Quotes

Without freedom from the past, there is no freedom at all, because the mind is never new, fresh, innocent. -- Krishnamurti

There is no mistaking a real book when one meets it. It is like falling in love. -- Christopher Morley, O Magazine, December 2003

Success is counted sweetest by those who ne'er succeed. -- Emily Dickinson

The most important work you and I will ever do will be within the wall of our own homes. -- Harold B. Lee

Saying goodbye doesn't mean anything. It's the time we spent together that matters, not how we left it. -- Trey Parker and Matt Stone, South Park, Tweek Vs. Craig, 1999

If you scatter thorns, don't go barefoot. -- Italian Proverb

Don't rule out working with your hands. It does not preclude using your head. -- Andy Rooney

[S]tubbornness is also determination. It's simply a matter of shifting from "won't power" to "will power." -- Peter McWilliams, Life 101

I must govern the clock, not be governed by it. -- Golda Meir

I happen to feel that the degree of a person's intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting attitudes she can bring to bear on the same topic. -- Lisa Alther, Kinflicks, 1975

How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book. -- Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Reading, 1854

One man may hit the mark, another blunder; but heed not these distinctions. Only from the alliance of the one, working with and through the other, are great things born. -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Experience teaches slowly and at the cost of mistakes. -- James A. Froude

Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend; And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry [economy]. -- William Shakespeare, 'Hamlet,' Act I, Scene iii

If you want to be free, there is but one way; it is to guarantee an equally full measure of liberty to all your neighbors. There is no other. -- Carl Schurz

Dreams are postcards from our subconscious, inner self to outer self, right brain trying to cross that moat to the left. Too often they come back unread: "return to sender, addressee unknown." That's a shame because it's a whole other world out there--or in here depending on your point of view. -- Dennis Koenig and Jordan Budde, Northern Exposure, Roots, 1991

I really do believe I can accomplish a great deal with a big grin, I know some people find that disconcerting, but that doesn't matter. -- Beverly Sills

Nothing contributes so much to tranquilizing the mind as a steady purpose - a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye. -- Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live. -- Mark Twain

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand. -- Confucius

We must use time as a tool, not as a crutch. -- John F. Kennedy

Be more prompt to go to a friend in adversity than in prosperity. -- Chilo

If an idea's worth having once, it's worth having twice. -- Tom Stoppard

The true secret of giving advice is, after you have honestly given it, to be perfectly indifferent whether it is taken or not, and never persist in trying to set people right. -- Hannah Whitall Smith, 1902

Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be driven into practice with courageous patience. -- Hyman Rickover

When you encounter difficulties and contradictions, do not try to break them, but bend them with gentleness and time. -- Saint Francis de Sales

A sailor without a destination cannot hope for a favorable wind. -- Leon Tec, M.D.

Everybody has difficult years, but a lot of times the difficult years end up being the greatest years of your whole entire life, if you survive them. -- Brittany Murphy, Seventeen Magazine, September 2003

Laughter is by definition healthy. -- Doris Lessing

He who would leap high must take a long run. -- Danish Proverb

When you appeal to force, there's one thing you must never do - lose. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

A hundred objective measurements didn't sum the worth of a garden; only the delight of its users did that. Only the use made it mean something. -- Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campain, 1999

Perhaps too much of everything is as bad as too little. -- Edna Ferber

You cannot acquire experience by making experiments. You cannot create experience. You must undergo it. -- Albert Camus

Three failures denote uncommon strength. A weakling has not enough grit to fail thrice. -- Minna Thomas Antrim

Nobody speaks the truth when there's something they must have. -- Elizabeth Bowen

Despise not any man, and do not spurn anything; for there is no man who has not his hour, nor is there anything that has not its place. -- Ben Azai, Mishna

He felt about books as doctors feel about medicines, or managers about plays - cynical, but hopeful. -- Dame Rose Macaulay, Crewe Train, 1926

Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done and why. Then do it. -- Robert Heinlein

It is pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness; poverty and wealth have both failed. -- Kin Hubbard