Therefore search and see if there is not some place where you may invest your humanity.
Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
Americans are benevolently ignorant about Canada, while Canadians are malevolently well informed about the United States.
Be a good listener. Your ears will never get you in trouble.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.
Exercise ferments the humors, casts them into their proper channels, throws off redundancies, and helps nature in those secret distributions, without which the body cannot subsist in its vigor, nor the soul act with cheerfulness.
Jealousy is all the fun you think they had.
Cheerfulness, it would appear, is a matter which depends fully as much on the state of things within, as on the state of things without and around us.
Someone went upside my head again.
Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.
My wish is to ride the tempest, tame the waves, kill the sharks. I will not resign myself...
Man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter.
It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish.
When you make a world tolerable for yourself, you make a world tolerable for others.
Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.
The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action.
Wit makes its own welcome, and levels all distinctions. No dignity, no learning, no force of character, can make any stand against good wit.
I love my past. I love my present. I'm not ashamed of what I've had, and I'm not sad because I have it no longer.
There are a terrible lot of lies going around the world, and the worst of it is half of them are true.
God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.
If you want to be respected, you must respect yourself.
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety.
In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.
There is no such thing as an underestimate of average intelligence.
To avoid situations in which you might make mistakes may be the biggest mistake of all.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.
By learning to discover and value our ordinariness, we nurture a friendliness toward ourselves and the world that is the essence of a healthy soul.
The happiest is the person who suffers the least pain; the most miserable who enjoys the least pleasure.
Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.
Hares can gambol over the body of a dead lion.
It's a dangerous business going out your front door.
See things as they are and write about them. Don?t waste your creative energy trying to make things up. Even if you are writing fiction, write the things you see and know.
The mellow sweetness of pumpkin pie off a prison spoon is something you will never forget.
I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters.
Misquotations are the only quotations that are never misquoted.
None are so busy as the fool and knave.
I have enjoyed greatly the second blooming... suddenly you find - at the age of 50, say - that a whole new life has opened before you.
I was gratified to be able to answer promptly. I said I don't know.
Oh, I don't blame Congress. If I had $600 billion at my disposal, I'd be irresponsible, too.
Good company and good discourse are the very sinews of virtue.
Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes... the ones who see things differently -- they're not fond of rules... You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.
My friend is one... who take me for what I am.
Nothing inspires forgiveness quite like revenge.
Maybe the most any of us can expect of ourselves isn't perfection but progress.
Never read a book through merely because you have begun it.
It's wonderful what we can do if we're always doing.
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
Walking is man's best medicine.
Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far.
The great art of giving consists in this: the gift should cost very little and yet be greatly coveted, so that it may be the more highly appreciated.
There is nothing more dreadful than imagination without taste.
The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star.
My mother loved children -- she would have given anything if I had been one.
He who labors diligently need never despair; for all things are accomplished by diligence and labor.
Life engenders life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich.
Be honorable yourself if you wish to associate with honorable people.
The first vehicle that screamed past -- an ambulance -- didn't even slow down.
I nearly fell again, but new hands grabbed me from in front and dragged me down a steel floor and then forced me to my knees and locked my hands to something behind me.
Courage is the art of being the only one who knows you're scared to death.
I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours.
I use an optimistic, positive approach to deal with my symptoms and it came the hard way, before I learned to laugh with myself a little.
I was the kid next door's imaginary friend.
Love is the ability and willingness to allow those that you care for to be what they choose for themselves without any insistence that they satisfy you.
Man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter.
There is nothing more dreadful than imagination without taste.
Speak properly, and in as few words as you can, but always plainly; for the end of speech is not ostentation, but to be understood.
It was a military-looking Jeep, like an armored Hummer, only it didn't have any military insignia on it.
Turbulence is life force. It is opportunity. Let's love turbulence and use it for change.
It is better to wear out than to rust out.
Learning to live in the present moment is part of the path of joy.
Most advances in science come when a person for one reason or another is forced to change fields.
The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.
Early morning cheerfulness can be extremely obnoxious.
Fig Newton: The force required to accelerate a fig 39.37 inches per sec.
Never despair; but if you do, work on in despair.
What children take from us, they give?We become people who feel more deeply, question more deeply, hurt more deeply, and love more deeply.
There are always survivors at a massacre. Among the victors, if nowhere else.
You could get on a boat there, get away. That fit with the terrorism hypothesis.
The dead might as well try to speak to the living as the old to the young.
We learn and grow and are transformed not so much by what we do but by why and how we do it.
Be more prompt to go to a friend in adversity than in prosperity.
Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.
Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia.
When I was a kid my parents moved a lot, but I always found them.
An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.
The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.
Worrying about them always struck me as about as useful as worrying about getting hit by lightning.
It is nobler to declare oneself wrong than to insist on being right - especially when one is right.
The man who has nothing to boast of but his illustrious ancestry is like the potato - the best part under ground.
Confidence is the sexiest thing a woman can have. It's much sexier than any body part.
Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.
So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.
The older I grow, the less important the comma becomes. Let the reader catch his own breath.
Challenge is a dragon with a gift in its mouth?Tame the dragon and the gift is yours.
If your parents never had children, chances are you won't, either.
A moment later, I caught my breath, but I didn't say anything.
Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.
Greatness is more than potential. It is the execution of that potential. Beyond the raw talent. You need the appropriate training. You need the discipline. You need the inspiration. You need the drive.
Anyone who has gumption knows what it is, and anyone who hasn't can never know what it is. So there is no need of defining it.
What makes the engine go? Desire, desire, desire.
The human mind treats a new idea the same way the body treats a strange protein; it rejects it.
Sometimes you can't see yourself clearly until you see yourself through the eyes of others.
Because we don't think about future generations, they will never forget us.
Go through your phone book, call people and ask them to drive you to the airport. The ones who will drive you are your true friends. The rest aren't bad people; they're just acquaintances.
I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education.
I've grown to realize the joy that comes from little victories is preferable to the fun that comes from ease and the pursuit of pleasure.
After I'm dead I'd rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one.
We need anything politically important rationed out like Pez: small, sweet, and coming out of a funny, plastic head.
See things as they are and write about them. Don?t waste your creative energy trying to make things up. Even if you are writing fiction, write the things you see and know.
We require from buildings two kinds of goodness: first, the doing their practical duty well: then that they be graceful and pleasing in doing it.
Always be nice to those younger than you, because they are the ones who will be writing about you.
Van was screaming something and Jolu was shouting and I looked at them for a second and that was when someone put a coarse.
Even the fear of death is nothing compared to the fear of not having lived authentically and fully.
I ran the wrong kind of business, but I did it with integrity.
It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at some more ambitious goal beyond it.
Think of life as a terminal illness, because, if you do, you will live it with joy and passion, as it ought to be lived.
Nothing inspires forgiveness quite like revenge.
It's the soul's duty to be loyal to its own desires. It must abandon itself to its master passion.
It is nobler to declare oneself wrong than to insist on being right - especially when one is right.
The better part of valor is discretion, in the which better part I have saved my life.
The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it.
Without the capacity to provide its own information, the mind drifts into randomness.
Forget injuries, never forget kindnesses.
Intimacy is being seen and known as the person you truly are.
The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for.
Wisdom is knowing what to do next; virtue is doing it.
It is hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head.
Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.
Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die.
The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
If you would thoroughly know anything, teach it to others.
Never let the demands of tomorrow interfere with the pleasures and excitement of today.
Courage is the art of being the only one who knows you're scared to death.
Each body has its art...
Write down the advice of him who loves you, though you like it not at present.
When your work speaks for itself, don't interrupt.
Work saves us from three great evils: boredom, vice and need.
I have never been especially impressed by the heroics of people who are convinced they are about to change the world. I am more awed by those who struggle to make one small difference after another.
Up ahead, I saw someone, a middle-aged lady in a hippie dress, falter and fall.
I'm glad I didn't have to fight in any war. I'm glad I didn't have to pick up a gun. I'm glad I didn't get killed or kill somebody. I hope my kids enjoy the same lack of manhood.
If you would be known, and not know, vegetate in a village; If you would know, and not be known, live in a city.
It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.
Do not believe that he who seeks to comfort you lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. His life has much difficulty... Were it otherwise he would never have been able to find those words.
Anything looked at closely becomes wonderful.
I am not young enough to know everything.
The car skidded to a stop just in front of me, and I jumped back and lost my balance and ended up on the road.
Music is essentially useless, as life is.
Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come.
The best way out is always through.
The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won't get much sleep.
What more felicity can fall to creature, than to enjoy delight with liberty.
Life isn't fair. It's just fairer than death, that's all.
If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the military, nothing is safe.
The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.
My home is not a place, it is people.
Our own physical body possesses a wisdom which we who inhabit the body lack.
Do something. If it doesn't work, do something else. No idea is too crazy.
The lesson which life repeats and constantly enforces is 'look under foot.' You are always nearer the divine and the true sources of your power than you think.
Nothing contributes so much to tranquilizing the mind as a steady purpose - a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.
When you make a mistake, don't look back at it long. Take the reason of the thing into your mind and then look forward. Mistakes are lessons of wisdom. The past cannot be changed. The future is yet in your power.
Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.
It felt like they used a baton or something -- it was harder than anyone had ever hit me in the head before.
Most advances in science come when a person for one reason or another is forced to change fields.
A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the word you first thought of.
The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.
Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster. Your life will never be the same again.
What children take from us, they give?We become people who feel more deeply, question more deeply, hurt more deeply, and love more deeply.
Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.
There were millions of ways that the world could kill me.
He will always be a slave who does not know how to live upon a little.
God creates men, but they choose each other.
Sometimes the cure for restlessness is rest.
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what's for lunch.
I would be the most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.
Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.
If a dog jumps in your lap, it is because he is fond of you; but if a cat does the same thing, it is because your lap is warmer.
I've never quite believed that one chance is all I get.
Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.
I write because I'm afraid to say some things out loud.
I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.
O, it is excellent to have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant.
If you don't know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else.
There is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own way.
If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read "President Can't Swim".
Equal opportunity means everyone will have a fair chance at being incompetent.
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
I've never quite believed that one chance is all I get.
To avoid situations in which you might make mistakes may be the biggest mistake of all.
Fresh clean sheets are one of life's small joys.
Misquotations are the only quotations that are never misquoted.
Make hunger thy sauce, as a medicine for health.
There is an evil tendency underlying all our technology - the tendency to do what is reasonable even when it isn't any good.
Better shun the bait, than struggle in the snare.
I despise the pleasure of pleasing people that I despise.
Level with your child by being honest. Nobody spots a phony quicker than a child.
If you would thoroughly know anything, teach it to others.
Electricity is actually made up of extremely tiny particles called electrons, that you cannot see with the naked eye unless you have been drinking.
Health consists of having the same diseases as one's neighbors.
It's a dangerous business going out your front door.
Listen. Do not have an opinion while you listen because frankly, your opinion doesn?t hold much water outside of Your Universe. Just listen. Listen until their brain has been twisted like a dripping towel and what they have to say is all over the floor.
The next time a car appeared down Market Street, I stepped right out into the road, waving my arms over my head, shouting.
Reading well is one of the great pleasures that solitude can afford you.
A conference is a gathering of important people who singly can do nothing, but together can decide that nothing can be done.
We rarely think people have good sense unless they agree with us.
Newspapermen learn to call a murderer 'an alleged murderer' and the King of England 'the alleged King of England' to avoid libel suits.
You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new.
Our patience will achieve more than our force.
The art of dining well is no slight art, the pleasure not a slight pleasure.
As I get older, I've learned to listen to people rather than accuse them of things.
There are plenty of good five-cent cigars in the country. The trouble is they cost a quarter. What this country needs is a good five-cent nickel.
The whole dream of democracy is to raise the proletarian to the level of stupidity attained by the bourgeois.
I feel like a tiny bird with a big song!
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
Doubt 'til thou canst doubt no more...doubt is thought and thought is life. Systems which end doubt are devices for drugging thought.
To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.
Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it's just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it.
Cheerfulness, it would appear, is a matter which depends fully as much on the state of things within, as on the state of things without and around us.
The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
Van was screaming something and Jolu was shouting and I looked at them for a second and that was when someone put a coarse.
The freedom of all is essential to my freedom.
What if this weren't a hypothetical question?
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
Keep cool and you command everybody.
If one sticks too rigidly to one's principles, one would hardly see anybody.
Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.
The next time a car appeared down Market Street, I stepped right out into the road, waving my arms over my head, shouting.
Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster. Your life will never be the same again.
In America, through pressure of conformity, there is freedom of choice, but nothing to choose from.
More bodies were roughly shoved in beside me.
Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won't work.
The two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a big fat white guy who is threatened by change.
Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.
From the moment I picked up your book until I laid it down, I was convulsed with laughter. Some day I intend reading it.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.
As I neared her, I bent to help her up, and was nearly knocked over her.
Each body has its art...
The function of science fiction is not always to predict the future but sometimes to prevent it.
If you want to be respected, you must respect yourself.
Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
I felt the doors open near me, and then saw a confusion of booted feet moving close by.
A mother is not a person to lean on but a person to make leaning unnecessary.
I cried out and my own voice was muffled by the hood.
You cannot be mad at somebody who makes you laugh - it's as simple as that.
Be thou the first true merit to befriend, his praise is lost who stays till all commend.
No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought.
Every moment of one's existence one is growing into more or retreating into less.
The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action.
Art is science made clear.
Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
I write because I'm afraid to say some things out loud.
Over the years your bodies become walking autobiographies, telling friends and strangers alike of the minor and major stresses of your lives.
To avoid situations in which you might make mistakes may be the biggest mistake of all.
It's takin' whatever comes your way, the good AND the bad, that give life flavor. It's all the stuff rolled together that makes life worth livin'.
Time is that quality of nature which keeps events from happening all at once. Lately it doesn't seem to be working.
There are a terrible lot of lies going around the world, and the worst of it is half of them are true.
It is wonderful how quickly you get used to things, even the most astonishing.
Cheese - milk's leap toward immortality.
You must not think me necessarily foolish because I am facetious, nor will I consider you necessarily wise because you are grave.
Let not the sands of time get in your lunch.
A good man would prefer to be defeated than to defeat injustice by evil means.
Do something every day that you don't want to do; this is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.
He attacked everything in life with a mix of extrordinary genius and naive incompetence, and it was often difficult to tell which was which.
The only difference between the Democrats and the Republicans is that the Democrats allow the poor to be corrupt, too.
People were still cramming down the stairs, and more were squeezing past the turnstiles and down the escalators onto the platforms, but it was clear to me that this wasn't going to have a happy ending.
When we got into office, the thing that surprised me the most was that things were as bad as we'd been saying they were.
By the time I'd grown up, I naturally supposed that I'd be grown up.
We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex--but Congress can.
You can have it all. You just can't have it all at once.
When I came back to Dublin I was courtmartialed in my absence and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in my absence.
Feet, why do I need them if I have wings to fly?
The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover will be yourself.
Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.
Nothing inspires forgiveness quite like revenge.
Fresh clean sheets are one of life's small joys.
Only some people get what they want. Those are the people who show up to get it.
The world tolerates conceit from those who are successful, but not from anybody else.
It is better to wear out than to rust out.
I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness for it shows me the stars.
I find it rather easy to portray a businessman. Being bland, rather cruel and incompetent comes naturally to me.
You never know till you try to reach them how accessible men are; but you must approach each man by the right door.
Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
If you really do put a small value upon yourself, rest assured that the world will not raise your price.
Fresh clean sheets are one of life's small joys.
It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day-to-day basis.
You can have it all. You just can't have it all at once.
All things are difficult before they are easy.
Have you ever observed that we pay much more attention to a wise passage when it is quoted than when we read it in the original author?
Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.
We owe something to extravagance, for thrift and adventure seldom go hand in hand.
All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.
All love that has not friendship for its base, is like a mansion built upon sand.
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what's for lunch.
Joy is prayer - Joy is strength - Joy is love - Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.
The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.
Never part without loving words to think of during your absence. It may be that you will not meet again in life.
Be thou the first true merit to befriend, his praise is lost who stays till all commend.
Turbulence is life force. It is opportunity. Let's love turbulence and use it for change.
For the night was not impartial. No, the night loved some more than others, served some more than others.
The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.
People fail forward to success.
I have lost friends, some by death... others through sheer inability to cross the street.
The charity that hastens to proclaim its good deeds, ceases to be charity, and is only pride and ostentation.
In the absences of a decent time machine, fiction remains the most sturdy vehicle for visiting other eras.
It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.
All that is human must retrograde if it does not advance.
Love is the ability and willingness to allow those that you care for to be what they choose for themselves without any insistence that they satisfy you.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
Obscurity is a good thing. You can fail in obscurity. It removes the fear of failure.
Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
A good man would prefer to be defeated than to defeat injustice by evil means.
I have come to the conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the politicians.
My theory of evolution is that Darwin was adopted.
We require from buildings two kinds of goodness: first, the doing their practical duty well: then that they be graceful and pleasing in doing it.
No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought.
There are two types of people--those who come into a room and say, 'Well, here I am!' and those who come in and say, 'Ah, there you are.'
There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman?
There are always survivors at a massacre. Among the victors, if nowhere else.
The only time to buy these is on a day with no 'y' in it.
The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
My home is not a place, it is people.
All love that has not friendship for its base, is like a mansion built upon sand.
Before we set our hearts too much upon anything, let us examine how happy those are who already possess it.
Nothing is as simple as we hope it will be.
You cannot run away from a weakness; you must sometimes fight it out or perish. And if that be so, why not now, and where you stand?
There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.
Facts are the enemy of truth.
A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.
I love my past. I love my present. I'm not ashamed of what I've had, and I'm not sad because I have it no longer.
What if this weren't a hypothetical question?
Everybody likes a kidder, but nobody lends him money.
So quick and so fiercely I barely had time to gasp before it was locked on me.
I am not sincere, even when I say I am not.
Someone dragged me by my arms out onto the road, then shoved me, stumbling, down a paved road.
We rarely think people have good sense unless they agree with us.
Never read a book through merely because you have begun it.
Keep your broken arm inside your sleeve.
In America, they want you to accomplish these great feats, to pull off these David Copperfield-type stunts. You want me to be great, but you don't ever want me to say I'm great?
He who labors diligently need never despair; for all things are accomplished by diligence and labor.
The great art of giving consists in this: the gift should cost very little and yet be greatly coveted, so that it may be the more highly appreciated.
The freedom of all is essential to my freedom.
So quick and so fiercely I barely had time to gasp before it was locked on me.
Sorrow was like the wind. It came in gusts.
Talking with you is sort of the conversational equivalent of an out of body experience.
Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed.
Lack of money is no obstacle. Lack of an idea is an obstacle.
The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.
I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation.
For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.
You have to have funny faces and words, you can't just have words. It is a powerful thing, and I think that's why it's hard for people to imagine that women can do that, be that powerful.
Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.
The first duty of a leader is to make himself be loved without courting love. To be loved without 'playing up' to anyone - even to himself.
If you would be known, and not know, vegetate in a village; If you would know, and not be known, live in a city.
Sometimes love will pick you up by the short hairs...and jerk the heck out of you.
I used to believe that marriage would diminish me, reduce my options. That you had to be someone less to live with someone else when, of course, you have to be someone more.
I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours.
Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
I looked up and saw a bunch of military-looking guys in coveralls, holding big, bulky rifles and wearing hooded gas masks with tinted face-plates.
If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the military, nothing is safe.
It's the soul's duty to be loyal to its own desires. It must abandon itself to its master passion.
A tactical retreat is not a bad response to a surprise assault, you know. First you survive. Then you choose your own ground. Then you counterattack.
Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
We owe something to extravagance, for thrift and adventure seldom go hand in hand.
I have often wished I had time to cultivate modesty... But I am too busy thinking about myself.
Before we set our hearts too much upon anything, let us examine how happy those are who already possess it.
If we fall, we don't need self-recrimination or blame or anger - we need a reawakening of our intention and a willingness to recommit, to be whole-hearted once again.
Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist.
The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover will be yourself.
The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.
This world is given as the prize for the men in earnest; and that which is true of this world, is truer still of the world to come.
Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.
We need anything politically important rationed out like Pez: small, sweet, and coming out of a funny, plastic head.
A man without ambition is dead. A man with ambition but no love is dead. A man with ambition and love for his blessings here on earth is ever so alive. Having been alive, it won't be so hard in the end to lie down and rest.
When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the reality.
Everybody likes a kidder, but nobody lends him money.
Whenever evil befalls us, we ought to ask ourselves, after the first suffering, how we can turn it into good. So shall we take occasion, from one bitter root, to raise perhaps many flowers.
It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.
I sent the club a wire stating, PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON'T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT ME AS A MEMBER.
It's a dangerous business going out your front door.
We all have strength enough to endure the misfortunes of others.
America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week.
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety.
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.
Reading well is one of the great pleasures that solitude can afford you.
Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far.
In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary.
Joy is prayer - Joy is strength - Joy is love - Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.
There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action.
If there is one thing worse than being an ugly duckling in a house of swans, it's having the swans pretend there's no difference.
Is there life before death?
Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.
I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters.
We are made to persist. That's how we find out who we are.
Do something every day that you don't want to do; this is the golden rule for acquiring the habit of doing your duty without pain.
Nobody can be exactly like me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing it.
Humor is also a way of saying something serious.
The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.
The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said.
I guess we'd be living in a boring, perfect world if everybody wished everybody else well.
If our early lessons of acceptance were as successful as our early lessons of anger, how much happier we would all be.
The man who has nothing to boast of but his illustrious ancestry is like the potato - the best part under ground.
Vigorous writing is concise.
I have very strong feelings about how you lead your life. You always look ahead, you never look back.
Having a holiday weekend without a family member felt like putting on a sweater that had an extra arm.
Do something. If it doesn't work, do something else. No idea is too crazy.
A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them.
To try to be better is to be better.
Fresh clean sheets are one of life's small joys.
For the night was not impartial. No, the night loved some more than others, served some more than others.
To believe in God or in a guiding force because someone tells you to is the height of stupidity. We are given senses to receive our information within. With our own eyes we see, and with our own skin we feel. With our intelligence, it is intended that we understand. But each person must puzzle it out for himself or herself.
A doctor saves lives -- It's up to people to create lives that are worth saving.
Maybe the most any of us can expect of ourselves isn't perfection but progress.
The summer night is like a perfection of thought.
What some people mistake for the high cost of living is really the cost of high living.
I find it rather easy to portray a businessman. Being bland, rather cruel and incompetent comes naturally to me.
We don't know a millionth of one percent about anything.
Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
We can be sure that the greatest hope for maintaining equilibrium in the face of any situation rests within ourselves.
Realize that true happiness lies within you. Waste no time and effort searching for peace and contentment and joy in the world outside. Remember that there is no happiness in having or in getting, but only in giving. Reach out. Share. Smile. Hug. Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.
There is still a difference between something and nothing, but it is purely geometrical and there is nothing behind the geometry.
There are sadistic scientists who hurry to hunt down errors instead of establishing the truth.
If you really do put a small value upon yourself, rest assured that the world will not raise your price.
A mother is not a person to lean on but a person to make leaning unnecessary.
An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.
Gratitude is the most exquisite form of courtesy.
No one gossips about other people's secret virtues.
The car skidded to a stop just in front of me, and I jumped back and lost my balance and ended up on the road.
I've been on a diet for two weeks and all I've lost is two weeks.
The aim of life is self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly - that is what each of us is here for.
I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters.
Summer afternoon - Summer afternoon... the two most beautiful words in the English language.
The undertaking of a new action brings new strength.
If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read "President Can't Swim".
Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.
The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others.
If you think taking care of yourself is selfish, change your mind. If you don't, you're simply ducking your responsibilities.
Never read a book through merely because you have begun it.
Every moment of one's existence one is growing into more or retreating into less.
We learn something every day, and lots of times it's that what we learned the day before was wrong.
The trick is to make sure you don't die waiting for prosperity to come.
What if this weren't a hypothetical question?
There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.
Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.
So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.
Nothing changes your opinion of a friend so surely as success - yours or his.
The great thing about a computer notebook is that no matter how much you stuff into it, it doesn't get bigger or heavier.
This is the challenge of writing. You have to be very emotionally engaged in what you?re doing, or it comes out flat. You can?t fake your way through this.
Laughing is the sensation of feeling good all over and showing it principally in one spot.
Nobody can be exactly like me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing it.
The most important thing she'd learned over the years was that there was no way to be a perfect mother and a million ways to be a good one.
Sooner or later, we've got to work at it, no matter how many other careers we've had or wanted.
The two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a big fat white guy who is threatened by change.
The average person thinks he isn't.
There ain't no free lunches in this country. And don't go spending your whole life commiserating that you got raw deals. You've got to say, 'I think that if I keep working at this and want it bad enough I can have it.'
He who labors diligently need never despair; for all things are accomplished by diligence and labor.
I feel like a tiny bird with a big song!
Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
You're dealing with the demon of external validation. You can't beat external validation. You want to know why? Because it feels sooo good.
I?m telling you, things are getting out of hand. Or maybe I?m discovering that things were never in my hands.
If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm.
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.
Your parents, they give you your life, but then they try to give you their life.
Howard Hughes was able to afford the luxury of madness, like a man who not only thinks he is Napoleon but hires an army to prove it.
Never be a cynic, even a gentle one. Never help out a sneer, even at the devil.
How we treasure (and admire) the people who acknowledge us!
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
Learning to live in the present moment is part of the path of joy.
Your parents, they give you your life, but then they try to give you their life.
Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect.
The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.
Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.
Nothing is impossible. Some things are just less likely than others.
Worries go down better with soup than without.
The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.
His priority did not seem to be to teach them what he knew, but rather to impress upon them that nothing, not even... knowledge, was foolproof.
Is there life before death?
The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all of your time.
There is an applause superior to that of the multitudes: one's own.
If one sticks too rigidly to one's principles, one would hardly see anybody.
I never know how much of what I say is true.
Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.
Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.
When I was a kid my parents moved a lot, but I always found them.
There is surely a piece of divinity in us, something that was before the elements, and owes no homage unto the sun.
The most erroneous stories are those we think we know best - and therefore never scrutinize or question.
Keep cool and you command everybody.
Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth.
The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all of your time.
Failures are finger posts on the road to achievement.
The excellence of a gift lies in its appropriateness rather than in its value.
Memory feeds imagination.
I have never been especially impressed by the heroics of people who are convinced they are about to change the world. I am more awed by those who struggle to make one small difference after another.
One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.
Therefore search and see if there is not some place where you may invest your humanity.
The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover will be yourself.
There are sadistic scientists who hurry to hunt down errors instead of establishing the truth.
Preserving health by too severe a rule is a worrisome malady.
I believe that every now and then it is important to laugh at ourselves and take a lighter approach to our life conditions.
The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else.
She screamed as she went down, and I saw her thrashing to get up, but she couldn't, the crowd's pressure was too strong.
Speak when you are angry--and you will make the best speech you'll ever regret.
When everyone is against you, it means that you are absolutely wrong-- or absolutely right.
The happiest is the person who suffers the least pain; the most miserable who enjoys the least pleasure.
I mean, I knew that in the abstract there were terrorists somewhere in the world, but they didn't really represent any risk to me.
There's always one who loves and one who lets himself be loved.
The truth is always a compound of two half- truths, and you never reach it, because there is always something more to say.
Curiosity killed the cat, but for a while I was a suspect.
Set all things in their own peculiar place, and know that order is the greatest grace.
By prizing heartfulness above faultlessness, we may reap more from our effort because we're more likely to be changed by it.
Maybe the most any of us can expect of ourselves isn't perfection but progress.
Do not be awe struck by other people and try to copy them. Nobody can be you as efficiently as you can.
Intimacy is what makes a marriage, not a ceremony, not a piece of paper from the state.
If it weren't for baseball, many kids wouldn't know what a millionaire looked like.
I looked up and saw a bunch of military-looking guys in coveralls, holding big, bulky rifles and wearing hooded gas masks with tinted face-plates.
There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher.
The habit of giving only enhances the desire to give.
I guess we'd be living in a boring, perfect world if everybody wished everybody else well.
Joy is prayer - Joy is strength - Joy is love - Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.
What can you say about a society that says that God is dead and Elvis is alive?
Life isn't fair. It's just fairer than death, that's all.
Write down the advice of him who loves you, though you like it not at present.
Never read a book through merely because you have begun it.
The only time to buy these is on a day with no 'y' in it.
Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.
If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the military, nothing is safe.
Whatever you fear most has no power - it is your fear that has the power.
A hobby a day keeps the doldrums away.
I have lost friends, some by death... others through sheer inability to cross the street.
The happiest is the person who suffers the least pain; the most miserable who enjoys the least pleasure.
On the plus side, death is one of the few things that can be done just as easily lying down.
When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.
What other dungeon is so dark as one's own heart! What jailer so inexorable as one's self!
Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It's not about money. It's about the people you have, how you're led, and how much you get it.
Each individual woman's body demands to be accepted on its own terms.
It's all right to have butterflies in your stomach. Just get them to fly in formation.
Now is the time for all good men to come to.
In all recorded history there has not been one economist who has had to worry about where the next meal would come from.
Posterity is as likely to be wrong as anyone else.
Maybe they were terrorists!
We are what we repeatedly do.
When we got into office, the thing that surprised me the most was that things were as bad as we'd been saying they were.
Youth is a wonderful thing. What a crime to waste it on children.
We cannot deny the facts of nature, but we should certainly try to improve on them.
All programmers are playwrights and all computers are lousy actors.
That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what's for lunch.
Darryl wasn't in good shape -- he was white-faced and panting.
The perfect bureaucrat everywhere is the man who manages to make no decisions and escape all responsibility.
Men of genius do not excel in any profession because they labor in it, but they labor in it because they excel.
The advantage of a classical education is that it enables you to despise the wealth that it prevents you from achieving.
I cannot believe that the inscrutable universe turns on an axis of suffering; surely the strange beauty of the world must somewhere rest on pure joy!
No matter what I do, no matter how predictable I try to make my life, it will not be any more predictable than the rest of the world. Which is chaotic.
I wanted to flag you down because my friend was bleeding. Someone stabbed him."
Writing gives you the illusion of control, and then you realize it's just an illusion, that people are going to bring their own stuff into it.
We owe something to extravagance, for thrift and adventure seldom go hand in hand.
It's important to begin a search on a full stomach.
Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed.
Think of yourself as an incandescent power, illuminated and perhaps forever talked to by God and his messengers.
You can learn as much - or more - from one glance at a private space as you can from hours of exposure to a public face.
In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.
There ain't no free lunches in this country. And don't go spending your whole life commiserating that you got raw deals. You've got to say, 'I think that if I keep working at this and want it bad enough I can have it.'
Have patience awhile; slanders are not long-lived. Truth is the child of time; erelong she shall appear to vindicate thee.
To be willing to die for an idea is to set a rather high price on conjecture.
Never does the human soul appear so strong and noble as when it foregoes revenge and dares to forgive an injury.
Talking with you is sort of the conversational equivalent of an out of body experience.
The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.
We learn something every day, and lots of times it's that what we learned the day before was wrong.
Vigorous writing is concise.
Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it.
He who labors diligently need never despair; for all things are accomplished by diligence and labor.
There isn?t much better in this life than finding a way to spend a few hours in conversation with people you respect and love. You have to carve this time out of your life because you aren?t really living without it.
The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.
I take it that what all men are really after is some form or perhaps only some formula of peace.
Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.
Always be nice to those younger than you, because they are the ones who will be writing about you.
The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won't get much sleep.
Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.
There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.
True friends are those who really know you but love you anyway.
The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won't get much sleep.
Make a decision, even if it's wrong.
My wish is to ride the tempest, tame the waves, kill the sharks. I will not resign myself...
Gratitude is the most exquisite form of courtesy.
The hands behind me gave me another shove.
Where facts are few, experts are many.
If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play.
A joke's a very serious thing.
This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer.
Youth would be an ideal state if it came a little later in life.
It is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen.
I am free of all prejudice. I hate everyone equally.
I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.
Silent gratitude isn't much use to anyone.
I strained around against the crowd and saw Van looking with disgust at an older guy in a nice suit who was kind of smirking at her. She was digging in her purse and I knew what she was digging for.
Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.
What's another word for Thesaurus?
Early morning cheerfulness can be extremely obnoxious.
There ain't no free lunches in this country. And don't go spending your whole life commiserating that you got raw deals. You've got to say, 'I think that if I keep working at this and want it bad enough I can have it.'
I like coincidences. They make me wonder about destiny, and whether free will is an illusion or just a matter of perspective. They let me speculate on the idea of some master plan that, from time to time, we're allowed to see out of the corner of our eye.
Do it now. It is not safe to leave a generous feeling to the cooling influences of the world.
Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment.
Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster. Your life will never be the same again.
We thought, because we had power, we had wisdom.
I have often wished I had time to cultivate modesty... But I am too busy thinking about myself.
An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought.
You have no control over what the other guy does. You only have control over what you do.
The toughest thing about success is that you've got to keep on being a success. Talent is only a starting point in this business. You've got to keep on working that talent. Someday I'll reach for it and it won't be there.
People everywhere confuse what they read in newspapers with news.
Do not believe that he who seeks to comfort you lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. His life has much difficulty... Were it otherwise he would never have been able to find those words.
Get pleasure out of life...as much as you can. Nobody ever died from pleasure.
Don't mace him!" I shouted over the din. "You'll get us all too.
We rocked to a stop still on a downslope.
Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
I sent the club a wire stating, PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON'T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT ME AS A MEMBER.
Laughter is supposed to be the best medicine, however, it should never be at the expense of someone?s feelings or ignoring truth.
All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.
Well done is better than well said.
The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get old ones out. Every mind is a building filled with archaic furniture. Clean out a corner of your mind and creativity will instantly fill it.
Normal is not something to aspire to, it's something to get away from.
I love my past. I love my present. I'm not ashamed of what I've had, and I'm not sad because I have it no longer.
Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die.
We owe something to extravagance, for thrift and adventure seldom go hand in hand.
Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.
What other dungeon is so dark as one's own heart! What jailer so inexorable as one's self!
In the absences of a decent time machine, fiction remains the most sturdy vehicle for visiting other eras.
Every moment of one's existence one is growing into more or retreating into less.
They weren't wearing insignia.
Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.
My home is not a place, it is people.
Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.
The most important thing she'd learned over the years was that there was no way to be a perfect mother and a million ways to be a good one.
Thomas Jefferson once said, 'We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works.' And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying.
Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
Music is essentially useless, as life is.
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.
Life engenders life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich.
There is an applause superior to that of the multitudes: one's own.
There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.
Be honorable yourself if you wish to associate with honorable people.
There is nothing more dreadful than imagination without taste.
We thought, because we had power, we had wisdom.
Humor is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humor; for a subject which will not bear raillery is suspicious, and a jest which will not bear serious examination is false wit.
Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.
The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.
Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
It is not enough to aim; you must hit.
Never rely on the glory of the morning nor the smiles of your mother-in-law.
I have enjoyed greatly the second blooming... suddenly you find - at the age of 50, say - that a whole new life has opened before you.
We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.
Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.
Illusions are art, for the feeling person, and it is by art that you live, if you do.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it.
Have you ever observed that we pay much more attention to a wise passage when it is quoted than when we read it in the original author?
More movement, and the sense of bodies being shackled in alongside of me.
Wisdom is knowing what to do next; virtue is doing it.
Like anyone else, there are days I feel beautiful and days I don't, and when I don't, I do something about it.
You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jellybeans.
There are sadistic scientists who hurry to hunt down errors instead of establishing the truth.
I like coincidences. They make me wonder about destiny, and whether free will is an illusion or just a matter of perspective. They let me speculate on the idea of some master plan that, from time to time, we're allowed to see out of the corner of our eye.
When you make a world tolerable for yourself, you make a world tolerable for others.
Worrying about them always struck me as about as useful as worrying about getting hit by lightning.
The next time a car appeared down Market Street, I stepped right out into the road, waving my arms over my head, shouting.
The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others.
If my mental map was right, we were heading down to Fisherman's Wharf.
I am here for a purpose and that purpose is to grow into a mountain, not to shrink to a grain of sand. Henceforth will I apply ALL my efforts to become the highest mountain of all and I will strain my potential until it cries for mercy.
You have to recognize when the right place and the right time fuse and take advantage of that opportunity. There are plenty of opportunities out there. You can't sit back and wait.
Nothing changes your opinion of a friend so surely as success - yours or his.
Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.
You should not live one way in private, another in public.
The more freedom we enjoy, the greater the responsibility we bear, toward others as well as ourselves.
A poem is no place for an idea.
We are able to laugh when we achieve detachment, if only for a moment.
The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty.
Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster. Your life will never be the same again.
Sitting in the back of that Hummer, my head in a hood, my hands lashed behind my back, lurching back and forth while the bruises swelled up on my head, terrorism suddenly felt a lot riskier.
Bear in mind that you should conduct yourself in life as at a feast.
Obscurity is a good thing. You can fail in obscurity. It removes the fear of failure.
Each body has its art...
If you want creative workers, give them enough time to play.
Meetings are indispensable when you don't want to do anything.
The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star.
Good habits, which bring our lower passions and appetites under automatic control, leave our natures free to explore the larger experiences of life.
All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.
True friends are those who really know you but love you anyway.
He had learned over the years that poor people did not feel so poor when allowed to give occasionally.
The world tolerates conceit from those who are successful, but not from anybody else.
We all have strength enough to endure the misfortunes of others.
Famous remarks are very seldom quoted correctly.
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.
Write a wise saying and your name will live forever.
Newspapermen learn to call a murderer 'an alleged murderer' and the King of England 'the alleged King of England' to avoid libel suits.
Love yourself first and everything else falls into line. You really have to love yourself to get anything done in this world.
O Lord, help me to be pure, but not yet.
Time is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. Truth is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. You don't need anything else.
Noble life demands a noble architecture for noble uses of noble men. Lack of culture means what it has always meant: ignoble civilization and therefore imminent downfall.
So act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.
There's so much pollution in the air now that if it weren't for our lungs there'd be no place to put it all.
Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster. Your life will never be the same again.
By prizing heartfulness above faultlessness, we may reap more from our effort because we're more likely to be changed by it.
What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?
Speak when you are angry--and you will make the best speech you'll ever regret.
Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.
Now is the time for all good men to come to.
So little time and so little to do.
We were in the open concourse where the turnstiles were. It was hardly any better here -- the enclosed space sent the voices around us echoing back in a roar that made my head ring, and the smell and feeling of all those bodies made me feel a claustrophobia I'd never known I was prone to.
When the gods wish to punish us, they answer our prayers.
Never be a cynic, even a gentle one. Never help out a sneer, even at the devil.
Anger is never without Reason, but seldom with a good One.
What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?
When someone does something good, applaud! You will make two people happy.
It is not enough to do good; one must do it the right way.
I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters.
He who labors diligently need never despair; for all things are accomplished by diligence and labor.
Late to bed and late to wake will keep you long on money and short on mistakes.
Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist.
We should every night call ourselves to an account; What infirmity have I mastered today? What passions opposed? What temptation resisted? What virtue acquired? Our vices will abort of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.
My friend is one... who take me for what I am.
Always be nice to those younger than you, because they are the ones who will be writing about you.
The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said.
Think of yourself as an incandescent power, illuminated and perhaps forever talked to by God and his messengers.
I was pushed roughly but dispassionately onto my stomach and something went twice around my wrists and then tightened up as well, feeling like baling wire and biting cruelly.
All great truths begin as blasphemies.
No one goes there nowadays, it's too crowded.
In all recorded history there has not been one economist who has had to worry about where the next meal would come from.
Now we were descending just as steeply.
I went up the stairs cautiously, not able to use my hands.
A good man would prefer to be defeated than to defeat injustice by evil means.
All love that has not friendship for its base, is like a mansion built upon sand.
Nothing is so good for an ignorant man as silence; and if he was sensible of this he would not be ignorant.
The best of us must sometimes eat our words.
The radical of one century is the conservative of the next. The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them.
Better shun the bait, than struggle in the snare.
There's so much pollution in the air now that if it weren't for our lungs there'd be no place to put it all.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
Have patience awhile; slanders are not long-lived. Truth is the child of time; erelong she shall appear to vindicate thee.
Results! Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results. I know several thousand things that won't work.
Challenge is a dragon with a gift in its mouth?Tame the dragon and the gift is yours.
Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.
There is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher.
I define comfort as self-acceptance. When we finally learn that self-care begins and ends with ourselves, we no longer demand sustenance and happiness from others.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
There is nothing more dreadful than imagination without taste.
Sorrow was like the wind. It came in gusts.
Walking is the best possible exercise. Habituate yourself to walk very far.
When you encounter difficulties and contradictions, do not try to break them, but bend them with gentleness and time.
There ain't no free lunches in this country. And don't go spending your whole life commiserating that you got raw deals. You've got to say, 'I think that if I keep working at this and want it bad enough I can have it.'
Inspiration does exist, but it must find you working.
Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.
Sorrow was like the wind. It came in gusts.
Ask a deeply religious Christian if he?d rather live next to a bearded Muslim that may or may not be plotting a terror attack, or an atheist that may or may not show him how to set up a wireless network in his house. On the scale of prejudice, atheists don?t seem so bad lately.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
The best way out is always through.
The car skidded to a stop just in front of me, and I jumped back and lost my balance and ended up on the road.
The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover will be yourself.
The faceless, eyeless armed man above me kept his gun very level.
I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.
Things are only impossible until they're not.
Seize opportunity by the beard, for it is bald behind.
We rarely think people have good sense unless they agree with us.
Life is a great big canvas; throw all the paint on it you can.
I am free of all prejudice. I hate everyone equally.
Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.
Beware the pull on your heartstrings -- it's often the pursestrings that are actually being reached for.
Bear in mind that you should conduct yourself in life as at a feast.
I am not sincere, even when I say I am not.
A good man would prefer to be defeated than to defeat injustice by evil means.
Write a wise saying and your name will live forever.
Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers.
Laughing is the sensation of feeling good all over and showing it principally in one spot.
There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman?
It is wonderful how quickly you get used to things, even the most astonishing.
Man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter.
The habit of giving only enhances the desire to give.
Sometimes the cure for restlessness is rest.
The freethinking of one age is the common sense of the next.
Be honorable yourself if you wish to associate with honorable people.
Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it's important.
By learning to discover and value our ordinariness, we nurture a friendliness toward ourselves and the world that is the essence of a healthy soul.
I felt the doors open near me, and then saw a confusion of booted feet moving close by.
Someone dragged me by my arms out onto the road, then shoved me, stumbling, down a paved road.
My theology, briefly, is that the universe was dictated but not signed.
Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.
There are plenty of good five-cent cigars in the country. The trouble is they cost a quarter. What this country needs is a good five-cent nickel.
The charity that hastens to proclaim its good deeds, ceases to be charity, and is only pride and ostentation.
Cheese - milk's leap toward immortality.
Think of life as a terminal illness, because, if you do, you will live it with joy and passion, as it ought to be lived.
In all recorded history there has not been one economist who has had to worry about where the next meal would come from.
He will always be a slave who does not know how to live upon a little.
History is more or less bunk.
Science is nothing but developed perception, interpreted intent, common sense rounded out and minutely articulated.
After I'm dead I'd rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one.
I never know how much of what I say is true.
Never eat more than you can lift.
You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jellybeans.
As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so life well used brings happy death.
History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind.
The only difference between a rut and a grave... is in their dimensions.
All movements go too far.
If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm.
There are a terrible lot of lies going around the world, and the worst of it is half of them are true.
Editor: a person employed by a newspaper, whose business it is to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to see that the chaff is printed.
I despise the pleasure of pleasing people that I despise.
You can tell a lot about a fellow's character by his way of eating jellybeans.
Do not envy a sinner; you don't know what disaster awaits him.
When you encounter difficulties and contradictions, do not try to break them, but bend them with gentleness and time.
Keep cool and you command everybody.
I feel about airplanes the way I feel about diets. It seems to me they are wonderful things for other people to go on.
What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?
The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.
It is easier to exclude harmful passions than to rule them, and to deny them admittance than to control them after they have been admitted.
Set all things in their own peculiar place, and know that order is the greatest grace.
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
A good man would prefer to be defeated than to defeat injustice by evil means.
Our patience will achieve more than our force.
Truly great madness cannot be achieved without significant intelligence.
There is nothing more dreadful than imagination without taste.
Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.
I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.
It is easier to exclude harmful passions than to rule them, and to deny them admittance than to control them after they have been admitted.
Inspiration does exist, but it must find you working.
I have lost friends, some by death... others through sheer inability to cross the street.
Famous remarks are very seldom quoted correctly.
I feel very strongly that change is good because it stirs up the system.
In all recorded history there has not been one economist who has had to worry about where the next meal would come from.
Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.
Man is distinguished from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter.
Feet, why do I need them if I have wings to fly?
Art is either plagiarism or revolution.
After I'm dead I'd rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one.
Life isn't fair. It's just fairer than death, that's all.
A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.
Exercise ferments the humors, casts them into their proper channels, throws off redundancies, and helps nature in those secret distributions, without which the body cannot subsist in its vigor, nor the soul act with cheerfulness.
Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
Jealousy is all the fun you think they had.
Income tax returns are the most imaginative fiction being written today.
Silent gratitude isn't much use to anyone.
My eyes swam and watered and I literally couldn't breathe through the pain.
The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.
I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.
There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action.
There is no stigma attached to recognizing a bad decision in time to install a better one.
I don't own a cell phone or a pager. I just hang around everyone I know, all the time. If someone wants to get a hold of me, they just say 'Mitch,' and I say 'what?' and turn my head slightly.
Laughing is the sensation of feeling good all over and showing it principally in one spot.
The faceless, eyeless armed man above me kept his gun very level.
The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.
The Past is to be respected and acknoledged, but not to be worshiped. It is our future in which we will find our greatness.
It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.
There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.
The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it.
I like an escalator because an escalator can never break, it can only become stairs. There would never be an escalator temporaly out of order sign, only an escalator temporarily stairs. Sorry for the convenience.
Never let the demands of tomorrow interfere with the pleasures and excitement of today.
He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave.
To repeat what others have said, requires education; to challenge it, requires brains.
I've been on a diet for two weeks and all I've lost is two weeks.
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.
Nothing is said that has not been said before.
There?s so much comedy on television. Does that cause comedy in the streets?
It?s like your batteries get low, and you need to charge them on someone else?s story.
The Past is to be respected and acknoledged, but not to be worshiped. It is our future in which we will find our greatness.
You always pass failure on the way to success.
It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.
All great truths begin as blasphemies.
God creates men, but they choose each other.
Because we don't think about future generations, they will never forget us.
Books...are like lobster shells, we surround ourselves with 'em, then we grow out of 'em and leave 'em behind, as evidence of our earlier stages of development.
To avoid situations in which you might make mistakes may be the biggest mistake of all.
Always seek out the seed of triumph in every adversity.
Good taste is the enemy of comedy.