ART
Gustave Flaubert
Of all lies, art is the least untrue.
DEMOCRACY
Henry O. Dorman
Democracy means not “I am equal to you” but “you are equal to me”.
EXCUSES
Doug Hall and David Wecker
Excuses are apologies for not having courage.
CONVERSATION
Anatole France
We reproach people for talking about themselves; but it is the subject they treat best.
Zen
Michael E. Angier
The only thing that has to be done today is to breathe.
Communism
Anonymous
Whatever their faults, the Communists did not invent canned laughter.
Exceptional
William Cather
In this world people have to pay an extortionate price for any exceptional gift whatever.
Children
Maya Angelou
Children’s talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives.
Philosophy
Anonymous
For the good man to realize that it is better to be whole than good is to enter on a straight and narrow path compared to which his previous rectitude was flowery license.
Academia
Leo Botstein
At most, college presidents are running something that is somewhere between a faltering corporation and a hotel.
Stagnation
Robert Allen
... the vast bulk of humanity isn’t nice. They aren’t even really nasty, they’re just a heap of disorganized appetites that are struggling to be satisfied. It’s not hard to see why some of our writers and philosophers have found humanity a pretty dismal prospect.
Love
Jean Anouilh
Oh, love is real enough, you will find it some day, but it has one arch-enemy – and that is life.
Ideas
Alain [Emile Auguste Chartier]
Nothing is more dangerous than an idea, when a man has only one idea.
The System
Dean Acheson
A memorandum is written not to inform the reader but to protect the writer.
Opportunity
Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
Friends
Hada Bedar
The fragrance always stays in the hand that gives the rose.
Humor
Jack Benny
I don’t deserve this award, but I have arthritis and I don’t deserve that either.
Society
Henry Brooks Adams
Society is immoral and immortal; it can afford to commit any kind of folly, and indulge in any kind of vice; it cannot be killed, and the fragments that survive can always laugh at the dead.
Leadership
Scott Raymond
I am slowly being converted to the principle that you can’t motivate people to do things, you can only demotivate them. The primary job of the manager is not to empower but to remove obstacles.
Forgiveness
Russell Banks
We forgive once we give up attachment to our wounds.
David Brenner
A vegetarian is a person who won’t eat anything that can have children.
Socialism
Kenneth Baker
Socialists make the mistake of confusing individual worth with success. They believe you cannot allow people to succeed in case those who fail feel worthless.
Ignorance
Amos Bronson Alcott
To be ignorant of one's ignorance is the malady of the ignorant.
Fools
Anonymous
A wise man laughs at a fool; a fool does the same by a wise man; both are equally diverted.
Happiness
Joseph Addison
A man should always consider how much he has more than he wants, and how much more unhappy he might be than he really is.
Religion
F.E. Abbot
Agnosticism is the philosophical, ethical and religious dry-rot of the modern world.
Goals
Apocrypha [Ecclesiasticus]
Whatsoever thou takest in hand, remember the end, and thou shalt never do amiss.
Family
Thomas Fuller
He that hath no fools, knaves or beggars in his family was begot by a flash of lightening.
Gratitude
Roy Campanella
I asked for all things that I might enjoy life, and I was given life, so I could enjoy all things.
Media
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
There is always a heavy demand for fresh mediocrity. In every generation the least cultivated taste has the largest appetite.
Go For It
James Allen
To put away aimlessness and weakness, and to begin to think with purpose, is to enter the ranks of those strong ones who only recognize failure as one of the pathways to attainment; who make all conditions serve them, and who think strongly, attempt fearlessly, and accomplish masterfully.
Enemies
Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce
For every man there is something in the vocabulary that would stick to him like a second skin. His enemies have only to find it.
Death
Woody Allen [Allen Stewart Konigsberg]
I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying.
Government
Henry Brooks Adams
The work of internal government has become the task of controlling the thousands of fifth-rate men.
Fear
Rick Beneteau
Fear is the imaginary mountain that hides the horizon.
Drink
Alben W. Barkley
The best audience is intelligent, well-educated and a little drunk.
Cognition
Douglas Noel Adams
Assumptions are the things you don't know you're making.
Freedom
James Truslow Adams
The freedom now desired by many is not freedom to do and dare but freedom from care and worry.
Failure
Samuel Beckett
Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
Crabs
Ezra Taft Benson
Most of us consider pride to be a sin of those on the top, such as the rich and learned, looking down at the rest us. There is, however, a far more common ailment among us – and that is pride from the bottom looking up. It is manifest in so many ways, such as fault-finding, gossiping, backbiting, murmuring, living beyond our means, envying, coveting, withholding gratitude and praise that might lift another, and being unforgiving and jealous.
Belief
Alfred Adler
It is easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them.
Education
James Truslow Adams
There are obviously two educations. One should teach us how to make a living. The other should teach us how to live.
Expectations
Anonymous
The Universe tends to treat you pretty much like you treat yourself.
Conversation
Anthony
The English language has so few cuss words that, much like the flag, they should not be displayed day after day, but kept inside, lovingly rolled up and stored away, to bring forth proudly, unfaded, and effective upon special occasions.
Writing
Franklin Pierce Adams
The best part of the fiction of many novels is the notice that the characters are purely imaginary.
Capitalism
Henry Hazlitt
The system of capitalism, of the market economy, is a system of freedom, of justice, of productivity. But these three virtues cannot be separated. Each flows out of the other.
Dreams
Mark Albion
I don’t know that if you follow your dreams, the money will follow. I do know that if you follow your dreams, the money won’t matter as much.
Argument
Gilbert Keith Chesterton
People generally quarrel because they cannot argue.
Travel
James Allen
As you think, you travel ... You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you.
Business
Peter Ferdinand Drucker
Because its purpose is to create a customer, the business has two basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs.
Destiny
Marcus Aurelius
Love nothing but that which comes to you woven in the pattern of your destiny. For what could more aptly fit your needs?
Anger
Marcus Antonius
Consider how much more you often suffer from your anger and grief, than from those very things for which you are angry and grieved.
Time
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
All the best sands of my life are somehow getting into the wrong end of the hourglass. If I could only reverse it! Were it in my power to do so, would I?
America
David Abrahansen
The American dream is, in part, responsible for a great deal of crime and violence because people feel that the country owes them not only a living but a good living.
Degradation
Joseph Addison
Man is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief and aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one another.
Age
Tallulah Bankhead
If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner.
Self
Robert Anthony
You are the only one who won’t leave you.
Academia
Anonymous
Law school is the opposite of sex. Even when it's good it's lousy.
Decision
Michael E. Angier
Our job is to decide; the Universe’s job is to provide.
Support
George Ade
Every man is the architect of his own fortunes, but the neighbors superintend the construction.
Science
St. Augustine [Aurelius Augustinus]
There is another form of temptation, even more fraught with danger. This is the disease of curiosity. It is this which drives us to try and discover the secrets of nature, those secrets which are beyond our understanding, which can avail us nothing and which man should not wish to learn.
Work
Karl Abraham
A considerable number of persons are able to protect themselves against the outbreak of serious neurotic phenomena only though intense work.
Courage
Edward Estlin Cummings
It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are.
Service
Saul Alinsky
Once you accept your own death all of a sudden you're free to live. You no longer care about your reputation. You no longer care except so far as your life can be used tactically – to promote a cause you believe in.
Philosophy
David Berlinski
Seventeenth-century Jesuits wondered why dogs do not talk. Their conclusion bears repeating. They have nothing to say.
Wealth
Thomas Bailey Aldrich
The possession of gold has ruined fewer men than the lack of it. What noble enterprises have been checked and what fine souls have been blighted in the gloom of poverty the world will never know.
Cost of Success
Shana Alexander
The sad thing is that excellence makes people nervous.
Pets
Josh Billings [Henry Wheeler Shaw]
A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you more than you love yourself.
Perception
Wayne W. Dyer
The components of anxiety, stress, fear, and anger do not exist independently of you in the world. They simply do not exist in the physical world, even though we talk about them as if they do.
War
Robert Ardrey
Human war has been the most successful of our cultural traditions.
Change
Lisa Alther
That's the risk you take if you change: that people you've been involved with won't like the new you. But other people who do will come along.
Men
Josephy Addison
Men who cherish for women the highest respect are seldom popular with them.
Nature
Anne Wilson Schaef
… nature is the classroom for learning about ourselves and our universe. Nature teaches us through all our senses simultaneously and requires that we use our whole brain and our whole being.
Tribal
Alex Pua [Hawaiian Kapuna]
The senses are contradictory and deceiving. We never look at anything with our senses. We look with our feelings. Only our feelings can be trusted.
Calling
Phil Cousineau
The long line of myths, legends, poetry, and stories throughout the world tell us that it is at that moment of darkness that the call comes. It arrives in various forms – an itch, a fever, an offer, a ringing, an inspiration, an idea, a voice, words in a book that seem to have been written just for us – or a knock.
Marriage
Edmond About
Marriage, in life, is like a duel in the midst of a battle.
Brian Appleyard
Thanks to Newton we cannot discover goodness in the mechanics of the heavens, thanks to Darwin we cannot find it in the phenomenon of life and thanks to Freud we cannot find it in ourselves. The struggle is to find a new basis for goodness, purpose and meaning.
The System
Anonymous
When the bosses talk about improving productivity, they are never talking about themselves.
Richard David Bach
The best way to pay for a lovely moment is to enjoy it.
Manners
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Under bad manners, as under graver faults, lies very commonly an overestimate of our special individuality, as distinguished from our generic humanity.
Alain [Emile Auguste Chartier]
Found a Society of Honest Men, and all the thieves will join it.
Anonymous
The best way to succeed in life is to act on the advice we give to others.
Diamos
Everybody lies, but it doesn't matter because nobody listens.
