The Sovereign Individual by Davidson and Rees-Mogg - Quotations

The Sovereign Individual: How to Survive and Thrive During the Collapse of the Welfare State by James Dale Davidson and Lord William Rees-Mogg. 1997.


Frederick C. Lane
… one of the most distinctive characteristics of governments is their attempt to create law and order by using force themselves and by controlling through various means the use of force by others.

Chinese Proverb
Of all the thirty-six ways to get out of trouble, the best way is – leave.

Alan Greenspan
The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.

Christopher Lasch
Ambitious people understand, then, that a migratory way of life is the price of getting ahead.

The Art of Pilgrimage by Phil Cousineau - Quotations Part 3

The Art of Pilgrimage: The Seeker's Guide to Making Travel Sacred. Phil Cousineau. 1998. ISBN 1573245097

Richard R. Niebuhr
Pilgrims are persons in motion – passing through territories not their own – seeking something we might call completion, or perhaps the word clarity will do as well, a goal to which only the spirit's compass points the way.

Flannery O'Connor
No matter what form the dragon may take, it is the mysterious passage past him, or into his jaws, that stories of any depth will be concerned to tell.

Peace Pilgrim
A pilgrim is a wanderer with a purpose.

Huston Smith
The object of pilgrimage is not rest and recreation – to get away from it all. To set out on a pilgrimage is to throw down a challenge to everyday life. Nothing matters now but this adventure.

Callings by Gregg Levoy - Quotations Part 5

Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic Life. Gregg Levoy. 1997. ISBN 051775699

M. Scott Peck
The unconscious is always one step ahead of the conscious mind – the one that knows things – so it’s impossible to know for sure. But if you’re willing to sit with ambiguity, to accept uncertainties and contradictory meanings, then your unconscious will always be a step ahead of your conscious mind in the right direction. You’ll therefore do the right thing, although you won’t know it at the time.

Roman Proverb
The fates lead those who will. Those who won’t they drag.

P.L. Travers
Be still long enough, I though, and the trees would take no notice of me and continue whatever it was they were doing or saying before I happened upon them.

Michael Ventura
Unless you have the talent of the room, your other talents are worthless. Writing is something you do alone in a room, and before any issues of style, content, or form can be addressed, the fundamental questions are: How long can you stay in that room? How many hours a day? How do you behave in that room? How often can you go back to it? How much fear (and, for that matter, how much elation) can you endure by yourself? How many years – how many years – can you remain in a room?

The Art of Pilgrimage by Phil Cousineau - Quotations Part 2

The Art of Pilgrimage: The Seeker's Guide to Making Travel Sacred. Phil Cousineau. 1998. ISBN 1573245097

Alexander Eliot
Personal answers to ultimate questions. That is what we seek.

Theophile Gautier
The pleasure of traveling consists in the obstacles, the fatigue, and even the danger. What charm can anyone find in an excursion, when he is always sure of reaching his destination, of having horses ready waiting for him, a soft bed, an excellent supper, and all the ease and comfort which he can enjoy in his own home! One of the great misfortunes of modern life is the want of any sudden surprise, and the absence of all adventures. Everything is so well arranged, so admirably combined, so plainly labeled, that chance is an utter impossibility.

Michael Guillen
Bring home an aspect from every journey for your altar at home. Make it part of your altar at home. What's important to me is this is the domestic part of Latino life; our altars protect our home. So bring something home to re-create the altar – a smooth mineral, a touchstone. This is an important part of pilgrimage, the recreating of memory rituals to help remember people you lost. Another way for me is to remember others and to remember myself honestly.

Soren Kierkegaard
Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness; I have walked myself into my best thoughts.

Callings by Gregg Levoy - Quotations Part 4

Part 4:
Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic Life. Gregg Levoy. 1997. ISBN 0-517-7-569-9

Gary Kowalski
Everyone needs a spiritual guide. My own wise friend is my dog. He has deep knowledge to impart. He makes friends easily and doesn’t hold a grudge. He enjoys simple pleasures and takes each day as it comes. Like a true Zen master, he eats when he’s hungry and sleeps when he’s tired. He’s not hung up about sex. Best of all, he befriends me with an unconditional love that human beings would do well to imitate.

Norman Mailer
With the pride of the artist, you must blow against the walls of every power that exists, the small trumpet of your defiance.

Eric Maisel
A less than belligerent commitment is a curse.

Joseph Chilton Pearce
Nothing so upsets the bishop as the rumor of a saint in his parish.

The Art of Pilgrimage by Phil Cousineau - Quotations Part 1

The Art of Pilgrimage: The Seeker's Guide to Making Travel Sacred. Phil Cousineau. 1998. ISBN 1573245097

Gautama Buddha
You cannot travel the path until you have become the path.

Helder Camara
When your ship, long moored in harbor, gives you the illusion of being a house … put out to sea! ... save your boat's journeying soul, and your own pilgrim soul, cost what it may.

Joseph Campbell
The ultimate aim of the quest, if one is to return, must be neither release nor ecstasy for oneself, but the wisdom and the power to serve others.

Rene Daumal
To return to the source, one must travel in the opposite direction.

Callings by Gregg Levoy - Quotations Part 3

Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic Life. Gregg Levoy. 1997. ISBN 051775699

Wayne Dyer
Have you really lived ten thousand or more days, or have you lived one day ten thousand or more times?

Gustav Flaubert
Be regular and orderly in your daily affairs that you may be violent and original in your work.

Billie Holiday
You’ve got to have something to eat and little love in your life before you can hold still for any-damn-body’s sermon on how to behave.

Sam Keen
Enter each day with the expectation that the happenings of the day may contain a clandestine message addressed to you personally. Expect omens, epiphanies, casual blessings, and teachers who unknowingly speak to your condition.

Dark Ages America by Morris Berman - Quotations

Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire. Morris Berman. 2006. ISBN 0-393-05866-2

Samuel Huntington
The West won the world not by its superiority in its ideas or values or religion … but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.

H.L. Mencken
As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more clearly, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

Emmanuel Todd
Theatrical military activism against inconsequential rogue states … is a sign of weakness, not of strength … This is classic for a crumbling system … The final glory is militarism.

Polly Toynbee
God’s chosen people, uniquely blessed, nurture a self-image almost as deranged in its profound self-delusion as the old Soviet Union. The most advanced … nation on earth knows nothing of itself, irony-free and blind to the world around it.

Callings by Gregg Levoy - Quotations Part 2

Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic Life. Gregg Levoy. 1997. ISBN 051775699

Frederich Buechner
We shy away from introspection because, however fearful the surface seems, we fear the depths still more. And we are right. There is much to fear there. If there is terror about darkness because we cannot see, there is also terror about light because we can see. Would rather not see.

Helder Camara
When your ship, long moored in harbor, gives you the illusion of being a house … put out to sea! Save your boat’s journeying soul, and your own pilgrim soul, cost what it may.

Joan Didion
We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget what we whispered and what we dreamed. We forget who we were.

Annie Dillard
The way we spend our days is the way we spend our lives.

Crisis Investing by Douglas Casey - Quotations

Crisis Investing for the Rest of the '90s. Douglas Casey. 1995. ISBN 978-0806516127

Lord Byron
Ready money is Aladdin's Lamp.

Jean-Francois Revel
Authoritarian socialism has failed almost everywhere, but you will not find a single Marxist who will say it has failed because it was wrong or impractical. He will say it has failed because nobody went far enough with it. So failure never proves a myth is wrong.

Paul Samuelson (Nobel laureate, in 1989)
The Soviet economy is proof that, contrary to what many skeptics had earlier believed, a socialist command economy can function and even thrive.

Mark Skousen
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state is a complete failure of civilization, while a totally voluntary society is its ultimate success.

Callings by Gregg Levoy - Quotations Part 1

Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic Life. Gregg Levoy. 1997. ISBN 051775699

Anonymous
The successful artist is someone who continues to make art and isn’t more than 50 percent bitter about the rest of life.

John Berryman
Artists are extremely lucky who are presented with the worst possible ordeal which will not actually kill them. Beethoven’s deafness, Goya’s deafness, Milton’s blindness, that kind of thing. Among the greatest pieces of luck for high achievement is ordeal. I hope to be nearly crucified.

David Bayles and Ted Orland
Fears about yourself dig into your ability to do your best work, while fears about what others will think of you compromise your ability to do your own work.

Wendell Berry
It may be that when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey. The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

Awe by Paul Pearsall - Quotations

Awe: The Delights and Dangers of Our Eleventh Emotion.
Paul Pearsall. 2007. ISBN 978-0757305856

Editor, Publisher’s Weekly
Nobody ever went broke overestimating the desperate unhappiness of the American public.

Wallace Stevens
The imagination is man’s power over nature.

Fritz von Unruh
The dog is the only being that loves you more than you love yourself.

Thorstein Veblen
The outcome of any serious research can only be to make two questions grow where only one grew before.

Against the Odds - Quotations

Against the Odds: The Remarkable Story of Risk. Peter L. Bernstein. 1998. ISBN 978-0471295631

Gilbert Keith Chesterton
The real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable world, nor even that it is a reasonable one. The commonest kind of trouble is that it is nearly reasonable, but not quite. Life is not an illogicality; yet it is a trap for logicians. It looks just a little more mathematical and regular than it is; its exactitude is obvious, but its inexactitude is hidden; its wildness lies in wait.

John Maynard Keynes
Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally.

Amos Tversky
Probably the most significant and pervasive characteristic of the human pleasure machine is that people are much more sensitive to negative than to positive stimuli ... think about how well you feel today, and then try to imagine how much better you could feel ... there are a few things that would make you feel better, but the number of things that would make you feel worse is unbounded.

Amos Tversky
The major driving force is loss aversion. It is not so much that people hate uncertainty – but rather, they hate losing.

Health, Humor, Academia, Age Quotations

HEALTH
Seneca
It is a part of the cure to wish to be cured.

HUMOR
Jean Paul Richter
No one is more profoundly sad than he who laughs too much.

ACADEMIA
Rockefeller Brothers Fund
A degree is not an education, and the confusion on this point is perhaps the gravest weakness in American thinking about education.

AGE
Leo Rosenberg
First you forget names, then you forget faces, then you forget to pull your zipper up, then you forget to pull your zipper down.

Writing, Wealth, Go For It, Age Quotations

WRITING
Dorothy Parker
If you’re going to write, don’t pretend to write down. It’s going to be the best thing you can do, and it’s the fact that it’s the best you can do that kills you.

WEALTH
John Wicker
Wealth is not in making money, but in making the man while he is making money.

GO FOR IT
Jonathan Winters
I couldn’t wait for success, so I went ahead without it.

AGE
Oscar Wilde
To get back one’s youth, one merely has to repeat one’s follies.

100 Ways to Motivate Yourself - Quotations

100 Ways to Motivate Yourself: Change Your Life Forever. Steve Chandler. 2004.

Robert Fritz
When your life itself becomes the subject matter of the creative process, a very different experience of life opens to you – one in which you are involved with life at its very essence.

Napoleon Hill
The great master key to riches is nothing more or less than the self-discipline necessary to help you take full and complete possession of your own mind. Remember, it is profoundly significant that the only thing over which you have complete control is your own mental attitude.

Arnold Schwartzenegger
It’s the same process I used in bodybuilding. What you do is create a vision of who you want to be, and then live into that picture as if it were already true.

Colin Williams
When I open my eyes in the morning, I am not confronted by the world, but by a million possible worlds.

Self, Religion, Degradation, Marriage Quotations

SELF
Jean Rostand
To be adult is to be alone.

RELIGION
Oscar Wilde
When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.

DEGRADATION
Simone Weil
A hurtful act is the transference to others of the degradation which we bear in ourselves.

MARRIAGE
Oscar Wilde
Men marry because they are tired; women because they are curious. Both are disappointed.

Perception, Freedom, Attitude, Friends Quotations

PERCEPTION
Anais Nin
We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.

FREEDOM
Marina Tsvetayeva
Freedom – a drunken whore sprawling in a power-maddened soldier’s arms.

ATTITUDE
Booker Taliaferro Washington
If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.

FRIENDS
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh
We cherish our friends not for their ability to amuse us, but for our ability to amuse them.

Zen, Work, Goals, Conversation Quotes

ZEN
Mevlani Rumi
Sell all your cleverness and purchase bewilderment.

WORK
Barbara J. Winter
For the few who are passionate in their work, that passion is basic to their emotional well-being – and to their financial success.

GOALS
David Viscott
Your ultimate goal in life is to become your best self. Your immediate goal is to get on the path that will lead you there.

CONVERSATION
Ludwig Wittgenstein
One often makes a remark and only later sees how true it is.

More Quotes from The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss

The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich.
Timothy Ferriss. 2007. ISBN 978-0-307-35313-9

Steve Jobs
Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.

Anne Lamott
To be engrossed by something outside ourselves is a powerful antidote for the rational mind, the mind that so frequently has its head up its own ass.

George Bernard Shaw
Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

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

Travel, The System, Failure, Women Quotes

TRAVEL
Mevlani Rumi
So the sea-journey goes on, and who knows where! Just to be held by the ocean is the best luck we could have. It’s a total waking up!

THE SYSTEM
Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.

FAILURE
Samuel Beckett
Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

WOMEN
Fay Weldon
A good woman knows that nature is her enemy. Look at what it does to her.

Time, Society, Dreams, Men Quotes

TIME
E. James Rohn
Time is our most valuable asset, yet we tend to waste it, kill it, and spend it rather than invest it.

SOCIETY
Larry Wolters
A commentary on the times is that the word “honesty” is now preceded by “old-fashioned”.

DREAMS
Robert Louis Stevenson
An aim in life is the only fortune worth having.

MEN
Brigham Young
Any young man who is unmarried at the age of twenty-one is a menace to the community.

Quotes from The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss

The 4-Hour Work Week:Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich.
Timothy Ferriss. 2007. ISBN 978-0-307-35313-9

Jean Cocteau
You have comfort. You don’t have luxury. And don’t tell me that money plays a part. The luxury I advocate has nothing to do with money. It cannot be bought. It is the reward of those who have no fear of discomfort.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
As to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.

Paul Fussel
Before the development of tourism, travel was conceived to be like study, and its fruits were considered to be the adornment of the mind and the formation of the judgment.

William Gibson
The future is here. It’s just not widely distributed yet.

Science, Media, Decision, Love Quotes

SCIENCE
Wilhelm Roentgen
I didn’t think; I experimented.

MEDIA
Edmund Wilson
It is certainly very had to write about sex in English without making it unattractive.

DECISION
Harold Thurman Whitman
Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

LOVE
Francois, Duc De La Rouchefoucauld
If we judge of love by its usual effects, it resembles hatred more than friendship.

Philosophy, Government, Change, Interactions Quotes

PHILOSOPHY
Josiah Royce
Thinking is like loving and dying. Each of us must do it for himself.

GOVERNMENT
Alfred North Whitehead
Governments are best classified by considering who are the “somebodies” they are in fact endeavoring to satisfy.

CHANGE
David Viscott
No one can make you change. No one can stop you from changing. No one really knows how you must change. Not even you. Not until you start.

INTERACTIONS
Oscar Wilde
I like looking at geniuses, and listening to beautiful people.

Quotes from Deep Ecology by Bill McKibben

Deep Ecology: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future. Bill McKibben. 2007. ISBN-13 978-0-8050-8722-2


Brian Halweil
In terms of converting inputs into outputs, society would be better off with small-scale farmers. As population continues to grow in many nations, and the amount of farmland and water available to each person continues to shrink, a small farm structure may become central to feeding the planet.

Michael Pollan
Mexico’s scarce water resources are leaching north, one tomato at a time. It’s absurd for a country like Mexico – whose people are often hungry – to use its best land to grow produce for a country where food is so abundant that its people are obese – but under free trade, it makes economic sense.

Charles Schultze
Harnessing the ‘base’ motive of material self-interest to promote the common good is perhaps the most important social invention mankind has achieved.

James Twitchell
Much of our shared knowledge about ourselves comes to us through a commercial process of storytelling called branding … ten percent of a two-year-old’s nouns are brand names.

Metaphysics, Education, Success, Drink Quotes

METAPHYSICS
George Bernard Shaw
When we know what God is, we shall be Gods ourselves.

EDUCATION
William Butler Yeats
Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.

SUCCESS
Henry David Thoreau
Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.

DRINK
Hervey Allen
Religions change; beer and wine remain.

Ideas, Knowledge, America, Conversation Quotes

IDEAS
Laurence Sterne
Nothing is so perfectly amusing as a total change of ideas.

KNOWLEDGE
Rutherford D. Rogers
We’re drowning in information and starving for knowledge.

AMERICA
Thomas Eugene Robbins
McDonald’s is a reductive kitchen for a classless culture that hasn’t time to dally on its way to the next rainbow’s end.

CONVERSATION
Oscar Wilde
I like to do all the talking myself. It saves time and prevents arguments.

Quotes from The Freedom Manifest by Tom Hodgkinson

The Freedom Manifesto: How to Free Yourself from Anxiety, Fear, Mortgages, Money, Guilt, Debt, Government, Boredom, Supermarkets, Bills, Melancholy, Pain, Depression, Work, and Waste. Tom Hodgkinson. 2006. ISBN 978-0-06-082322-1

Simone de Beauvoir
Few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework, with its endless repetition: the clean becomes soiled, the soiled is made clean, over and over, day after day.

Aldous Huxley
There will never be enduring peace unless and until human beings come to accept a philosophy of life more adequate to the cosmic and psychological facts than the insane idolatries of nationalism and the advertising man’s apocalyptic faith in Progress towards a mechanized New Jerusalem.

C.S. Lewis
I believe a man is happier and happy in a richer way, if he has ‘the freeborn mind’ … and in adult life it is the man who needs, and asks, nothing of the Government who can criticize its acts and snap his fingers at its ideology.

Jean-Paul Sartre
It is … senseless to think of complaining since nothing foreign has decided what we feel, what we live, or what we are.

Happiness, Work, Striving, Women Quotes

HAPPINESS
Bertrand Russell
To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.

WORK
Theodore Roosevelt
Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

STRIVING
Ranier Maria Rilke
If your daily life seems poor, do not blame it; blame yourself, tell yourself that you are not poet enough to call forth its riches.

WOMEN
Pierre-Jules Renard
Don’t tell a woman she’s pretty; tell her there’s no other woman like her, and all roads will open to you.

Gratitude, Wealth, Stagnation, Men Quotations

GRATITUDE
Earl Nightingale
If the average person realized the power he wields over his life and destiny, he would live in a perpetual state of wonder and thanksgiving.

WEALTH
E. James Rohn
Money is usually attracted, not pursued.

STAGNATION
Larry Winget
… if your life sucks it is because you suck.

MEN
Rebecca West
The main difference between men and women is that men are lunatics and women are idiots.

Death, War, Problems, Marriage Quotes

DEATH
Andrew Aitken Rooney
Death is just a distant rumor to the young.

WAR
Jeannette Rankin
You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.

PROBLEMS
Jerry Weinberg
No matter what the problem is, it’s a people problem.

MARRIAGE
Helen Rowland
When two people decide to get a divorce, it isn’t a sign that they “don’t understand” one another, but a sign that they have, at last, begun to.

Creativity, The System, Goals, Life Style Quotes

CREATIVITY
Pablo Ruiz y Picasso
Good taste is the enemy of creativity.

THE SYSTEM
Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr.
If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.

GOALS
Brian Tracy
The more reasons you have for achieving your goal, the more determined you will become.

LIFE STYLE
Christopher Morely
There are three ingredients in the good life: learning, earning, and yearning.

Cognition, Society, Go For It, Conversation Quotes

COGNITION
Jean Rostand
As well as thoughts of which are unworthy of us, we have thoughts of which we are unworthy.

SOCIETY
Will Rogers
We can’t all be heroes because somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by.

GO FOR IT
Neale Donald Walsch
Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.

CONVERSATION
Edgar Saltus
Men hate to be misunderstood, and to be understood makes them furious.

Belief, Socialism, Failure, Interactions Quotes

BELIEF
Anne Wilson
We lose so much when we try to limit the Creator to our own imagination.

SOCIALISM
Oscar Wilde
Socialism annihilates family life, for instance. With the abolition of private property, marriage in its present form must disappear.

FAILURE
Thomas John Watson
If you want to succeed, double your failure rate.

INTERACTIONS
Edward Noyes Westcott
I guess the’’s about as much human nature in some folks as the’ is in others, if not more.

Art, Religion, Expectations, Friends Quotes

ART
Harold Rosenberg
An artist is a person who has invented an artist.

RELIGION
Pierre-Jules Renard
I don’t know if God exists, but it would be better for his reputation if he didn’t.

EXPECTATIONS
Wendy R. Wellner
What can you expect from a day that starts with getting up?

FRIENDS
Rita Rudner
When I was a kid, I had two friends, and they were imaginary and they would only play with each other.

Zen, Media, Dreams, Drink Quotes

ZEN
Robert Mallet
Nothing is more moving than beauty which is unaware of itself, except for ugliness which is.

MEDIA
Italian Proverb
There’s no thief like a bad book.

DREAMS
Peter McWilliams
When we realize one Dream, sometimes a deeper Dream reveals itself. At other times a parallel Dream appears. The one that scares the hell out of you is probably it.

DRINK
William Butler YeatsThe worst thing about some men is that when they are not drunk they are sober.

Writing, Government, Degradation, Age Quotes

WRITING
William Somerset Maugham
It has been said that good prose should resemble the conversation of a well-bred man.

GOVERNMENT
Sheldon Richman
The more power government has to provide things, the more power it has to dictate terms.

DEGRADATION
Marvin Lee Minsky
Too much suffering diminishes us by restricting the complexities that constitute our very selves. It must be the same for pleasure as well.

AGE
Cesare Pavese
Every man over thirty identifies his youth with the worst fault he thinks he has discovered in himself.

Travel, Freedom, Decision, Women Quotes

TRAVEL
Antonio Machado y Ruiz
Traveler, there is no path – paths are made by walking.

FREEDOM
Ellen E. Ross
It was a great revelation to me when I realized I was ordinary, and so were we all. I have never felt such freedom.

DECISION
Harvey Mackay
People begin to become successful the minute they decide to be.

WOMEN
Elissa Melamed
Men look AT themselves in mirrors. Women look FOR themselves.

Time, Education, Change, Men Quotes

TIME
Zora Neale Hurston
There are years that ask questions, and years that answer.

EDUCATION
Burrhus Frederic Skinner
Education is what survives when what has been learnt has been forgotten.

CHANGE
Henry Valentine Miller
All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous, unpremeditated act without benefit of experience.

MEN
Stephanie H. Piro
I like the concept of “men”. It’s the reality I have trouble with.

Self, Democracy, Attitude, Marriage Quotes

SELF
Dan Millman
Before you can see the light, you have to deal with the darkness.

DEMOCRACY
Betrand Russell
If one man offers you democracy and another offers you a bag of grain, at what stage of starvation do you prefer the grain to the vote?

ATTITUDE
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne
The highest wisdom is continual cheerfulness; such a state, like the region above the moon, is always clear and serene.

MARRIAGE
George Mendoza
You never saw any husband writing an alimony check in Norman Rockwell’s America.

Science, Communism, Success, Love Quotes

SCIENCE
Fred Menger
If you torture data sufficiently, it will confess to almost anything.

COMMUNISM
Jean-Paul Sartre
Judge communism by its intentions, not its actions.

SUCCESS
Colin Luther Powell
There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work and learning from failure.

LOVE
Henry Louis Mencken
Love is the delusion that one woman differs from another.

Philsophy, Capitalism, Striving, Interactions Quotes

PHILOSOPHY
Karl Heinrich Marx
Philosophy is to the real world as masturbation is to sex.

CAPITALISM
Ludwig von Mises
The inequality of income and fortunes is essential in capitalism.

STRIVING
Toni Morrison
If there’s a book you want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.

INTERACTIONS
John W. Raper
Sympathy is never wasted except when you give it to yourself.

Perception, Business, Stagnation, Friends Quotes

PERCEPTION
Mark Fisher and Marc Allen
Life is exactly as you picture it. Everything that happens to you is a product of your thoughts. So if you want to change your life, you must start by changing your thoughts.

BUSINESS
Francis McInerney and Sean White
Turning labor from a liability into an asset: this is what the information economy is all about.

STAGNATION
A.J. Marshall
Many of us spending half our time wishing for things we could have if we didn’t spend half of our time wishing.

FRIENDS
Henry Louis Mencken
A man of active and resilient mind outwears his friendships just as certainly as he outwears his love affairs, his politics and his epistemology.

Nature, America, Regret, Drink

NATURE
Anne Wilson Schaef
… how important it is to do things in their right time. To “wait with” until things ripen. To listen to nature, which is one of our greatest teachers.

AMERICA
Mary McCarthy
Life for the European is a career; for the American, it is a hazard.

REGRET
Katherine Mansfield
Make it a rule never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; your can’t build on it; it’s only for wallowing in.

DRINK
George Saintsbury
It is the unbroken testimony of all history that alcoholic liquors have been used by the strongest, wisest, handsomest, and every way best races of all times.

Metaphysics, Academia, Problems, Conversation

METAPHYSICS
Carl Gustav Jung
As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being.

ACADEMIA
John C. Maxwell
The problem with most educational institutions is that they try to teach people what to think, not how to think.

PROBLEMS
Phillip C. McGraw
… while the pain of dealing with your problems is an acute, easy-to-identify pain, the pain of avoiding them is also profound, even if more subtle.

CONVERSATION
Mignon McLaughlin
No one really listens to anyone else, and if you try it for a while you’ll see why.

Knowledge, Work, Leadership, Age

KNOWLEDGE
Henry Louis Mencken
We are here and it is now. Further than that all human knowledge is moonshine.

WORK
Jeff MacNelly
A career is a job that has gone on too long.

LEADERSHIP
John C. Maxwell
People buy into the leader before they buy into the vision.

AGE
Madeleine L’Engle
The great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other ages you’ve been.

Ideas, Wealth, Goals, Women

IDEAS
Nicolas Malebranche
Just as our eyes need light in order to see, our minds need ideas in order to conceive.

WEALTH
J.S. Morrill
Like liberty, gold never stays where it is undervalued.

GOALS
Benjamin E. Mays
The tragedy of life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach.

WOMEN
Karl Kraus
Women’s Rights are men’s duties.

Humor, War, Go For It, Service

HUMOR
Golda Meir
Don’t be humble. You’re not that great.

WAR
Paul Thomas Mann
War is a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.

GO FOR IT
Stephen Larsen
Say yes to life, even though you know it may devour you.

SERVICE
David J. Schwartz
Put service first and money takes care of itself – always.

Health, Tribal, Fear, Men

HEALTH
John Henry Newman
Health of body and mind is a great blessing, if we can bear it.

TRIBAL
Anne Wilson Schaef
Greed and selfishness: These behaviors can destroy a society. In most Native cultures, they are severely punished.

FEAR
Rudyard Kipling
Of all the liars in the world, sometimes the worst are your own fears.

MEN
Olin Miller
A man who won’t lie to a woman has very little consideration for her feelings.

Happiness, The System, Failure, Marriage

HAPPINESS
Andre Maurois
The first recipe for happiness is: Avoid too lengthy meditations on the past.

THE SYSTEM
Mignon McLaughlin
Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers.

FAILURE
Howard W. Newton
When a man blames others for his failures, it’s a good idea to credit others for his successes.

MARRIAGE
Samuel Johnson
Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.

Thomas Jefferson Quotations

If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, (i.e., the "business cycle") the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.

The parliament is, by corruption, the mere instrument of the will of the administration. The real power … in the government is in the great aristocratic families of the nation.

When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property.

When governments fear the people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny.

Gratitude, Society, Expectations, Lying

GRATITUDE
J. Kenfield Morley
I can complain because rose bushes have thorns or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.

SOCIETY
Norman Kingsley Mailer
The horror of the Twentieth Century is the size of each event and the paucity of its reverberation.

EXPECTATIONS
Martin Luther
In our sad condition our only consolation is the expectancy of another life. Here below all is incomprehensible.

LYING
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
He who cannot lie does not know what the truth is.

Death, Socialism, Dreams, Love

DEATH
Paul Thomas Mann
A man’s dying is more the survivor’s affair than his own.

SOCIALISM
Ludwig von Mises
Aggressors cannot wage total war without socialism.

DREAMS
Doug Firebaugh
What you want in your life occasionally shows up … what you must have … always does.

LOVE
Alan King
If you want to read about love and marriage you’ve got to buy separate books.

Creativity, Religion, Destiny, Life Style

CREATIVITY
Jack London
You can’t wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.

RELIGION
Herbert J. Miller
This doctrine of the material efficacy of prayer reduces the Creator to a cosmic bellhop of a not very bright or reliable kind.

DESTINY
Liz Greene
I stood at a crossroads and fate came to meet me …

LIFE STYLE
Samuel Johnson
Let me smile with the wise and eat with the rich.

Cognition, Media, Degradation, Interactions

COGNITION
Marvin Lee Minsky
No computer has ever been designed that is ever aware of what it’s doing; but most of the time, we aren’t either.

MEDIA
Herbert Marshall McLuhan
Movies in America have not developed advertising intervals simply because the movie itself is the greatest of all forms of advertisement for consumer goods.

DEGRADATION
Sigmund Freud
I have found little that is good about human beings. In my experience most of them, on the whole, are trash.

INTERACTIONS
Henry A. Kissinger
The nice thing about being a celebrity is that when you bore people, they think it’s their fault.

Belief, Government, Decision, Friends

BELIEF
Henry Louis Mencken
The more a man dreams, the less he believes.

GOVERNMENT
Herbert Marshall McLuhan
Politics offers yesterday’s answers to today’s problems.

DECISION
Andre Paul Guillaume Gide
Whoever starts out toward the unknown must consent to venture alone.

FRIENDS
Hugh Kingsmill
Friends are God’s apologies for relatives.

Art, Freedom, Courage, Drink

ART
Henri Matisse
Whoever wishes to devote himself to painting should begin by cutting out his own tongue.

FREEDOM
Herman Melville
Freedom is only good as a means; it is no end in itself.

COURAGE
Thomas Fuller
Many would be cowards if they had courage enough.

DRINK
Henry Mon
Booze may not be the answer, but it helps you to forget the question.

Zen, Education, Change, Conversation

ZEN
Kahlil Gibran
Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.

EDUCATION
Peter McWilliams
If we learned everything there is to know in kindergarten, it was promptly drummed out of us in first grade.

CHANGE
William Edwards Deming
It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.

CONVERSATION
Ben Jonson
Language most shows a man: Speak, that I may see thee.

Writing, Democracy, Calling, Children

WRITING
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald
Show me a hero and I will write you a tragedy.

DEMOCRACY
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Democracy represents the disbelief in all great men and in all elite societies: everybody is everybody’s equal.

CALLING
Taro Gold
Strive to achieve whatever you think you cannot, for it is on the path toward your impossible dream that you will find what you truly seek.

CHILDREN
Kahlil Gibran
Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

Travel, Communism, Attitude, Argument

TRAVEL

Thomas Fuller
Travel makes a wise man better but a fool worse.

COMMUNISM

Henry Louis Mencken
Communism, like any other revealed religion, is largely made up of prophesies.

ATTITUDE

Bertie Charles Forbes
It’s so much easier to do good than to be good.

ARGUMENT

Edward Gibbon
I never make the mistake of arguing with people for whose opinion I have no respect.

Time, Capitalism, Advice, Age

TIME

Ralph Waldo Emerson
The years teach us much the days never knew.

CAPITALISM

Irving Fisher
Man is the most versatile of all forms of capital.

ADVICE

Marquis de La Grange
When we advise we are usually looking for an accomplice.

AGE

Dorothy Canfield Fisher
One of the many things nobody ever tells you about middle age is that it’s such a nice change from being young.

Self, Business, Success, Women

SELF

Guy Finley
Any confidence you may have based on something outside yourself is also the basis of your self-doubt.

BUSINESS

Henry Ford
It is not the employer who pays wages – he only handles the money. It is the product that pays wages.

SUCCESS

John Gerhart
Success is when reality exceeds expectations.

WOMEN

Edna Ferver
A woman can look both moral and exciting – if she also looks as if it were quite a struggle.

Science, America, Striving, Vice

SCIENCE

Edgar Z. Friedenberg
Only science can hope to keep technology is some sort of moral order.

AMERICA

Nora Ephron
The big cities of America are becoming Third World countries.

STRIVING

Gustave Flaubert
Be regular and orderly in your daily affairs that you may be violent and original in your work.

VICE

William Cuthbert Faulkner
No man can cause more grief than that one clinging blindly to the vices of his ancestors.

Philosophy, Academia, Stagnation, Service

PHILOSOPHY

John Robert Fowles
An answer is always a form of death.

ACADEMIA

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Colleges hate geniuses, just as convents hate saints.

STAGNATION

Lowell Fillmore
When we hear somebody complaining that he has not enough, we may know that he has not expressed enough appreciation for what he already has.

SERVICE

Napoleon Hill
It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed.

Nature, Work, Results, Pets

NATURE

William Ralph Inge
The whole of nature, as has been said, is a conjugation of the verb to eat, in the active and passive.

WORK

Fernando Flores
Great work is done by people who are not afraid to be great.

RESULTS

Mark Victor Hansen
Big goals get big results. No goals gets no results or somebody else’s results.

PETS

Aldous Leonard Huxley
To his dog, every man is Napoleon; hence the constant popularity of dogs.

Metaphysics, Wealth, Regret, Men

METAPHYSICS

Charles W. Ferguson
The essence of tragedy is to know the end.

WEALTH

Anatole France
In every well-governed state wealth is a sacred thing; in democracies it is the only sacred thing.

REGRET

Brendan Francis
Most people perform essentially meaningless work. When they retire that truth is borne in upon them.

MEN

Edgar Watson Howe
It isn’t the sissy men who help women most, but the rough, capable ones who can be caught and trained.

Knowledge, War, Cost of Success, Marriage

KNOWLEDGE

Benjamin Franklin
To be proud of knowledge is to be blind with light.

WAR

Fridtjof Hansen
War will cease when men refuse to fight.

COST OF SUCCESS

Jean Rostand
Merit envies success, and success takes itself for merit.

MARRIAGE

Anne Fogarty
If you adore her, you must adorn her. There lies the secret of a happy marriage.

Ideas, Tribal, Problems, Manners

IDEAS

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

TRIBAL

Maori Proverb
The God of evil and the God of fear are good friends.

PROBLEMS

Raymond E. Feist
Never accept the proposition that just because a solution satisfies a problem, that it must be the only solution.

MANNERS

Solomon Ibn Gabirol
The test of good manners is to be patient with bad ones.

Humor, The System, Opportunity, Lying

HUMOR

Oliver Herford
Lisp: To call a spade a thpade.

THE SYSTEM

Donald M. Fraser
Under current law, it is a crime for a private citizen to lie to a government official, but not for the government official to lie to the people.

OPPORTUNITY

Thomas Alva Edison
Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

LYING

James Hall
Why would anyone lie? The truth is always more colorful.

Health, Society, Leadership, Love

HEALTH

Matt Furey
If you’ve got the guts to conquer your body, you’ve got the guts to conquer any area of life you choose.

SOCIETY

Robert Lee Frost
There’s nothing I’m afraid of like scared people.

LEADERSHIP

Max DePree
The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality.

LOVE

Linda Festa
The most important thing in a relationship between a man and a woman is that one of them be good at taking orders.

Happiness, Socialism, Ignorance, Life Style

HAPPINESS

Malcolm Stevenson Forbes
When we are what we want to be, that’s happiness.

SOCIALISM

French Graffito
Socialism without liberty is the barracks.

IGNORANCE

Anatole France
Ignorance is the necessary condition of life itself. If we knew everything, we could not endure existence for a single hour.

LIFE STYLE

Mark Fisher and Marc Allen
To be a genius simply means to do what you enjoy doing. That is the true genius of life.

Gratitude, Religion, Goals, Leisure

GRATITUDE

Meister Eckhart
If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is “Thank you,” it will be enough.

RELIGION

Benjamin Franklin
Many have quarreled about religion that never practiced it.

GOALS

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals.

LEISURE

Sydney J. Harris
The primary purpose of a liberal education is to make one’s mind a pleasant place in which to spend one’s leisure.

Death, Media, Go For It, Interactions

DEATH

Andre Paul Guillaume Gide
The true return to nature is the definitive return to the elements – death.

MEDIA

George Faludy
Most American television stations reproduce all night long what only a Roman could have seen in the Coliseum during the reign of Nero.

GO FOR IT

Guy Finley
Never hesitate to put yourself in a position where you don’t know what to do.

INTERACTIONS

Malcolm Stevenson Forbes
A bore is someone who persists in holding his own views after we have enlightened him with ours.

Creativity, Government, Fear, Friends

CREATIVITY

Anna Freud
Creative minds always have been known to survive any kind of bad training.

GOVERNMENT

Frederick the Great
If I wished to punish a province, I would have it governed by philosophers.

FEAR

Marilyn Ferguson
Ultimately we know deeply that the other side of every fear is a freedom.

FRIENDS

Moulton Farnham
Our friends are those who know their own faults well enough to forgive us ours.

Cognition, Freedom, Failure, Fools

COGNITION

Paul Fix
The reason some people get lost in thought is because it’s unfamiliar territory.

FREEDOM

Immanuel Hermann Fichte
Being free is nothing. Becoming free is everything.

FAILURE

Henry Ford
Failure is only the opportunity to more intelligently begin again.

FOOLS

Frank A. Garbutt
The man who questions opinion is wise; the man who quarrels with facts is a fool.

Belief, Education, Expectations, Drink

BELIEF

Werner Erhard
The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.

EDUCATION

Anatole France
An education which does not cultivate the will is an education that depraves the mind.

EXPECTATIONS

Erich Fromm
Love is nothing but a favorable exchange between two people who get the most of what they can expect, considering their value on the personality market.

DRINK

Clifton Fadiman
To take wine into our mouths is to savor a droplet of the river of human history.

Art, Democracy, Excuses, Conversation

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, Communism, Exceptional, Children

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, Academia, Stagnation, Love

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.

Perception, Work, Results, Life Style

Perception

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

Work

Anonymous
One who works with his hands is a laborer; one who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman; one who works with his hands, his head, and his heart is a master.

Results

Robert Anthony
You can only have two things in life, Reasons or Results. Reasons don’t count.

Life Style

Michael E. Angier
It’s expensive to be a maverick.

Nature, Wealth, Regret, Leisure

Nature

David Gulpilil [Australian Aboriginal]
I’m just glad that now the sun does rise and the days are warm, so that I can listen to the birds signing happily, and the animals munching away at their food.

Wealth

Scott Alexander
The best way to make happy money is to make money your hobby and not your god. Making money is a hobby that will complement any other hobbies you have, beautifully.

Regret

Andre Agassi
I can live with disappointments better than with regrets.

Leisure

William J. Bogan
Leisure may prove to be a curse rather than a blessing, unless education teaches a flippant world that leisure is not a synonym for entertainment.

Metaphysics, War, Receiving, Interactions

Metaphysics

Wilton Robert Abbott
To understand the place of humans in the universe is to solve a complex problem. Therefore I find it impossible to believe that an understanding based entirely on science or one based entirely on religion can be correct.

War

August Bebel
In time of war the loudest patriots are the greatest profiteers.

Receiving

Robert Anthony
The reason it is harder to be a receiver than a giver is because a giver is always in control.

Interactions

Cleveland Amory
I can't take a well-tanned person seriously.

Knowledge, Tribal, Problems, Honor

Knowledge

Thurman Arnold
The principles of Washington's farewell address are still sources of wisdom when cures for social ills are sought. The methods of Washington's physicians, however, are no longer studied.

Tribal

Witi Ihimaera [Maori]
For me, there was always a sense of contentment in feeling a rhythm beneath my feet. The heartbeat of the land. That season would follow season and that the rhythm would never alter. Knowing this brought me peace like no other I had known.

Problems

Scott Alexander
Understand that most problems are a good sign. Problems indicate that progress is being made, wheels are turning, you are moving toward your goals. Beware when you have no problems. Then you’ve really got a problem ... Problems are like landmarks of progress.

Honor

Samuel Butler
The nearest way to honour is to have none at all.

Ideas, The System, Opportunity, Friends

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, Society, Leadership, Forgiveness

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.

Health, Socialism, Ignorance, Fools

Health

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, Religion, Goals, Family

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, Media, Go For It, Enemies

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, Government, Fear, Drink

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, Freedom, Failure, Crabs

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, Education, Expectations, Conversation

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.

Art, Democracy, Excuses, Competition

Art

Anonymous
The successful artist is someone who continues to make art and isn't more than 50 percent bitter about the rest of life.

Democracy

Al Alvarez
Mass democracy, mass morality and the mass media thrive independently of the individual, who joins them at a cost of at least a partial perversion of his instinct and insights. He pays for his social ease with what used to be called his soul, his discriminations, his uniqueness, his psychic energy, his self.

Excuses

Robert Anthony
Excuses are your lack of faith in your own power.

Competition

Baltasar Gracian
Never contend with a man who has nothing to lose.

Writing, Capitalism, Dreams, Argument

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, Business, Destiny, Anger

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, America, Degradation, Age

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, Academia, Decision, Support

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, Work, Courage, Service

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, Wealth, Cost of Success, Pets

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, War, Change, Men

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, Tribal, Calling, Marriage

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.

Metaphysics, The System, Attitude, Manners

Metaphysics

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.

Attitude

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.

Knowledge, Society, Advice, Lying

Knowledge

J.R. Paxton
It is too late to go back to the order of nature or the truth in history.

Society

Alain [Emile Auguste Chartier]
Found a Society of Honest Men, and all the thieves will join it.

Advice

Anonymous
The best way to succeed in life is to act on the advice we give to others.

Lying

Diamos
Everybody lies, but it doesn't matter because nobody listens.