery. — Frank Herbert

Think you of the fact that a deaf person cannot hear. Then, what deafness may we not all possess? What senses do we lack that we cannot see and cannot hear another world all around us? — Frank Herbert

Respect for the truth comes close to being the basis for all morality. — Frank Herbert

The proximity of a desirable thing tempts one to overindulgence. On that path lies danger. — Frank Herbert

There is no escape – we pay for the violence of our ancestors. — Frank Herbert

To suspect your own mortality is to know the beginning of terror, to learn irrefutably that you are mortal is to know the end of terror. — Frank Herbert

Kindness is the beginning of cruelty. — Frank Herbert

Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds. — Franklin D. Roosevelt

If you treat people right they will treat you right — ninety percent of the time. — Franklin D.Roosevelt

The total disorder in the universe, as measured by the quantity that physicists call entropy, increases steadily over time. Also, the total order in the universe, as measured by the complexity and permanence of organized structures, also increases steadily over time. — Freeman Dyson

Life without music would be a mistake. — Friedrich Nietzsche

He that humbleth himself wishes to be exalted. — Friedrich Nietzsche

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently. — Friedrich Nietzsche

We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the way in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself. — Friedrich Nietzsche

The future influences the present just as much as the past. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Rejoicing in our joy, not suffering over our suffering, is what makes someone a friend. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Nothing on earth consumes a man more quickly than the passion of resentment. — Friedrich Nietzsche

When one has a great deal to put into it a day has a hundred pockets. — Friedrich Nietzsche

All things are subject to interpretation. Whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Everyone who has ever built anywhere a new heaven first found the power thereto in his own hell. — Friedrich Nietzsche

There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy. — Friedrich Nietzsche

The mother of excess is not joy but joylessness. — Friedrich Nietzsche

What is the mark of liberation? No longer being ashamed in front of oneself. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Glance into the world just as though time were gone: and everything crooked will become straight to you. — Friedrich Nietzsche

And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music. — Friedrich Nietzsche

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. — Friedrich Nietzsche

There are no facts, only interpretations. — Friedrich Nietzsche

A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends. — Friedrich Nietzsche

On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Does wisdom perhaps appear on the earth as a raven which is inspired by the smell of carrion? — Friedrich Nietzsche

Admiration for a quality or an art can be so strong that it deters us from striving to possess it. — Friedrich Nietzsche

One ought to hold on to one’s heart; for if one lets it go, one soon loses control of the head too. — Friedrich Nietzsche

It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal. — Friedrich Nietzsche

People who have given us their complete confidence believe that they have a right to ours. The inference is false, a gift confers no rights. — Friedrich Nietzsche

In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. — Friedrich Nietzsche

Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

There are those who have a prejudice against the semicolon; personally I find it a very useful stop. — G. V. Carey, Mind the Stop, 1958

There are two tragedies in life. One is to lose your heart’s desire. The other is to gain it. — George Bernard Shaw

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. — George Bernard Shaw

Government is not reason — it is not eloquence — it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and fearful master. — George Washington

My government will be open. Anyone found guilty of corruption will be dealt with in accordance with the law. If you are corrupt you will have to hang your boots. — George Weah

Batô: Chief, you ever question the ethics of the neurosurgeons who monkey around inside your brain? / Chief Aramaki: They undergo psychiatric evaluations, especially those in security. They’re subjected to a stringent screening of their personal lives. Of course, the ones who check are only human. / Batô: ‘I guess once you start doubting, there’s no end to it. — Ghost in the Shell (movie)

It was not easy for a person brought up in the ways of classical thermodynamics to come around to the idea that gain of entropy eventually is nothing more nor less than loss of information. — Gilbert Newton Lewis

Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men. — Goethe

There are two things children should get from their parents: roots and wings. — Goethe

We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe. — Goethe

How many examples do we have of these bodies [of the state] set up to eliminate a problem, actually eliminating it, shutting down their operations and going home? — Gregory Sams

A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort. — H. Albright

Let the refining and improving of your own life keep you so busy that you have little time to criticize others. — H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is apt to spread discontent among those who are. — H.L. Mencken

Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage. — H.L. Mencken

When you get into a tight place, and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hold on a moment longer, never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn. — Harriet Beecher Stowe

I freed thousands of slaves. I could have freed thousands more if they had known they were slaves. — Harriet Tubman

Whether we are destined to be dust or deity will be determined by how well we learn to cope with the challenges of being intelligent. Intelligence is, ultimately, the most destructive force in the universe. It has the capacity, also, to be the most creative. That knife edge we now live on. — Harry Stottle

When even one American – who has done nothing wrong – is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth, then all Americans are in peril. — Harry Truman

Asking a question is embarrassing for a moment, but not asking is embarrassing for a lifetime. — Haruki Murakami

I always wonder why birds choose to stay in the same place when they can fly anywhere on the Earth. Then I ask myself the same question. — Harun Yahya

Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all — the apathy of human beings. — Helen Keller

Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world right in the eye. — Helen Keller

The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend. — Henri Bergson

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone. — Henry David Thoreau, in Walden

Vision without execution is just hallucination. — Henry Ford

Remember, when life’s path is steep, to keep your mind even. — Horace (BC 65-8)

If those in charge of our society — politicians, corporate executives, and owners of press and television — can dominate our ideas, they will be secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the streets. We will control ourselves. — Howard Zinn

One certain effect of war is to diminish freedom of expression. Patriotism becomes the order of the day, and those who question the war are seen as traitors, to be silenced and imprisoned. — Howard Zinn

Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens. — Howard Zinn

To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places — and there are so many — where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory. — Howard Zinn

Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it. — Howard Zinn

Sedentary culture is the goal of civilization. It means the end of its lifespan and brings about its corruption. — Ibn Khaldun (Muqaddimah)

You must learn to be still in the midst of activity and to be vibrantly alive in repose. — Indira Gandhi

My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group; there was much less competition. — Indira Gandhi

If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them. — Isaac Asimov

And above all things, never think that you’re not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you at your own reckoning. — Isaac Asimov

Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition. — Isaac Asimov

Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today – but the core of science fiction, its essence has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all. — Isaac Asimov

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom. — Isaac Asimov

There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere. — Isaac Asimov

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. — Isaac Asimov

A chipped pebble is almost part of the hand it never leaves. A thrown spear declares a sort of independence the moment it is released… The whole trend in technology has been to devise machines that are less and less under direct control and more and more seem to have the beginning of a will of their own. — Isaac Asimov

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge. — Isaac Asimov

You cannot dream yourself into a character; you must hammer and forge yourself one. — James A. Froude

A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it is but a prologue to a farce or tragedy, or perhaps both. — James Madison

The best way to think about life, intelligence, and the universe is that they are not separate things, but are different aspects of a single phenomenon. To take liberties with a popular ballad, “We are the world, we are the people, and we are the universe.” To state this proposition from the opposite perspective, the universe is coming to life and waking up through the processes of our lives and thoughts, and, very probably, through the lives and thoughts of countless other beings scattered throughout the cosmos. — James N. Gardner

The very best can’t be hired. They must be courted. — Jason Freedman

It is fortunate to be of high birth, but it is no less so to be of such character that people do not care to know whether you are or are not. — Jean de la Bruyère

A man never discloses his own character so clearly as when he describes another’s. — Jean Paul

At times inactivity is preferable to mindless functioning. — Jenny Holzer

If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you. — Jesus

Once you come to know yourselves, you will become known. — Jesus

The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks. — Jesus Christ

Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. — Jesus Christ (Matthew 10:16)

We hold steady, we join hands with those walking with us on our spiritual paths, learning that the genius of others will also guide us. Others will be there to lift us up. With them, our full genius takes us to the place where we can overcome digressions and transgressions. There is a super genius at work, that of we as people. — Joe Landsberger, Practice of Genius

Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger men. — John F. Kennedy

Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names. — John F. Kennedy

Five hundred years ago a person in error was a person searching for the truth. — John Leinhard

When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down “happy”. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment. I told them they didn’t understand life. — John Lennon

Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. — John Lennon

A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it. — John Steinbeck

Are we being good ancestors? — Jonas Salk

You must give up the life you planned in order to have the life that is waiting for you. — Joseph Campbell

We’re in a free fall into future. We don’t know where we’re going. Things are changing so fast. And always when you’re going through a long tunnel, anxiety comes along. But all you have to do to transform your hell into a paradise is to turn your fall into a voluntary act. It’s a very interesting shift of perspective … Joyfully participate in the sorrows of the world and everything changes. — Joseph Campbell, Sukhavati

In the South we don’t hide our crazy people or keep them locked up in the attic, we bring them right down to the front porch and show them off. — Julia, Designing Women

The Earth is the Cradle of the Mind — but one cannot eternally live in a cradle. — Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

Men are weak now, and yet they transform the Earth’s surface. In millions of years their might will increase to the extent that they will change the surface of the Earth, its oceans, the atmosphere and themselves. They will control the climate and the solar system just as they control the Earth. They will travel beyond the limits of our planetary system; they will reach other Suns and use their fresh energy instead of the energy of their dying luminary. — Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

Man must at all costs overcome the Earth’s gravity and have, in reserve, the space at least of the Solar System. — Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

Without going out of your door, you can know the ways of the world. Without peeping through your window, you can see the Way of Heaven. The farther you go, the less you know. Thus, the Sage knows without traveling, sees without looking, And achieves without struggle. — Lao Tse

So sometimes things are ahead and sometimes they are behind; Sometimes breathing is hard, sometimes it comes easily; Sometimes there is strength and sometimes weakness; Sometimes one is up and sometimes down. Therefore the sage avoids extremes, excesses, and complacency. — Lao Tzu

At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want. — Lao Tzu

When you are content to be simply yourself and don’t compare or compete, everybody will respect you. — Lao Tzu

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. — Lao Tzu

Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love. — Lao Tzu

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage. — Lao Tzu

He who talks more is sooner exhausted. — Lao Tzu

Music in the soul can be heard by the universe. — Lao Tzu

Today we are afraid of simple words like goodness and mercy and kindness. We don’t believe in the good old words because we don’t believe in good old values anymore. And that’s why the world is sick. — Lin Yutang

A weak mind is like a microscope, which magnifies trifling things, but cannot receive great ones. — Lord Chesterfield

It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it. — Lou Holtz

Life is 10 percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it. — Lou Holtz

Chance favours the prepared mind. — Louis Pasteur

Anything worth doing is worth doing slowly. — Mae West

How ridiculous and how strange to be surprised at anything which happens in life — Marcus Aurelius

Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones. — Marcus Aurelius

The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane. — Marcus Aurelius

The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. — Marcus Aurelius

Choose not to be harmed and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed and you haven’t been. — Marcus Aurelius

You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it. — Margaret Thatcher

No social problem is as universal as the oppression of the child. — Maria Montessori

We are not held back by the love we didn’t receive in the past, but by the love we’re not extending in the present. — Marianne Williamson

It’s often just enough to be with someone. I don’t need to touch them. Not even talk. A feeling passes between you both. You’re not alone. — Marilyn Monroe

Let us live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry. — Mark Twain

A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval. — Mark Twain

Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured. — Mark Twain

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to pause and reflect. — Mark Twain

Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal. — Martin Luther King

A man can’t ride your back unless it’s bent. — Martin Luther King Jr.

An insect is more complex than a star..and is a far greater challenge to understand. — Martin Rees

Dear Mr. President: The canal system of this country is being threatened by a new form of transportation known as ‘railroads’ … As you may well know, Mr. President, ‘railroad’ carriages are pulled at the enormous speed of 15 miles per hour by ‘engines’ which, in addition to endangering life and limb of passengers, roar and snort their way through the countryside, setting fire to crops, scaring the livestock and frightening women and children. The Almighty certainly never intended that people should travel at such breakneck speed. — Martin Van Buren, Governor of New York, 1830

To say that humans are composed of machines is not to say that we are merely machines. Humans are dignified machines. We are (so far) the most extropic, most complex product of billions of years of evolution. — Max More

Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends. — Maya Angelou

Say to yourself in the early morning: I shall meet today ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious, uncharitable men. All of these things have come upon them through ignorance of real good and ill… I can neither be harmed by any of them, for no man will involve me in wrong, nor can I be angry with my kinsman or hate him; for we have come into the world to work together… — Meditations: Marcus Aurelius

Human spaceflight is an instrument of soft power – it serves as an example for members of other nations and cultures to follow and emulate. … Human spaceflight is a marker of modernity and first-class status. — MIT Research Group

Every time I go and shave, I assume there’s someone else on the planet shaving. So I say, ‘I’m gonna go shave, too. — Mitch Hedberg

There is nothing that wastes the body like worry, and one who has any faith in God should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever. — Mohandas Gandhi

Character is victory organized. — Napoleon Bonaparte

The world does not pay men for that which they ‘know’. It pays them for what they do, or induce others to do. — Napoleon Hill

Self-esteem is the reputation we acquire with ourselves. — Nathaniel Branden

Where you stand depends on where you sit. — Nelson Mandela

A wise prince will seek means by which his subjects will always and in every possible condition of things have need of his government, and then they will always be faithful to him. — Niccolo Machiavelli

I’m not interested in preserving the status quo; I want to overthrow it. — Niccolo Machiavelli

The heartbreaking thing is that so much is available and people want so little. — Nicole Daedone’s Teacher

When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole. We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance. — Nikola Tesla

Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or else you say something true, and it will sound like it’s from Neptune. — Noam Chomsky

If we choose, we can live in a world of comforting illusion. — Noam Chomsky

Wisdom lies neither in fixity nor in change, but in the dialectic between the two. — Octavio Paz

Always let your reach exceed your grasp. — Og Mandino

Apply all of your efforts to become the highest mountain of all and strain your potential until it cries for mercy. — Og Mandino

Green grass grows where dry desert ends. — Og Mandino

Practice the art of patience for nature never acts in haste. — Og Mandino

So long as I can laugh, never will I be poor. — Og Mandino

Laugh at yourself for man is most comical when he takes himself too seriously. — Og Mandino

If you don’t want to work you have to work to earn enough money so that you won’t have to work. — Ogden Nash

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. — Oscar Wilde

Anyone who lives within their means, suffers from a serious lack of imagination. — Oscar Wilde

It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it. — Oscar Wilde

I have grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make modern life mysterious or marvelous to us. The commonest thing is delightful if only one hides it. — Oscar Wilde

Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you! Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing. — Oscar Wilde

That which can be destroyed by the truth should be. — P.C. Hodgell

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life. — Pablo Picasso

We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation. It’s one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it’s another to think that yours is the only path. — Paulo Coelho

The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive. — Pearl Buck

Enlightenment is a direct experience with reality. — Pema Chodron

The best way to predict the future is to create it. — Peter F. Drucker

Freedom is the mother, not the daughter, of order. — Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

The beginning is the most important part of the work. — Plato

It is only the dead who have seen the end of war. — Plato

Life must be lived as play. — Plato

Know thyself. — Plato

I know not how I may seem to others, but to myself I am but a small child wandering upon the vast shores of knowledge, every now and then finding a small bright pebble to content myself with. — Plato

Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards and leads us from this world to another. — Plato

Courage is a kind of salvation. — Plato

The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile. — Plato

Man – a being in search of meaning. — Plato

Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety. — Plato

All men are by nature equal, made all of the same earth by one Workman; and however we deceive ourselves, as dear unto God is the poor peasant as the mighty prince. — Plato

Democracy passes into despotism. — Plato

Democracy… is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder; and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike. — Plato

Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws. — Plato

Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind. — Plato

Man is a wingless animal with two feet and flat nails. — Plato

Philosophy is the highest music. — Plato

Rhetoric is the art of ruling the minds of men. — Plato

The community which has neither poverty nor riches will always have the noblest principles. — Plato

The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depends upon himself, and not upon other men, has adopted the very best plan for living happily. This is the man of moderation, the man of manly character and of wisdom. — Plato

The most virtuous are those who content themselves with being virtuous without seeking to appear so. — Plato

There are two things a person should never be angry at, what they can help, and what they cannot. — Plato

We ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him is to become holy, just, and wise. — Plato

Wisdom alone is the science of other sciences. — Plato

The greatest penalty of evildoing – namely, to grow into the likeness of bad men. — Plato

You are young, my son, and, as the years go by, time will change and even reverse many of your present opinions. Refrain therefore awhile from setting yourself up as a judge of the highest matters. — Plato

Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind’s eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye; and he who remembers this when he sees any one whose vision is perplexed and weak, will not be too ready to laugh; he will first ask whether that soul of man has come out of the brighter light, and is unable to see because unaccustomed to the dark, or having turned from darkness to the day is dazzled by excess of light. — Plato

When men speak ill of thee, live so as nobody may believe them. — Plato

Seeing the lightest and gayest purple was then most in fashion, he would always wear that which was the nearest black; and he would often go out of doors, after his morning meal, without either shoes or tunic; not that he sought vain-glory from such novelties, but he would accustom himself to be ashamed only of what deserves shame, and to despise all other sorts of disgrace. — Plutarch, on Cato the Younger

Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today. — `Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.’ — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

None of us will ever accomplish anything excellent or commanding except when he listens to this whisper which is heard by him alone. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

He then learns that in going down into the secrets of his own mind he has descended into the secrets of all minds. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Do what you know and perception is converted into character. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after your own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Insanity is relative. It depends on who has who locked in what cage. — Ray Bradbury

So what used to fit in a building now fits in your pocket, what fits in your pocket now will fit inside a blood cell in 25 years. — Ray Kurzweil

Your mind is your instrument. Learn to be its master and not its slave. — Remez Sasson

Doubt is the origin of wisdom. — Rene Descartes

The essence of life is statistical improbability on a colossal scale. — Richard Dawkins

Lucky accidents seldom happen to writers who don’t work. You will find that you may rewrite and rewrite a poem and it never seems quite right. Then a much better poem may come rather fast and you wonder why you bothered with all that work on the earlier poem. Actually, the hard work you do on one poem is put in on all poems. The hard work on the first poem is responsible for the sudden ease of the second. If you just sit around waiting for the easy ones, nothing will come. Get to work. — Richard Hugo

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

I will not attack your doctrines nor your creeds if they accord liberty to me. If they hold thought to be dangerous – if they aver that doubt is a crime, then I attack them one and all, because they enslave the minds of men. — Robert Green Ingersoll

The world is tragic to those who feel and comic to those who think. — Robert Walpole

It may be that the satisfaction I need depends on my going away, so that when I’ve gone and come back, I’ll find it at home. — Rumi

Where lowland is, that’s where water goes. All medicine wants is pain to cure. — Rumi

Silence is the language of God, all else is poor translation. — Rumi

When someone is counting out gold for you, don’t look at your hands, or the gold. Look at the giver. — Rumi

The morning wind spreads its fresh smell. We must get up and take that in, that wind that lets us live. Breathe before it’s gone. — Rumi

If the foot of the trees were not tied to earth, they would be pursuing me.. For I have blossomed so much, I am the envy of the gardens. — Rumi

The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along. — Rumi

When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy. — Rumi

The hurt you embrace becomes joy. — Rumi

Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open? Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking. Live in silence. — Rumi

Where there is ruin, there is hope for a treasure. — Rumi

I have lived on the lip of insanity, wanting to know reasons, knocking on a door. It opens. I’ve been knocking from the inside. — Rumi

Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself. — Rumi

Reason is like an officer when the king appears. The officer then loses his power and hides himself. Reason is the shadow cast by God; God is the sun. — Rumi

Heartsick, heartbroken – to know love is to know pain. What could be more common? Even so, each broken heart is so singular that with it we probe the divine. — Rumi

Be like melting snow — wash yourself of yourself. — Rumi

Remember. The way you make love is the way God will be with you. — Rumi

Suffering is a gift. In it is hidden mercy. — Rumi

Learn the alchemy true human beings know. The moment you accept what troubles you’ve been given the door will open. — Rumi

A shadow cannot ignore the sun that all day creates and moves it. — Rumi

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. — Rumi

Every tree and plant in the meadow seemed to be dancing, those which average eyes would see as fixed and still. — Rumi

All that you think is rain is not. Behind the veil angels sometimes weep. — Rumi

Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form. — Rumi (El Masnavi)

Among the great struggles of man–good/evil, reason/unreason, etc.–there is also this mighty conflict between the fantasy of Home and the fantasy of Away, the dream of roots and the mirage of the journey. — Salman Rushdie

There are few minds to which tyranny is not delightful. — Samuel Johnson

Enjoy present pleasures in such a way as not to injure future ones. — Seneca

I will govern my life and thoughts as if the whole world were to see the one and read the other, for what does it signify to make anything a secret to my neighbor, when to God, who is the searcher of our hearts, all our privacies are open? — Seneca the Younger

Shun no toil to make yourself remarkable by some talent or other; yet do not devote yourself to one branch exclusively. Strive to get clear notions about all. Give up no science entirely; for science is but one. — Seneca the Younger

True praise comes often even to the lowly; false praise only to the strong. — Seneca the Younger

We should give as we would receive, cheerfully, quickly, and without hesitation; for there is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers. — Seneca the Younger

What difference does it make how much you have? What you do not have amounts to much more. — Seneca the Younger

Wisdom allows nothing to be good that will not be so forever; no man to be happy but he that needs no other happiness than what he has within himself; no man to be great or powerful that is not master of himself. — Seneca the Younger

Be humble for you are made of earth. Be noble for you are made of stars. — Serbian proverb

You must look inward with as much wonder as you look outward, and then the two worlds merge. — Seth, oceanofmind.tumblr

In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few. — Shunryu Suzuki

The destruction of the past is perhaps the greatest of all crimes. — Simone Weil

So far as physics is concerned, time’s arrow is a property of entropy alone. — Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington

My instinct as a philosopher is that we are effectively approaching a multicentric world, which means we need to ask new, and for the traditional left, unpleasant questions. — Slavoj Žižek

You could say, in a vulgar Freudian way, that I am the unhappy child who escapes into books. Even as a child, I was most happy being alone. This has not changed. — Slavoj Žižek

We feel free because we lack the very language to articulate our unfreedom. — Slavoj Žižek

This readiness to assume the guilt for the threats to our environment is deceptively reassuring: We like to be guilty since, if we are guilty, it all depends on us. We pull the strings of the catastrophe, so we can also save ourselves simply by changing our lives. What is really hard for us (at least in the West) to accept is that we are reduced to the role of a passive observer who sits and watches what our fate will be. To avoid this impotence, we engage in frantic, obsessive activities. We recycle old paper, we buy organic food, we install long-lasting light bulbs—whatever—just so we can be sure that we are doing something. We make our individual contribution like the soccer fan who supports his team in front of a TV screen at home, shouting and jumping from his seat, in the belief that this will somehow influence the game’s outcome. — Slavoj Žižek

For the multiculturalist, white Anglo-Saxon Protestants are prohibited, Italians and Irish get a little respect, blacks are good, native Americans are even better. The further away we go, the more they deserve respect. This is a kind of inverted, patronising respect that puts everyone at a distance. — Slavoj Žižek

True universalists are not those who preach global tolerance of differences and all-encompassing unity, but those who engage in a passionate struggle for the assertion of the Truth which compels them. — Slavoj Žižek

The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance. — Socrates

The nearest way to glory is to strive to be what you wish to be thought to be. — Socrates

To find yourself, think for yourself. — Socrates

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing. — Socrates

The paradox is really the pathos of intellectual life and just as only great souls are exposed to passions it is only the great thinker who is exposed to what I call paradoxes, which are nothing else than grandiose thoughts in embryo. — Soren Kierkegaard

The truth is a snare: you cannot have it, without being caught. You cannot have the truth in such a way that you catch it, but only in such a way that it catches you. — Soren Kierkegaard

There is nothing with which every man is so afraid as getting to know how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming. — Soren Kierkegaard

What is a poet? An unhappy person who conceals profound anguish in his heart but whose lips are so formed that as sighs and cries pass over them they sound like beautiful music. — Soren Kierkegaard

Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are. — Soren Kirkegaard

Art should startle the viewer into thinking about the meaning of life. — Spanish painter Antoni Tapies

It took me better than a quarter century to learn, the hard way, that hard work at something you want to be doing is the most fun that you can have out of bed . . . to learn that the smart man finds ways to make everything he does be work; to learn that “leisure” time is truly pleasurable (indeed tolerable) only to the extent that is its subconscious grazing for information with which to infuse newer, better work. — Spider Robinson

The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death… our existence can have genuine meaning and fulfillment. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light. — Stanley Kubrick

There are three constants in life… change, choice and principles. — Stephen Covey

I don’t think the human race will survive the next thousand years, unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet. But I’m an optimist. We will reach out to the stars. — Stephen Hawking

It comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best things that humans have done and then try to bring those things in to what you’re doing. — Steve Jobs, on success

The only reward for virtue is virtue. — Stoic Aphorism

Know yourself and you will win all battles. — Sun Tzu

To achieve deep focus nowadays is also to have struck a blow against the dissipation of self; it is to have strengthened one’s essential position [in life]. — Sven Birkerts, on the importance of reading real books.

The most common form of despair is not being who you are. — Søren Kierkegaard

Insurance companies commonly assume that death rates will decline 1 percent a year. — technologyreview.com/business/26799

Intelligent information-processing must come into existence in the Universe, and, once it comes into existence, will never die out. — The Anthropic Principle

Never throughout history has a man who lived a life of ease left a name worth remembering. — Theodore Roosevelt

When you’re at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on. — Theodore Roosevelt

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. — Theodore Roosevelt

I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. — Thomas Edison

I think work is the world’s greatest fun. — Thomas Edison

When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. — Thomas Jefferson

The bravest are surely those who have the clearest vision of what is before them, glory and danger alike, and yet notwithstanding, go out to meet it. — Thucydides

The secret of happiness is freedom. And the secret of freedom is courage. — Thucydides

Ignorance is bold and knowledge reserved. — Thucydides

We secure our friends not by accepting favors but by doing them. — Thucydides

It is not the appearance that binds you, it’s the attachment to appearance that binds you. — Tilopa

Money is like gasoline during a road trip. You don’t want to run out of gas on your trip, but you’re not doing a tour of gas stations. You have to pay attention to money, but it shouldn’t be about the money. — Tim O’Reilly

Wars come and go, but my soldiers stay eternal. — Tupac Shakur

In my heart, there are two wolves: a wolf of love and a wolf of hate. It all depends on which one I feed each day. — Unknown

Nature abhors a vacuum. When a head lacks brains, nature fills it with conceit. — Unknown

If an ass goes traveling it will not come home a horse. — Unknown

In the end only three things matter: how fully you have lived, how deeply you have loved, and how well you have learned to let go. — Unknown

Belief is the wound that knowledge heals. — Ursula K. Le Guin

Just as the constant increase of entropy is the basic law of the universe, so it is the basic law of life to be ever more highly structured and to struggle against entropy. — Vaclav Havel

I’ll do what must be done, that only I can do. — Valentine Wiggin

Common sense is in spite of, not as the result of education. — Victor Hugo

Close by the Rights of Man, at the least set beside them, are the Rights of the Spirit. — Victor Hugo

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. — Viktor E. Frankl

Live as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time. — Viktor Frankl

Curiosity is insubordination in its purest form. — Vladimir Nabokov

It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong. — Voltaire

All I have is a voice – To undo the folded lie, The romantic lie in the brain – Of the sensual man-in-the-street – And the lie of Authority – Whose buildings grope the sky: There is no such thing as the State – And no one exists alone; Hunger allows no choice – To the citizen or the police; We must love one another or die. — W.H. Auden (September 1, 1939)

Art is not a mirror. Art is a hammer. — Whiteboard at the MIT Media Lab (1990)

It isn’t what we don’t know that gives us trouble, it’s what we know that ain’t so. — Will Rogers

I not only think that we will tamper with Mother Nature, I think Mother wants us to. — Willard Gaylin

A man can’t soar too high, when he flies with his own wings. — William Blake

Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. — William Faulkner

The future’s here already. It’s just unevenly distributed. — William Gibson

To live content with small means: to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion: to be worthy, not respectable: and wealthy, not rich: to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly… To listen to stars and buds. To babes and sages. With open heart: await occasions, hurry never… This is my symphony. — William Henry Channing

Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful. — William Morris

The empty vessel makes the loudest sound. — William Shakespeare

When going through hell, keep going. — Winston Churchill

The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it. — Woodrow Wilson

You can observe a lot just by watching. — Yogi Berra

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