Wise Words
(Links to other quote topics.)
A good artist can make a picture that is worth a thousand words;
a good writer can make a word worth a thousand pictures. - Michael Yingling
A loving heart is the truest wisdom. - Charles Dickens
A proud man is always looking down on things and people;
and, of course, as long as you're looking down, you can't see something that's above you. - C.S. Lewis
A prudent question is one-half of wisdom. - Francis Bacon
A ship in port is safe, but that's not what ships are built for. - Grace Murray Hopper
A superstition is a premature explanation that overstays its time. - George Iles
A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds. - Francis Bacon
Ability will never catch up with the demand for it. - Confucius
Ability without dependability has no value.
Advice is one thing people would rather give than receive.
All cruelty springs from weakness. - Seneca
All mankind is divided into three classes: those that are immovable, those that are movable,
and those that move. - Benjamin Franklin
All that glitters is not gold. All that doesn't glitter isn't either.
All virtue is summed up in dealing justly. - Aristotle
Allen's Law: Almost anything is easier to get into than out of.
An unhurried sense of time is in itself a form of wealth. - Bonnie Friedman
Anger is only one letter short of danger.
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction. - Albert Einstein
Anyone can hate. It costs to love. - John Williamson
Anyone can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error. - Cicero
Be very, very careful what you put into that brain, because you will never, ever get it out again.
- Paul Jackson
Because things are the way they are, things will not stay the way they are. - Bertolt Brecht
Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.
- Margaret Thatcher
Change is inevitable. Change is constant. - Benjamin Disraeli
Change, when it comes, cracks everything open. - Dorothy Allison
Character is much easier kept than recovered. - Thomas Paine
Christmas is the time when everybody wants his past forgotten and his present remembered.
- Phyllis Diller
Common sense is genius dressed in working clothes. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Common sense is the best sense I know of. - Lord Chesterfield
Common sense is the most evenly distributed quantity in the world.
Everyone thinks he has enough. - Descartes
Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought.
- Albert von Szent-Gyorgyi
Don't confuse fame with success:
Madonna is one; Helen Keller is the other.
- Erma Bombeck
Don't throw away the old bucket until you know whether the new one holds water.
- Swedish Proverb
Even the devil can quote Scripture to suit his purposes. - William Shakespeare
Every man is a fool for at least five minutes every day; wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit.
- Elbert Hubbard
Everyone feels benevolent if nothing happens to be annoying him at the moment. - C.S. Lewis
Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves. - Carl Jung
Evil triumphs when good people do nothing. - Albert Einstein
Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil but as a necessity, or even a duty. - Simone Weil
Facts are cheap, information is plentiful, knowledge is precious. - Michael E. Angier
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
Fantasy is what people want but reality is what people need. - Lauryn Hill
Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts. - Albert Einstein
Freedom is the right to be wrong, not the right to do wrong. - John G. Riefenbaker
General principles should not be based on exceptional cases. - Robert J. Sawyer
God does not play dice with the universe. - Albert Einstein
God gives every bird its food, but He does not throw it into its nest. - J. G. Holland
Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all. - Sam Ewing
Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. - Martin Luther King, Jr.
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? - Philip G. Hamerton
He who asks is a fool for five minutes but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.
He who hesitates is probably right.
Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man
can never learn anything from history. - George Bernard Shaw
History is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon. - Napoleon Bonaparte
History never looks like history when you are living through it. - John W. Gardner
Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom. - Thomas Jefferson
Hope is the feeling you have that the feeling you have isn't permanent. - Jean Kerr
How can those who scorn God revere men? - Sun Tzu
How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it. - Marcus Aurelius
I cannot say whether things will get better if we change;
what I can say is they must change if they are to get better. - Georg Cchristoph Lichtenberg
I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past. - Thomas Jefferson
I never learned anything from anybody who agreed with me.
I never think of the future. It comes soon enough. - Albert Einstein
I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free. - Michelangelo
I say that a man must be certain of his morality for the simple reason that he has to suffer for it.
- G. K. Chesterton
If everybody's thinking alike, somebody isn't thinking.
If I must choose between righteousness and peace, I choose righteousness. - Theodore Roosevelt
If the human mind was simple enough to understand, we'd be too simple to understand it.
- Emerson Pugh
If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning:
just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes,
we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning - C.S. Lewis
If you can't do what you want, do what you can. - Lois McMaster Bujold
If you don't know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else.
- Laurence J. Peter
If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there.
If you shy away from the fire for fear of being burnt, you will freeze to death on a cold desert night.
- Lyndsey Michaele Poore
If you understand, things are as they are. If you do not understand, things are as they are. - Gensha
If you want to truly understand something, try to change it. - Kurt Lewin
If you're afraid to ask the question, it's probably because you already know the answer.
- Miriam M. Wynn
Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge. - Charles Darwin
Imagination is more important than knowledge. - Albert Einstein
In every man's heart there is a secret nerve that answers to the vibrations of beauty.
- Christopher Morley
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice; in practice, there is. - Chuck Reid
Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless,
and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful. - Samuel Johnson
Intelligence without wisdom is dangerous.
It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity. - Albert Einstein
It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government
except all the others that have been tried. - Winston Churchill
It is a terrible thing to see and have no vision. - Helen Keller
It is better to debate a question without settling it than to settle a question without debating it.
- Jeseph Joubert
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. - Seneca
It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them. - Alfred Adler
It is no profit to have learned well if you neglect to do well. - Publilius Syrus
It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry
to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong. - G. K. Chesterton
It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well. - Rene Descartes
It often takes more courage to change ones opinion than to keep it. - Willy Brandt
It would be better to die on your feet than live on your knees, unless you're kneeling in prayer.
- Emiliano Zapata
It's weird. Day by day nothing seems to change, but pretty soon, everything is different.
- Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson
I've noticed that everybody that is for abortion has already been born. - Ronald Reagan
Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers. - Voltaire
Just because you ignore the facts does not mean they cease to exist.
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. - Alfred Lord Tennyson
Knowledge is not wisdom unless used wisely. - J. D. Anderson
Lose your dreams and you could lose your mind. - The Rolling Stones
Love takes up where knowledge leaves off. - Thomas Aquinas
Many things - such as loving, going to sleep, or behaving unaffectedly -
are done worst when we try hardest to do them. - C.S. Lewis
Men are equal; it is not birth but virtue that makes the difference. - Voltaire
Men who never get carried away should be. - Malcolm Forbes
My definition of an expert in any field is someone
who knows enough about what's really going on to be scared. - P. J. Plauger
Nature is God's second book. - Jon Amos Comenius
Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake. - Napoleon Bonaparte
Never look down on anybody unless you're helping them up. - Jesse Jackson
Never mistake motion for action. - Ernest Hemingway
Never promise more than you can perform. - Publilius Syrus
No man really becomes a fool until he stops asking questions. - Charles P. Steinmetz
No technique works if it isn't used. - Larry Niven
Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.
(Sign hanging in Einstein's office at Princeton)
Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it. - Michel de Montaigne
Nothing is as simple as we hope it will be. - Jim Horning
Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else. - James M. Barrie
One sees great things from the valley, only small things from the peak. - G. K. Chesterton
One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things. - Henry Miller
One's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
Only in the darkness can you see the stars. - Martin Luther King, Jr.
Opportunity may knock only once, but temptation leans on the doorbell.
Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. - Martin Luther King Jr.
Ours is the age that is proud of machines that think and suspicious of men who try to.
- H. Mumford Jones
People who fly into a rage always make a bad landing. - Will Rogers
Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work. - Aristotle
Pride is tasteless, colorless, and sizeless but the hardest thing to swallow.
Rather to fail with honor than to succeed with fraud. - Sophocles
Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. - Phillip K. Dick
Rough diamonds may sometimes be mistaken for worthless pebbles. - Thomas Browne
Science is facts; just as houses are made of stones, so is science made of facts;
but a pile of stones is not a house and a collection of facts is not necessarily science. - Henri Poincare
Something that is popular is not always right; something that is right is not always popular.
Talent hits a target no one else can hit; genius hits a target no one else can see. - Arthur Schopenhauer
Ten people who speak make more noise than ten thousand who are silent. - Napoleon Bonaparte
The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously. - Henry Kissinger
The ancestor of every action is a thought. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas. - Linus Pauling
The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance. - Benjamin Franklin
The future belongs to those who prepare for it today. - Malcolm X
The future. (Some assembly required.)
The habit of giving only enhances the desire to give. - Walt Whitman
The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. - Thomas Paine
The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
The law of conservation of energy tells us we can't get something for nothing,
but we refuse to believe it. - Isaac Asimov
The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.
The more I study science, the more I believe in God. - Albert Einstein
The more original a discovery, the more obvious it seems afterwards. - Arthur Koestler
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not
Eureka! (I found it!) but rather, 'hmm.... that's funny...'. - Isaac Asimov
The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once. - Albert Einstein
The only sure thing about luck is that it will change. - Bret Harte
The only thing worse than suffering an injustice is committing an injustice. - Plato
The person who spends all of today bragging about what he's going to accomplish tomorrow probably did the very same thing yesterday.
The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.
- Hubert H. Humphrey
The right to do something does not mean that doing it is right. - Chris Jones
The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it,
can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do. - Galileo Galilei
The time is always right to do right. - Martin Luther King, Jr.
The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.
- Herbert Spencer
The universe is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper. - Eden Philpotts
The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing. - Walt Disney
The way to get things done is not to mind who gets the credit for doing them. - Benjamin Jowett
The word good has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man.
- G. K. Chesterton
The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil,
but because of the people who don't do anything about it. - Albert Einstein
There are two rules for success... 1) Never tell everything you know. - Roger H. Lincoln
There are two ways of exerting one's strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.
- Booker T. Washington
There is never enough time, unless you're serving it. - Malcolm Forbes
There's nothing new under the sun, but there are lots of old things we don't know. - Ambrose Bierce
Think about how hard it is to change yourself and then you'll realize
what little chance you have of changing others.
To find a fault is easy; to do better may be difficult. - Plutarch
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it. - G. K. Chesterton
To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle. - George Orwell
To wonder is to begin to understand. - Aristotle
Too many times we confuse motion with progress. - Cyclops
Tradition is a guide and not a jailer. - W. Somerset Maugham
Traditions are group efforts to keep the unexpected from happening. - Barbara Tober
Unanswered questions are far less dangerous than unquestioned answers.
Underpromise; overdeliver. - Tom Peters
Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare. - Chinese Proverb
We all have the extraordinary coded within us, waiting to be released. - Jean Houston
We can have facts without thinking but we cannot have thinking without facts. - John Dewey
We live in a disturbing age where technology has surpassed religion.
We have guided missiles and misguided people. - Martin Luther King, Jr.
We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right.
- Nelson Mandela
What once was thought can never be unthought. - Friedrich Durrenmatt
What this country needs is dirtier fingernails and cleaner minds. - Will Rogers
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly. - Thomas Paine
When anger rises, think of the consequences. - Confucius
When it is not necessary to make a decision, it is necessary not to make a decision. - Lord Falkland
When men speak ill of thee, live so as nobody may believe them. - Plato
When will our consciences grow so tender
that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it? - Eleanor Roosevelt
When you look at something you believe is perfect you will never see its flaws.
When you look at something you believe is flawed you will never see its perfection. - Kingsley Lee
Wisdom consists in knowing what to do with what you know.
Wisdom is to know what to do next; virtue is doing it. - David Starr Jordan
Worrying is like sitting in a rocking chair. It gives you something to do but gets you nowhere.
You can never plan the future by the past. - Edmund Burke
You can't get where you want to go if you don't know where you are.
You can't help someone get up a hill without getting closer to the top yourself.
- H. Norman Schwarzkopf
You don't get anything clean without getting something else dirty. - Cecil Baxter
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